THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS.
THE FIELD-PLAY.
I. Uptill-a-Thorn.
"Save the nightingale alone;
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Lean'd her breast uptill a thorn."
She pinned her torn dress with a thorn torn from the bushes through which she had scrambled to the hayfield. The gap from the lane was narrow, made more narrow by the rapid growth of summer; her rake caught in an ash-spray, and in releasing it she "ranted" the bosom of her print dress. So soon as she had got through she dropped her rake on the hay, searched for a long, nail-like thorn, and thrust it through, for the good-looking, careless hussy never had any provision of pins about her. Then, taking a June rose which pricked her finger, she put the flower by the "rant," or tear, and went to join the rest of the hay-makers. The blood welled up out of the scratch in the finger more freely than would have been sup-
