The Dogs Rolled On The Sward, But,
Though In The Shadow, They Could Not Extend Themselves Sufficiently Nor
Pant Fast Enough.
Yonder the breeze that came up over the forest on its
way to the downs blew through the group of trees on the knoll, cooling
the deer as it passed.
MY OLD VILLAGE.
'John Brown is dead,' said an aged friend and visitor in answer to my
inquiry for the strong labourer.
'Is he really dead?' I asked, for it seemed impossible.
'He is. He came home from his work in the evening as usual, and seemed to
catch his foot in the threshold and fell forward on the floor. When they
picked him up he was dead.'
I remember the doorway; a raised piece of wood ran across it, as is
commonly the case in country cottages, such as one might easily catch
one's foot against if one did not notice it; but he knew that bit of wood
well. The floor was of brick, hard to fall on and die. He must have come
down over the crown of the hill, with his long slouching stride, as if
his legs had been half pulled away from his body by his heavy boots in
the furrows when a ploughboy. He must have turned up the steps in the
bank to his cottage, and so, touching the threshold, ended. He is gone
through the great doorway, and one pencil-mark is rubbed out. There used
to be a large hearth in that room, a larger room than in most cottages;
and when the fire was lit, and the light shone on the yellowish red brick
beneath and the large rafters overhead, it was homely and pleasant. In
summer the door was always wide open. Close by on the high bank there was
a spot where the first wild violets came. You might look along miles of
hedgerow, but there were never any until they had shown by John Brown's.
If a man's work that he has done all the days of his life could be
collected and piled up around him in visible shape, what a vast mound
there would be beside some! If each act or stroke was represented, say by
a brick, John Brown would have stood the day before his ending by the
side of a monument as high as a pyramid. Then if in front of him could be
placed the sum and product of his labour, the profit to himself, he could
have held it in his clenched hand like a nut, and no one would have seen
it. Our modern people think they train their sons to strength by football
and rowing and jumping, and what are called athletic exercises; all of
which it is the fashion now to preach as very noble, and likely to lead
to the goodness of the race. Certainly feats are accomplished and records
are beaten, but there is no real strength gained, no hardihood built up.
Without hardihood it is of little avail to be able to jump an inch
farther than somebody else.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 191 of 204
Words from 98896 to 99415
of 105669
