The Story of My Boyhood and Youth | Page 2

bad words. All in vain. In spite of the
sure sore punishments that followed like shadows, the natural inherited
wildness in our blood ran true on its glorious course as invincible and
unstoppable as stars.
My earliest recollections of the country were gained on short walks
with my grandfather when I was perhaps not over three years old. On
one of these walks grandfather took me to Lord Lauderdale's gardens,
where I saw figs growing against a sunny wall and tasted some of them,
and got as many apples to eat as I wished. On another memorable walk
in a hay-field, when we sat down to rest on one of the haycocks I heard
a sharp, prickly, stinging cry, and, jumping up eagerly, called

grandfather's attention to it. He said he heard only the wind, but I
insisted on digging into the hay and turning it over until we discovered
the source of the strange exciting sound,--a mother field mouse with
half a dozen naked young hanging to her teats. This to me was a
wonderful discovery. No hunter could have been more excited on
discovering a bear and her cubs in a wilderness den.
I was sent to school before I had completed my third year. The first
schoolday was doubtless full of wonders, but I am not able to recall any
of them. I remember the servant washing my face and getting soap in
my eyes, and mother hanging a little green bag with my first book in it
around my neck so I would not lose it, and its blowing back in the
sea-wind like a flag. But before I was sent to school my grandfather, as
I was told, had taught me my letters from shop signs across the street. I
can remember distinctly how proud I was when I had spelled my way
through the little first book into the second, which seemed large and
important, and so on to the third. Going from one book to another
formed a grand triumphal advancement, the memories of which still
stand out in clear relief.
The third book contained interesting stories as well as plain
reading-and spelling-lessons. To me the best story of all was
"Llewellyn's Dog," the first animal that comes to mind after the
needle-voiced field mouse. It so deeply interested and touched me and
some of my classmates that we read it over and over with aching hearts,
both in and out of school and shed bitter tears over the brave faithful
dog, Gelert, slain by his own master, who imagined that he had
devoured his son because he came to him all bloody when the boy was
lost, though he had saved the child's life by killing a big wolf. We have
to look far back to learn how great may be the capacity of a child's
heart for sorrow and sympathy with animals as well as with human
friends and neighbors. This auld-lang-syne story stands out in the
throng of old schoolday memories as clearly as if I had myself been one
of that Welsh hunting-party--heard the bugles blowing, seen Gelert
slain, joined in the search for the lost child, discovered it at last happy
and smiling among the grass and bushes beside the dead, mangled wolf,
and wept with Llewellyn over the sad fate of his noble, faithful dog

friend.
Another favorite in this book was Southey's poem "The Inchcape Bell,"
a story of a priest and a pirate. A good priest in order to warn seamen in
dark stormy weather hung a big bell on the dangerous Inchcape Rock.
The greater the storm and higher the waves, the louder rang the
warning bell, until it was cut off and sunk by wicked Ralph the Rover.
One fine day, as the story goes, when the bell was ringing gently, the
pirate put out to the rock, saying, "I'll sink that bell and plague the
Abbot of Aberbrothok." So he cut the rope, and down went the bell
"with a gurgling sound; the bubbles rose and burst around," etc. Then
"Ralph the Rover sailed away; he scoured the seas for many a day; and
now, grown rich with plundered store, he steers his course for
Scotland's shore." Then came a terrible storm with cloud darkness and
night darkness and high roaring waves, "Now where we are," cried the
pirate, "I cannot tell, but I wish I could hear the Inchcape bell." And the
story goes on to tell how the wretched rover "tore his hair," and "curst
himself in his despair," when "with a shivering shock" the stout ship
struck on the Inchcape Rock, and went down with Ralph and his
plunder beside the good priest's bell. The story appealed to our love of
kind deeds and of wildness and fair play.
A lot