LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1012, 22 September 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

POPPIES. [By the Author of ‘ Phcebe of Plasthwaite.’] (Tinsley), A bright June afternoon in an English cornfield, the warm air breathing lazily on the tall green corn, which bends and sways to the light caress, the lark singing amid the cloudless blue and looking like a hovering speck, so high and far above does he soar ; cries and shouts of mexx and boys, laughter and joyous shrieks of girls’ voices, near at hand. What -was the noise about ? The time was far on in the afternoon, when workers are growing weary, and when farming toil in the hot sunshine grows burdensome, From across the green corn and where big barns are standing come the sounds, bright frolicsome sounds, that tell more of pleasure than toil, or if of toil, then of toil well ended. By the side of the full young corn, which grows so luxuriantly that there is barely a footpath left between it and a ditch, dry and thirsty, but bursting with a wealth of flowers, we thread our way. Up above, on our left, is the hedge, a tangled mass of leafage, from the great lazy dock leaves in the ditch to the tiny leaves of the climbers that run rampant over the old bushy hawthorns. Bed roses flash out high beyond reach, strewing their fair petals around and below ; snowy bindweed trails languidly, but never ending, in masses of white bells ; long feathery grasses spring up from below and wave gracefully their fairy heads across the ditch, touchixxg our hands. And at our feet, all over the dry earth, are flowers : tiny blue forget-me-nots, scarlet pimpernel, veronica, aud corn-flowers ; poppies, too, thrusting their gay heads above the others, and pee ing out from between the high green corn-stalks.

But oil we go, stepping carefully and tenderly as we brush past the soft green ears, on to where at the corner of the field there is a gate and pathway slanting across a freshly mown grass-field. Over this and then another gate, from beyond which come the joyous voices Then there is a large space with haystacks all standing round, some cut, some high and brown, some new and fresh, one, the last, being piled up with the last carrying. Men at the top stand to spread the great heaps that other men and boys hand up on long forks ; women and girls stand about. Close by there is a whitewashed cottage, where lives the old shepherd belonging to the farm ; and beyond, a field off, the red-tiled roof of the farmhouse peeps out from between the leaves of the great elms. Amongst his men stands Jonas Dickinson, the farmer and owner of the wealth around. He is well-to-do, nay rich, and a thorough specimen of the old English yeoman ; openhearted and open-handed, a good master, and a generous father to his one son, whom he has brought uj), as he says, to be a gentleman, and who is the pride of hi« heart.

The hay-harvest is over, and a supper is given to all the workpeople. In a barn hard by, old and brq.wa and covered with mosses, and th?J has seen generations of Dickinsons come and go, there are long tables spread with snowy cloths. In the midst stands Mrs Hinds, the housekeeper, and a sort of cousin of Jonas Dickinson’s—for he lost his wife years ago—giving hey orders to her maidens. Of these there are two : one, a tall slim girl, > nth, who is servant at Mr Did-dnsqn’a 3 the other, a blue-eyed fair girl, with wavy yellow hair, Margaret, or, as she is more generally known, Margie black, daughter of Bi!as Black, the shepherd.

Both girls are pretty, and by birth rank the same; but Ruth is pleaded to call herself a servant ip a gentleman’s house, while Margie only lives in her father’s cottage, which is neat and tidy, but poor and Inanely, Ruth spends the money she earns on herself, and dresses in good clothes ; she has pretty little ways of self-dependence, and adjust her tiny caps on her brown hair with the care of a finished coquette ; while Margie, who earns money too, cannot afford to let it run away on dress, and has to help to keep the house. But though she only wears plain print dresses she looks very

nice and pretty, with her wavy yellow h air plaited up thickly behind, and this festival night a blue bow to fasten her dress under her dimpled chin. She is earning money as well as looking for pleasure now, for though she cannot go out to service like Euth she does various little odd thing?. First of all, she does sewing work ; then she helps in houses when additional hands are wanted ; at times she works out of doors, haymaking and so on ; and she sings in the choir in the village church. A little comes from each of these things, and she manages very well. But with all she and her father are poor, though so far they have never wanted. Silas is getting old, a i-ick wife took all his savings, and Margie will only have her own hands to look to for support when he is gone. However, he is a hearty man yet, and Margie is young and gay, and the future is a something not much thought of. By this time the tables are laid. Food, plentiful and homely, covers the board ; by and bye the last bundle of hay is on the top of the stack ; a shout announces that many, at least, are ready for the feast; and not long after voices come nearer and nearer to the old barn, and Jonas Dickinson, thin, white haired, ruddy-faced, comes up with his son Lancelot to head the supper.

While the old man looks round to see that all is right, and confers with Mrs Hind about provisions and quantities, we will take a look at his son. Lancelot, or, as in his country the name is always abbreviated, Lassie Dickinson is in height and make his father over again. His face is not so weather beaten and he has brown hair instead of white, but the thick close-curling crop is the same, and the fair downy whiskers are com ing in just the same square fashion as his father’s white ones grow. The old man’s ambition of making his son a gentleman has failed if ‘gentleman’ means foppery, dainty ways, a London tailor, and speech interlarded with soft phrases. Lasi-ie has none of these. For some few years he went to a good school, where he might have imbibed a large amount of learning if he had chosen ; but he liked best taking holidays at odd times and running down home for a day, and when at school doing just as much as the day called for and no more. He was up t > anything the other boys proposed, but he never did anything dishonorable or mean, or cowardly, and left with a high character and about twice as much learning as his father. He was a gentleman, if an honest, truehearted, and a pure soul make one ; but he was, and ever would be, a yeoman like his father. He had a loud voice and used plain words, but he could be gentle and tender as any woman to the children about, and he was devoted to his father. On the farm Master Lassie had a good name, and was looked on as a fair branch of the old tree.

The feast begins ; men and women, old and young, come in and sit down. Silence at first re'gns - there is always a sort of awe in these assemblies, where the master is the host. However, the master here was genial, the food was tempting, and it was not long before the good cheer loosened the silent tongues. By the time the slanting evening sun came in there was as much noise as need be, old cronies chatted together, young ones played and made love in rustic fashion ; the old ale sent jokes rattling about; and now a speech was given in honour of the feast and the master by an old man, or a song sung by a young one. ( To ho continued. >