Were any of us ever really disappointed or melancholy in a hay-field? Did we ever lie fairly back on a haycock and look up into the blue sky and listen to the merry sounds, the whetting of scythes and the laughing prattle of women and children, and think evil thoughts of the world and of or our brethren? Not we! Or if we have so done, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and deserve never to be out of town again during hay-harvest.
There is something in the sights and sounds of a hay-field which seems to touch the same chord in one as Lowell's lines in the “Lay of Sir Launfal,” which end—
“For a cap and bells our lives we pay;
We wear out our lives with toiling and tasking;
It is only Heaven that is given away;
It is only God may be had for the asking.
There is no price set on the lavish summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer.”
But the philosophy of the hay-field remains to be written. Let us hope that whoever takes the subject in hand will not dissipate all its sweetness in the process of the inquiry wherein the charm lies.
The constable had not the slightest notion of speculating on his own sensations, but was very glad, nevertheless, to find his spirits rising as he stepped into the Danes' Close. All the hay was down, except a small piece in the further corner, which the mowers were upon. There were groups of children in many parts of the field, and women to look after them, mostly sitting on the fresh swarth, working and gossiping, while the little ones played about. He had not gone twenty yards before he was stopped by the violent crying of a child; and turning toward the voice, he saw a little girl of six or seven, who had strayed from her mother, scrambling out of the ditch, and wringing her hands in an agony of pain and terror. The poor little thing had fallen into a bed of nettles, and was very much frightened, and not a little hurt. The constable caught her up in his arms, soothing her as well as he could, and hurrying along till he found some dock-leaves, sat down with her on his knee, and rubbed her hands with the leaves, repeating the old saw—
“Our nettle,
In dock;
Dock shall ha'
A new smock;
Nettle shan't
Ha' narrun'.”
What with the rubbing, and the constable's kind manner, and listening to the doggerel rhyme, and feeling that nettle would get her deserts, the little thing soon ceased crying. But several groups had been drawn towards the place, and amongst the rest came Miss Winter and her cousin, who had been within hearing of the disaster. The constable began to feel very nervous and uncomfortable, when he looked up from his charitable occupation, and suddenly found the rector's daughter close to him. But his nervousness was uncalled for. The sight of what he was about, and of the tender way in which he was handling the child, drove all remembrance of his heresies and contumaciousness in the matter of psalmody out of her head. She greeted him with frankness and cordiality, and presently—when he had given up his charge to the mother, who was inclined at first to be hard with the poor little sobbing truant—came up, and said she wished to speak a few words to him.
David was highly delighted at Miss Winter's manner; but he walked along at her side not quite comfortable in his mind, for fear lest she should start the old subject of dispute, and then his duty as a public man would have to be done at all risk of offending her. He was much comforted when she began by asking him whether he had seen much of Widow Winburn's son lately.
David admitted that he generally saw him every day.
Did he know that he had left his place, and had quarrelled with Mr. Tester?