is handsome, of pleasing expression, and a model
of perfect cleanliness in household and person.
A friend of mine, who derives the name of
the Dark-mouth Arms from the landlady,
considers Job fortunate in his transition from the
black eyes of the old ring to the black eyes
of the new. Job is mild-tempered, and, when
not offended or drunk, keeps the peace like
a constable off duty, or a policeman in a
gentleman's kitchen. Mrs. Crawley being of a
similar disposition, under similar conditions,
but not otherwise, it cannot be asserted that
their matrimonial felicity is unruffled. On the
contrary, violent storms occur, and Job will
occasionally be provoked to knock his darling
down; and she to lay his head open by the
adroitly directed fling of a quart pot or
decanter. Yet they really love one another
after their fashion. Let any one lay a rude
touch on either, in presence of the other, and
try!

The next cottage to me is a like small
domicile, with a like small garden (perhaps
thirty paces by fifteen), the occupant of which
was seldom visible when I came into the
Out-of-the-way Corner. During the year,
he came down, now and then, to look at
something in some neatish sheds or out-
houses, and to sleep, and go away. I was
informed by Mr. Stillwell, when I hired my
cottage, that his name was Codling, and that
he was officially and respectably connected with
the Corporation of London. This was true, but
yet Mr. Codling was a mysterious personage
until the spring season commenced and brought
him out. Then there was bustle and preparation
in the Codling halls. A handsome tent was
erected in the garden, and ranges of symmetrical
steps or benches were laid down, and speedily
covered with flower-pots of many a varying size.
I now discovered that my neighbour was a
tulip-fancier, and that in that pretty piece of
ground (not as spacious as a moderate, middle-
class drawing-room) he was bringing to
perfection the annual result of his competitive skill
and unwearied attention. The canvas was
shifted up and down, according to the weather,
and I laughed at the glimpses I got of the
budding flowers, and the extraordinarily minute
pains bestowed upon them. We, on our side of
Mr. Codling, were courteously requested not to
burn any weeds; and Messrs. Stillwell and
Mills were entreated not to smoke a pipe, nor I
a cigar, when the wind blew south-east, south,
south-west, or west: because the deteriorating
odour would be wafted to the tulips, and it
would be injurious to them to close the tent in
that direction. In due time I was invited to
the annual show, and met a large party, including
amateur florists from several parts of the
Continent. Mr. Codling gave a City-like lunch,
and pointed out to me the first prize, for which
he had received three hundred guineas from
one of his guests. I acknowledged it to be very
pretty, but thought some specimen as low as
ten or five guineas quite as beautiful. The
company looked upon me with sovereign
contempt, and I took an early opportunity to steal
away.

Steal away; all very well to say so; but
we are situated on the heaviest and stiffest
loam in England, and rapid locomotion is
often an extreme difficulty with us. The
doctor prescribed daily walking exercise to
an invalid neighbour, and though he stuck to
it, he withered and died in two of the sweet,
moist spring months, on the soil so favourable
to tulips.

Mr. MacTweedy is a gardener living on the
top of the gently sloping hill, with a small
extent of ground, and two or three insignificant
glass houses. But these same glass houses are
a fortune, maintaining him in respectable
competency; he is always to be found, with his staff
of two or three, labouring to a nicety in the
cultivation of his produce. Strawberries, so
premature as to sell for a guinea the thumb-
pottle in Covent-garden market (about a
shilling and ninepence per strawberry), are the
foremost and first-fruits of his skill, and they are
followed by other delicacies, so much out of
season as to bring very high prices. Adjacent
is Thomson, another and more general gardener,
with larger premises: of whom all I know is,
that, when going to leave the Out-of-the-way
Corner for a few veeks, I asked him to keep
my half-dozen fancy fowls, and he did. They
strayed; but Mills told me he had never seen a
Dorking anywhere about.

I am afraid I must confess to a sneaking
friendship for Mills. Certainly I cannot rate
him as a sportsman of the highest order, though
I am sure that, if he had possessed the means
to rent a manor in the Highlands of Scotland,
his deeds would have put to shame those pro
tempore autocrats whose purses carry further
and better than their guns. I was acquainted
with one of these, who never sent me a feather,
but who told me he had shot three seasons (he
never shot anything else), and that a ptarmigan
was a species of cock-of-the-wood or turkey.
Besides, Mr. Mills is always in the way: not in
the sense of obstruction, but of usefulness and
helping hand. In all his dealings with his
fellow-creatures, too, he is as honest as he is
obliging; and, to see him glorified under the
grand shining dark disc of Mrs. Crawley at the
Dark-mouth Arms, when he has deserved her
countenance, is a spectacle not to be effaced from
the mind of the picturesque-loving beholder.
But he has other qualities or accomplishments
of which it behoves me to speak. He has
improved his vocal organs beyond belief. There
is not a bird in the air, or a beast on the earth,
or, I had almost said a fish in the water (dumb
as they are asserted to be), or an insect,
anywhere, whose voice he cannot imitate to perfection.
As a hen gathers her chickens, so can
Mills, at eve, call a covey to his feet. He can
chirp birds from the trees, and bring hares (not
rabbits) to stop and listen. One sunny evening,
on a sunny hedgerow bank, he asked me if I
would like to look at a weasel? On my answering
in the affirmative, he uttered a curious