CHAPTER I



You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.

My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer in -shire;
and I, by his express desire, succeeded him in the same quiet
occupation, not very willingly, for ambition urged me to higher
aims, and self-conceit assured me that, in disregarding its voice,
I was burying my talent in the earth, and hiding my light under a
bushel. My mother had done her utmost to persuade me that I was
capable of great achievements; but my father, who thought ambition
was the surest road to ruin, and change but another word for
destruction, would listen to no scheme for bettering either my own
condition, or that of my fellow mortals. He assured me it was all
rubbish, and exhorted me, with his dying breath, to continue in the
good old way, to follow his steps, and those of his father before
him, and let my highest ambition be to walk honestly through the
world, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and to
transmit the paternal acres to my children in, at least, as
flourishing a condition as he left them to me.

'Well! - an honest and industrious farmer is one of the most useful
members of society; and if I devote my talents to the cultivation
of my farm, and the improvement of agriculture in general, I shall
thereby benefit, not only my own immediate connections and
dependants, but, in some degree, mankind at large:- hence I shall
not have lived in vain.' With such reflections as these I was
endeavouring to console myself, as I plodded home from the fields,