THE NATURALIST DEVELOPING. gj 



those Wild symphonies, with their deep, mellow, muffled roar 

 and I would rock my perilous pereh in reckless sweepings' 

 to and fro, until it swung me in delicious vaultings throu'.h 

 the resonant tumult, Hke a sea-bird lifted on the storm-tossed 



waves 



Many a ferruhng has climbing for such a swing, or for a 

 bn-cl s nest, cost me, savagely laid on by a brutal and captious 

 pedagogue; and I hate the mean oppressor to this day' I 

 was a scape-grace truant, to be sure; but God had made' the 

 glad sun and beautiful earth that wooed my lagging steps, and 

 1 should not have been bruised and scarred by a base, thick- 

 blooded wretch, because I yielded an hour to their holy spell 

 and could forget, amid scenes of such enchantment, even the 

 terrors of his gloomy reign. 



Verily, that " Old Field Schoolmaster" will have many 

 gneyous sms to answer for in his day of account. May the 

 justice that shall be measui^ed unto him be more lenient than 

 any he meted out to me ! 



I fought Hm at last, tooth and finger nails, with the scorn- 

 ful but futile spite of the little warrior King Bird, caught 

 napping by the claws of a carrion crow. 



I ran away to my friends, and was protected from his ven- 

 geance. Dread was the ire that shook his mighty soul when 

 he saw that the victim was beyond the reach of his tyranny ' 

 It rose and expanded into prophecy, and he registered the 

 vow before the Fates, that he would live to see me-the worst 

 Doy in the county — "hanged !" 



Ha! ha! It might certainly have befallen me, as with 

 Absalom, to have been hung by the hair in a vine or tree-top 

 for daily I ran the risk in my predacious climbing, but, as 

 yet, the neck of " the worst boy in the county" clats to be 

 innocent of any unpleasant familiarity with hemp ! May the 

 shadow of that prophecy never be less ! Ah, boys who loved 

 the green-wood better than the horn-book, saw hard times in 

 my young days. 



