the gardens, they pay a short visit, perhaps, to the monster
grape-vine, with its myriads of clusters of grapes, all of which Her
Gracious Majesty is supposed to devour; and then they return to their
dinner beneath some giant chestnut-tree in the park. The cloth is
spread at the foot of the huge trunk; the gashed joints of the
Sunday's baked meats, flanked by a very mountainous gooseberry pie,
with crusty loaves and sections of cheese and pats of butter, cut a
capital figure among the heterogeneous contribution of pitchers,
preserve-jars, tin-cans, mugs and jugs, shankless rummers and
wineglasses, and knives and forks of every size and pattern, from the
balance handles and straight blades of to-day, to the wooden haft and
curly-nosed cimeter of a century back. Their sharpened appetites make
short work of the cold meats and pies. Treble X of somebody's own
corking fizzes forth from brown jar and black bottle, and if more is
wanted, it is fetched from the neighbouring tavern. Dinner done, the
fiddle strikes up, and a dance on the greensward by the young people,
while the old ones, stretched under the trees, enjoy a quiet gossip
and a refreshing pipe, fills up the afternoon. There is always
somebody at this crisis who is neither too old to dance nor too young
to smoke a gossipping pipe, and so he does both at intervals--rushing
now into the dance, drawn by the irresistible attraction of the
fiddle, and now sidling back again to his smoke-puffing chums,
impelled by the equally resistless charms of tobacco. Then and
therefore he is branded as a deserter, and a file of young lasses lay
hands on him, and drag him forth in custody to the dance; and after a
good scolding from laughing lips, and a good drubbing from white
handkerchiefs, they compromise the business at last by allowing him to
dance with his pipe in his mouth.

By five o'clock, Mrs Grundy has managed, with the connivance of Jack
the driver, somehow or other to boil the kettle, and a cup of tea is
ready for all who are inclined to partake. The young folks for the
most part prefer the dance: they can have tea any day--they will not
dance on the grass again till next year perhaps; so they make the most
of their time. By and by, the fiddler's elbow refuses to wag any
longer: he is perfectly willing himself, as he says, 'to play till
all's blue; but you see,' he adds, 'bones won't do it.' 'Never mind,'
says the Beau Nash of the day: 'sack your badger, old boy, and go a