Year: 1859

Some dozen years ago, | passed a couple of
early summer months in DeyOnShire, fishing
changing one picturesque scene of sport for
another, always disbelieving that should find
so fair place as that last Quilted, and al
ways having pleasantly to acknowledge myself
wrong There is indeed an almost inexhausti-
BILE treasure of delicious hooks in that fertile
county, which compreheHds every element of
landscape beauty-coaSt and inland, hill and
valley, moor and woodland-and excelS in
nothing more than in its curved rivers. What
cifT-Hke and ful-foliaged banks about their
sources, and what rich meadows, sprinkled
with uurivaled kline, as they broaden toward
the sea At the close of nv tour, | was
lodging in a farmhouse near a branch of the
Exc, rather regretful at the thought of so soon
having to shoulder my kuapSack and return to
native Dorset, near a certain provincial town
of which county, and in a neghborhoOd with
out q tree in sight, or a stream within sound,
it was nv lot to dwell We had lately thrown
out a bow-wndow to the drawing there
but why | cannot tell, for there was certainly
nothing to see from it. Whata difference be-
tween such spot and my then abode, from
the windows of which a score of miles of uudu
lating aud varied landscape could be diScerned
with the old cathedral towers of the capital
city standing grandly against the southern
sky


1t is not true that persons who live in pic
turesque places do not appreciate them, but
only that they require to be made to under
stand their good fortune Michael Courteney,
the good man of the farm, and, like all his
class thorough Stay-at-home, could not dis
cover what found iu that look from his
house to make such fuss about but his
wife who had once paid visit TO her son
when in business at Birmingham, knew per-
fectly well. Concerning which son Robert,
by the by, there was sad tale He was the
only child of the good pair, and one who
should have been there at CoweSS, the right
hand of his father and the comfort of his low
ing mother but the young man had decided
otherwise He had never taken to farming,
but had grieved bis father hugely by hank
ering after mechanical studies, which the old
agriculturist associated almost with the black
art itself Thinking himself TO have q gift
for the practical sciences, Robert was APP
prenticed in Birmingham, aud for time bade
fair TO acqut himself wei. But it had not
been farming to which he was in reality averSe,
so much as to be restraint of any kind and
lnQlGg, after little, lnat ne cQulu not De DIS
own master at the lathe, any more than at the
pillow. he forsook his second calling likewise
This had Justly angered Michael, and drawn
from him, on the return of the lad. certain
expressions which his young spirit undutifnlly
resented. There was a violent scene in that
peaceful homestead of COwleSS one day and
on the next morning. when the house was
astir, it was found that Robert had gone away
in the nighttime, nor had he since either re
turned home or written of his whereabouts.


1t was year ago and more by this time,
during which period Mrs Couvteney had grown
older than in the halfdozen years before,
while the old man himself, said the farm-peo-
pie, had altered To the full as much as she, al
though for his part, he had never owned to
II. 1t was not he who told me of the matter,
but the good wife, who was foud of me-as
my vanity was obliged to confesS-mainly be-
cause vas of the age of her lost lad aud
so reminded her of him. / slept in the very
r0On which had been her Roberts, aud very
comfortable little room il was.


Here it was, very early one May morning,
-efoTc even the earliest riSers Of the farm were