under our garden wall, through long meadows. In Winter the wild
ducks made letters of the alphabet flying. On the other side of the
copses bounding our home, there was a park containing trees old as the
History of England, John Thresher said, and the thought of their
venerable age enclosed me comfortably. He could not tell me whether he
meant as old as the book of English History; he fancied he did, for the
furrow-track follows the plough close upon; but no one exactly could
swear when that (the book) was put together. At my suggestion, he fixed
the trees to the date of the Heptarchy, a period of heavy ploughing. Thus
begirt by Saxon times, I regarded Riversley as a place of extreme
baldness, a Greenland, untrodden by my Alfred and my Harold. These heroes
lived in the circle of Dipwell, confidently awaiting the arrival of my
father. He sent me once a glorious letter. Mrs. Waddy took one of John
Thresher's pigeons to London, and in the evening we beheld the bird cut
the sky like an arrow, bringing round his neck a letter warm from him I
loved. Planet communicating with planet would be not more wonderful to
men than words of his to me, travelling in such a manner. I went to
sleep, and awoke imagining the bird bursting out of heaven.

Meanwhile there was an attempt to set me moving again. A strange young
man was noticed in the neighbourhood of the farm, and he accosted me at
Leckham fair. 'I say, don't we know one another? How about your
grandfather the squire, and your aunt, and Mr. Bannerbridge? I've got
news for you.'

Not unwilling to hear him, I took his hand, leaving my companion, the
miller's little girl, Mabel Sweetwinter, at a toy-stand, while Bob, her
brother and our guardian, was shying sticks in a fine attitude. 'Yes, and
your father, too,' said the young man; 'come along and see him; you can
run?' I showed him how fast. We were pursued by Bob, who fought for me,
and won me, and my allegiance instantly returned to him. He carried me
almost the whole of the way back to Dipwell. Women must feel for the
lucky heroes who win them, something of what I felt for mine; I kissed
his bloody face, refusing to let him wipe it. John Thresher said to me at
night, 'Ay, now you've got a notion of boxing; and will you believe it,
Master Harry, there's people fools enough to want to tread that ther'
first-rate pastime under foot? I speak truth, and my word for 't, they'd
better go in petticoats. Let clergymen preach as in duty b