This village of our's is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and all
the church bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if to
call them together. I must try to give some notion of the
various figures.

First, there is a groupe suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door
customers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table
smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's fiddle.
Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are
surrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their ball
is mending by Master Keep himself, under the joint superintendence of
Ben Kirby and Tom Coper, Ben showing much verbal respect and outward
deference for his umpire's judgment and experience, but managing to get
the ball done his own way after all; whilst outside the shop, the rest
of the eleven, the less-trusted commons, are shouting and bawling round
Joel Brent, who is twisting the waxed twine round the handles of
bats--the poor bats, which please nobody, which the taller youths are
despising as too little and too light, and the smaller are abusing as
too heavy and two large. Happy critics! winning their match can hardly
be a greater delight--even if to win it they be doomed! Farther down the
street is the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a
day's holiday from B., escorted by a tall footman in a dashing livery,
whom she is trying to curtesy off before her deaf grandmother sees him.
I wonder whether she will succeed!

Ascending the hill are two couples of different description, Daniel Tubb
and Sally North, walking boldly along like licensed lovers; they have
been asked twice in church, and are to be married on Tuesday; and
closely following that happy pair, near each other, but not together,