dismissed with Dr. Reede) began to exhibit at home the confidence with which he had been treated, that Dr. Reede and his lady became aware how much these accomplished cadets could teach Charles on the part of their own extravagant master. Louis the Fourteenth knew of more ways of raising money than even Charles. He had taken to creating offices for sale, for which the court ladies amused themselves in making names. The pastime of divining their object and utility was left to the people who paid for them. They read, or were told,—and it made a very funny riddle,—that the inspector of fresh-butter had kissed hands on his appointment; that the ordainer of faggots had had the honour of dining with his Majesty; and that some mighty and wealthy personage had been honoured with the office of licenser of barber-wig-makers.
The example of Louis in this and other matters was too good not to be followed by one in circumstances of equal necessity. Edmund was not by any means to delay the “discreet composure” by which the minds of the people were to be propitiated and satisfied. He was to laud to the utmost the Duke’s conduct of naval affairs,—(whose credit rested on the ability of his complaisant Clerk of the Acts.) He was to falsify the navy accounts as much as could be ventured, exaggerating the expenses and extenuating the receipts, while he made the very best of the results. He was to take for granted the willingness of a grateful people to support the dignity of the sovereign, while he insinuated threats of the establishment of a civil list,—(a thing at that time unknown.) All this was to be done not the less for room being required for eloquence about the sale of Dunkirk, and the loan from France, and the bribe from Holland;—monuments of kingly wisdom all, and of paternal solicitude to spare the pockets of the people. All this was to be done not the less for the bright idea which had occurred to some courtier’s mind that the making of a few new ambassadors might bring money to his Majesty’s hands. There was more than one man about the court who was very willing to accept of the dignity of such an office, and to pay to the power that appointed him a certain fair proportion of the salary which the people must provide. One gentleman was accordingly sent to Spain, to amuse himself in reading Calderon, and another to some eastern place where he might sit on cushions, and smoke at the expense of the people of England, and to the private profit of their monarch. Amidst all these clever arrangements, nothing was done for the _security_ or the _advancement_ of the community. No new measures of _defence_; no better administration of _justice_; no advantageous _public works_, no apparatus of _education_, were originated; and, as for the _dignity of the sovereign_, that was a matter past hope. But by means of the treacherous sale of the nation’s property and of public offices, by bribes, by falsification of the public accounts, breaches of royal credit were for the present stopped, and the day of reckoning deferred.
If the Duke of York could have foreseen from whom and at what time this reckoning would be demanded, he might have been less acute in his suggestions, and less bold in his advice; and both he and the King might have employed to less infamous purpose this day of solemn fast and deprecation of God’s judgments. But, however true might be Dr. Reede’s doctrine that the sins of government are the sins of the nation, it happened in this case, as in a multitude of others, that the accessaries to the crime offered the atonement, while the principals made sport of both crime and atonement.
The false report about the late engagement had gained ground sufficiently to answer the temporary purposes of those who spread it. As Dr. Reede took his way homewards, bonfires gleamed reflected in the waters of the river, and exhibited to advantage the picturesque fronts of the wooden houses in the narrow streets, and sent trains of sparks up into the darkening sky, and illuminated the steeples that in a few more seasons were to fall into the surging mass of a more awful conflagration. On reaching the comfortable dwelling which he expected to be soon compelled to quit, he gave himself up, first to humiliation on account of the guilt against which he had in vain remonstrated, and then to addressing to the King a strong written appeal on behalf of the conscientious presbyterian clergy, who had, on the faith of the royal word, believed themselves safe from such temptations to violate their consciences as they were now suffering under.
On a certain Saturday of the same month might be seen the most magnificent triumph that ever floated on the Thames. It far exceeded the Venetian pageantry on occasion of espousing the Adriatic. The city of London was entertaining the King and Queen; and the King was not at all sorry that the people were at the same time entertained, while he was making up his mind whether, on dissolving the Parliament, he should call another which would obligingly give him the dean and chapter lands, or whether he should let it be seen, according to the opinion of his brother, that there was no need of any more parliaments. As he sat beside his Queen, in an antique-shaped vessel, under a canopy of cloth of gold, supported by Corinthian pillars, wreathed with flowers, festoons, and garlands, he meditated on the comfort that would accrue, on the one hand, from all his debts being paid out of these church lands, and, on the other, from such an entire freedom from responsibility as he should enjoy when there should be no more speeches to make to his Commons, and no more remonstrances to hear from them, grounded on dismal tales of the distresses of his people which he had rather not hear. The thrones and triumphal arches might do for the corporation of London to amuse itself with, and for the little boys and girls on either side of the river to stare at and admire: but it was in somewhat too infantine a taste to please the majority of the gazers otherwise than as a revival of antique amusements. The most idly luxurious about the court preferred entertainments which had a little more meaning in them,—dramatic spectacles, pictures, music, and fine buildings and gardens. War is also a favourite excitement in the middle age of refinement; and the best part of this day’s entertainments, next to the music, was the peals of ordnance both from the vessels and the shore, which might prettily remind the gallants, amidst their mirth and their soft flirtations, of the cannonading that was going on over the sea. Within a small section of the city of London, many degrees of mirth might be found this day.
In the royal barge, the Queen cast her “languishing and excellent eyes” over the pageant before her, and returned the salutations of the citizens who made obeisances in passing, and now and then exchanged a few words with her Portuguese maids of honour, the King being too thoughtful to attend to her;—altogether not very merry.
In the barge immediately following, certain of the King’s favourites made sport of the Queen’s foretop,—turned aside very strangely,—of the monstrous fardingales and olivada complexions and unagreeable voices of her Portuguese ladies,—and of the old knight, her friend, whose bald pate was covered by a huge lock of hair, bound on by a thread, very oddly. The King’s gravity also made a good joke; and there was an amusing incident of a boat being upset, which furnished laughter for a full half hour. A family of Presbyterians, turned out of a living because the King had broken his word, were removing their chattels to some poor place on the other side of the river, and had unawares got their boat entangled in the procession, and were run down by a royal barge. It was truly laughable to see first the divine, and then his pretty daughters, with their dripping long hair, picked up from the water, while all their little wealth went to the bottom: and yet more so to witness how, when the King, of his bounty, threw gold to the sufferers, the clergyman tossed it back so vehemently that it would have struck the Duke of York on the temple, if he had not dexterously contrived to receive it on the crown of his periwig. It was a charming adventure to the King’s favourites;—very merry.
In the mansions by the river side, certain gentlemen from the country were settling themselves, in preparation for taking office under the government. They and their fathers had been out of habits of business for fourscore years, and were wholly incapable of it, and knew themselves to be so; the best having given themselves to rural employments, and others to debauchery; but, as all men were now declared incapable of employment who had served against the King, and as these cavaliers knew that their chief business was to humour his Majesty, they made themselves easy about their responsibilities, looked after their tapestries, plate, and pictures, talked of the toils and cares of office, and were—very merry.
In the narrow streets in their neighbourhood might be hourly seen certain of the King’s soldiers, belted and armed, cursing, swearing, and stealing; running into public-houses to drink, and into private ones to carry off whatever they had a mind to; leaving the injured proprietors disposed to reflect upon Oliver, and to commend him,—what brave things he did, and how safe a place a man’s own house was in his time, and how he made the neighbour princes fear him; while now, a prince that came in with all the love, and prayers, and good-liking of his people, who had given greater signs of loyalty and willingness to serve him with their estates than ever was done by any people, could get nothing but contempt abroad, and discontent at home; and had indeed lost all so soon, that it was a miracle how any one could devise to lose so much in so little time. These housekeepers, made sage by circumstance, looked and spoke with something very little like mirth. Those who had given occasion to such thoughts were, meantime,—very merry.
It was not to these merry men, wise people thought, that the King must look for help in the day of war, but to the soldiers of the republican army, who had been declared by act of parliament for evermore incapable of serving the kingdom. But where were these men to be found, if wanted?
Not one could be met with begging in the streets to tell how his comrades might be reached. One captain in the old parliament army was turned shoemaker, and another a baker. This lieutenant was now a haberdasher; that a brewer. Of the common soldiers, some were porters, and others mechanics in their aprons, and husbandmen in their frocks, and all as quiet and laborious as if war had never been their occupation. The spirits of these men had been trained in contentment with God’s providences; and though, as they sat at the loom and the last, they had many discontented thoughts of man’s providences, it was clear to observers among the King’s own servants that he was a thousand times safer from any evil meant by them than from his own unsatisfied and insatiable cavaliers. While the staid artizans who had served under Cromwell looked out upon the river as the procession passed, they dropped a few words in their families about the snares of the Evil One, and were—not very merry.
Within hearing of the ordnance in which the young gallants of the court delighted was an hospital, meagrely supplied with the comforts which its inmates required, where languished, in a crowded space, many of the soldiers and sailors who had been set up to be fired at while it was known in high quarters that there was such a deficiency of ammunition as must deprive the poor fellows of the power of effectual self-defence.
This fact had become known, and it had sunk deep into the souls of the brave fellows who, maimed, feverish, and heart-sore,—in pain for want of the proper means of cure, and half suffocated from the number of their fellow-sufferers, listened with many a low-breathed curse to the peals of ordnance that shook their crazy place of refuge, and forswore mirth and allegiance together.
Within hearing of the shouts and of a faint occasional breath of music from the royal band, were certain of the two thousand clergy, who were to resign their livings the next morning, and whose families were taking advantage of the neighbourhood being deserted for the day to remove their furniture, and betake themselves to whatever place they might have found wherein the righteous could lay his head. Dr. Reede was one of these. He had been toiling all day with his wife, demolishing the _tout ensemble_ of comfort which had been formed under her management. He was now, while she was engaged with her infants, sitting alone in his study for the last time. He was doing nothing; for his business in this place was closed. He let his eye be amused by the quick flickering in the breeze of the short, shining grass of his little court, which stretched up to his window. The dark formal shrubs, planted within the paling by his own hand, seemed to nod to him as the wind passed over their heads.
The summer flowers in the lozenge-shaped parterres which answered to each other, danced and kissed unblamed beneath the Rev. Doctor’s gaze.
All looked as if Nature’s heart were merry, however sad might be those of her thoughtful children. The Doctor stepped out upon the grass. There was yet more for him to do there. He had, with his own hands, mowed the plat, and clipped the borders; and the little hands of the elder of his two children had helped to pluck out the very few weeds that had sprung up. But the weather had been warm and dry, and, in order to leave the place in the beauty desired by its departing tenant, it was necessary to water the flower-court. It was not a very inspiriting thing to glance at doors and windows standing wide, displaying the nakedness of an empty dwelling within: so the Doctor hastened to the well to fill his bucket.
Mrs. Reede heard the jingle of the chain, and showed herself at an upper window, while the child that could walk made her way down stairs with all speed to help papa, and wonder at her own round little face in the full bucket. Mrs. Reede was glad that her husband had turned out of his study, though she could not bring herself to sympathize in his anxiety to leave all in a state of the greatest practicable beauty. If a gale had torn up the shrubs, or the hot sun of this summer day had parched the grass and withered the flowers, she did not think she could have been sorry. But it was very well that her husband had left his study open for the further operations necessary there. This room had remained the very last in its entireness. The time was now come when she must have asked her husband to quit his chair and desk, and let his books be dislodged. She would make haste to complete the work of spoliation, and she hoped he would make a long task of watering the flower-court.
He was not likely to do that when he had once perceived that she and one of her damsels were lifting heavy loads of books, while another was taking care of the baby. He hastened to give their final draught to his favourite carnations, placed a chair for Esther on the grass just outside the window, where she might sit with the infant, and, while resting herself, talk to him as he finished her laborious task.
Mrs. Reede did not remember to have ever started so incessantly at the sound of guns; and the air-music of the window-harp that she had seen in the pavilions of great men’s gardens had never come so mournfully over her spirit as the snatches of harmony that the wind now brought from the river to make her infant hold up his tiny finger while his sister said “hark!” She was, for once, nervous. It might be seen in her flushed face and her startled movements; and the poor baby felt it in the absence of the usual ease with which he was held and played with. A sharp sudden cry from him called the attention of the doctor from his task. In a moment, mamma’s grief was more tumultuous than the infant’s.
“O, my child! my child! I have hurt my child! my own little baby!” cried she, weeping bitterly, and of course redoubling the panic of the little one.
“My dear love,” said her husband, trying to prove to her that the baby had only been frightened by a jerk; “my dear love, you alarm yourself much more than the child. See!” and he held up in the evening sunlight the brass plate on which his study lamp stood. Its glittering at once arrested the infant’s terrors: but not so soon could the tears of the mother be stopped.
“My love, there must be some deeper cause than this trifling accident,” said he, sitting down on the low window sill beside her chair. “Is it that you have pent up your grief all day, and that it will have way?”
Mrs. Reede had a long train of sad thoughts to disclose, in the intervals of her efforts to compose herself. The children, she said, amused themselves as if nothing was the matter; while who could tell what they might think hereafter of being thus removed from a fair and honourable home, and carried where—O, there was no telling what lot might await them! If everybody had thought the sacrifice a right one, she could have gone through it without any regret: but some of her husband’s oldest friends thought him wrong—— “Towards God, or towards you, my love?”
"O, towards these children, I suppose. They dare not think that you would do anything wrong towards me. I am sure I only think of you first, and then of the children. How you have preached here, with the souls of your people in your hand, to mould them as you would! and now, you must go where your gift and your office will be nothing; and you will be only like any other man. And, as for the children, we do not know——" “When the bird leads forth her brood from their warm nest, because springes are set round about them, does she know what shall befall them?
There may be hawks abroad, or a sharp wind that may be too strong for their scarce-plumed wings. Or they may gather boldness from their early flight, and wave in the sunshine on a high bough, and pour out there a grateful morn and even song from season to season. The parent bird knows not: but she must needs take them from among the springes, however soft may be the nest, and cool the mossy tree. We know more than this parent bird; even that no sparrow falleth unheeded to the ground.”
Mrs. Reede’s tears began to flow again as another faint breath of music reached her.
“Is it that you will be more composed when the sounds of mirth, to us unseasonable, have passed away?” asked Dr. Reede, smiling.
“It does seem hard that our spoilers should be making merry while we are going forth we know not whither,” said the wife.
“How would it advantage the mother bird that the fowlers should lie close while she plumes her pinions to be gone? Will she stoop in her flight for all their mirth? As for us, music may be to us a rare treat henceforth. Let our ears be pleased with it, whencesoever it may come.”
And he made the children hearken, till they clapped their little hands, and their mother once more smiled. Her husband then said to her, “If this mirth be ungodly, there is no reason why we should be more scandalized at it than on any other day, only because we ourselves are not merry. If it be innocent, we should thank God that others are happier than ourselves. Yet I am not otherwise than happy in the inward spirit. I shall never repent this day.”
"They say you will, when——But it is not as if we stood alone. It is said that there will be a large number of the separated."
“Thank God! not for the companionship to ourselves, so much as for the profit to his righteousness. It will be much to meet here and there eyes that tell back one’s own story, and to clasp hands that are undefiled by the world’s lucre. But it is more to know that God’s truth is so hymned by some thousand tongues this night, that the echo shall last till weak voices like ours shall be wanted no more.”
“Let us go,” cried Mrs. Reede, dispersing her last tears, and lifting up one child while the other remained in her husband’s arms. He took advantage of her season of strength, and resolved to convey her at once to the humble lodging which was to be their present abode, and to return himself to see that all was done. He detained her only to join him in a brief thanksgiving for the happiness they had enjoyed there since their marriage day, and to beseech a blessing on him who was to succeed to the dwelling and to the pastoral office. Courageous as was Mrs. Reede’s present mood, she was still at the mercy of trifles. The little girl’s kitten would not bear them company. It had been removed twice, and had returned, and now was not to be found. It had hidden itself in some corner whence it would come out when they were gone; and the child departed in a very unchristian state of distress. Her mamma found that both she and her child had yet to learn Dr. Reede’s method of not fretting because of evil-doers.
Though he could not trouble himself with personal resentments, no man could more strenuously rebuke and expose guilt,—especially guilt in high places, which is so much worse than other guilt, in as far as it desolates a wider region of human happiness. In his farewell discourse, the next day, he urged some considerations on behalf of society far more eagerly than he ever asked anything for himself.
“It is no new thing,” said he, "for men to be required to set their hand to that which they believe not, or to affirm that they believe that which they understand no more in the expression than in the essence. It is no new thing for a mistake to be made as to such protestation, so that if a man say he believes that a sown field will bear corn, though he knows not the manner of its sprouting nor the order of its ripening, he shall be also required to believe a proposition in an unknown tongue, whereof he knows not even what it is that should be proposed. It is no new thing that men should start at such a requisition, as a sound-witted man would start from the shows and babble of the magician; or as a modest wise man would shrink from appointing the way to a wandering comet, lest he should unawares bring the orderly heavens to a mighty wreck. It is no new thing for the searchers of God’s ways to respect his everlasting laws more than man’s presumptuous bidding: or for Him whom they serve so to change the face of things to them as to make his extremest yoke easy, and his heaviest burden light:—to cast a shade over what must be foregone,—whether it be life itself, or only the goodly things in which maybe too much of our life hath been found,—or to beam a light from his own highest heaven on the wilderness-path, which may seem horrid to those who are not to tread it, but passable enough to such as must needs take this way to their everlasting home. These things being not new, are a sign to us recusants of this day not to be in anywise astonished or dismayed, and also not to allow a dwelling upon the part we have taken, as if it were any mighty merit to trust to God’s providence, which waits only to be trusted, or required any marvellous faith to commit ourselves to Christ’s word, which, if it be Christ’s, must stand when the heavens themselves shall be dissolved. It behoves us rather to look to things less clear than these, and more important than the putting forth of a few of Christ’s meanest shepherds from their folds;—for whom the chief Shepherd may perhaps find other occasions; and, if not, they may be well content to lie down among the sheep, remembering that he once had not where to lay his head. The true occasion of this day is not to break one another’s hearts with griefs and tears, (which may but puff out or quench the acceptable fire of the altar;) but so to fan the new-kindled flame as that it may seize and consume whatsoever of foul and desecrating shows most hideous in its light. Is it not plain that powers whose use is ushered in with prayers, and alternated with the response of God’s most holy name,—the powers of government,—are used to ensnare those who open their doors to whatsoever cometh in that name? It is well that governments should be thus sanctified to the ears and eyes of the governed; for, if there be a commission more certainly given straight from the hand of God than another it is that of a ruler of men. Who but he opens the eyes of the blind, and unstops the ears of the deaf, and sets the lame on his feet, and strengthens together the drooping heart and the feeble knees,—by setting before the one the radiant frame of society in all its fitness, and waking up for another the voices of human companionship, and compacting the powers of the weak with those of the strong, and cheering all by warding off injury from without, and making restraint easy where perchance it may gall any of those who are within? Sacred is the power of the ruler as a trust; but if it be used as a property, where is its sanctity? If the steward puts out the eyes that follow him too closely, and ties the tongue that importunes, and breaks the limbs of the strong man in sport, so as to leave him an impotent beggar in the porch of the mansion,—do we not know from the Scripture what shall be the fate of that steward? As it is with a single ruler, so shall it be with a company of rulers,—with a government which regards the people only as the something on which itself must stand, which takes bread from the children to give it to dogs; which sells God’s gifts to them that are without, at the risk of such utter blindness that they shall weary themselves to find the door out of their perplexities and terrors. What governments there be that commit the double sin of lording it over consciences, (which are God’s heritage,) and of ruling for their own low pleasures instead of the right living and moving of the people, judge ye. If there be any which mismanage its defence, and deny or pervert justice, and refuse public works, and make the church a scandal, and the court a spectacle for angels to weep over and devils to resort to, and, instead of speeding the people’s freedom with the wings of knowledge, shut them into the little cells of ancient men’s wits, it is time that such should know why God hath made them stewards, and should be alarmed for the coming of their Master. It is not for the men and maid-servants to wrest his staff from his hands, or to refuse his reasonable bidding, or to forsake, the one his plough, and the other his mill, and the maidens to spread the table: but it is for any one to give loud warning that the Master of the house will surely demand an account of the welfare of his servants. Such a warning do I give; and such is the warning spoken by the many mourners of this day, who, because they honour the kingly office as the holiest place of the fair temple of society, and kingly agents as the appointed priesthood, can the less bear to see the nation outraged as if there were no avenging angel of Jehovah flying abroad; and comfortless in their miseries, as if Jehovah himself were not in the midst of them."
It was well that Dr. Reede felt that he could bear the pillory. He was pilloried.
THIRD AGE.
History is silent as to the methods by which men were enabled to endure the tedium of journeys by the heavy coaches of the olden time. The absence of all notion of travelling faster might, indeed, be no inconsiderable aid,—an aid of which travellers are at present, for the most part, deprived; since the mail-coach passenger, the envy of the poor tenant of the carrier’s cart, feels envy, in his turn, of the privileged beings who shoot along the northern rail-road; while they, perhaps, are sighing for the time when they shall be able to breakfast at one extremity of the kingdom, and dine at the other. When once the idea of not going fast enough enters a traveller’s mind, _ennui_ is pretty sure to follow; and it may be to this circumstance that the patience of our forefathers, under their long incarceration on the road, was owing—if patience they had. Now, a traveller who is too much used to journeying to be amused, as a child is, by the mere process of travelling, is dismayed alike if there be a full number of passengers, and if there be none but himself. In the first case, there is danger of delay from the variety of deposits of persons and goods; and in the second, there is an equal danger of delay from the coachman having all his own way, and the certainty, besides, of the absence of all opportunity of shaking off the dulness of his own society.
Mr. Reid, a sociable young barrister, who had never found himself at a loss on a journey, was left desolate one day last summer when he least expected it. He had taken his wife and child down to the south, in order to establish them by the sea-side for a few weeks; and he was now travelling up to town by the stage-coach, in very amusing company, as he thought, for the first stage, but presently in solitude. Supposing that his companions were going all the way, he took his time about making the most of them, and lost the opportunity. There was a sensible farmer, who pointed right and left to the sheep on the downs—green downs—retiring in long sweeps from the road; and he had much to relate of the methods of cultivation which had been pursued here, there, and everywhere,—with the Barn Field, and Rick Mead, and Pond-side Field, and Brook Hollow, and many other pretty places that he indicated. He had also stores of information on the farmer’s favourite subject of complaint—the state of the poor. He could give the history of all the well-meant attempts of my lord this, and my lady that, and colonel the other, to make employment, and institute prizes of almshouses, and induce their neighbours to lay out more on patches of land than less helpless folks would think it worth while to bestow. Meantime, a smart young lady in the opposite corner was telling her widowed chaperon why she could not abide the country, and would not be tempted to leave dear London any more,—namely, that the country was chalky, and whitened the hems of all her petticoats. The widow, in return, assured the unbelieving girl that the country was not chalky all over the world, and that she had actually seen, with her own eyes, the junction of a white, a red, and a black road,—very convenient, as one might choose one’s walk by the colour of one’s gown. The widow at the same time let fall her wish to have the charge—merely for the sake of pleasant occupation—of the household of a widower, to whose daughters she could teach everything desirable; especially if they were intended to look after dairy and poultry-yard, and such things.
“Thank’ee, ma’am,” said the farmer, as she looked full at him; “my daughters are some of them grown up; and they have got on without much teaching since their mother died.”
Mr. Reid promised himself to gain more information about the widow’s estimate of her own capabilities; but she and her charge were not yet going to “dear London.” They got out at the first country town, just after the farmer had thrust himself half out of the window to stop the coach, flung himself on the stout horse that was waiting for him at the entrance of a green lane, and trotted off, with a prodigious exertion of knee, elbow, and coat-flap.
Mr. Reid had soon done thinking of the widow, and of the damsel who had displayed so intimate a knowledge of rural life. Pauperism lasted longer; but this was only another version of a dismal story with which he was already too well acquainted. He was glad to think of something else. He found that he got most sun by riding backward, and most wind by riding forward, and made his election in favour of the latter. He discovered, after a momentary doubt, that his umbrella was safe, and that there was no occasion to trouble his knees any longer with his great-coat. He perceived that the coach had been new-lined, and he thought the lace suited the lining uncommonly well. He wondered whether the people would be as confoundedly long in changing horses at every stage as they had been at the first. It would be very provoking to arrive in town too late for dinner at G——’s. Ah! the women by the roadside found it a fine day for drying the linen they had washed. How it blew about, flapping, with a noise like mill-sails; big-sleeved pinafores and dancing stockings! This was a pretty country to live in: the gentlemen’s houses were sufficiently sheltered, and the cottages had neat orchards behind them; and one would think pains had been taken with the green lanes—just in the medium as they were between rankness and bareness. What an advantage roads among little hills have in the clear stream under the hedge,—a stream like this, dimpling and oozing, now over pebbles, and now among weeds! That hedge would make a delicious foreground for a picture,—the earth being washed away from the twisted roots, and they covered with brown moss, with still a cowslip here and there nodding to itself in the water as the wind passed by. By the way, that bit of foreground might be kept in mind for his next paper for the “New Monthly.” It would be easy to give his subject a turn that would allow that hedge and its cowslip to be brought in. What had not Victor Hugo made of a yellow flower, in a scene to which nobody who had read it would need a second reference! But this well, to the left, was even better than the hedge: it must have been described already; for it looked as if put there for the purpose. What a damp nook in the hedge it stood in, with three old yews above it, and tufts of long grass to fringe the place! What a well-used chain and ladle, and what merry, mischievous children, pushing one another into the muddy pool where the drippings fell, and splashing each other, under pretence of drinking! He was afraid of losing the impression of this place, so much dusty road as he had to pass through, and so many new objects to meet before he could sit down to write; unless, indeed, he did it now. Why should not he write his paper now? It was a good idea—a capital thought!
Three backs of letters and a pencil were presently found, and a flat parcel in one of the window-pockets, which served as a desk, when the feet were properly planted on the opposite seat. The lines were none of the straightest, at first; and the dots and stops wandered far out of their right places; while the long words looked somewhat hieroglyphical.
But the coach stopped; and Mr. Reid forgot to observe how much longer it took than before to change horses while he was the only passenger. He looked up only once, and then saw so charming an old granny, with her little Tommy, carrying a toad-in-a-hole to the baker’s, that he was rewarded for his momentary idleness, and resolved to find a place for them too, near the well and the mossy hedge.
He was now as sorry to be off again as before to stop. The horses were spirited, and the road was rough. His pencil slipped and jerked, this