“BY the powers that guard innocence and celibacy,” soliloquized Kenelm Chillingly, “but I have had a narrow escape! and had that amphibious creature been in girl’s clothes instead of boy’s, when she intervened like the deity of the ancient drama, I might have plunged my armorial Fishes into hot water. Though, indeed, it is hard to suppose that a young lady head-over-ears in love with Mr. Compton yesterday could have consigned her affections to me to-day. Still she looked as if she could, which proves either that one is never to trust a woman’s heart or never to trust a woman’s looks. Decimus Roach is right. Man must never relax his flight from the women, if he strives to achieve an ‘Approach to the Angels.’”
These reflections were made by Kenelm Chillingly as, having turned his back upon the town in which such temptations and trials had befallen him, he took his solitary way along a footpath that wound through meads and cornfields, and shortened by three miles the distance to a cathedral town at which he proposed to rest for the night.
He had travelled for some hours, and the sun was beginning to slope towards a range of blue hills in the west, when he came to the margin of a fresh rivulet, overshadowed by feathery willows and the quivering leaves of silvery Italian poplars. Tempted by the quiet and cool of this pleasant spot, he flung himself down on the banks, drew from his knapsack some crusts of bread with which he had wisely provided himself, and, dipping them into the pure lymph as it rippled over its pebbly bed, enjoyed one of those luxurious repasts for which epicures would exchange their banquet in return for the appetite of youth. Then, reclining along the bank, and crushing the wild thyme that grows best and sweetest in wooded coverts, provided they be neighboured by water, no matter whether in pool or rill, he resigned himself to that intermediate state between thought and dream-land which we call “revery.” At a little distance he heard the low still sound of the mower’s scythe, and the air came to his brow sweet with the fragrance of new-mown hay.
He was roused by a gentle tap on the shoulder, and turning lazily round, saw a good-humoured jovial face upon a pair of massive shoulders, and heard a hearty and winning voice say,—
“Young man, if you are not too tired, will you lend a hand to get in my hay? We are very short of hands, and I am afraid we shall have rain pretty soon.”
Kenelm rose and shook himself, gravely contemplated the stranger, and replied in his customary sententious fashion, “Man is born to help his fellow-man,—especially to get in hay while the sun shines. I am at your service.”
“That’s a good fellow, and I’m greatly obliged to you. You see I had counted on a gang of roving haymakers, but they were bought up by another farmer. This way;” and leading on through a gap in the brushwood, he emerged, followed by Kenelm, into a large meadow, one-third of which was still under the scythe, the rest being occupied with persons of both sexes, tossing and spreading the cut grass. Among the latter, Kenelm, stripped to his shirt-sleeves, soon found himself tossing and spreading like the rest, with his usual melancholy resignation of mien and aspect. Though a little awkward at first in the use of his unfamiliar implements, his practice in all athletic accomplishments bestowed on him that invaluable quality which is termed “handiness,” and he soon distinguished himself by the superior activity and neatness with which he performed his work. Something—it might be in his countenance or in the charm of his being a stranger—attracted the attention of the feminine section of haymakers, and one very pretty girl who was nearer to him than the rest attempted to commence conversation.
“This is new to you,” she said smiling.
“Nothing is new to me,” answered Kenelm, mournfully. “But allow me to observe that to do things well you should only do one thing at a time. I am here to make hay and not conversation.”
“My!” said the girl, in amazed ejaculation, and turned off with a toss of her pretty head.