The merry homes of England!
Around their hearths by night,
What gladsome looks of household love,
Meet in the ruddy light!
Mrs Hemans.
"Good-bye, Walter; good-bye, Walter dear! good-bye!" and the last note
of this chorus was "Dood-bye," from a blue-eyed, fair-haired girl of two
years, as Walter disengaged his arms from his mother's neck, and sprang
into the carriage which had already been waiting a quarter of an hour to
convey him and his luggage to the station.
It is the old, old story: Mr Evson was taking his son to a large public
school, and this was the first time that Walter had left home. Nearly
every father who deigns to open this little book has gone through the
scene himself; and he and his sons will know from personal experience
the thoughts, and sensations, and memories, which occupied the minds of
Walter Evson and his father, as the carriage drove through the garden
gate and the village street, bearing the eldest boy of the young family
from the sacred and quiet shelter of a loving home, to a noisy and
independent life among a number of strange and young companions.
If you have ever stood on the hill from which Walter caught a last
glimpse of the home he was leaving, and waved his final farewell to his
mother, you are not likely to have forgotten the scene which was then
spread before your eyes. On the right-hand side, the low hills, covered
with firs, rise in gentle slopes one over the other, till they reach the
huge green shoulder of a mountain, around whose summits the clouds are
generally weaving their awful and ever-changing diadem. To the left,
between the road and a lower range of wooded undulations, is a deep and
retired glen, through which a mountain stream babbles along its hurried
course, tumbling sometimes in a noisy cataract and rushing wildly
through the rough boulder stones which it has carried from the heights,
or deepening into some quiet pool, bright and smooth as glass, on the
margin of which the great purple loosestrife and the long fern-leaves
bend down as though to gaze at their own reflected beauty. In front,
and at your feet, opens a rich valley, which is almost filled as far as
the roots of the mountains by a lovely lake. Beside this lake the white
houses of a little village cluster around the elevation on which the
church and churchyard stand; while on either shore, rising among the
fir-groves that overshadow the first swellings of the hills, are a few
sequestered villas, commanding a prospect of rare beauty, and giving a
last touch of interest to the surrounding view.
In one of these houses--that one with the crowded gables not a hundred
feet above the lake, opposite to which you see the swans pluming their
wings in the sunlight, and the green boat in its little boathouse--lived
the hero of our story; and no boy could have had a dearer or lovelier
home. His father, Mr Evson, was a man in easy, and almost in affluent
circumstances, who, having no regular occupation, had chosen for himself
this quiet retreat, and devoted all his time and care to the education
of his family, and the ordinary duties of a country gentleman.
Walter was the eldest child, a graceful, active, bright-eyed boy. Up to
this time--and he was now thirteen years old--he had had no other
teaching but that of his father, and of a tutor, who for the last year
had lived in the house. His education, therefore, differed considerably
from that of many boys of his own age, and the amount of book knowledge
which he had acquired was small as yet; but he was full of that
intelligent interest in things most worth knowing, which is the best and
surest guarantee for future progress.
Let me pause for a moment to relate how a refined and simple-hearted
gentleman had hitherto brought up his young boys. I do not pronounce
whether the method was right or wrong; I only describe it as it was, and
its success or failure must be inferred from the following pages.
The positive teaching of the young Evsons did not begin too early. Till
they were ten or twelve years old nearly all they did know had come to
them either intuitively or without any conscious labour. They were
allowed almost to live in the open air, and nature was their wise and
tender teacher. Some object was invented, if possible, for every walk.
Now it was to find the shy recesses of the wood where the wild
strawberries were thickest, or where the white violets and the rarest
orchis flowers were hid; or to climb along the rocky sides of the glen
to seek the best spot for a rustic meal, and find mossy stones and
flower-banks for seats and tables near some waterfall or pool.
When they were a little older their father would amuse and encourage
them until they had toiled up even to the very summit of all the nearest
hills, and there they would catch the fresh breeze which blew from the
far-off sea, or gaze wonderingly at the summer lightning flashing behind
the chain of hills, or watch, with many playful fancies, the long
gorgeous conflagration of the summer sunset. And in such excursions
their father or mother would teach them without seeming to teach them,
until they were thoroughly familiar with the names and properties of all
the commonest plants, and eagerly interested to secure for their little
collections, or to plant in their gardens, the different varieties of
all the wild flowers that were found about their home. Or, again, when
they sat out in the garden, or wandered back in the autumn twilight from
some gipsy party, they were taught to recognise the stars and planets,
until Mars and Jupiter, Orion and Cassiopeia, the Pleiads and the
Northern Crown, seemed to look down upon them like old and beloved
friends.
It was easy, too, and pleasant, to teach them to love and to treat
tenderly all living things--to observe the little black-eyed squirrel
without disturbing him while he cracked his nuts; to watch the
mistle-thrush's nest till the timid bird had learned to sit there
fearlessly, and not scurry away at their approach; and to visit the
haunts of the moorhen without causing any consternation to her or her
little black velvet progeny. Visitors who stayed at the house were
always delighted to see how all creatures seemed to trust the children:
how the canary would carol in its cage when they came into the room; how
the ponies would come trotting to the boys across the field, and the
swans float up and plume their mantling wings, expecting food and
caresses, whenever they came in sight.
The lake was a source of endless amusement to them; summer and winter
they might have been seen bathing in its waters, till they were bold
swimmers, or lying to read their books in the boat under the shade of
the trees, or rowing about till the little boy of six years was allowed
to paddle himself alone to the other side, and even when the waves were
rough, and the winds high, the elder ones were not afraid to venture
out. In short, they were healthy and manly mountain-boys, with all
their senses admirably exercised, and their powers of observation so
well trained, that they sometimes amazed their London cousins by
pointing to some falcon poised far-off above its prey, which was but a
speck to less practised eyes, or calling attention to the sweetness of
some wood-bird's note, indistinguishable to less practised ears.
Even in such lessons as these they would have made but little progress
if they had not been trained in the nursery to be hardy, modest,
truthful, unselfish, and obedient. This work had effectually been done
when alone it _can_ be effectually done, in the earliest childhood, when
the sweet and plastic nature may acquire for all that is right and good
the powerful aid of habit, before the will and the passions are fully
conscious of their dangerous and stubborn power.
Let no one say that I have been describing some youthful prodigies.
There are thousands such as I describe in all happy and well-ordered
English homes; there might be thousands more if parents spent a more
thoughtful care upon the growth of their children; there will be many,
many thousands more as the world, "in the rich dawn of an ampler day,"
in the gradual yet noble progress of social and moral improvement,
becomes purer and holier, and more like Him Who came to be the ideal of
the loftiest, yet the lowliest, of the most clear-sighted, yet the most
loving, of the most happy, and yet the most humble manhood.