| 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 |
| 1 | 154 | 308 | 461 | 615 |
|
CHAPTER III.
HAPPY, thrice happy, were the months, and weeks, and hours of that year.
Friendship, hand in hand with admiration, tenderness and respect, built a
bower of delight in my heart, late rough as an untrod wild in America, as
the homeless wind or herbless sea. Insatiate thirst for knowledge, and
boundless affection for Adrian, combined to keep both my heart and
understanding occupied, and I was consequently happy. What happiness is so
true and unclouded, as the overflowing and talkative delight of young
people. In our boat, upon my native lake, beside the streams and the pale
bordering poplars--in valley and over hill, my crook thrown aside, a
nobler flock to tend than silly sheep, even a flock of new-born ideas, I
read or listened to Adrian; and his discourse, whether it concerned his
love or his theories for the improvement of man, alike entranced me.
Sometimes my lawless mood would return, my love of peril, my resistance to
authority; but this was in his absence; under the mild sway of his dear
eyes, I was obedient and good as a boy of five years old, who does his
mother's bidding.
After a residence of about a year at Ulswater, Adrian visited London, and
came back full of plans for our benefit. You must begin life, he said: you
are seventeen, and longer delay would render the necessary apprenticeship
more and more irksome. He foresaw that his own life would be one of
struggle, and I must partake his labours with him. The better to fit me for
this task, we must now separate. He found my name a good passport to
4
4
Page
Quick Jump
|