58

COUNTRY EXCURSIONS.

SOME celebrated writer (was it Addison?) cites, as a proof of the instinctive love of the country, which seems implanted in the human breast, the fact, that the poorest inhabitants of great cities cherish in their wretched garrets or cellars some dusty myrtle or withering geranium, something that vegetates and should be green; so that you shall see in the meanest win

dow of the meanest street some flower or flowering plant stuck in a piece of broken crockery, -a true and genuine tribute to that inherent love of nature which makes a part of our very selves. I never see such a symptom of the yearning after green fields without recognising the strong tie of fellow-feeling with the poor inmate; and the more paltry the plant, the more complete and perfect is the sympathy.

There is a character in one of the old plays (I think "The Jovial Crew," by Ben Jonson's servant Broome), who conducts himself like a calm, sedate, contented justice's clerk all the winter, but who, at the first sign of spring, when the sap mounts into the trees and the primrose blossoms in the coppices, feels the impulse of the season irresistible, obeys literally the fine stage-direction of the piece, "The nightingale calls without," and sallies forth to join the gipsies, to ramble all day in the green lanes, and sleep at night under the hedges.*

Now, one of the greatest proofs of the truth of these delineations was to be found in the fact, that the quiet old ladies of Belford, the demure spinsters and bustling widows, to say nothing of their attendant beaux, were them

* A friend of mine, one of the most accomplished men and eloquent preachers in London, says that, as the spring advances, he feels exactly the yearning for the country described by the old dramatist. He does not join the gipsies; but he declares that it requires all the force of his mind, as well as the irresistible claims of the most binding of all professions, to detain him in London. Talk of slavery! Are we not all the bondsmen of circumstances, the thralls of conscience and of duty? Where is he that is free?

selves seized, two or three times in the course of the summer, with the desire of a country excursion. It is true that they were not penned up like the poor artisans of London, or even the equally pitiable official personage of the old dramatist, they were not literally caged birds, and Belford was not London: on the contrary, most of them had little slips of garden-ground, dusty and smoky, where currants and gooseberries came to nothing, and even the sweet weed mignonette refused to blow; and many of them lived on the outskirts of the town, and might have walked country-ward if they would; but they were bound by the minute and strong chains of habit, and could turn no other way than to the street,—the dull, dark some, dingy street. Their feet had been so used to the pavement, that they had lost all relish for the elastic turf of the greensward. Even the roadside paths were too soft for their tread. Flagstones for them; and turf, although smooth, and fine, and thick, and springy as a Persian carpet-although fragrant and aromatic as a bed of thyme,-turf for those who liked it!

Two or three times in the year, however,

even these street-loving ladies were visited with a desire to breathe a freer air, and become dames and damsels errantes for the day. The great river that glided so magnificently under the ridge of the Upton hills, within a mile of the town, seemed to offer irresistible temptations to a water-party, the more so as some very fine points of river scenery were within reach, and the whole course of the stream, whether sweeping grandly along its own rich and open meadows, or shut in by steep woody banks, was marked with great and varied beauty. But, somehow or other, a water-party was too much. for them. The river was navigable; and in that strange and almost startling process of being raised or sunken in the locks, there was a real or an apparent danger that would have discomposed their nerves and their dignity. Ladies of a certain age should not squall if they can help it. The spinsters of Belford had an instinctive perception of the truth of this axiom; and although Mr. Singleton, who liked the diversion of gudgeon-fishing (the only fishing, as far as I can perceive, which requires neither trouble, nor patience, nor skill, and in

which, if you put the line in, you are pretty sure within a few minutes to pull a fish out)— although Mr. Singleton, who liked this quiet sport, often tried to tempt his female friends. into a sober water-frolic, he never could succeed. Water-parties were reserved for the

families of the neighbourhood.

And perhaps the ladies of Belford were the wiser of the two. Far be it from me to depreciate the water! writing as I am at four o'clock P. M. on the twenty-sixth of this hot, sunny, drouthy August 1834, in my own little garden-which has already emptied two ponds, and is likely to empty the brook,—my garden, the watering of which takes up half the time of three people, and which, although watered twice a day, does yet, poor thing! look thirsty —and, for my garden, prematurely shabby and old ;* and who, dearly as I love that paradise

* Besides the great evils of a drought in the flowergarden, of dwarfing the blossoms-especially of the autumnal plants, lobelias, dahlias, &c. which may almost be called semi-aquatic, so fond are they of water-and robbing roses, honeysuckles, and even myrtles of their leaves, the very watering, which is essential to their life, brings a host of enemies above ground and beneath, in the