wheels; down kept floating the flour into the bag suspended below; the miller, with his 'mealy face,' quiet and good-humoured; a pleasant smell came from the grinding corn and the drying corn in the kiln below; and from the mill-door, oh, what a prospect!

The bakehouse was the place for a winter's day. There the great oven was fed with sticks and furze, which made a blaze and a crackling as good as a bonfire. The great long forks thrust in fagot after fagot; the great long rakes raked about the embers in that awful fiery furnace; and all the while, Adam Woodward, with his cotton night-cap on his head, and his shirt-sleeves turned up to his shoulders, would pour his yeast into the great kneadingtrough, and knead his dough, and roll it out, and cut it up, and weigh it out, and mould it into loaves, and then into the oven with it on the great oven-shovel. While all the village-dames came flocking in with their huge brown loaves to be baked too.

Was there ever a village-lad that has not found, too, the attractions of the wheelwright's shed? Our wheelwright's shop was just on my way to the school, and was a sore temptation to me many a time and oft, as I went, to linger an hour, when I was in fact an hour too late, and in danger of being greeted with that wise rhyme

'A miller, a mollar,

A ten-o'clock scholar.'

But really it is not every one who knows the charms of watching the creation of a cart-wheel? First, you see the wheelwright, choosing out, with a very knowing look, and with the most serious counsel of his men, a block of wood from that heap of blocks that you have seen long enough piled up by the wall in his shed. That is

There! the

to be the nave or centre of a cart-wheel. selection is made. The man is busy upon it-shaving it with his spokeshave; boring it for the axle; cutting holes all round, or, as he calls it, making mortises for the spokes. Next, he is as busy shaving and sloping the spokes, squaring the ends to fit the mortises; and then the very next time you pass, the spokes are sticking into the nave like the rays of a great star-fish. See! the man is now busy cutting a number of bent pieces of wood-these he calls the fellies; and when they are put together, and stuck upon the spokes, you see that they make the circle of the wheel; and it wants nothing to complete the wheel but the tire or iron-rim, that runs all round. Well, it is ten to one but you meet the blacksmith tumbling this rim like a great hoop up the street as you come home. I have done so many a time, and then I was all on the alert to be present at its putting on, for that seemed to me a very busy and important thing. Fire and water and many a hearty stroke must be brought into immediate action for the completion of that great work. A huge fire of wood is blazing in the yard; a secret pit is opened in the shop-floor, by the removal of some boards that conceal it. It is a long and narrow pit, now filled with water, and a stump set up on each side of it. When the tire is exactly fitted to the wheel, it is thrown into the fire, and shavings and chips piled on to make it as hot as possible. Presently, the tire is red-hot. Then, with great tongs, it is dragged forth and applied to the wheel, which is laid flat on the ground to receive it. The men, with their hammers, stand ready to beat it down to its place; and amidst smoke and flame and clanging blows, the work is done. Up the wheel is snatched, and hurried to the pit in the floor; an axle is thrust through it, and laid

upon the stumps; and the wheel is spun round, fizzing, hissing, smoking, and steaming in water, and sending out a pungent smell, that, with the reek and steam, fills and darkens the place. That busy and exciting achievement accomplished, it was only natural to wish to see the body of the cart set upon its wheels; and all the painting in blue and scarlet, with which farmers love to have their vehicles adorned, done in its bravery.

Such were some of the principal trades in the hamlet that used to absorb many a pleasant hour. There were others, indeed, such as stocking-weaving; but the above were the main attractions. I must not, however, close this chapter without mention of a certain old Jack-of-all-trades, who was always to be had for the asking, and was a neverfailing resource when I wanted something to do, and somebody to help and amuse me. Many a lad will recollect some most useful and agreeable old fellow as William Worley, and happy is the village that has such an accomplished and accommodating person in it. Where the old man came from, I can't tell; for he was not a native of the place, though he had been in it more years than I had lived. He was a little man, with remarkably white hair and pink complexion; dressed in a blue coat and waistcoat; a hat of a broadish rim that regularly took a turn up behind. He invariably wore white lambs-wool stockings and buckled shoes, and walked with a cane. It was evident that the old man was not a worker-Sundays and week-days, he was always dressed the same. He lived in a small cottage in a retired garden; and his wife was employed in nursing, so that he generally had the place all to himself, and was as glad of a companion as I was. He was a florist; his garden displayed showy beds of the most splendid auriculas, tulips, and polyanthuses; and it

was a great delight to me to help him to weed his beds of a pleasant sunny morning, to arrange his glasses, and to listen to him while he praised his favourite flowers. I verily believed that no such flowers were to be found elsewhere in the kingdom. But the place into which I should have desired to penetrate more than all, was his bedroom. This seemed to be a perfect treasury of all sorts of good and curious things. Nuts and apples, walnuts, stuffed birds, walking-sticks, fishing-rods, flower-seeds of curious sorts, and various other desirable things from time to time came forth from thence in a manner which only made me desire to see how many others were left behind. But into that sanctum honest William never took anybody. If my father wanted a walking-stick, he had only to give the slightest hint to William, and presently he would be seen coming in with one, varnished as bright as the flower of the meadow-crowfoot. Indeed, his chief delights were to wander through the wood with his eyes on the watch for good sticks, or for curious birds, or to saunter along the meadows by the stream-angling and gossiping in a quiet way to some village listener like myself about a hundred country things. People called him an idle man, because he never was at work on anything that brought him in a penny. But he had no family to provide for, and his wife got enough, and they might have something besides for aught I know, and why should he work for what he did not want? In my eyes he seemed, and seems still, one of the wisest sort of men. He passed his time in innocent and agreeable occupations. His flowers, and his bees, and his birds-for he had always two or three that used to hang by the side of his cottage on fine days, and sing with all their might were his constant delight. He knew where a fish was to

be caught, or rare bird to be seen; and if you wanted a fishing-rod or a stick, he was happier to give it than you were to receive it. There were a hundred little things that he was ever and anon manufacturing, and giving to just the people that they would most please. A screw nut-cracker, was it not the very thing to delight a lad like me? A bone apple-scoop, why it was a treasure to some old person. A mouse-trap, or a mole-trap, or a flycage he was the man that came quietly walking in with it just as you were lamenting the want of it. Nay, he was the man to set them, and come regularly to look after them, till they had done what they were wished to do; and if you wanted a person to carry a message, or go on some important little matter to the next village, you thought directly of William Worley, and he was sure to be in the way, and ready to take his stick and be off about it as seriously and earnestly as if he were to have ample reward for it. And an ample reward he had-the belief that he was of service to his neighbours. Honest

old William, he was one of a simple and true-hearted generation, and of that generation himself the simplest and truest. Peace to his memory !

THE THRESHER.

1.

Oh! his limbs are strong as boughs of oak,

And his thews like links of mail.

How his quick breath streams while round him gleams With a whirl his mighty flail!