Mary Russell Mitford

“ Phoebe had her own little garden; and to fill that garden, Jesse was never weary of seeking after the roots of such wild plants as he himself thought pretty, or such as he found (one can hardly tell how) were considered by better judges to be worthy of a place in the parterre. The different orchises, for instance, the white and lilac primrose, the golden oxslip, the lily of the valley, the chequered fritillary, which blows so freely along the banks of the Kennett, and the purple campanula which covers with equal profusion the meadows of the Thames, all found their way to Phoebe's flower-plats. ”

“ Fairer by the famous wells To this present day ne'er grew, Never better nor more true. Here be grapes whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good; Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the squirrel whose teeth crack 'em. Deign, oh fairest fair, to take 'em! For these black-eyed Dryope Hath often times commanded me, With my clasped knee to climb; See how well the lusty time Hath deck'd their rising cheeks in red, Such as on your lips is spread. Here be berries for a queen, Some be red, and some be green ”

“ Phoebe did come to live at the Moors, and he did not go to prison.
On the contrary, so violent was the revulsion of feeling in the honest hearts of the good yeoman, John Cobham, and his faithful servant, old Daniel, and so deep the remorse which they both felt for their injustice and unkindness towards the friendless lad, that there was considerable danger of their falling into the opposite extreme, and ruining him by sudden and excessive indulgence. Jesse, however, was not of a temperament to be easily spoilt. ”

“ And Venus, apparently recognising the voice, walked towards the stranger, (who by this time had dismounted,) laid the hare down at his feet, and then sprang up herself to meet and return his caresses.
"Jesse! It must be Jesse Cliffe!" said Phoebe, in a tone which wavered between exclamation and interrogatory.
"It can be none other," responded her grandfather. "I'd trust Venus beyond all the world in the matter of recognising an old friend, and we all know that except her old master and her young mistress, she never cared a straw for anybody but Jesse. ”

“ He had been so long an outcast from human society that he had become as wild and shy as his old companions of the fields and the coppice, the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. The hare which he had himself given to Phoebe was easier to tame than Jesse Cliffe. ”

“ One look at his sweet little friend repaid him twenty-fold; and although farmer Cobham had really worked himself into believing that there was danger in allowing the beautiful child to approach poor Jesse, and had therefore on different pretexts forbidden her visits to the Moors, she did yet happen in her various walks to encounter that devoted adherent oftener than would be believed possible by any one who has not been led to remark, how often in this best of all possible worlds, an earnest and innocent wish does as it were fulfil itself. ”

“ There was not so good a hare-finder throughout that division of the county; and it was curious to observe how completely his skill in sportmanship overcame the contempt with which grooms and gamekeepers, to say nothing of their less fine and more tolerant masters, were wont to regard poor Jesse's ragged garments, the sunburnt hair and skin, the want of words to express even his simple meaning, and most of all, the strange obliquity of taste which led him to prefer Kennett water to Kennett ale. Sportsmanship, sheer sportsmanship, carried him through all! ”

“ The calm and glassy river, gay with unnumbered vessels; the magnificent buildings which line its shores; the combination of all that is loveliest in art or in nature, with all that is most animating in motion and in life, produce a picture gratifying alike to the eye and to the heart—and the more exhilarating, or rather perhaps the more soothing, because, for London, so singularly peaceful and quiet. ”

“ But the uncultivated garden, the grass growing in the bricked court, the pond green with duckweed, and the absence of all living things, cows, horses, pigs, turkeys, geese, or chickens—and still more of those talking, as well as living things, women and children—all impressed on the beholder that strange sensation of melancholy which few can have failed to experience at the sight of an uninhabited human habitation. ”

“ Her competitor, a yellow dog called Smoaker, was let loose, and the whole party awaited in eager expectation of a hare.
"Soho!" cried John Cobham, and off the dogs sprang; Venus taking the turn, as he had foretold, running as true as in her first season, doing all the work, and killing the hare, after a course which, for any part Smoaker took in it, might as well have been single-handed.
"Look how she's bringing the hare to my grandfather!" exclaimed Phoebe; "she always brings her game!" ”

“ Whether infected by old Daniel's dislike, (and be it observed, an unfounded prejudice, that sort of prejudice for which he who entertains it does not pretend to account even to himself is unluckily not only one of the most contagious feelings in the world, but one of the most invincible:) whether Farmer Cobham were inoculated with old Daniel's hatred of Jesse, or had taken that very virulent disease the natural way, nothing could exceed the bitterness of the aversion which gradually grew up in his mind towards the poor lad. ”

“ Jesse delivered the panting, trembling leveret to the first person he met, with no other explanation than might be comprised in the words, "Miss Phoebe!" and followed Daniel quietly to the hall.
"Poaching, was he? Taking the hare from the wire? And you saw him? You can swear to the fact?" quoth John Cobham, rubbing his hands with unusual glee. "Well, now we shall be fairly rid of the fellow! Take him to the Chequers for the night, Daniel, and get another man beside yourself to sit up with him. It's too late to disturb Sir Robert this evening. ”

“ There is nothing in the great city like the scene from Waterloo bridge at sunset. I see it in my mind's eye at this instant.
It is not, however, of the Loddon that I am now to speak. The scene of my little story belongs to a spot quite as solitary, but far less beautiful, on the banks of the Kennett, which, a few miles before its junction with the Thames, passes through a tract of wild, marshy country—water-meadows at once drained and fertilised by artificial irrigation, and totally unmixed with arable land ”

“ Of course these gifts were not only graciously accepted, but duly returned; cakes, apples, tarts, and gingerbread, halfpence in profusion, and now and then a new shilling, or a bright sixpence—all, in short, that poor Phoebe had to bestow, she showered upon her uncouth favourite, and she would fain have amended his condition by more substantial benefits: but authoritative as she was with her grandfather in other instances, in this alone her usual powers of persuasion utterly failed. ”

“ It is like some gorgeous town in fairyland, astir with busy and happy creatures, the hum of whose voices comes floating from the craft upon the river, or the quays by the water side. Life is there, and sound and motion ”

“ From the moment that John Cobham detected such an approach to the habits of civilised life as sleeping under a roof, he looked upon the wild son of the Moors as virtually reclaimed, and so it proved. Every day he became more and more like his fellow-men. He abandoned his primitive oven, and bought his bread at the baker's. He accepted thankfully the decent clothing necessary to his attending Miss Phoebe in her rides round the country. He worked regularly and steadily at whatever labour was assigned to him, receiving wages like the other farm servants ”

“ Why there's Phoebe's pet Venus, Snowball's great grandam, who was twelve years old last May, and has not seen a hare these three seasons, shall give him the go-by in the first hundred yards. Go and fetch Venus, Daniel! It will do her heart good to see a hare again," added he, answering the looks rather than the words of his granddaughter, for she had not spoken, "and I'll be bound to say she'll beat him out of sight He won't come in for a turn." ”

“ By that heavenly form of thine, Brightest fair, thou art divine, Sprung from great, immortal race Of the Gods; for in thy face Shines more awful majesty, Than dull, weak mortality Dare with misty eyes behold And live! ”

“ Never mind old Daniel! I'm sure he'll do no harm;—will you, Jesse? Venus likes him, grandpapa; see how she puts her pretty nose into his hand; and Venus never likes bad people. How often I have heard you say that. And I like him, poor fellow! He looks so thin and so pitiful. Do let him stay, dear grandpapa!"
And John Cobham sat down on the bank, and took the pitying child in his arms, and kissed and blessed her, and said, that, since she wished it, Jesse should stay ”

“ John Cobham had married late in life, and had been left, after seven years of happy wedlock, a widower with five children. In his family he may be said to have been singularly fortunate, and singularly unfortunate. Promising in no common degree, his sons and daughters, inheriting their mother's fragile constitution as well as her amiable character, fell victims one after another to the flattering and fatal disease which had carried her off in the prime of life ”

“ Even the shy and foreign-looking kingfisher, most gorgeous of English birds, who, like the wild Indian retiring before the foot of man, has nearly deserted our populous and cultivated country, knows and loves the lovely valley of the Loddon. ”

“ JESSE CLIFFE. By Mary Russell Mitford
Living as we do in the midst of rivers, water in all its forms, except indeed that of the trackless and mighty ocean, is familiar to our little inland county. The slow majestic Thames, the swift and wandering Kennett, the clear and brimming Loddon, all lend life and verdure to our rich and fertile valleys. ”

“ One solitary old labourer, a dreary bachelor, inhabited, it is true, a corner of the old roomy house, calculated for the convenient accommodation of the patriarchal family of sons and daughters, men-servants and maid-servants, of which a farmer's household consisted in former days ”