say that there is any one spot on the
earth's surface in which he has enjoyed so much real, wholesome,
happy life as in a hay field? He may have won renown on horseback
or on foot at the sports and pastimes in which Englishmen glory;
he may have shaken off all rivals, time after time, across the
vales of Aylesbury, or of Berks, or any other of our famous
hunting counties; he may have stalked the oldest and shyest buck
in Scotch forests, and killed the biggest salmon of the year in
the Tweed, and the trout in the Thames; he may have made topping
averages in first-rate matches of cricket; or have made long and
perilous marches, dear to memory, over boggy moor, or mountain,
or glacier; he may have successfully attended many
breakfast-parties, within drive of Mayfair, on velvet lawns,
surrounded by all the fairyland of pomp, and beauty, and luxury,
which London can pour out; he may have shone at private
theatricals and at-homes; his voice may have sounded over hushed
audiences at St. Stephen's, or in the law courts; or he may have
had good times in any other scenes of pleasure or triumph open to
Englishmen; but I much doubt whether, on putting his
recollections fairly and quietly together, he would not say at
last that the fresh mown hay field is the place where he has
spent the most hours which he would like to live over again, the
fewest which he would wish to forget.

As children, we stumble about the new-mown hay, revelling in the
many colors of the prostrate grass and wild flowers, and in the
power of tumbling where we please without hurting ourselves; as
small boys, we pelt one another and the village schoolgirls and
our nursemaids and young lady cousins with the hay, till, hot and
weary, we retire to tea or syllabub beneath the shade of some
great oak or elm, standing up like a monarch out of the fair
pasture; or, following the mowers, we rush with eagerness on the
treasures disclosed by the scythe-stroke,--the nest of the
unhappy late laying titlark, or careless field-mouse; as big
boys, we toil ambitiously with the spare forks and rakes, or
climb into the wagons and receive with open arms the delicious
load as it is pitched up from below, and rises higher and higher
as we pass along the long lines of haycocks; a year or two later
we are strolling there with our first sweethearts, our souls and
tongues, loaded with sweet thoughts and soft speeches; we take a
turn with the scythe as the bronzed mowers lie in the s