The Last Man | Page 7

the stimulants of companionship and applause. Perdita was all-sufficient to herself.
Notwithstanding my lawless habits, my disposition was sociable, hers recluse. My life
was spent among tangible realities, hers was a dream. I might be said even to love my
enemies, since by exciting me they in a sort bestowed happiness upon me; Perdita almost
disliked her friends, for they interfered with her visionary moods. All my feelings, even
of exultation and triumph, were changed to bitterness, if unparticipated; Perdita, even in
joy, fled to loneliness, and could go on from day to day, neither expressing her emotions,
nor seeking a fellow-feeling in another mind. Nay, she could love and dwell with
tenderness on the look and voice of her friend, while her demeanour expressed the
coldest reserve. A sensation with her became a sentiment, and she never spoke until she
had mingled her perceptions of outward objects with others which were the native growth
of her own mind. She was like a fruitful soil that imbibed the airs and dews of heaven,
and gave them forth again to light in loveliest forms of fruits and flowers; but then she
was often dark and rugged as that soil, raked up, and new sown with unseen seed.
She dwelt in a cottage whose trim grass-plat sloped down to the waters of the lake of
Ulswater; a beech wood stretched up the hill behind, and a purling brook gently falling
from the acclivity ran through poplar-shaded banks into the lake. I lived with a farmer
whose house was built higher up among the hills: a dark crag rose behind it, and, exposed
to the north, the snow lay in its crevices the summer through. Before dawn I led my flock
to the sheep-walks, and guarded them through the day. It was a life of toil; for rain and
cold were more frequent than sunshine; but it was my pride to contemn the elements. My
trusty dog watched the sheep as I slipped away to the rendezvous of my comrades, and
thence to the accomplishment of our schemes. At noon we met again, and we threw away
in contempt our peasant fare, as we built our fire-place and kindled the cheering blaze
destined to cook the game stolen from the neighbouring preserves. Then came the tale of

hair-breadth escapes, combats with dogs, ambush and flight, as gipsey-like we
encompassed our pot. The search after a stray lamb, or the devices by which we elude or
endeavoured to elude punishment, filled up the hours of afternoon; in the evening my
flock went to its fold, and I to my sister.
It was seldom indeed that we escaped, to use an old-fashioned phrase, scot free. Our
dainty fare was often exchanged for blows and imprisonment. Once, when thirteen years
of age, I was sent for a month to the county jail. I came out, my morals unimproved, my
hatred to my oppressors encreased tenfold. Bread and water did not tame my blood, nor
solitary confinement inspire me with gentle thoughts. I was angry, impatient, miserable;
my only happy hours were those during which I devised schemes of revenge; these were
perfected in my forced solitude, so that during the whole of the following season, and I
was freed early in September, I never failed to provide excellent and plenteous fare for
myself and my comrades. This was a glorious winter. The sharp frost and heavy snows
tamed the animals, and kept the country gentlemen by their firesides; we got more game
than we could eat, and my faithful dog grew sleek upon our refuse.
Thus years passed on; and years only added fresh love of freedom, and contempt for all
that was not as wild and rude as myself. At the age of sixteen I had shot up in appearance
to man's estate; I was tall and athletic; I was practised to feats of strength, and inured to
the inclemency of the elements. My skin was embrowned by the sun; my step was firm
with conscious power. I feared no man, and loved none. In after life I looked back with
wonder to what I then was; how utterly worthless I should have become if I had pursued
my lawless career. My life was like that of an animal, and my mind was in danger of
degenerating into that which informs brute nature. Until now, my savage habits had done
me no radical mischief; my physical powers had grown up and flourished under their
influence, and my mind, undergoing the same discipline, was imbued with all the hardy
virtues. But now my boasted independence was daily instigating me to acts of tyranny,
and freedom was becoming licentiousness. I stood on the brink of manhood; passions,
strong as the trees of a forest, had already taken root