(To be concluded in our next.)

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

  “A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.” 
  SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

POLSTEAD.

(For the Mirror.)

The village of Polstead, though obscurely situate, is not entirely destitute of celebrity, chiefly derived from an abundance of the small, sweet, black cherries,[10] so common in London, and known for miles round by the exclusive denomination of Polstead cherries.  There are here large orchards of cherry-trees; and it is a common observation, that the face of a Polstead man is an index of a good or bad cherry season; if productive, he may be seen with his chin in the air, his hands in his pockets, and a saucy answer on the tip of his tongue; if, on the contrary, the crop of cherries has failed, he hangs his head, folds his hands behind him, and if asked whence he comes, replies, in a subdued tone, “From poor Poustead.”

Unhappily, as in the event that has given notoriety to this obscure village, there are some exceptions, but the inhabitants are for the most part peaceable, well conducted, and only remarkable for their orthodox belief in ghosts and witches.  An old gentleman, who died there some years ago, lamented till his death a sight he had lost when a boy, only for the want of five pounds—­a man having undertaken for that sum to make all the witches in the parish dance on the knoll together; and though he grew up a penurious man, (and lived a bachelor till fifty), he never ceased to lament that such an opportunity of seeing these weird-sisters collected together, never occurred again.  He used to say he had seen a witch “swam on Polstead Ponds,” and “she went over the water like a cork.”  He had, when a boy, stopped a wizard in his way to Stoke, by laying a line of single straws across the path; and, concealed in a hedge, he had watched an old woman (alias witch) feeding her imps in the form of three blackbirds.

The house in which Mrs. Corder lives is one of the best in the place, where, strictly speaking, there are not above half-a-dozen, including the manor-house and rectory, the remainder being mere cottages; and yet the parish is a rich one.  It is singular, that among the peasantry are to be found the names of Montague, Bedford, Salisbury, Mortimer, and Holland, while the cognomens of those who inhabit the houses may be nearly comprised in as many syllables.

In the adjoining village of Stoke is the seat of Sir William Rowley, and detached from it a street, called Thirteen Kings’-street, where, according to local tradition, thirteen kings once met.  In the same parish is Scotland-hall, and another detached street, called Scotland-street, containing some five or six cottages; and half a mile from thence is a hilly field, of a dark clayey soil, occasioned, says tradition, by the flowing of blood down the hill, during a terrible battle fought there between the Scots and English.