THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



THE FIELD-PLAY. 

 I. UPTILL-A-THORN. 



" Save the nightingale alone ; 

 She, poor bird, aa all forlorn, 

 Lean'd her breast nptill a thorn." 



Pattionab Pilgrim. 



SHE pinned her torn dress with a thorn torn from the 

 bushes through which she had scrambled to the hay- 

 field. The gap from the lane was narrow, made more 

 narrow by the rapid growth of summer; her rake 

 caught in an ash-spray, and in releasing it she 

 " ranted " the bosom of her print dress. So soon as 

 she had got through she dropped her rake on the hay, 

 searched for a long, nail-like thorn, and thrust it 

 through, for the good-looking, careless hussy never 

 had any provision of pins about her. Then, taking a 

 June rose which pricked her finger, she put the flower 

 by the " rant," or tear, and went to join the rest of the 

 hay-makers. The blood welled up out of the scratch 

 in i"he finger more freely than would have been sup- 



