Clifton College Scientific Society. 3 



Oh ! Eobert had been to Browiiheath and round to Camp- 

 mount, and home through the meadows. 



But it was very dull ; he hardly saw a single person ; he 

 had rather by half have gone by the turnpike road. 



' But where is William ? ' 



Oh ! William started with him, but was so tedious — always 

 stopping to look at this thing and that — that he preferred 

 walking alone, and so went on. 



Presently, in comes Master William, dressed, no doubt, as 

 we wretched boys used to be dressed forty years ago, in his 

 fi-ill collar and skeleton monkey jacket, and light ti'ousers 

 buttoned over it, and not coming down to his ancles, and a 

 pair of low shoes that always came off in heavy ground — 

 and terribly dirty and wet he is ; but he never had such a 

 pleasant walk in his Ufe, and has brought home a hand- 

 kerchief full of curiosities. 



He has got a piece of mistletoe, and wants to know what 

 it is ; and seen a woodpecker and wheatear, and got strange 

 flowers off the heath; and hunted a peewit, because he 

 thought its Aving was broken, till of course it led him into a 

 bog, and wet he got ; but he did not mind, for in the bog he 

 fell in with an old man cutting turf, who told him all about 

 turf-cutting, and gave him an adder ; and then he went up 

 a hill, and saw a grand prospect, and wanted to go again 

 and make out the geography of the county by Carey's old 

 county map — which was our only map in those days ; and 

 because the place was called Campmount, he looked for a 

 Roman camp, and found one ; and then he went to the river, 

 and saw twenty things more, and so on, and so on, till he 

 brought home ciiriosities enough, and thoughts enough to 

 last him a week. 



Whereon Mr. Andrews, who seems a sensible old gentle- 

 man enough, tells him all about his curiosities, and then it 

 tm-ns out that Master William has been over exactly the 

 same ground as Master Eobert, who saw nothing at all. 



Whereon, says Mr. Andrews, truly enough, in his solemn 

 old-fashioned way, ' So it is, one man walks through the 

 world with his eyes open, another with them shut, and upon 

 this difference depends all the superiority of knowledge 

 which one man acquires over another. I have known sailors 

 who had been in all quarters of the world, and could tell you 

 nothing but the signs of the tippling houses, and the price 

 and quality of the liquor. On the other hand, Franklin 

 could not cross the channel without making observations 

 useful to mankind. While many a vacant and thoughtless 



