August 15th.--Cold, cloudy, windy, wet. Here we are, in the midst of
the dog-days, clustering merrily round the warm hearth like so many
crickets, instead of chirruping in the green fields like that other
merry insect the grasshopper; shivering under the influence of the
Jupiter Pluvius of England, the watery St. Swithin; peering at that
scarce personage the sun, when he happens to make his appearance, as
intently as astronomers look after a comet, or the common people stare
at a balloon; exclaiming against the cold weather, just as we used to
exclaim against the warm. 'What a change from last year!' is the first
sentence you hear, go where you may. Everybody remarks it, and everybody
complains of it; and yet in my mind it has its advantages, or at least
its compensations, as everything in nature has, if we would only take
the trouble to seek for them.
Last year, in spite of the love which we are now pleased to profess
towards that ardent luminary, not one of the sun's numerous admirers had
courage to look him in the face: there was no bearing the world till he
had said 'Good-night' to it. Then we might stir: then we began to wake
and to live. All day long we languished under his influence in a strange
dreaminess, too hot to work, too hot to read, too hot to write, too hot
even to talk; sitting hour after hour in a green arbour, embowered
in leafiness, letting thought and fancy float as they would. Those
day-dreams were pretty things in their way; there is no denying that.
But then, if one half of the world were to dream through a whole summer,
like the sleeping Beauty in the wood, what would become of the other?
The only office requiring the slightest exertion, which I performed in
that warm weather, was watering my flowers. Common sympathy called for
that labour. The poor things withered, and faded, and pined away; they
almost, so to say, panted for draught. Moreover, if I had not watered
them myself, I suspect that no one else would; for water last year was
nearly as precious hereabout as wine. Our land-springs were dried up;
our wells were exhausted; our deep ponds were dwindling into mud; and
geese, and ducks, and pigs, and laundresses, used to look with a jealous
and suspicious eye on the few and scanty half-buckets of that impure
element, which my trusty lacquey was fain to filch for my poor geraniums
and campanulas and tuberoses. We were forced to smuggle them in through
my faithful adherent's territories, the stable, to avoid lectures within
doors and at last even that resource failed; my garden, my blooming
garden, the joy of my eyes, was forced to go waterless like its
neighbours, and became shrivelled, scorched, and sunburnt, like them. It
really went to my heart to look at it.
On the other side of the house matters were still worse. What a dusty
world it was, when about sunset we became cool enough to creep into
it! Flowers in the court looking fit for a 'hortus siccus;' mummies of
plants, dried as in an oven; hollyhocks, once pink, turned into Quakers;
cloves smelling of dust. Oh, dusty world! May herself looked of that
complexion; so did Lizzy; so did all the houses, windows, chickens,
children, trees, and pigs in the village; so above all did the shoes.
No foot could make three plunges into that abyss of pulverised gravel,
which had the impudence to call itself a hard road, without being
clothed with a coat a quarter of an inch thick. Woe to white gowns! woe
to black! Drab was your only wear.
Then, when we were out of the street, what a toil it was to mount the
hill, climbing with weary steps and slow upon the brown turf by the
wayside, slippery, hot, and hard as a rock! And then if we happened to
meet a carriage coming along the middle of the road,--the bottomless
middle,--what a sandy whirlwind it was! What choking! what suffocation!
No state could be more pitiable, except indeed that of the travellers
who carried this misery about with them. I shall never forget the plight
in which we met the coach one evening in last August, full an hour after
its time, steeds and driver, carriage and passengers, all one dust. The
outsides, and the horses, and the coachman, seemed reduced to a torpid
quietness, the resignation of despair. They had left off trying
to better their condition, and taken refuge in a wise and patient
hopelessness, bent to endure in silence the extremity of ill. The six
insides, on the contrary, were still fighting against their fate,
vainly struggling to ameliorate their hapless destiny. They were visibly
grumbling at the weather, scolding at the dust, and heating themselves
like a furnace, by striving against the heat. How well I remember the
fat gentleman without his coat, who was wiping his forehead, heaving up
his wig, and certainly uttering that English ejaculation, which, to
our national reproach, is the phrase of our language best known on the
continent. And that poor boy, red-hot, all in a flame, whose mamma,
having divested her own person of all superfluous apparel, was trying to
relieve his sufferings by the removal of his neckerchief--an operation
which he resisted with all his might. How perfectly I remember him, as
well as the pale girl who sat opposite, fanning herself with her bonnet
into an absolute fever! They vanished after a while into their own dust;
but I have them all before my eyes at this moment, a companion picture
to Hogarth's 'Afternoon,' a standing lesson to the grumblers at cold
summers.
For my part, I really like this wet season. It keeps us within, to be
sure, rather more than is quite agreeable; but then we are at least
awake and alive there, and the world out of doors is so much the
pleasanter when we can get abroad. Everything does well, except those
fastidious bipeds, men and women; corn ripens, grass grows, fruit is
plentiful; there is no lack of birds to eat it, and there has not been
such a wasp-season these dozen years. My garden wants no watering, and
is more beautiful than ever, beating my old rival in that primitive art,
the pretty wife of the little mason, out and out. Measured with mine,
her flowers are naught. Look at those hollyhocks, like pyramids of
roses; those garlands of the convolvulus major of all colours, hanging
around that tall pole, like the wreathy hop-bine; those magnificent
dusky cloves, breathing of the Spice Islands; those flaunting double
dahlias; those splendid scarlet geraniums, and those fierce and warlike
flowers the tiger-lilies. Oh, how beautiful they are! Besides, the
weather clears sometimes--it has cleared this evening; and here are
we, after a merry walk up the hill, almost as quick as in the winter,
bounding lightly along the bright green turf of the pleasant common,
enticed by the gay shouts of a dozen clear young voices, to linger
awhile, and see the boys play at cricket.
I plead guilty to a strong partiality towards that unpopular class of
beings, country boys: I have a large acquaintance amongst them, and I
can almost say, that I know good of many and harm of none. In general
they are an open, spirited, good-humoured race, with a proneness
to embrace the pleasures and eschew the evils of their condition, a
capacity for happiness, quite unmatched in man, or woman, or a girl.
They are patient, too, and bear their fate as scape-goats (for all sins
whatsoever are laid as matters of course to their door), whether at home
or abroad, with amazing resignation and, considering the many lies of
which they are the objects, they tell wonderfully few in return. The
worst that can be said of them is, that they seldom, when grown to
man's estate, keep the promise of their boyhood; but that is a fault to
come--a fault that may not come, and ought not to be anticipated. It is
astonishing how sensible they are to notice from their betters, or those
whom they think such. I do not speak of money, or gifts, or praise, or
the more coarse and common briberies--they are more delicate courtiers;
a word, a nod, a smile, or the mere calling of them by their names, is
enough to ensure their hearts and their services. Half a dozen of them,
poor urchins, have run away now to bring us chairs from their several
homes. 'Thank you, Joe Kirby!--you are always first--yes, that is
just the place--I shall see everything there. Have you been in yet,
Joe?'--'No, ma'am! I go in next.'--'Ah, I am glad of that--and now's
the time. Really that was a pretty ball of Jem Eusden's!--I was sure it
would go to the wicket. Run, Joe! They are waiting for you.' There
was small need to bid Joe Kirby make haste; I think he is, next to
a race-horse, or a greyhound, or a deer, the fastest creature that
runs--the most completely alert and active. Joe is mine especial friend,
and leader of the 'tender juveniles,' as Joel Brent is of the adults.
In both instances this post of honour was gained by merit, even more
remarkably so in Joe's case than in Joel's; for Joe is a less boy than
many of his companions (some of whom are fifteeners and sixteeners,
quite as tall and nearly as old as Tom Coper), and a poorer than all,
as may be conjectured from the lamentable state of that patched round
frock, and the ragged condition of those unpatched shoes, which would
encumber, if anything could, the light feet that wear them. But why
should I lament the poverty that never troubles him? Joe is the merriest
and happiest creature that ever lived twelve years in this wicked world.
Care cannot come near him. He hath a perpetual smile on his round ruddy
face, and a laugh in his hazel eye, that drives the witch away. He works
at yonder farm on the top of the hill, where he is in such repute for
intelligence and good-humour, that he has the honour of performing all
the errands of the house, of helping the maid, the mistress, and the
master, in addition to his own stated office of carter's boy. There he
works hard from five till seven, and then he comes here to work still
harder, under the name of play--batting, bowling, and fielding, as if
for life, filling the place of four boys; being, at a pinch, a whole
eleven. The late Mr. Knyvett, the king's organist, who used in his own
person to sing twenty parts at once of the Hallelujah Chorus, so that
you would have thought he had a nest of nightingales in his throat,
was but a type of Joe Kirby. There is a sort of ubiquity about him; he
thinks nothing of being in two places at once, and for pitching a ball,
William Grey himself is nothing to him. It goes straight to the mark
like a bullet. He is king of the cricketers from eight to sixteen,
both inclusive, and an excellent ruler he makes. Nevertheless, in the
best-ordered states there will be grumblers, and we have an opposition
here in the shape of Jem Eusden.
Jem Eusden is a stunted lad of thirteen, or thereabout, lean, small, and
short, yet strong and active. His face is of an extraordinary ugliness,
colourless, withered, haggard, with a look of extreme age, much
increased by hair so light that it might rather pass for white than
flaxen. He is constantly arrayed in the blue cap and old-fashioned coat,
the costume of an endowed school to which he belongs; where he sits
still all day, and rushes into the field at night, fresh, untired, and
ripe for action, to scold and brawl, and storm, and bluster. He hates
Joe Kirby, whose immovable good-humour, broad smiles, and knowing nods,
must certainly be very provoking to so fierce and turbulent a spirit;
and he has himself (being, except by rare accident, no great player) the
preposterous ambition of wishing to be manager of the sports. In short,
he is a demagogue in embryo, with every quality necessary to a splendid
success in that vocation,--a strong voice, a fluent utterance, an
incessant iteration, and a frontless impudence. He is a great 'scholar'
too, to use the country phrase; his 'piece,' as our village schoolmaster
terms a fine sheet of flourishing writing, something between a valentine
and a sampler, enclosed within a border of little coloured prints--his
last, I remember, was encircled by an engraved history of Moses,
beginning at the finding in the bulrushes, with Pharaoh's daughter
dressed in a rose-coloured gown and blue feathers--his piece is not
only the admiration of the school, but of the parish, and is sent
triumphantly round from house to house at Christmas, to extort halfpence
and sixpences from all encouragers of learning--Montem in miniature.
The Mosaic history was so successful, that the produce enabled Jem to
purchase a bat and ball, which, besides adding to his natural arrogance
(for the little pedant actually began to mutter against being eclipsed
by a dunce, and went so far as to challenge Joe Kirby to a trial in
Practice, or the Rule of Three), gave him, when compared with the
general poverty, a most unnatural preponderance in the cricket state. He
had the ways and means in his hands (for alas! the hard winter had made
sad havoc among the bats, and the best ball was a bad one)--he had the
ways and means, could withhold the supplies, and his party was beginning
to wax strong, when Joe received a present of two bats and a ball for
the youngsters in general and himself in particular--and Jem's adherents
left him on the spot--they ratted, to a man, that very evening.
Notwithstanding this desertion, their forsaken leader has in nothing
relaxed from his pretensions, or his ill-humour. He stills quarrels
and brawls as if he had a faction to back him, and thinks nothing of
contending with both sides, the ins and the outs, secure of out-talking
the whole field. He has been squabbling these ten minutes, and is just
marching off now with his own bat (he has never deigned to use one of
Joe's) in his hand. What an ill-conditioned hobgoblin it is! And yet
there is something bold and sturdy about him too. I should miss Jem
Eusden.
Ah, there is another deserter from the party! my friend the little
hussar--I do not know his name, and call him after his cap and jacket.
He is a very remarkable person, about the age of eight years, the
youngest piece of gravity and dignity I ever encountered; short,
and square, and upright, and slow, with a fine bronzed flat
visage, resembling those convertible signs the Broad-Face and the
Saracen's-Head, which, happening to be next-door neighbours in the
town of B., I never knew apart, resembling, indeed, any face that is
open-eyed and immovable, the very sign of a boy! He stalks about with
his hands in his breeches pockets, like a piece of machinery; sits
leisurely down when he ought to field, and never gets farther in batting
than to stop the ball. His is the only voice never heard in the melee:
I doubt, indeed, if he have one, which may be partly the reason of a
circumstance that I record to his honour, his fidelity to Jem Eusden,
to whom he has adhered through every change of fortune, with a tenacity
proceeding perhaps from an instinctive consciousness that the loquacious
leader talks enough for two. He is the only thing resembling a follower
that our demagogue possesses, and is cherished by him accordingly.
Jem quarrels for him, scolds for him, pushes for him; and but for
Joe Kirby's invincible good-humour, and a just discrimination of the
innocent from the guilty, the activity of Jem's friendship would get the
poor hussar ten drubbings a day.
But it is growing late. The sun has set a long time. Only see what a
gorgeous colouring has spread itself over those parting masses of clouds
in the west,--what a train of rosy light! We shall have a fine sunshiny
day to-morrow,--a blessing not to be undervalued, in spite of my late
vituperation of heat. Shall we go home now? And shall we take the
longest but prettiest road, that by the green lanes? This way, to the
left, round the corner of the common, past Mr. Welles's cottage, and
our path lies straight before us. How snug and comfortable that cottage
looks! Its little yard all alive with the cow, and the mare, and the
colt almost as large as the mare, and the young foal, and the great
yard-dog, all so fat! Fenced in with hay-rick, and wheat-rick, and
bean-stack, and backed by the long garden, the spacious drying-ground,
the fine orchard, and that large field quartered into four different
crops. How comfortable this cottage looks, and how well the owners earn
their comforts! They are the most prosperous pair in the parish--she
a laundress with twenty times more work than she can do, unrivalled in
flounces and shirt-frills, and such delicacies of the craft; he, partly
a farmer, partly a farmer's man, tilling his own ground, and then
tilling other people's;--affording a proof, even in this declining age,
when the circumstances of so many worthy members of the community seem
to have 'an alacrity in sinking,' that it is possible to amend them
by sheer industry. He, who was born in the workhouse, and bred up as
a parish boy, has now, by mere manual labour, risen to the rank of a
land-owner, pays rates and taxes, grumbles at the times, and is called
Master Welles,--the title next to Mister--that by which Shakspeare was
called;--what would man have more? His wife, besides being the best
laundress in the county, is a comely woman still. There she stands at
the spring, dipping up water for to-morrow,--the clear, deep, silent
spring, which sleeps so peacefully under its high flowery bank, red with
the tall spiral stalks of the foxglove and their rich pendent bells,
blue with the beautiful forget-me-not, that gem-like blossom, which
looks like a living jewel of turquoise and topaz. It is almost too late
to see its beauty; and here is the pleasant shady lane, where the high
elms will shut out the little twilight that remains. Ah, but we shall
have the fairies' lamps to guide us, the stars of the earth, the
glow-worms! Here they are, three almost together. Do you not see them?
One seems tremulous, vibrating, as if on the extremity of a leaf of
grass; the others are deeper in the hedge, in some green cell on
which their light falls with an emerald lustre. I hope my friends the
cricketers will not come this way home. I would not have the pretty
creatures removed for more than I care to say, and in this matter I
would hardly trust Joe Kirby--boys so love to stick them in their hats.
But this lane is quite deserted. It is only a road from field to field.
No one comes here at this hour. They are quite safe; and I shall walk
here to-morrow and visit them again. And now, goodnight! beautiful
insects, lamps of the fairies, good-night!