The pride of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my garden. Our
house, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage, and might,
with almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf or hung up in a
tree, would be utterly unbearable in wet weather were it not that we
have a retreat out of doors, and a very pleasant retreat it is. To
make my readers comprehend it I must describe our whole territories.
Fancy a small plot of ground with a pretty, low, irregular cottage at
one end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little court
running along one side; and a long thatched shed, open towards the
garden, and supported by wooden pillars, on the other. The bottom is
bounded half by an old wall and half by an old paling, over which we
see a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall, and
paling, are covered with vines, cherry-trees, roses, honeysuckles, and
jessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up between
them; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificent
bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts,
breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of the
buildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort of
rustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted from the flower-beds
by a row of geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room.
I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with
the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting
up our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as
thick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven,
intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we
may guess that there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I
know nothing so pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower,
with the eye resting on that bright piece of colour, lighted so
gloriously by the evening sun, now catching a glimpse of the little
birds as they fly rapidly in and out of their nests--for there are
always two or three birds'-nests in the thick tapestry of
cherry-trees, honeysuckles, and china-roses, which covers our
walls--now tracing the gay gambols of the common butterflies as they
sport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer moth, which the
country people, fertile in pretty names, call the bee-bird;[27] that
bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days over the sweetest
flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small tube of the
jessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossom of the geranium,
whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast: that
insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest;
always, even when feeding, self-poised and self-supported, and whose
wings, in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so
lulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid that mixture
of rich flowers and leaves, watching the bee-bird! Nothing so pretty
to look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only unluckily it
resembles a picture in more qualities than one--it is fit for nothing
but to look at. One might as well think of walking in a bit of framed
canvas. There are walks, to be sure--tiny paths of smooth gravel, by
courtesy called such--but they are so overhung by roses and lilies,
and such gay encroachers--so overrun by convolvulus, and heart's-ease,
and mignonette, and other sweet stragglers, that, except to edge
through them occasionally for the purpose of planting, or weeding, or
watering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody thinks of
walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate and
trackless step, like a swan through the water; and we, its two-footed
denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and go
out for a walk towards sunset, just as if we had not been sitting in
the open air all day.
[Footnote 27: Sphinx lugustri, privet hawk-moth.]
What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street! Saturday
night is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this is
Whitsun-Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London
journeymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit
their families. A short and precious holiday, the happiest and
liveliest of any; for even the gambols and merry-makings of Christmas
offer but a poor enjoyment compared with the rural diversions, the
Mayings, revels, and cricket-matches of Whitsuntide.
We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on Monday, not played by the
men, who, since a certain misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are, I
am sorry to say, rather chop-fallen, but by the boys, who, zealous for
the honour of their parish, and headed by their bold leader, Ben
Kirby, marched in a body to our antagonists' ground the Sunday after
our melancholy defeat, challenged the boys of that proud hamlet, and
beat them out and out on the spot. Never was a more signal victory.
Our boys enjoyed this triumph with so little moderation that it had
like to have produced a very tragical catastrophe. The captain of the
Beech-hill youngsters, a capital bowler, by name Amos Stone, enraged
past all bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball at
Ben Kirby with so true an aim that if that sagacious leader had not
warily ducked his head when he saw it coming, there would probably
have been a coroner's inquest on the case, and Amos Stone would have
been tried for manslaughter. He let fly with such vengeance, that the
cricket-ball was found embedded in a bank of clay five hundred yards
off, as if it had been a cannon shot. Tom Coper and Farmer Thackum,
the umpires, both say they never saw so tremendous a ball. If Amos
Stone live to be a man (I mean to say if he be not hanged first) he'll
be a pretty player. He is coming here on Monday with his party to play
the return match, the umpires having respectively engaged Farmer
Thackum that Amos shall keep the peace, Tom Coper that Ben shall give
no unnecessary or wanton provocation--a nicely worded and lawyer-like
clause, and one that proves that Tom Coper hath his doubts of the
young gentleman's discretion; and, of a truth, so have I. I would not
be Ben Kirby's surety, cautiously as the security is worded--no! not
for a white double dahlia, the present object of my ambition.
This village of ours is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and all
the church bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if to
call them together. I must try to give some notion of the various
figures.
First, there is a group suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door
customers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table
smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's
fiddle. Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are
surrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their
ball is mending by Master Keep himself, under the joint
superintendence of Ben Kirby and Tom Coper. Ben showing much verbal
respect and outward deference for his umpire's judgment and
experience, but managing to get the ball done his own way after all;
whilst outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less trusted
commons, are shouting and bawling round Joel Brent, who is twisting
the waxed twine round the handles of the bats--the poor bats, which
please nobody, which the taller youths are despising as too little and
too light, and the smaller are abusing as too heavy and too large.
Happy critics! winning their match can hardly be a greater
delight--even if to win it they be doomed! Farther down the street is
the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a day's
holiday from B., escorted by a tall footman in a dashing livery, whom
she is trying to curtsy off before her deaf grandmother sees him. I
wonder whether she will succeed!
Ascending the hill are two couples of a different description. Daniel
Tubb and his fair Valentine, walking boldly along like licensed
lovers; they have been asked twice in church, and are to be married on
Tuesday; and closely following that happy pair, near each other but
not together, come Jem Tanner and Mabel Green, the poor culprits of
the wheat-hoeing. Ah! the little clerk hath not relented! The course
of true love doth not yet run smooth in that quarter. Jem dodges
along, whistling "Cherry-ripe," pretending to walk by himself, and to
be thinking of nobody; but every now and then he pauses in his
negligent saunter, and turns round outright to steal a glance at
Mabel, who, on her part, is making believe to walk with poor Olive
Hathaway, the lame mantua-maker, and even affecting to talk and to
listen to that gentle, humble creature, as she points to the wild
flowers on the common, and the lambs and children disporting amongst
the gorse, but whose thought and eyes are evidently fixed on Jem
Tanner, as she meets his backward glance with a blushing smile, and
half springs forward to meet him: whilst Olive has broken off the
conversation as soon as she perceived the pre-occupation of her
companion, and begun humming, perhaps unconsciously, two or three
lines of Burns, whose "Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad," and "Gi'e
me a glance of thy bonny black e'e," were never better exemplified
than in the couple before her. Really, it is curious to watch them,
and to see how gradually the attraction of this tantalising vicinity
becomes irresistible, and the rustic lover rushes to his pretty
mistress like the needle to the magnet. On they go, trusting to the
deepening twilight, to the little clerk's absence, to the good humour
of the happy lads and lasses who are passing and repassing on all
sides--or rather, perhaps, in a happy oblivion of the cross uncle, the
kind villagers, the squinting lover, and the whole world. On they
trip, arm in arm, he trying to catch a glimpse of her glowing face
under her bonnet, and she hanging down her head, and avoiding his gaze
with a mixture of modesty and coquetry, which well becomes the rural
beauty. On they go, with a reality and intensity of affection which
must overcome all obstacles; and poor Olive follows her with an
evident sympathy in their happiness which makes her almost as enviable
as they; and we pursue our walk amidst the moonshine and the
nightingales, with Jacob Frost's cart looming in the distance, and the
merry sounds of Whitsuntide, the shout, the laugh, and the song,
echoing all around us, like "noises of the air."
_Mary Russell Mitford._