Mr. Punch's Country Life Part 11

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! Sh.e.l.ley'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 pa.s.s 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 gla.s.s of creamy b.u.t.ter-milk supplied by the smiling la.s.s 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!

[Ill.u.s.tration: HORTICULTURAL

_Vicar's Daughter._ "Well, John, I see you are looking as young as ever."

_John._ "Yes, miss, thankyee. An' they tell me I'll soon be an octogeranium."]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

"Oi be eighty-foive, zur."

"Dear me! You don't look it. And how old is your wife?"

"Oh, she be eighty-foive too. But she've looked it fer the last fowrty year!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BENEFITS FORGOT!"--_Old Gentleman_ (_he had been chased across the field by the infuriated animal, and only just scrambled over the gate in time--gasping for breath_). "You in--fernal un--gra'ful beast!--an' me--been veg'tarian allm'life!!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEMPORA MU-TATUR!!

_First Farmer._ "Aye, 'taters gets complaints now they never got in my young days."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Be it true as your nevvy b'ain 't?] a-goin' to marry that Miss Giles arter all?"

"Well, you see I 'vised 'un to gie up matrimony, an' take to a trade."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLEASURING!--_Vicar_ (_to old lady, who is returning from a funeral_). "Well, Martha, I'm afraid you've had a sad afternoon. It has been a long walk, too, for you----" _Martha._ "Sure-ly, 'tis sir; Ah, sir, 'tain't much pleasure now for me to go to funerals; I be too old and full o' rheumatiz. It was very different when we was young--that 'twer!!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _s.e.xton_ (_to a divine, who was spending his holidays in the country and who, on the sudden illness of the village parson, volunteered to take the duties_). "A worse preacher would have done for us, sir, _but we couldn't get one_!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PREDESTINED!--_Northern Matron_ (_before the School Board_). "I'm not against eddication, ladies and gen'l'men. I al'ays make him take his book o' nights. But reelly I calls it a flyin' in the face o' providence to be keepin' a boy out o' the stables with such a pair o' legs as his'n!!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Carrier._ "Try zideways, Mrs. Jones, try zideways!"

_Mrs. Jones._ "Lar' bless 'ee, John, I ain't got no zideways."]

MR. PUNCH'S AGRICULTURAL NOVEL

BO AND THE BLACKSHEEP.

_A Story of the s.e.x._

(_By_ THOMAS OF WESs.e.x, _Author of "Guess how a Murder feels,"

"The Cornet Minor," "The Horse that Cast a Shoe," "One in a Turret," "The Foot of Ethel hurt her," "The Flight of the Bivalve," "Hard on the Gadding Crowd," "A Lay o' Deceivers,"

&c._)

["I am going to give you", writes the Author of this book, "one of my powerful and fascinating stories of life in modern Wess.e.x. It is well known, of course, that although I often write agricultural novels, I invariably call a spade a spade, and not an agricultural implement. Thus I am led to speak in plain language of women, their misdoings, and their undoings.

Unstrained dialect is a speciality. If you want to know the extent of Wess.e.x, consult histories of the Heptarchy with maps."]

CHAPTER I.