[ 484. ] [MAT, 



COUNTRY 11AMBLES : 



No. I. 



Wheat-hoeing. 



MAY the 3d. Cold bright weather. All within doors, sunny and chilly; 

 all without, windy and dusty. It is quite tantalizing to see that brilliant 

 sun careering through so beautiful a sky, and to feel little more warmth 

 from his presence than one does from that of his fair but cold sister, the 

 moon. Even the sky, beautiful as it is, has the look of that one some- 

 times sees in a very bright moonlight night deeply, intensely blue, with 

 white fleecy clouds driven vigorously along by a strong breeze now veil- 

 ing and now exposing the dazzling luminary around whom they sail. A 

 beautiful sky ! and, in spite of its coldness, a beautiful world ! The effect 

 of this backward spring has been to arrest the early flowers, to which heat 

 is the great enemy ; whilst the leaves and the later flowers have, never- 

 theless, ventured to peep out slowly and cautiously in sunny places 

 exhibiting, in the copses and hedge-rows, a pleasant mixture of March 

 and May. And we, poor chilly mortals, must follow, as nearly as we 

 can, the wise example of the May-blossoms, by avoiding bleak paths and 

 open commons, and creeping up the sheltered road to the vicarage the 

 pleasant sheltered road, where the western sun steals in between two rows 

 of bright green elms, and the east wind is fenced off by the range of 

 woody hills which rise abruptly before us, forming so striking a boundary 

 to the picture. 



How pretty this lane is, with its tall elms, just drest in their young 

 leaves, bordering the sunny path, or sweeping in a semi-circle behind the 

 clear pools, and the white cottages that are scattered along the way. You 

 shall seldom see a cottage hereabout without an accompanying pond, all 

 alive with geese and ducks, at the end of the little garden. Ah ! here is 

 Dame Simmons making a most original use of her piece of water, stand- 

 ing on the bank that divides it from her garden, and most ingeniously 

 watering her onion-bed with a new mop now a dip, and now a twist ! 

 Really, I give her credit for the invention. It is as good an imitation of a 

 shower as one should wish to see on a summer-day. A squirt is nothing 

 to it! 



And here is another break to the tall line of elms the gate that leads 

 into Farmer Thorpe's great enclosures. Eight, ten, fourteen people in 

 this large Held, wheat-hoeing. The couple nearest the gate, who keep 

 aloof from all the rest, and are hoeing this furrow so completely in con- 

 cert, step by step and stroke for stroke, are Jem Tanner and Susan Green. 

 There is not a handsomer pair in the field or in the village. Jem, with his 

 bright complexion, his curling hair, his clear blue eye, and his trim figure 

 set off to great advantage by his short jacket and trowsers and new straw 

 hat; Susan, with her little stuff gown, and her white handkerchief and 

 apron defining so exactly her light and flexible shape and her black eyes 

 flashing from under a deep bonnet lined with pink, whose reflection gives 

 to her bright dark countenance and dimpled cheeks a glow innocently 

 artificial, which was the only charm that they wanted, 



Jem and Susan are, beyond all doubt, the handsomest couple in the 

 field, and I am much mistaken if each have not a vivid sense of the 

 charms of the other. Their mutual admiration was clear enough in their 

 work ; but it speaks still more plainly in their idleness. Not a stroke have 

 they done for these five minutes ; Jem, propped on his hoe, and leaning 



