threatened me, I had been faithfully defended by my guardian uncle. At
school, while I found myself more under law, I yet found myself
possessed of greater freedom. Every one was friendly and more than
kind. From all this the result was that my nature was unusually
trusting.

We had a whole holiday, and, all seven, set out to enjoy ourselves. It
was a delicious morning in Autumn, clear and cool, with a great light
in the east, and the west nowhere. Neither the autumnal tints nor the
sharpening wind had any sadness in those young years which we call the
old years afterwards. How strange it seems to have--all of us--to say
with the Jewish poet: I have been young, and now am old! A wood in the
distance, rising up the slope of a hill, was our goal, for we were
after hazel-nuts. Frolicking, scampering, leaping over stiles, we felt
the road vanish under our feet. When we gained the wood, although we
failed in our quest we found plenty of amusement; that grew everywhere.
At length it was time to return, and we resolved on going home by
another road--one we did not know.

After walking a good distance, we arrived at a gate and lodge, where we
stopped to inquire the way. A kind-faced woman informed us that we
should shorten it much by going through the park, which, as we seemed
respectable boys, she would allow us to do. We thanked her, entered,
and went walking along a smooth road, through open sward, clumps of
trees and an occasional piece of artful neglect in the shape of rough
hillocks covered with wild shrubs, such as brier and broom. It was very
delightful, and we walked along merrily. I can yet recall the
individual shapes of certain hawthorn trees we passed, whose extreme
age had found expression in a wild grotesqueness which would have been
ridiculous but for a dim, painful resemblance to the distortion of old