1827.] WheaMweing. 485 



across the furrow, whispering soft nonsense ; Susan, blushing and smiling 

 now making believe to turn away now listening, and looking up with 

 a sweeter smile than ever, and a blush that makes her bonnet-lining pale. 

 Ah, Susan ! Susan ! Now they are going to work again ; no ! after 

 three or four strokes, the hoes have somehow become entangled, and, with- 

 out either advancing a step nearer the other, they are playing with these 

 rustic implements as pretty a game at romps shewing off as nice a piece 

 of rural flirtation -as ever was exhibited since wheat was hoed. 



Ah, Susan ! Susan ! beware of Farmer Thorpe ! He'll see, at a glance, 

 that little will his corn profit by such labours. Beware, too, Jem Tanner! 

 -for Susan is, in some sort, an heiress ; being the real niece and adopted 

 daughter of our little lame clerk, who, although he looks such a tattered 

 raggamuffin that the very grave-diggers are ashamed of him, is well to pass 

 in the world keeps a scrub pony, indeed he can hardly walk up the 

 aisle hath a share in the County fire-office and money in the funds. 

 Susan will be an heiress, despite * the tatterdemallion costume of her 

 honoured uncle, which I think he wears out of coquetry, that the remarks 

 which might otherwise fall on his miserable person full as misshapen as 

 that of any Hunch-back recorded in the Arabian Tales may find a less 

 offensive vent on his raiment. Certain such a figure hath seldom been 

 beheld out of church or in. Yet will Susan, nevertheless, be a fortune ; 

 and, therefore, she must intermarry with another fortune, according to the 

 rale made and provided in such cases ; and the little clerk hath already 

 looked her out a spouse, about his own standing a widower in the next 

 parish, with four children ,and a squint. Poor Jem Tanner ! Nothing 

 will that smart person or that pleasant speech avail with the little clerk ; 

 never will he officiate at your marriage to his niece ; " amen " would 

 " stick in his throat." Poor things ! in what a happy oblivion of the world 

 and its cares, Farmer Thorpe and the wheat-hoeing, the squinting shop- 

 keeper and the little clerk, are they laughing and talking at this moment ! 

 Poor things I poor things ! 



Well, I must pursue my walk. How beautiful a mixture of flowers and 

 leaves is in the high bank under this north hedge quite an illustration of 

 the blended seasons of which I spoke. An old irregular hedge-row is 

 always beautiful, especially in the spring time, when the grass, and mosses, 

 and flowering weeds mingle best with the bushes and creeping plants that 

 overhang them. But this bank is, most especially, various and lovely. 

 Shall we try to analyze it ? First, the clinging white-veined ivy, which 

 crawls up the slope in every direction, the master-piece of that rich mosaic ; 

 then the brown leaves and the lilac blossoms of its fragrant namesake, the 

 ground-ivy, which grows here so profusely ; then the late-lingering prim- 

 rose ; then the delicate wood-sorrel ; then the regular pink stars of the 

 cranesbill, with its beautiful leaves ; the golden oxslip and the cowslip, 

 " cinque-spotted ;" then the blue pansy, and the enamelled wild hyacinth ; 

 then the bright foliage of the briar-rose, which comes trailing its green 

 wreaths amongst the flowers ; then the bramble and the woodbine, creep- 

 ing round the foot of a pollard oak, with its brown folded leaves ; then a 

 verdant mass the blackthorn, with its lingering blossoms the hawthorn, 

 with its swelling buds the bushy maple the long stems of the hazel 

 and between them, hanging like a golden plume over the bank, a splendid 

 tuft of the blossomed broom ; tVien, towering high above all, the tall and 

 leafy elms. And this is but a faint picture of this hedge, on the meadowy 

 side of which sheep are bleating, and where, every here and there, a young 

 lamb is thrusting its pretty head between the trees. 



