But the delight of the walk of three miles over hill and dale and moor and farm to Mr.Lammie's! The boys, if not as wild as colts--that is, as wild as most boys would have been--were only the more deeply excited.That first summer walk, with a goal before them, in all the freshness of the perfecting year, was something which to remember in after days was to Falconer nothing short of ecstasy.The westering sun threw long shadows before them as they trudged away eastward, lightly laden with the books needful for the morrow's lessons.Once beyond the immediate purlieus of the town and the various plots of land occupied by its inhabitants, they crossed a small river, and entered upon a region of little hills, some covered to the top with trees, chiefly larch, others cultivated, and some bearing only heather, now nursing in secret its purple flame for the outburst of the autumn.The road wound between, now swampy and worn into deep ruts, now sandy and broken with large stones.Down to its edge would come the dwarfed oak, or the mountain ash, or the silver birch, single and small, but lovely and fresh; and now green fields, fenced with walls of earth as green as themselves, or of stones overgrown with moss, would stretch away on both sides, sprinkled with busily-feeding cattle.Now they would pass through a farm-steading, perfumed with the breath of cows, and the odour of burning peat--so fragrant! though not yet so grateful to the inner sense as it would be when encountered in after years and in foreign lands.For the smell of burning and the smell of earth are the deepest underlying sensuous bonds of the earth's unity, and the common brotherhood of them that dwell thereon.Now the scent of the larches would steal from the hill, or the wind would waft the odour of the white clover, beloved of his grandmother, to Robert's nostrils, and he would turn aside to pull her a handful.Then they clomb a high ridge, on the top of which spread a moorland, dreary and desolate, brightened by nothing save 'the canna's hoary beard' waving in the wind, and making it look even more desolate from the sympathy they felt with the forsaken grass.This crossed, they descended between young plantations of firs and rowan-trees and birches, till they reached a warm house on the side of the slope, with farm-offices and ricks of corn and hay all about it, the front overgrown with roses and honeysuckle, and a white-flowering plant unseen of their eyes hitherto, and therefore full of mystery.From the open kitchen door came the smell of something good.But beyond all to Robert was the welcome of Miss Lammie, whose small fat hand closed upon his like a very love-pudding, after partaking of which even his grandmother's stately reception, followed immediately by the words 'Noo be dooce,'
could not chill the warmth in his bosom.
I know but one writer whose pen would have been able worthily to set forth the delights of the first few days at Bodyfauld--Jean Paul.
Nor would he have disdained to make the gladness of a country school-boy the theme of that pen.Indeed, often has he done so.If the writer has any higher purpose than the amusement of other boys, he will find the life of a country boy richer for his ends than that of a town boy.For example, he has a deeper sense of the marvel of Nature, a tenderer feeling of her feminality.I do not mean that the other cannot develop this sense, but it is generally feeble, and there is consequently less chance of its surviving.As far as my experience goes, town girls and country boys love Nature most.Ihave known town girls love her as passionately as country boys.
Town boys have too many books and pictures.They see Nature in mirrors--invaluable privilege after they know herself, not before.
They have greater opportunity of observing human nature; but here also the books are too many and various.They are cleverer than country boys, but they are less profound; their observation may be quicker; their perception is shallower.They know better what to do on an emergency; they know worse how to order their ways.Of course, in this, as in a thousand other matters, Nature will burst out laughing in the face of the would-be philosopher, and bringing forward her town boy, will say, 'Look here!' For the town boys are Nature's boys after all, at least so long as doctrines of self-preservation and ambition have not turned them from children of the kingdom into dirt-worms.But I must stop, for I am getting up to the neck in a bog of discrimination.As if I did not know the nobility of some townspeople, compared with the worldliness of some country folk.I give it up.We are all good and all bad.God mend all.Nothing will do for Jew or Gentile, Frenchman or Englishman, Negro or Circassian, town boy or country boy, but the kingdom of heaven which is within him, and must come thence to the outside of him.
To a boy like Robert the changes of every day, from country to town with the gay morning, from town to country with the sober evening--for country as Rothieden might be to Edinburgh, much more was Bodyfauld country to Rothieden--were a source of boundless delight.Instead of houses, he saw the horizon; instead of streets or walled gardens, he roamed over fields bathed in sunlight and wind.Here it was good to get up before the sun, for then he could see the sun get up.And of all things those evening shadows lengthening out over the grassy wildernesses--for fields of a very moderate size appeared such to an imagination ever ready at the smallest hint to ascend its solemn throne--were a deepening marvel.
Town to country is what a ceiling is to a c?lum.
