himself, as a difficult telling, which Ishmael might take hardly, and
for which he was to be well fortified in the years of childhood.

Long after, on looking back, Ishmael saw better the whole atmosphere of
those years from eight to twelve than he did when in the midst of them.
Golden summers, when he spent whole days out on the cliff or moor with
the Parson, their specimen cases at their backs; ruddy autumns when the
peewits cried in the dappled sky and the blackberries were thick on the
marsh; grey winters when the rain and mist blotted the world out, and he
and the Parson sat by a glowing fire of wreckage, the Parson reading
aloud from Jorrocks or Pickwick, or the entrancing tales of Captain
Marryat, and later, for more solid matter, Grote's "History of Greece,"
its democratic inferences counterbalanced by "Sartor Resartus," whose
thunderous sentences enthralled Ishmael, if their purport was yet beyond
him; wonderful pale springs when the sunshine and the blood in his veins
were both like golden wine. So the time went, and it mostly belonged to
himself and his dreams, with even the Parson more unconsciously felt
than actively realised, and with the two girls still more upon the
fringe, though it was true there were splendid games, such as Cavaliers
and Roundheads, which could not be played by himself. For this and
kindred affairs Vassie and Phoebe were of great use, though Phoebe
cried if she had to be a Roundhead too often out of her turn. Still, she
was a good little thing, but when the fateful date arrived which was to
see the journey to St. Renny, Ishmael had no pang at leaving her or
anyone else. He was not a shy boy, and felt only intense interest at the
thought of what lay before him. For the journey in a railway train was
alone enough to set the blood thrilling--it was a thing that no one whom
Ishmael knew, excepting Parson Boase, had ever undertaken. It was only a
matter of five years since the West Cornwall Railway from Truro Road to
Penzance had been opened. The same year the great Duke had died, but the