PEGGY CHARSLEY.
—po—

ERHAPS many of my young
readers have never seen a beech-
wood. Well, then, all I have to
say is, I am sorry for it; for
nothing is more beautiful than a
beech-wood in spring. A real
wood, covering many hundreds of

winds through the smooth olive
boles of the trees, ever and anon
giving sweet glimpses down the
shadowy glades. A wood where
only beeches grow.

Above is a canopy of the tenderest green,
through which the sunshine streams in golden
shafts, here and there, falling in small round patches
on the ground. By-the-by, why are these sunlit
patches always round? In the hot summer weather
no tree affords so much shade as the beech, and the
‘twilight solitude’ of these forests is most grateful.

In late autumn, when ‘a sombre radiance covers
each tree,’ how beautiful are the beechen woods!
Before their crisp leaves fall and redden the earth
beneath, how glorious a show do they make! each
tree becomes a burning bush of brilliant orange-red !

Even in winter, a beech-wood is beautiful.

‘Walk now among the forest trees:
Saidst thou that they were stripped and bare?
Each heavy bough is bending down
With snowy leaves and flowers—the crown
Which winter regally doth wear.’

Thave walked through these woods at Christmas-
tide, on a moonlight night, when the earth was
covered with her snowy warmth, and the intricate
tracery of the boughs was repeated with the greatest
truth and delicacy in the sparkling snow; and still
the wood was lovely as ever. This brings me to my
story of poor Peggy Charsley.

 

Buckinghamshire is noted for its chalk hills, cherry .

orchards, and beech-woods; nowhere do the latter
thrive more luxuriantly, the chalky soil seeming to
suit their growth; and the inhabitants of many a
cottage obtain their living from them.

As one of our older poets says,—

‘Beech made their chests, their beds, their jointed stools;
Beech made the board, the platter, and the bowls.’

They also work them for other people. ©

Chairs, too, they make in great quantities, the wood
being easily worked by the turner. ‘These simple-
hearted people, living away from the world, often
a long distance from towns, would make their
purchases from pedlers, who by supplying their wants
turned an honest penny for themselves, and gained
a scanty livelihood. One of these well-known itinerant
traders was old Peggy Charsley, who carried her
basket of wares from hamlet to hamlet, over many a
long mile, through all kinds of weather; but none
were more welcome than she, and many were the bit
and sup she got in her weary wanderings at wayside
villages or lone farmhouses, the inmates of which
were always glad to hear her budget of news, or to
make some trifling purchase during her short stay.

acres, through which the path’

 

  

In her wanderings she was always accompanied by
a little black-and-white dog, a faithful companion for
many years, grown old in her service, who trotted
along by her side like the trusty little fellow that he
was. Fido she called him, and he was true as steel.

It is now more than seventy years ago that I am
speaking of, when one gloomy December day, after
a long: and wearisome walk, the old woman and her
dog were tramping along the lanes and woods, over
the snow-covered ground, on their way to Amersham.
Peggy had just left Stockinge Farm, where she had
been kindly treated with a cup of tea and some food.
The children had come home .from school, and were
settling round the wood fire which blazed brightly
between the dog-irons on the hearth, to spend the
evening in reading a little chap-book just purchased
from Peggy, when the poor old woman started on her
dreary way, which led her through one of the woods
by which the farmhouse was almost encompassed.

‘Bad night, Peggy! Good night, Fido!’ were the
last words the poor lone woman heard as she closed
the latch of the door, which shut her out of the great
warm house-place into the cold, dark, blustering
night. :

Darkness had indeed come on apace, and before
Peggy entered the wood the snow began to fall
thick and fast, the wind roared in the branches above
and drifted the snowflakes into her old weather-
beaten face as she pursued her way. So dark
it was, she wandered from the path and soon got
bewildered in her endeavours to regain it. In this
uncertainty, surrounded by the thick gloom of the
wood, and blinded by the snow, she at last fell down
the steep side of an open and unguarded chalk-pit.

Poor old Peggy! never more didst thou gladden
the eyes of expectant purchasers with thy approach.
Never again did children clap their hands with glee
at the sight of the old woman who brought them
‘ pallets’ of toffy. And never again—oh ! never again,
shall Fido hear thy kind voice, or feel thy tender
caresses! For a poor mangled corpse was all that
remained at the bottom of the horrid chasm in that
dark December night.

The next morning dawned calmly and brightly
through the frosty air, and the snow sparkled and
glistened in the sunshine like myriads of diamonds.

Little did Farmer Keene, as he was called, or any
of his family, dream of the ill-fortune that had be-
fallen their late visitor. Farmer Keene’s household,
besides himself and wife, consisted of three children,

 

the serving-man, and a maid. The children were

named Richard, Mary, and John—three as fair little
blue-eyed beings as you would see in a day’s march.
‘Little Dicky’—he was rarely called by any-other
name—was the eldest, and had of late been sent to
school at Amersham.

‘Now, Dicky, be you ready ?’ his mother called out
to him soon after their early breakfast, as she looked
over the farmyard towards the black wooden sheds,
from one of which Master Dick soon came out. He
was a bright, active little urchin, who ran to his mother
for his dinner-basket, which held a thick sandwich of
bread and bacon, a turnover, and some bread and
cheese; and was soon on his way to school after
Kissing his mother and receiving the caution not to
loiter on the way: for, be it known, Master Dick was