us, and without our being conscious of it, our June skies tell us this, and stir up in our hearts the feeling that drew forth those golden verses of the poet,—— I slept and dreamed that life was beauty, I woke and found that life was duty,- A noontide light and truth to thee. But where am I wandering? Far away from shady lanes and hedges fragrant with wild honeysuckle, where the cool elder flowers. display their tufts of tiny blossom, that make me think of Hans Christian and sumach trees, and tea-pots, and all kinds of things that are not a bit like them. And whilst I have gone into a reverie I am suddenly startled by a blaze of colour, and a bank covered with lilac mallow and scarlet poppies, surmounted by a perfect wall of wild roses, meets my eye. The wild dogwood and young ivy-leaves tone it down a little, so does the wheat-field, waving like a sea of green billows, that the five-barred gate opens upon, and making me ponder what a wise provision it is that the hunting-season is over before the summer comes. And on and on I go, my eye roaming over rich pasture-lands and fields, now alive with busy haymakers, whilst the last notes of the cuckoo are sounding through the land, telling us, if we will only heed its cry, "I waked up the woods to summer, and cheered it with my song; it will miss me when I am gone, and will not linger long after me." I pause to rest by the river-side, where the blue forget-me-nots enamel the mossy banks, and strive for pre-eminence with the yellow water-flags, whilst the white water-lilies near carry away my thoughts to "Sabrina fair" knitting lily flowers into her flowing tresses. And through the shadowy woods I half expect to see Oberon and Titania flitting with all their fairy train-and how do I know but that Puck may not be perched on the tall bulrush opposite to me? And then I fall to musing upon myths and mythic personages in general. How myths suit themselves to different countries! What would the classic gods of Greece do amidst English scenery? Minerva moving majestically across the plain would have no charms for an English poet, and I question much if he would even recognise Venus as his type of beauty. The Muses, too, have not met with much personal adoration since the days of Queen Anne. Old Pan alone holds his ground here as in Greece, and Fauns and Satyrs, Dryads and Hamadryads do not seem altogether out of place amidst our tangled forests. Yet the mythic lore of England deals rather in giants, fairies, and enchantments. Instead A of the labours of Hercules we have the feats of the Seven Champions of Christendom; and our want of hinds with brazen feet, Hydras, and other monstrosities is supplied by the Dun Cow, and the Dragon of Wantley. half-way station we hold between the wild rude myth-heroes of the north, and the more refined gods and goddesses of the south, and our giants are a grade between rough unkempt Skrymner, with his uncouth brothers, and the classic Titans. But what has this to do with the story I am going to tell you? Just this the foundation-stone of all my mythic superstructure was the one sentence, "It all came from a hatful of beans." And then I sailed backward up the stream of Time, and landed at a fair haven where were three tiny urchins poring over picturebooks, and the title of one of the books was "Jack and the Bean-Stalk." A curly-headed little rascal with wonderful eyes and unsmooth hair was diving into its pages, and every now and then he made his comments aloud, "I wish I had a hatful of beans like Jack's; wouldn't I make my fortune!" And then returning from my mental excursion, I asked my friend,— "What came of a hatful of beans?" "This," said he, pointing to a jolly blacktimbered farm-house, of such pretension that it earned for its owner the title of Squire Bligh; though, to tell the truth, he had no more right to it than any of his neighbours, But there was such a wealth of treasure in that house that it guaranteed respectability; and no one ever entered the doors without feeling, as Miss Matilda Tomkin, a lady who read all the periodicals of the day, observed, that you had caught a glimpse of the luxuries and appliances of Oriental life. This might be stretching the point a little, inasmuch as the luxurious items contained in the apartments were decidedly owing to English upholstery; nevertheless, there was no lack of ivory carving, curious screens, inlaid cabinets and ebony caskets, rich striped fabrics, tiger skins, shells, and no one knew what; but the general impression was that it would take a fabulous time to make an inventory of the whole, however practised an appraiser might be employed. "Who is Squire Bligh ?" I asked. "Who was Squire Bligh, you mean," returned my friend. "Sit down, and I will tell you the story." So I sat down, and he told me as follows: and I have been thinking of it ever since, and weaving it into my thoughts with the memory of those tiny children intent upon their marvellous picture-books. "Nigh forty years ago, there was a widow living in this place who had an only son named Jack.” "Yes," I interrupted; "and he was an idle good-for-nothing lad, always in mischief, and an anxiety to his mother." "Who told you so?" asked my friend. "No one," said I; go on with the story." "He went on doing little or nothing, until he was a great fellow of seventeen or eighteen, his chief work being to take the horses down to water for the farmers round-this he did not object to, as he could ride down to the river, and ride up again. One fine evening in the spring he was returning with the horses as usual, when, as he passed a certain stile, he heard some one call to him,— "Jack!' "Here I be,' said Jack, stopping the horses, and looking in the direction from whence the voice came. 'Hoy!' he ejaculated, in a tone expressive of astonishment and gratification, as his eye fell upon the neat little figure of the girl who had been taken to help in the dairy. "What be you doing here, Nelly?' "Waiting to see you, Jack.' "That's kind, at any rate, and it's not many would do it; but I'm a ne'er-do-well, and no one need trouble about me,' said he, somewhat bitterly. “That's just what I came to tell you,' returned the little maiden. "Then you don't care about me?' said he, with a little vexation in his tone. The next day he planted his beans. He had evidently turned over a new leaf, and the widow and her neighbours thought the lad was bewitched, as perhaps he might have been. At any rate he had set to work in earnest, and he soon found plenty to do, the farmers being nothing loth to give employment to one who, despite his idleness, was a general favourite. "Nelly alone held aloof. Jack was getting beyond her patronage; he had suddenly become more manly, and seemed as if he had grown half a head taller all at once; and Nelly turned shy, and it was all he could do to get a stray word from her now and then. "It was clear that she would have nothing to say to him, which Jack thought rather hard after all the trouble he had taken to please her; and the more he pondered over it the less he could understand it, Nelly used to be so friendly. Perhaps if I were a rich man she might give a thought to me,' said Jack; "Care! why should I, for a lazy fellow and so he determined to go elsewhere, to seek like you? I should think not.' "But you might, Nelly.' "Might, indeed! I mightn't do anything of the sort. At any rate, I don't.' “Then what did you come here for?' his fortune, and return and make Nelly his wife. "When he went to say 'Good-bye' to her, he did it in rather a blundering way. 666 'Maybe I shall find you married when I come home again, Nelly,' said the poor lad, "To tell you you ought to be ashamed of looking wistfully at her. yourself.' "There's plenty to do that,' returned the lad. "Yes; but you don't heed them, and you might heed me, Jack. Won't you begin to work a bit?' "I don't know what to begin at.' "Your mother's a nice bit of garden, Jack.' "I've nothing to put in it,' answered Jack, despondingly. "Nonsense,' said Nelly; what a faint heart you have. I'll give you a lot of beans to begin with. You put up the horses, and I'll be back in a minute.' "So Jack put up the horses, and waited for Nelly. Presently she came tripping along, with her apron full of something. "Here,' said she, 'hold your hat.' She poured the beans into it; and he went home. 666 'Maybe you will,' retorted Nelly, if I find any one I like whilst you are away.' "And so they parted, and both repented their speeches when it was too late to recall them. Well, what is to be is to be,' soliloquised Jack, endeavouring to find consolation therein; 'but Nelly's the only woman that shall ever be my wife.' 666 66 When Jack was gone, Nelly went very often to see the Widow Bligh, and was a great comfort to her; and their conversation always turned upon Jack. "A year passed away, and no tidings came of him. Then another, and the two women did not talk so much now, but they sat quietly at their work when Nelly could spare time from the dairy, and it was a consolation to them to be together "At the beginning of the next year Nelly was summoned to her home in a distant county. Her mother was dying, and as she did not come back, the Widow Bligh was left to bear her trouble alone; and through the spring and into the summer she watched and watched, and every morning as she opened her shutters and let in the daylight, she wondered whether that day would bring her son home, and every evening as the daylight faded away she said, 'He may come to-morrow.' "And at length the to-morrow' came, and a handsome sailor walked up the village-street into his mother's cottage; and soon the news spread abroad that Jack Bligh had come home with bags of golden guineas. "But that was not, of course, true. The first person that Jack asked after was Nelly Giles; but he could hear nothing of her. "Never mind her, Jack,' said the widow, who was quite content, now that she had her son, and indeed did not care much for a rival, 'she's not worth thinking of.' "But Jack was not of his mother's opinion, and he was scarcely sorry to go away again, for the old place seemed very dreary without Nelly. "This time he was able to write to his mother occasionally, for he had brushed up his writing; and it was a proud day for the widow when the schoolmaster came in to read her son's letters. "A second time Jack Bligh came home; and this time a hired carriage, laden with boxes and packages, stopped at the widow's door, for Jack was prospering. "But nothing had been heard of Nelly, and Jack could not bear the sight of the fine things he had brought, for he had intended the most of them for her. "It's all through those beans,' thought poor Jack, that I came to go away.' Yet would he have been any nearer had he stayed at home in idleness ? "Fifteen years had passed away, and Jack had prospered so well that he decided upon giving up his sea-life and settling in his native village. So he took the jolly old farm and filled it with his foreign curiosities, and the Widow Bligh presided over it in great state." "And did Jack marry?" I asked. "Don't interrupt me," said my friend. "For a long time he did not, although his mother pointed out more than one girl in the neighbourhood, who would make him a good wife -at last he did." "Oh!" said I, with a kind of sigh. "Wait," continued my friend. "One morning a pale thin woman entered the village, and when she was opposite the old black-timbered house, she asked of a waggoner who was passing, whether the Widow Bligh was still living? 'Squire 'Jack, indeed!' said the man. Bligh's come home, and he lives in that house there.' "The poor woman looked up at the substantial dwelling of the lad to whom she had given the hatful of beans, and her heart died within her. "He'll not care for the like of me,' said she to herself, as she turned to go away again. "But the shock had been too great for her toil and travel-worn frame, and she had not taken many steps before she sank down on the ground. He "The waggoner ran to her assistance. raised her head, pushed back her bonnet, and shouted to the astonished squire, who happened to be returning from his morning's stroll, "Measter, measter! if here beant Nelly Giles !' "This was on a Saturday, and how it all came to be arranged so soon, or whether the Squire even asked Nelly, I don't know; but the next Sunday at church the banns were put up, and in less than three weeks the Squire and Nelly were married. And they live at the old farmhouse to this day, and the Squire changed its name to the 'Bean Farm,' and so it's been called ever since. And they've one daughter, as bright a lass as need be. She does not wear little white linen caps and short petticoats, as her mother used to do; but, for all that, the Squire says she's the very image of what Nelly Giles was when she gave him the hatful of beans." "And where had Nelly been all those years?" said I. "Up far away in the north with her father. He was a poor weak body, and she couldn't leave him till he died, and then she travelled down to see if Jack had come home; for, of course, she knew that Jack liked her, and would never marry anyone else. Only, you see, she never expected him to prosper as he had done." And this was the story my friend told me, and somehow it wove itself into my mind in connection with the fairy legend which the little ones in the fair haven were poring over, and I mingled fiction and fact until I brought myself almost to believe that I had seen the hero of bean-stalk celebrity. For did he not owe his prosperity to a hatful of beans ? And had he not left his widowed mother in her little cottage whilst he went into faroff lands to bring home gold and treasures? And did not they end their days in affluence, just like Jack and his mother in the timehonoured story? JULIA GODDARD. |