say nothing of the relish communicated to our viands by the hearty hospitality of our hostess, who "gaily pressed and smiled." And then the present, our ostensible errand, a patchwork quilt, long the object of Lucy's admiration, was given with due courtesy, and received with abundance of pleased and blushing thanks. At last the evening began to draw in, her husband, who had been absent, returned, and we were compelled to set out homewards, and rode back with our basket of lilies through a beautiful twilight world, inhaling the fragrance of the blossomed furze, listening to the nightingales, and talking of Lucy's good management. DOCTOR TUBB. EVERY country village has its doctor. I allude to that particular department of the medical world, which is neither physician nor surgeon, nor apothecary, although it unites the offices of all three; which is sometimes an old man, and sometimes an old woman, but generally an oracle, and always (with reverence be it spoken) a quack. Our village, which is remarkably rich in functionaries, adorned with the true official qualities, could hardly be without so essential a personage. Accordingly we have a quack of the highest and most extended reputation, in the person of Dr. Tubb, inventor and compounder of medicines, bleeder, shaver, and physicker of man and beast. How this accomplished barber-surgeon came by his fame I do not very well know; his skill he inherited (as I have been told) in the female line, from his great-aunt Bridget, who was herself the first practitioner of the day, the wise woman of the village, and bequeathed to this favourite nephew her blessing, Culpepper's Herbal, a famous salve for cuts and chilblains, and a still.-This legacy decided his fate. A man who possessed a herbal, and could read it without much spelling, who had a still and could use it, had already the great requisites for his calling. He was also blest with a natural endowment, which I take to be at least equally essential to the sucCess of quackery of any sort, especially of dical quackery; namely, a prodigious stock of impudence. Moliere's hero,-who having had the ill-luck to place the heart on the wrong side (I mean the right), and being reminded of his mistake, says coolly, "nous avons changé tout cela"-is modesty itself compared with the brazen front of Dr. Tubb. And it tells accordingly. His patients come to him from far and near; he is the celebrated person (Thomme marquant) of the place. I myself have heard of him all my life as a distinguish ed character, although our personal acquaintance is of a comparatively recent date, and began in a manner sufficiently singular and characteristic. On taking possession of our present abode, about four years ago, we found our garden, and all the gardens of the straggling villagestreet in which it is situated, filled, peopled, infested by a beautiful flower, which grew in such profusion and was so difficult to keep under, that (poor pretty thing!) instead of being admired and cherished and watered and supported, as it well deserves to be, and would be if it were rare, it is disregarded, affronted, maltreated, cut down, pulled up, hoed out, like a weed. I do not know the name of this elegant plant, nor have I met with any one who does; we call it the Spicer, after an old naval officer who once inhabited the white house, just above, and, according to tradition, first brought the seed from foreign parts. It is a sort of large veronica, with a profusion of white gauzy flowers streaked with red, like the apple-blossom. Strangers admire it prodigiously; and so do I-everywhere but in my own garden. I never saw any thing prettier than a whole bed of these spicers; which had clothed the top of a large heap of earth belonging to our little mason by the road-side. Whether the wind had carried the light seed from his garden, or it had been thrown out in the mould, none could tell; but there grew the plants as grass in a meadow, and covered with delicate red and white blossoms like a fairy orchard. I never passed them without stopping to look at them; and, however accustomed to the work of extirpation in my own territories, I was one day half shocked to see a man, his pockets stuffed with the plants, two huge bundles under each arm, and still tugging away, root and branch. "Poor pretty flower," thought I, "not even suffered to enjoy the waste by the road-side! chased from the very common of nature, where the thistle and the nettle may spread and flourish! Poor despised flower!" This devastation did not, however, as I soon found, proceed from disrespect; the spicer-gatherer being engaged in sniffing with visible satisfaction to the leaves and stalks of the plant, which (although the blossom is wholly scentless) emit when bruised a very unpleasant smell. "It has a fine venomous smell," quoth he, in soliloquy, "and will certainly, when stilled, be good for something or other." This was my first sight of Doctor Tubb. We have frequently met since, and are now well acquainted, although the worthy experimentalist considers me as a rival practitioner, an interloper, and hates me accordingly. He has very little cause. My quackery-for I plead guilty to a little of that aptness to offer counsel in very plain and common cases, which those who live much among poor peo ple, and feel an unaffected interest in their master being on a coursing visit in Oxfordshire, health and comfort, can hardly help-my and May having been left behind as too much quackery, being mostly of the cautious, pre- fatigued with a recent hard day's work to stand ventive, safe side, common sense order, stands no chance against the boldness and decision of his all-promising ignorance. He says, Do! I say, Do not! He deals in stimuli, I in sedatives; I give medicine, he gives cordial waters. Alack! alack! when could a dose of rhubarb, even although reinforced by a dole of good broth, compete with a draught of peppermint, a licensed dram? No! no! Doctor Tubb has no cause to fear my practice. a long dirty journey, (note that a greyhound, besides being exceedingly susceptible of bad weather and watery ways, is a worse traveller than any other dog that breathes; a miserable little pug, or a lady's lap-dog, would, in a progress of fifty miles, tire down the slayer of hares and outrunner of race-horses),- May being, as I said, left behind slightly indisposed, the boy who has the care of her, no less a person than the runaway Henry, came suddenly The only patient I ever won from the worthy into the parlour to tell me that she was dying. empiric was his own wife, who had languished Now May is not only my pet but the pet of under his prescriptions for three mortal years, the whole house, so that the news spread uniand at last stole down in the dusk of the even-versal consternation; there was a sudden rush ing, to hold a private consultation with me. I of the female world to the stable, and a genewas not very willing to invade the doctor's ral feeling that Henry was right, when poor territories in my own person, and really feared May was discovered stretched at full length to undertake a case which had proved so ob- in a stall, with no other sign of life than a stinate; I therefore offered her a ticket for the tremendous and visible pulsation of the arteries B. dispensary, an excellent charity, which has about her chest-you might almost hear the rescued many a victim from the clutches of poor heart beat, so violent was the action.our herbalist. But she said that her husband "Bleeding!" "She must be bled!" burst would never forgive such an affront to his skill, simultaneously from two of our corps; and he having an especial aversion to the dispen- immediately her body-servant the boy, who sary and its excellent medical staff, whom he stood compromising his dignity by a very unwas wont to call "book-doctor;" so that wise manly shower of tears, vanished and re-apmeasure was perforce abandoned. My next peared in a few seconds, dragging Doctor Tubb suggestion was more to her taste; I counselled by the skirts, who, as it was Saturday night, her to "throw physic to the dogs;" she did so, was exercising his tonsorial functions in the and by the end of the week she was another tap-room of the Rose, where he is accustomed woman. I never saw such a cure. Her hus- to operate hebdomadally on half the beards of band never made such a one in all the course the parish. of his practice. By the simple expedient of throwing away his decoctions, she is become as strong and hearty as I am. N. B. for fear of misconstruction, it is proper to add, that I do not in the least accuse or suspect the worthy doctor of wishing to get rid of his wifeGod forbid! He is a tolerable husband, as times go, and performs no murders but in the way of his profession: indeed I think he is glad that his wife should be well again; yet he cannot quite forgive the cause of the cure, and continues boldly to assert in all companies, that it was a newly discovered fomentation of yarbs, applied to her by himself about a month before, which produced this surprising recovery; and I really believe that he thinks so; one secret of the implicit confidence which he inspires, is that triumphant reliance on his own infallibility with which he is possessedthe secret perhaps of all creators of enthusiasm, from Mahomet and Cromwell to the "Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders that he sang." As if to make some amends to this prescribergeneral for the patient of whom I had deprived him, I was once induced to seek his services medically, or rather surgically, for one of my own family, for no less a person than May, poor pretty May! One November evening, her The doctor made his entry apparently with considerable reluctance, enacting for the first and last time in his life the part of Le Medecin malgré lui. He held his razor in one hand and a shaving-brush in the other, whilst a barber's apron was tied round the shabby, rusty, out-at-elbow, second-hand, black coat, renewed once in three years, and the still shabbier black breeches, of which his costume usually consists. In spite of my seeming, as I really was glad to see him, a compliment which from me had at least the charm of novelty,— in spite of a very gracious reception, I never saw the man of medicine look more completely astray. He has a pale, meagre, cadaverous face at all times, and a long lank body that seems as if he fed upon his own physic (although it is well known that gin, sheer gin, of which he is by no means sparing, is the only distilled water that finds its way down his throat):-but on this night, between fright for Henry had taken possession of him without even explaining his errand,-and shame to be dragged into my presence whilst bearing the insignia of the least dignified of his professions, his very wig, the identical brown scratch which he wears by way of looking professional, actually stood on end. He was followed by a miscellaneous procession of assistants, very kind, very curious, and THE BLACK VELVET BAG. very troublesome, from that noisy neighbour pertinents, flung the horse-ball on the dungof ours, the well-frequented Rose Inn. First hill, and the decoction into the pond, bled marched mine host, red-waistcoated and jolly poor May, and turned out the doctor; after as usual, bearing a huge foaming pewter pot which, it is almost needless to say that the of double X, a sovereign cure for all sublu- patient recovered. nary ills, and lighted by the limping hostler, who tried in vain to keep pace with the swift strides of his master, and held at arm's length before him a smoky horn lantern, which might well be called dark. Next tripped Miss Phoebe (this misadventure happened before the grand event of her marriage with the patten-maker), with a flaring candle in one hand and a glass of cherry-brandy, reserved by her mother for grand occasions, in the other-autre remède! Then followed the motley crew of the taproom, among whom figured my friend Joel, with a woman's apron tied round his neck, and his chin covered with lather, he having been the identical customer-the very shavee, whose beard happened to be under discussion when the unfortunate interruption occurred. After the bustle and alarm had in some measure subsided, the doctor marched up gravely to poor May, who had taken no sort of notice of the uproar. "She must be bled!" quoth I. "She must be fomented and physicked!" quoth the doctor; and he immediately produced from either pocket a huge bundle of dried herbs (perhaps the identical venomoussmelling spicer), which he gave to Miss Phoebe to make a decoction, secundem artem, and a huge horse-ball, which he proceeded to divide into boluses;-think of giving a horse-ball to my May! She must be bled immediately!" said I. "She must not!" replied the doctor. "You shall bleed her!" cried Henry. "I won't!" rejoined the doctor. "She shall be fo"-mented he would have added; but her faithful attendant, thoroughly enraged, screamed out," She sha'n't" and a regular scolding match ensued, during which both parties entirely lost sight of the poor patient, and mine host of the Rose had nearly succeeded in administering his specific-the double X, which would doubtless have been as fatal as any prescription of licentiate or quack. The worthy landlord had actually forced open her jaws, and was about to pour in the liquor, when I luckily interposed in time to give the ale a more natural direction down his own throat, which was almost as well accustomed to such potations as that of Boniface. He was not at all offended at my rejection of his kindness, but drank to my health and May's recovery |with equal good-will. In the mean time the tumult was ended by my friend, the cricketer, who, seeing the turn which things were taking, and quite regardless of his own plight, ran down the village to the lea, to fetch another friend of mine, an old gamekeeper, who set us all to rights in a moment, cleared the stable of the curious im HAVE any of my readers ever found great convenience in the loss, the real loss, of actual tangible property, and been exceedingly provoked and annoyed when such property was restored to them? If so, they can sympathize with a late unfortunate recovery, which has brought me to great shame and disgrace. There is no way of explaining my calamity but by telling the whole story. Last Friday fortnight was one of those anomalies in weather with which we English people are visited for our sins; a day of intolerable wind, and insupportable dust; an equinoctial gale out of season; a piece of March unnaturally foisted into the very heart of May; just as, in the almost parallel misarrangement of the English counties, one sees (perhaps out of compliment to this peculiarity of climate, to keep the weather in countenance as it were) a bit of Wiltshire plumped down in the very middle of Berkshire, whilst a great island of the county palatine of Durham figures in the centre of canny Northumberland. Be this as it may, on that remarkable windy day did I set forth to the good town of B., on the feminine errand, called shopping. Every lady who lives far in the country, and seldom visits great towns, will understand the full force of that comprehensive word; and I had not been a shopping for a long time: I had a dread of the operation, arising from a consciousness of weakness. I am a true daughter of Eve, a dear lover of bargains and bright colours; and knowing this, have generally been wise enough to keep, as much as I can, out of the way of temptation. At last a sort of necessity arose for some slight purchases, in the shape of two new gowns from London, which cried aloud for making. Trimmings, ribands, sewing-silk, and lining, all were called for. The shopping was inevitable, and I undertook the whole concern at once, most heroically resolving to spend just so much, and no more; and half-comforting myself that I had a full morning's work of indispensable business, and should have no time for extraneous extravagance. There was, to be sure, a prodigious accumulation of errands and wants. The evening before, they had been set down in great form, on a slip of paper, headed thus" things wanted."-To how many and various catalogues that title would apply, from the red bench of the peer, to the oaken settle of the cottager-from him who wants a blue riband, to him who wants bread and cheese! My list was astounding. It was written in double columns, in an invisible hand; the long intractable words were brought into the ranks by the Procrustes mode-abbreviation; and, as we approached the bottom, two or three were crammed into one lot, clumped, as the bean-setters say, and designated by a sort of short-hand, a hieroglyphic of my own invention. In good open printing my list would have cut a respectable figure as a catalogue, too; for, as I had a given sum to carry to market, I amused myself with calculating the proper and probable cost of every article; in which process I most egregiously cheated the shopkeeper and myself, by copying, with the credulity of hope, from the puffs in the newspapers, and expecting to buy fine solid wearable goods at advertising prices. In this way I stretched my money a great deal farther than it would go, and swelled my catalogue; so that, at last, in spite of compression and shorthand, I had no room for another word, and was obliged to crowd several small but important articles, such as cotton, laces, pins, needles, shoe-strings, &c. into that very irregular and disorderly storehouse-that place where most things deposited are lost-my memory, by courtesy so called. The written list was safely consigned, with a well-filled purse, to my usual repository, a black velvet bag; and, the next morning, I and my bag, with its nicely-balanced contents of wants and money, were safely conveyed in a little open carriage to the good town of B. There I dismounted, and began to bargain most vigorously, visiting the cheapest shops, cheapening the cheapest articles, yet wisely buying the strongest and the best; a little astonished at first, to find everything so much dearer than I had set it down, yet soon reconciled to this misfortune by the magical influence which shopping possesses over a woman's fancy-all the sooner reconciled, as the monitory list lay unlooked at, and unthought of, in its grave receptacle, the black velvet bag. On I went, with an air of cheerful business, of happy importance, till my money began to wax small. Certain small aberrations had occurred, too, in my economy. One article that had happened, by rare accident, to be below my calculation, and, indeed, below any calculation, calico at ninepence, fine, thick, strong, wide calico at ninepence, (did ever man hear of anything so cheap?) absolutely enchanted me, and I took the whole piece: then, after buying for M. a gown, according to order, I saw one that I liked better, and bought that, too. Then I fell in love, was actually captivated by a sky-blue sash and handkerchief,-not the poor, thin, greeny colour which usually passes under that dishonoured name, but the rich, full tint of the noon-day sky; and a cap-riband, really pink, that might have vied with the inside leaves of a moss-rose. Then, in hunting after cheap. ness, I got into obscure shops, where, not finding what I asked for, I was fain to take something that they had, purely to make a proper compensation for the trouble of lugging out drawers, and answering questions.-Lastly, I was fairly coaxed into some articles by the irresistibility of the sellers,-by the de mure and truth-telling look of a pretty Quaker, who could almost have persuaded the head off one's shoulders, and who did persuade me that ell-wide muslin would go as far as yard and a half: and by the fluent impudence of a lying shopman, who, under cover of a welldarkened window, affirmed, on his honour, that his brown satin was a perfect match to my green pattern, and forced the said satin down my throat accordingly. With these helps, my money melted all too fast: at half past five my purse was entirely empty; and, as shopping with an empty purse has by no means the relish and savour of shopping with a full one, I was quite willing and ready to go home to dinner, pleased as a child with my purchases, and wholly unsuspecting the sins of omission, the errands unperformed, which were the natural result of my unconsulted memo randa and my treacherous memory. Home I returned, a happy and proud woman, wise in my own conceit, a thrifty fashionmonger, laden, like a pedlar, with huge packages in stout brown holland, tied up with whipcord, and genteel little parcels, papered and packthreaded in shopmanlike style. At last we were safely stowed in the pony-chaise, which had much ado to hold us, my little black bag lying, as usual, in my lap; when, as we ascended the steep hill out of B., a sudden puff of wind took at once my cottage-bonnet and my large cloak, blew the bonnet off my head, so that it hung behind me, suspended by the riband, and fairly snapped the string of the cloak, which flew away, much in the style of John Gilpin's, renowned in story. My companion pitying my plight, exerted him. self manfully to regain the fly-away garments, shoved the head into the bonnet, or the bonnet over the head (I do not know which phrase) best describes the manœuvre,) with one hand, and recovered the refractory cloak with the other. This last exploit was certainly the most difficult. It is wonderful what a tug he was forced to give, before that obstinate cloak. could be brought round: it was swelled with the wind like a bladder, animated, so to say, like a living thing, and threatened to carry pony and chaise, and riders and packages, backwards down the hill, as if it had been a sail, and we a ship. At last the contumacious garment was mastered. We righted; and, by dint of sitting sideways, and turning my back on my kind comrade, I got home without any farther damage than the loss of my bag, which, though not missed before the chaise had been unloaded, had undoubtedly gone by the board in the gale; and I lamented my old and trusty companion, without in the least foreseeing the use it would probably be of to my reputation. tress's The who were naturally disposed to steal for stealing's sake; so I went to bed in the comfortable assurance that it was gone for ever. But there is nothing certain in this world-not even a thief's dishonesty. Two old women, Immediately after dinner (for in all cases, who had pounced at once on my valuable proeven when one has bargains to show, dinner perty, quarrelled about the plunder, and one must be discussed) I produced my purchases. of them, in a fit of resentment at being cheatThey were much admired; and the quantity, ed in her share, went to the mayor of B. and when spread out in our little room, being alto- informed against her companion. The mayor, gether dazzling, and the quality satisfactory, an intelligent and active magistrate, immethe cheapness was never doubted. Every-diately took the disputed bag, and all its conbody thought the bargains were exactly such tents, into his own possession; and as he is as I meant to get-for nobody calculated; and also a man of great politeness, he restored it the bills being really lost in the lost bag, and as soon as possible to the right owner. the particular prices just as much lost in my very first thing that saluted my eyes, when I memory (the ninepenny calico was the only awoke in the morning, was a note from Mr. article whose cost occurred to me,) I passed, Mayor, with a sealed packet. The fatal truth without telling anything like a fib, merely by was visible; I had recovered my reticule, and a discreet silence, for the best and thriftiest lost my reputation. There it lay, that identibargainer that ever went shopping. After cal black bag, with its name-tickets, its camsome time spent very pleasantly, in admira- bric handkerchief, its empty purse, its uncontion on one side, and display on the other, we sulted list, its thirteen bills, and its two letters; were interrupted by the demand for some of one from a good sort of lady-farmer, inquiring the little articles which I had forgotten.. the character of a cook, with half a sonnet "The sewing-silk, please ma'am, for my mis- written on the blank pages; the other from a gown." Sewing-silk! I don't know literary friend, containing a critique on the -look about." Ah, she might look long plot of a play, advising me not to kill the king cough!-no sewing-silk was there." Very too soon, with other good counsel, such as strange!" Presently came other inquiries- might, if our mayor had not been a man of "Where's the tape, Mary ?" "The tape!" sagacity, have sent a poor authoress, in a Yes, my dear; and the needles, pins, cot- Mademoiselle-Scuderi-mistake, to the Tower. ton, stay-laces, boot-laces ;" - "the bobbin, That catastrophe would hardly have been the ferret, shirt-buttons, shoe-strings" quoth worse than the real one. All my omissions she of the sewing-silk, taking up the cry; and have been found out. My price-list has been forthwith began a search as bustling, as active, compared with the bills. I have forfeited my and as vain, as that of our old spaniel, Brush, credit for bargaining. I am become a by-word after a hare that has stolen away from her for forgetting. Nobody trusts me to purchase form. At last she suddenly desisted from her a paper of pins, or to remember the cost of a rummage Without doubt, ma'am, they are penny riband. I am a lost woman. My bag in the reticule, and all lost," said she, in a is come back, but my fame is gone. very pathetic tone. 66 Really," cried I, a litthe conscience-stricken, "I don't recollect ;perhaps I might forget." Depend on it, my love, that Harriet's right," interrupted one whose injunctions are always kind; "those are just the little articles that people put in reticules, and you never could forget so many things; besides, you wrote them down.” “I don't know-I am not sure."-But I was not listened to;-Harriet's conjecture had been metamorphosed into a certainty; all my sins of omission were stowed in the reticule; and, before bed-time, the little black bag held foren things enough to fill a sack. Never was a reticule so lamented by all but its owner; a boy was immediately despatched to look for it, and on his return empty-handed, there was even a talk of having it cried. My ere, on the other hand, was all directed to prevent its being found. I had the good luck to lose it in a suburb of B. renowned for filching, and I remembered that the street was, at that moment, full of people: the bag did acally contain more than enough to tempt those 66 66 WALKS IN THE COUNTRY. THE DELL. MAY 2d. A delicious evening; bright sunshine; light summer air; a sky almost cloudless; and a fresh yet delicate verdure on the hedges and in the fields: - an evening that seems made for a visit to my newly-discovered haunt, the mossy dell, one of the most beautiful spots in the neighbourhood, which, after passing times out of number the field which it terminates, we found out about two months ago, from the accident of May's killing a rabbit there. May has had a fancy for the place ever since; and so have I. Thither, accordingly, we bend our way; through the village ;-up the hill ;-along the common; past the avenue; across the bridge; and by the mill. How deserted the |