distance, the messenger, I, with my two boys, descended to breakfast by a river, on our way. Behold us, after wading through a steep meadow's grass, with our six feet all over dew and clinging buttercups, at a gipsy breakfast by a grand bed of rock, which my river, (my own hermit river!) shrunk by July suns, rather played in than occupied, like a baby in the great bed at Ware. The leaping of many little cataracts against gnarled root and rock was like that of snowy lambs in a field of deep grass almost hiding them, so green was the hue of the water sweeping through a natural floodgate of rock in midchannel, and so white the tiny breakers in their foam. There was a soft blue stream of mist all up the mountain windings of the river; the bright green of the bud, with the expansion of the leaf, (charming conjunction of the young year!) was upon the underwood. On our very last visit paid to that spot, rotten wood, dead flags and leaves, heaped our sod breakfast-table, thick as sea-wrack, and our leafy skreen, (the deserted chamber of the poor birds,) stood a skeleton-ruin, blown through by the bleak wind. Now, delightful change! there it stood, a dense, rich, impervious, sunshiny orchestra, for its musical tenants, all returned to its covert; and as they sung us their Spring song, we fancied we could distinguish our old friends from new, the last year's musicians from the present. Stretched, Roman-like, on a couch of moss velvet at an oak's root, to our meal, I felt in a lively manner the pleasure of doing good to our fellowcreatures, and fulfilling our path whither duty calls us,—for was I not on my path to my patient? Yes, let none grudge me then "mine ease, in mine inn," of a clump of hazels, nor sneer at this recumbent kind of practice; moreover, but for it, I, or rather the reading world, had lost a very pretty leaf out of the book of the heart, a little biography of a passion, bred and born among mountains. For presently my younger boy whispered that we were overlooked, which is our mortal aversion; and peeping through our green wall, I saw a young woman loitering at the bowered mouth of a path through a little wood by the river, who seemed not to have espied or heard us, so anxiously was she watching up the path. Soon I could perceive a fine colour mount to her cheek, fresh rather than ruddy before; the appearance of him she waited for seemed to explain the blush.

Sure as a gun here were two sweethearts! honour itself must have continued to peep, so I did. She was in truth a pretty, rather delicate, girl, with most expressive eyes, and truth could say no more. In all respects she was a neat, modestly dressed, farmer's daughter, such as are to be met with, in Caermarthenshire, every market-day in numbers, in any town; a county most genial to female complexions, more beautiful reds and whites being to be seen there than in all the rest of Wales together: for she was a Caermarthenshire girl, though I have * Comparisons (as we are informed by the learned Mrs. Malaprop,) are

described her as at home, on the banks of my own stream, Irvon. But as one incident in the story of these two real sweethearts was such as might render publicity improper, as will be seen, I have created for them a fictitious abode, transplanted their meetings to the side of another river, and under other names, preserved their history, well known to the few residents of the mountain hamlet and sheep-farm where it occurred. Some trouble was in the young man's face, as he approached, some anger; he seemed reluctant to draw near her, yet I fancied I saw tears standing in his eyes. With a charming artlessness she took his hand, and, looking round into his averted face, with all the tender mournful concern possible, laid the hand she pressed lovingly to her bosom, while she said, as he stood half crying, half frowning, "Robin! Robin bach!* come now, why do you look so miserable? I can't bear to see you so; why do you look so cold, so angry?" "Why don't you say at once that you wont go then?" he muttered rather fiercely. "Oh dear, dear, dear," she cried, impatiently, "what can I say to make him believe me! Don't I leave father, mother, and all? Oh, Robin, would I leave them, for the world, if it wasn't: no! not for the world, nor any thing in it, but you. Oh, if you knew how sick and sinking my heart is at the thought of such a journey, such a way off as London, indeed, it do drop like, drop dead like, a stone in my breast, indeed, indeed." Sullen he stood still, "For me, truly! for me! if you do want to please me, why don't you write, write at once, that you wont go then? the old cat does only want you to wait on her, and nurse her till she's gone, and then she'll die and not leave you a farthing, and, by the L-d, I shall be so glad, 'twill serve you just right." Oh dear, oh dear," she quivered in tears and vexation, "do I want her fortune for myself then? have I any use for money? do I want it for my father, who has the farm as long as he lives, you know, and mother after him? who do I want it for then, Robin? nay, you be not so dull as that; who did I spend all my halfpennies on when we were both little, at feast? can't you think who?" she asked, looking languishingly on him who was evidently softened, though too angry to betray it much. "Very well, then, very well," he broke forth, "you don't want it, master don't want it, I'm sure I don't want it, I wish the devil had the old aunt, and her fortune in her pocket too. I've hardly ate or slept since her letter came: so nobody wants it; why don't you write, at once, you will not go then?" Robin was doggedly bent on one note. "So I will; I will, if you will be less miserable, and let us make it up," said the tired girl, sobbing. "Will you, and will you,

"oderous." We well know that the dear delightful women of Cambria are remarkable for their York and Lancaster complexions; but we must confess we are indebted to "the Rural Doctor" alone, for the assertion that those of Caermarthenshire are the most superlative.-EDITORS.

* Bach, a term of endearment, literally meaning little.

indeed, dear wench?" he exclaimed, starting out of his mood as from a trance, and pressing one, two, three loud hearty kisses on her willing lips: then there was a peace for a time, as they hid among the clumps of the wood's edge: but presently a fresh parley was on foot, in a calmer spirit.

"Don't you remember that very, very hot day last year, when I took my wheel to the sycamore tree for the shade, and couldn't be cool even there, and the haymakers came continually to the spout of water at the rock to drink, and the cows stood in the ford, and there was not a living thing to be seen hardly in all the broad bask, as far as one could see over the scorched face of the ground, except under some shade or in the brook?" "Yes, yes; but what then? let's make an end of one thing first; so when do you write to tell her you wont come on no account?" Margery smiled mournfully. Well," she continued, "but you was in all the broil, and hard at work, mowing the latter math, and faint, faint you looked, coming by me to the water-spout! I wished I could mow, and you could spin, for us to change works; to my heart, I did: to be sure my father would not have had you go on, I know, but you can't have him always for a master, or I should not mind; so I did cry at my wheel, for what d'ye think I thought, Robin?" "Girl, I'm thinking what time a letter be to reach town in time for the London mail: let me see; if I walk sharpish, I could take it after supper to night." "Nay, Robin, listen, dear; I did think—, I wont tell you neither; yet what odds? don't we know one another's minds? A'n't I yours, your own; and a'n't you mine, my own, own? I thought, when we're married, must I see him so work, work, and every day, and for ever?" "Well, my dear, wont it be for you and for yours, your little, our little ones, Margery bach? What ails me that I can't work?" "Oh, but I want to see you work just a little, no more than you like; I hate every body I do see idle and easy in the shade when you are in the heat, or warm by the fire when you are out after the sheep, in the snow! Oh Lord, though it be wicked, I fear, I fear, I shall almost hate my pretty ones (and she cried) for their very wants, poor little lumps, because every year, as they grow bigger, you must work the harder for them! Then think of your being sick, you must be simple+ sometimes, how could I bear you to work then? Oh, Robin, my very heart grew sick, it sunk within me, Robin, God knows it did! Now when this letter came, I remembered that day, and, indeed, it made my heart leap again!" "I see, I see, what you are driving at again, as bad as ever," exclaimed he, writhing with impatience. 'Oh, good boy, consider now, what is a few months, nay, a year or two:" her voice sunk more mournful at each word. "If you'd ever known what love is, you'd know what a year is, aye *Second grass-crop.

66

+"Simple" implies illness, in the English language spoken by the Welsh and Borderers.

a week, asunder, a day, to true sweethearts;-oh, nothing, nothing at all, to you, I'm sure; and it will be as little to me when you bring yourself back again, I can tell you," said Robin, disdainfully, affecting the careless beau by inclining his hat to one side." "Don't I know? don't I? But you don't mean it: Oh, Robin, I must go, but you must bid me go, or else I can't; I've set my heart on't to have you always by me, nothing to do but amuse yourself, and yet have money, and have it all through me; and spend it all almost upon yourself, all that's to spare for pleasure: at least, you must say go, but say it very sad like; I wouldn't have you a bit less sorry or sad, dear, but say it serious and ordering like, or else I'm sure I never can, for all it breaks my heart to not go."

Robin kissed away a tear from her eye, before it fell, and by so doing brought many more. "You've kept me from every playfellow and every play, boy's and man's, all my life long, playing with you from a little girl, till I'm like a girl myself, and the fellows laugh at me and call me a 'womankind man,' and now you leave me. While I'd your company, you know, Margery, I never wanted theirs nor nobody's, not I; whether you and I sate each upon a knee of our master, when we were quite little, and he gave us sips o'cyder out o' his own horn cup, and a roast crab a piece, or, when we grew older, upon a stile or a haycock, for that matter, it was all one, we were always getting together, wasn't we? What am I to do by myself now, think you? I declare, when I'm on the brow yonder, by myself, after the sheep all day, and watch (watching the shadow of the old wind-beat thorn that you know there,) for the time to come down and home to you, I think it don't lengthen an inch an hour, and that's but a day! I sha'n't live to see you come back, I do believe; and you'll come back a fine lady."

"Don't say so, don't say so, my sweet!" murmured the tender girl, sobbing, as if his life had really been in present jeopardy, at the very thought. Turning her white neck and head aside, as he took her hand, she started, exclaiming "Robin, Robin!" doubtless discovering us behind our leafy curtain, or by our smoke, that curled blue above it, perhaps; though our fire was in the deep gulley hollow of the empty river bed of rocks. Blushing and wiping each eye with her apron, she caught up her pail, (as white and pure as the willow by the brook of which it was made,) and vanished quickly over the ridge of the sheep meadow we had crossed, above which, white peeping, appeared the horns of cows lowing with deadened sound beyond.

Here was a little landscape of the heart, the female heart suddenly and sweetly opened in the midst of scenery of congenial loveliness: here was true love, methought. His eager preference of hard labour to independence, deterred by the bare

risk of losing her; her eagerness as great, to quit father, mother, home, even him, his very self, because she could not bear to see him "look so faint;" these traits of affection struck me mightily, and superadded the charm of the moral to the physical landscape, charming already as it was. There was, in truth, an affinity betwixt the scene and the gentle, yet impassioned, mind it had matured.

Each was mild, homely, humble; yet a paradise! The river ran more musically, the sky beamed bluer calm, I could have fancied every heath-flower, bowing on its invisible stalk, seemed a little blue humming-bird fluttering over its nest, or a little love, or anything poetical, thing of summer-air; to which romantic flights must be added, my scalding my mouth with boiling milk, pouring clear water out of our teapot, though forgetting to put "the Chinese nymph" therein, and, at last, seeing the real tea all oily eyes a top! having poured it on a lump of butter, instead of sugar.

I fell in again with this young man in the solitude of the hill top, some time after, and had no need to inquire, for I saw by his look that she was gone. With much reluctance he stayed to enter into conversation a little, as I sate down by him on the steep bank of the turfy hill, and I learned what in very few words can be repeated of his simple story. He was an orphan boy, left helpless on the parish when "scarcely old enough to hold a lamb from its mother at the shearing time," as he said. But the people to whom he was "put out" used him cruelly, or "our master," (Margery's father,) thought so; so having a kindness for the child, from his parents having worked for him, the farmer took him home and brought him up like his own, "though," said Robin, "I couldn't earn a mess of fummery, not I, and the parish would never allow a farthing after, because he took pity on the child and took him away. Nor did our master ever twit me, if he were ever so angry, with the burden I had been to him; no, nor would let me work so hard as the other lumps of boys of my size, by reason," he said, "he'll be dashed and shy to tell us, having never a mother, if he's ill or anything, for fear we should think him idle."

This John Morgan (or Jacky Morgan, by rural phraseology) was the occupier of a pasture or grass farm, and dependent chiefly on the rearing of large flocks of sheep, a species of farmer more simple and primitive generally in habits and modes of life, than the chiefly agricultural one. Arable farms and grass farms are the prose and poetry of rural life; almost as dissimilar as cows, lowing in a morning meadow of spring grass, and sheep, whitening a thymy sunshiny hill-side, are to the same animals under the form of roast beef and prime mutton smoking on a tap-room dinner-table. This secluded bringing up had doubtless fostered