come Jem Tanner and Susan Green, the poor culprits of the wheat-hoeing.
Ah! the little clerk hath not relented! The course of true love doth not
yet run smooth in that quarter. Jem dodges along, whistling "Cherry
Ripe," pretending to walk by himself, and to be thinking of nobody; but
every now and then he pauses in his negligent saunter, and turns round
outright to steal a glance at Susan, who, on her part, is making believe
to walk with poor Olive Hathaway, the lame mantua-maker, and even
affecting to talk and to listen to that gentle humble creature as she
points to the wild flowers on the common, and the lambs and children
disporting amongst the gorse, but whose thoughts and eyes are evidently
fixed on Jem Tanner, as she meets his backward glance with a blushing
smile, and half springs forward to meet him; whilst Olive has broken off
the conversation as soon as she perceived the preoccupation of her
companion, and began humming, perhaps unconsciously, two or three lines
of Burns, whose "Whistle and I'll come to thee, my love," and "Gi'e me a
glance of thy bonny black ee," were never better exemplified than in the
couple before her. Really it is curious to watch them, and to see how
gradually the attraction of this tantalizing vicinity becomes
irresistible, and the rustic lover rushes to his pretty mistress like
the needle to the magnet. On they go, trusting to the deepening
twilight, to the little clerk's absence, to the good humour of the happy
lads and lasses, who are passing and re-passing on all sides--or rather,
perhaps, in a happy oblivion of the cross uncle, the kind villagers, the
squinting lover, and the whole world. On they trip, linked arm-in-arm,
he trying to catch a glimpse of her glowing face under her bonnet, and
she hanging down her head and avoiding his gaze with a mixture of
modesty and coquetry, which well becomes the rural beauty. On they go,
with a reality and intensity of affection, which must overcome all
obstacles; and poor Olive follows with art evident sympathy in their
happiness, which makes her almost as enviable as they; and we pursue our