RURAL FELICITY
[This is the second Nature article that has recently arrived at Mr. Punch's offices through inadvertence. It was obviously intended for The Country-Side, the new Harmsworth-Robinson organ, which is designed to bring home to townsmen the wonders of country life.]
Evening in the country! A Spring evening! Ah, you dweller in the close perfervid city, how I wish I could have transported you to my side yesterday, while I stood and watched the sinking fire of day (a bright impulsive fellow this sun) waving me from his Orient window.
A Glad Good-night!
How I wish you could have lain near me on that pile of fresh-cut hay, redolent of clover and the scarlet vetch, lulled to sleep, it may be, by the low moaning of rats in the stack, or the melancholy hoot of the night-jar! Sleep follows swiftly, sleep such as you denizens of the crowded street can never know—sleep beneath the stars.
Up with the lark! Shelley's skylark! There he is, the blithe unconscious creature, hovering above the plough-share, ready to pounce upon the first unwary field-vole upturned from his
Nest in the Luxuriant Loam.
My heart is full to bursting as I pass onward into the harvest-field and watch the gleaners at their busy toil. For one thing I have my "Topical Quotations" to prepare, and am "dividing my swift mind" between the Georgics of Virgil and Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality" for a suitable selection. Then there are the straw bonnets and rough smocks of the rustics to be sketched for the fashion-plate, and my column upon the Insanitary Condition of Birds' Nests to be compiled.
Yet how difficult to fix one's mind upon mere journalism, when on this side and on that the lithe rabbit is popping up from his "forme," and beneath their white blossoms the red strawberries lurk under every springing hedge-tuft. A glass of creamy butter-milk supplied by the smiling lass at the cottage wicket, together with a light and delicious scone
Eaten in the Stubble
under the sighing alders, has served me for my simple yet hygienic meal. And now as I watch the shepherd lead his flock of lowing kine into the pastures, the stately old bell-wether bringing up the rear, I feel that here is life indeed, and here (had the exigencies of a week-end return permitted) I could willingly have spent the remainder of my days, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," but inexorable Fate with her iron shears forbids. I must
Back to the Smoky Streets
once more and my half-finished essay on "Cotton-spinning in our Great Public Schools." Brief dream, farewell!
