CHAPTER IV 



YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD— REPORTING— SHORT 

 STORIES— PAMPHLETS— ARCH/EOLOGY 



Early in March, 1866, soon after he was seventeen, 

 Jefferies wrote to Mrs. Harrild to say that he had just 

 begun to work on the North Wilts Herald, a new Con- 

 servative paper, published at Swindon. He had sent 

 her a copy of the paper, by which, he says, she 

 might guess that his connection with it had already 

 commenced. He imagines that he will like his place, 

 and up to the present moment he does more — he enjoys it ; 

 his duties are ' multifarious — reporting, correcting manu- 

 script and proofs, with a spice of reviewing and an un- 

 limited amount of condensation.' This work gave him a 

 little money, sent him out of doors in many directions, 

 and compelled him to use his pen in the expression of his 

 own or other people's knowledge and ideas. But that he 

 had already had some practice is certain ; for, poor as are 

 his stories published in the North Wilts of this period, 

 they are not beginnings, nor even are the verses, like those 

 ' To a Fashionable Bonnet,' ending : 



' Ah, girls are girls, and will be girls 

 In spite of matrons gray ; 

 Then why restrain the flowing curls 

 When all for freedom pray ?' 



The stories have much facility and exuberance of trashi- 

 ness, of which this from ' Henrique Beaumont '* is no 

 unjust example : 



* A young man knelt at the feet of a maiden, whom he 

 * North Wilts Herald. 

 50 



