ette, and other sweet stragglers, that, except to edge
through them occasionally for the purpose of planting, or weeding, or
watering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody thinks of
walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate and
trackless step, like a swan through the water; and we, its two-footed
denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and go
out for a walk towards sunset, just as if we had not been sitting in
the open air all day.

[Footnote 27: Sphinx lugustri, privet hawk-moth.]

What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street! Saturday
night is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this is
Whitsun-Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London
journeymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit
their families. A short and precious holiday, the happiest and
liveliest of any; for even the gambols and merry-makings of Christmas
offer but a poor enjoyment compared with the rural diversions, the
Mayings, revels, and cricket-matches of Whitsuntide.

We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on Monday, not played by the
men, who, since a certain misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are, I
am sorry to say, rather chop-fallen, but by the boys, who, zealous for
the honour of their parish, and headed by their bold leader, Ben
Kirby, marched in a body to our antagonists' ground the Sunday after
our melancholy defeat, challenged the boys of that proud hamlet, and
beat them out and out on the spot. Never was a more signal victory.
Our boys enjoyed this triumph with so little moderation that it had
like to have produced a very tragical catastrophe. The captain of the
Beech-hill youngsters, a capital bowler, by name Amos Stone, enraged
past all bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball at
Ben Kirby with so true an aim that if that sagacious leader had not
warily ducked his head when he saw it coming, there would probably
have been a coroner's inquest on the case, and Amos Stone would have
been tried for manslaughter. He let fly with such vengeance, that the
cricket-ball was found embedded in a bank of clay five hundred yards
off, as if it had been a cannon shot. Tom Coper and Farmer Thackum,
the umpires, both say they never saw so tremendous a ball. If Amos
Stone live to be a man (I mean to say if he be not hanged first) he'll
be a pretty player. He is coming here on Monday with his party to play
the return m