to the truth. Few natures will bear minute analysis, and emerge from the ordeal with undimmed lustre; and it is possible that Jack may have been endowed with a hereditary liking for good cheer. Look at his father, who, in spite of the sufferings from gout, which send him every year to Carlsbad or Buxton, has at this very meal helped himself twice to the cutlets à la Soubise, carefully shunning the protesting glance of the anxious partner of his troubles. But whatever Jack may come to be in later life, at present his conscience, were he conscious of a conscience, would acquit him of any such impeachment. As his parents know well, and the keeper of his wardrobe likewise, is he not ready to leave the maternal fleshpots at any time for a long happy day in the woods or the fields, forgetful of those needs that make us the slaves of our bodies, till reminded by the pangs of acute hunger? Then, indeed, he bethinks himself of breaking his fast, and small blame to him. Possibly he remembers a crust he had prudently bestowed in his pocket, or he shares the rough fare of the keeper or the ferreters, or perhaps throws himself on the hospitality of some friendly cottage; and in those cases he makes one of those memorable repasts which we alluded to as associating themselves with our happiest recollections.

We have been speaking hitherto of a supposititious Jack, who may be taken as the type of well-conditioned boyhood. But any reminiscences of the kind must be more or less autobiographical; and it is as well to say frankly at the outset, that we mean to spare our imagination and draw on our memory. The only difficulty is where to begin. In winter, short of actual violence, it was hard to draw us out of our bed. But in summer, and still less in the spring, would any one have

dreamed of improving the parable of the sluggard for our benefit? Sluggard indeed! With us it was early to bed and early to rise. Let. the curtains be drawn close over the blinds, and we seemed nevertheless to awaken instinctively to the song of the larks and the cheery réveillé of the cuckoos. What delight it was to rush to the open window and meet the fresh breath of the morning, fragrant with the odours drawn out by the night-dews! The window opened upon a rookery, and the sunbeams breaking from the east, came slanting through the stems of the elms, and lighting up the yellow daffodils. The rooks in a clamorous chorus were cawing over the stacks of nests that were gently swaying to the breeze in the treetops. Beyond the rookery rippled the burn that divided the lawn from the park beyond, where the sheep had already scattered themselves about in the nooks that were formed by

the encircling woods. And among the grazing sheep in the dewy clover were feeding hares; and the rabbits that had crowded out of their burrows in the banks, and the small family-parties of roedeer that, being never disturbed, had become tame as the sheep with long impunity. Though the sights and sounds enchanted us even then, with our imperfectly developed sense of the beautiful, it was not long that they held us spell-bound. A minute or two and we had tumbled into our clothes, and carrying our shoes in our hands, were softly stealing down-stairs.

Well do we remember those morning rambles by the brook-side! Never spaniel or terrier quested more eagerly through the rank damp grass and in the dripping tangles of the thickets. We had a companion or companions of course— for the "we" is literal, not literary and we gave tongue merrily like

puppies broken loose, in the lightness of our heads and spirits. Each sylvan sight and sound was a joy, and all the more joyous for long familiarity with them: that cawing of the rooks, growing more and more mellow as it receded in the distance; the bark of the watch-dogs, and the crowing of the cocks from the farm-steadings; the cooing of the cushats by the score, from the cool recesses of the sprucewoods; the cry of the pheasant as he flew out of the copse; the matin-song of birds innumerable, from 66 every brake and bosky bourne" of those "wild woods." The notes of sweet Philomel were missing; for the nightingale never visits those northern climes. But the native songsters made up a tuneful choir, that poured forth in harmonious rivalry volumes of the richest melody. There seemed a mavis or a merle on each second fir-top. Now the water-hen would flutter out from some bed of rushes in a back-water, and go skimming round the bends of the rippling stream. Again there would be one plunge and then another, when the water-rats were taking headers into the pools. The banks were mined and broken, and the brook was alive with trout; and off would go jackets and shoes and stockings; and with trousers turned back above the knee, and shirt-sleeves rolled up to the armpits, we would be plunging down the water like otterhounds, "guddling" for the trout under the tree-roots and beneath the stones. It was the height of the nesting season too; and as, breaking away from the burn-side, we brushed our way through the dew-bespangled boughs or tore a passage through the thickets of underwood and bramble, we stumbled on from treasure to treasure. There was little temptation to carry off nestfuls of the blotched and speck

led eggs wholesale, even had we been more heartless or thoughtless. By taking moderate toll, we speedily made superb collections. Or, leaving the woods for the fields, we went ranging for linnets' nests among the shrubberies of scented furze on the braes, where the larks were singing overhead and the lapwings swooping and clamouring: -when hark! the sound of the warning bell comes booming over field and copse. That bell means family prayers, which we miss that morning as we have missed them many other mornings, in spite of solemn warnings and excellent intentions. But starting for the house at a hand-gallop, we arrive scant of breath and drenched and happy, our soaking boots as white as the new-baked rolls to which we were soon paying our devoirs. Late as we were, though no laggards, no one had the ill nature to be more than mildly reproachful.

And what a meal that was! The porridge with the frothing cream came in as a simple whet for all that was to follow. The old dining-room-it has been since pulled down-rises before us as if that time were yesterday, with the stags' heads over the black carved sideboard, and the rural landscapes with prize groups of sheep and cattle; and the finishes of famous steeplechases, and the hunters flying fences in their stride. Broad as was its expanse of snowy damask, the sideboard was amply garnished; and the table was spread with the ideal of a Scotch breakfast, though it was no ideal but a glorious reality. It must have been a lesson' and a revelation to the benighted Southern, to see the profusion of platters of home-baked breads of all descriptions, from household loaves, through rolls and barley and wheaten scones down to light oaten cakes and the more substantial ban

nocks. Nor would he have been less astonished at the variety of preserves in the sparkling crystal, from the luscious fruits of the garden to the products of the hives and hills. Does the reader know the cranberry and the avern? If not, we recommend him to try them; not the importations from Norwegian fjelds, but the native growth of our grouse-moors and deer-forests. That by the way; nor need we say anything of more commonplace dishes of fish and flesh, &c., although the chops of the small black-faced mutton from Speyside must ever hold a place in our dearest memories. Set a boy, fresh and fasting from severe if most exhilarating exercise, down to such a spread; and while he is making the most of his opportunities, we may leave details to the imagination. He may rival the feats of the starving Quentin Durward when the French monarch entertained the youth in the hostelry at Plessis; but he rises without the slightest sense of satiety; and who shall say he was anything but temperate? And so we would leap out upon the lawn through the low-cut windows, to bound off to the after-breakfast réunion in the stable-yard, lighter and fresher than when we went to work.

Fortunate boys we were, to whom such breakfasts came in the holidays as matters of course. But undoubtedly there is more of the excitement of pleasure in the unexpected. We recall a day when, after suffering extremities of hunger and considerable bodily terror to boot, we sat down as guests to a sumptuous table literally spread in the wilderness.

We were on a visit to a young school-fellow in one of the wildest districts of the storm-beaten north-eastern sea-coast. As it chanced, we had been left to our own devices for a day or

two, and absolutely masters of our movements. So we struck out an expedition for bird-nesting extraordinary. We had heard of a colony of black-headed gulls that had their breeding-place some halfdozen miles to the northward; but as it was said to be jealously guarded, we determined to keep our own counsel. Had we communicated with the servants as to commissariat arrangements, obstacles might possibly have been thrown in our way. So we started undemonstratively at peep of dawn, without beat of drum or having broken our fasts. We had vague notions of the topography of the district, but hoped to steer a tolerably straight course by the sea and the sandhills. A wild walk it was, through a country without sign of human habitation. Great swampy stretches of the salt "bent" grass, half drifted over with sand, broke back into a stony wilderness of furze-bushes and stunted firs. The fir-trees had been battered and blasted by the northern gales, and the furze-bushes had been nibbled into fantastic shapes by the rabbits. Objects of interest about us in abundance, and yet a depression settled down on our spirits, from the lowering clouds overhead; for there was an uncanny lull in the weather after a gale that had been blowing briskly through the night. night. Possibly empty stomachs had something to do with it. We cheered up at the sight of a certain narrow river, for we had heard our destination lay immediately beyond it. We had forgotten, alas! that the river must be crossed, and it was too swift to swim and too deep to wade. To cut the story short, we trudged up the banks for miles and weary miles till we came to the hut of a venerable ferryman, in a coat of tattered rabbit-skins, who punted us across

were

in a superannuated salmon-cobble. Old Charon plied us with questions, which we answered evasively; and he warned us that "the weather was liking to be wet." In fact, the sage was prophesying on a certainty-the big rain-drops were falling already, and before we had proceeded half an hour on our way we had not a dry stitch on our perPrudence warned us to go back; pride urged us to persevere. Footsore, out of spirits, and ready to drop, we nevertheless forgot wet and weariness when we heard the first clamour of the sea-gulls. Nor

sons.

did we remember that we had been almost sick with hunger when we looked down from a little eminence on swampy, rush-grown meadowland. The "Harberton hens," as they were called in the country alliteratively, had covered the ground with what seemed a heaving sheet of black and white lozenged pattern. Nor was there a soul in sight to interfere with our investigations. Simultaneously we made our rush, and in another moment were "squelching" over the sloppy ground. Eggs everywhere, with here and there some fluffy balls of down. As we plunged forward, though the mass of sitters were tame enough, brooding mothers began fluttering up to join their mates; and the clamour overhead was aggravated tenfold. No doubt the noise gave the alarm. For by-and-by, the holloa of a human voice came in by way of bass through the shrill tenor of the sea-gulls, and a plaidswathed figure, magnified by the mist, stood dripping in the rain like a misshapen water-kelpie. By natural instinct we made a bolt to find ourselves bogged over the knees. Here was a predicament. The quagmire that had gripped us tenaciously was steadily sucking us down, and our best hope was that the enemy might come to the rescue

before we had vanished clean out of his sight. Happily he seemed not unprepared for casualties of the kind. He bore down upon us in boards fastened to his feet, bringing with him something resembling a ladder, which we crawled along like wasps released from a honey-pot, after using it as leverage for self-extrication. Our saviour landed us on the solid ground we had left, and he might have searched far before he hit on two more pitiable objects. He had no comfort for us. We were collared and dragged away with direful forebodings. We might be made away with, and nobody a bit the wiser. And so we were hauled off to a little farmhouse, sheltering snugly enough near the bar of the river, in the middle of some reclaimed turnip and corn land.

Once under his own rooftree, the manners of the ogre changed as by enchantment; and indeed it would have been absurd to keep up an affectation of severity before the smiling goodwife, who was standing open-eyed in her doorway. How welcome was the fire of peat and logs cheerily crackling in the wide chimney! scarcely less welcome the ablutions in hot water from the huge kettle swinging from the crook. What shouts of laughter broke from our kind entertainers, as the good man encased our small persons in roomy homespun garments of his own! And shall we ever forget the feast, when we gave the reins to our unbridled appetites? Sea-trout, newly caught in the river, and lifted smoking "hot-shot" from the "brander;" kippered salmon blushing a rosy pink, after the winter's exposure to the smoke of the chimney; mutton-ham that had been swinging as a pendant on the other side, and eggs from under the hens that were cackling "among our feet" in the " "spence." Bushels of delicately browned bannocks, and

half-pounds of golden butter, with a double "browst" of tea of superlative strength. Gladly would we have abjured fine linen and bear'sgrease, and run wild for at least a week, like little savages, in the solitudes that surrounded that hospitable kitchen. And our hosts appeared to be so gratified by our performances at breakfast, that we believe they would have made us more than welcome. We are sure at least that there was sincere sorrow on one side, when that rattletrap of a "conveyance" came creaking round to the door, in which the farmer had insisted upon "setting us ower the river."

That improvised banquet suggests picnics. There are picnics and picnics; and we have gone to many a one in our time, between the banks of the Thames and the shores of the Bosphorus. But commend us still to the picnics of boyhood, before we had come to care for our toilet with designs on the peace of confiding young females, or taken to trifling with the edge-tools that were to cut our own fingers; before we were victimised for contributions of sweet champagne by ladies like the "old campaigners" of Dickens and Thackeray; before we were doomed to dance attendance on dowagers, while younger men did the agreeable to their pretty daughters; before lobster-salads and galantines meant indigestion for the morrow. Many a merry al fresco repast we remember, when a jovial home-party went to luncheon in the woods, smoking the steaks and mutton-chops over fires of their own kindling. Summer after summer, picnics became a mania with us; and our seniors were hurried away by our juvenile impetuosity, till they became nearly as much excited on the subject as ourselves when we scoured the country in search of the picturesque. A roomy brake car

ried the elderly ladies and gentlemen, with the provision - hampers. The other members of the party formed a flying squadron of irregu lar cavalry, mounted on steeds and screws of all shapes and sizes, from the superannuated carriage - horse that renewed his youth, down to the rough-maned Shetland pony that came clattering in the rear. Queer, shaggy-coated beasts, "taken up from the grass" on neighbouring farms, were pressed into the service. They were picketed under the trees, if there were no farmbuildings "convanient," as Paddy says; or hobbled and turned loose to graze by the roadside.

One old castle was a very favourite resort, chiefly, we believe, because there was an agreeable sense of the appalling about it. It was all very well in a bright summer day; but nothing would have tempted us to go there alone in the darkness. There were dungeons out of all decent proportion to the old bedroom accommodation; and a vaulted hall tapestried with the mosses and clinging plants that had struck root in the interstices of the crumbling masonry. Enclosed by a broken wall,—almost stifled in the embrace of the elms that threw their boughs over a wilderness of nettles, there was a dim, religious light in the precincts even at noonday, and it seemed a fit " fit "place of habitation for dragons and owls." The merry voices were hushed for a moment, as the rotting gates revolved on their rusty hinges and we passed under the defaced escutcheon over the doorway. Only for a moment. And then in the reaction we were more vociferous than ever, waking echoes that for months might have been slumbering in silence; and rushing away headlong to risk our necks on the ruined stonework, where we went clambering among the resting-places