We and the World, Part I

We and the World, Part I

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Title: We and the World,
Part I A Book for Boys
Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing
Release Date: March 29, 2006 [EBook #18077]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE WORLD,
PART I ***

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WE AND THE WORLD:

A BOOK FOR BOYS.

PART I.
BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. BRIGHTON:
129, NORTH STREET. NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.

[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.]

DEDICATED TO MY TWELVE NEPHEWS, WILLIAM, FRANCIS,
STEPHEN, PHILIP, LEONARD, GODFREY, AND DAVID SMITH;
REGINALD, NICHOLAS, AND IVOR GATTY; ALEXANDER,
AND CHARLES SCOTT GATTY.
J.H.E.

WE AND THE WORLD.
CHAPTER I.
"All these common features of English landscape evince a calm and
settled security, and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and
local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral
character of the nation."--WASHINGTON IRVING'S Sketch Book.
It was a great saying of my poor mother's, especially if my father had
been out of spirits about the crops, or the rise in wages, or our prospects,

and had thought better of it again, and showed her the bright side of
things, "Well, my dear, I'm sure we've much to be thankful for."
Which they had, and especially, I often think, for the fact that I was not
the eldest son. I gave them more trouble than I can think of with a
comfortable conscience as it was; but they had Jem to tread in my
father's shoes, and he was a good son to them--GOD bless him for it!
I can remember hearing my father say--"It's bad enough to have Jack
with his nose in a book, and his head in the clouds, on a fine June day,
with the hay all out, and the glass falling: but if Jem had been a lad of
whims and fancies, I think it would have broken my poor old heart."
I often wonder what made me bother my head with books, and where
the perverse spirit came from that possessed me, and tore me, and
drove me forth into the world. It did not come from my parents. My
mother's family were far from being literary or even enterprising, and
my father's people were a race of small yeomen squires, whose talk was
of dogs and horses and cattle, and the price of hay. We were
north-of-England people, but not of a commercial or adventurous class,
though we were within easy reach of some of the great manufacturing
centres. Quiet country folk we were; old-fashioned, and boastful of our
old-fashionedness, albeit it meant little more than that our manners and
customs were a generation behindhand of the more cultivated folk, who
live nearer to London. We were proud of our name too, which is
written in the earliest registers and records of the parish, honourably
connected with the land we lived on; but which may be searched for in
vain in the lists of great or even learned Englishmen.
It never troubled dear old Jem that there had not been a man of mark
among all the men who had handed on our name from generation to
generation. He had no feverish ambitions, and as to books, I doubt if he
ever opened a volume, if he could avoid it, after he wore out three
horn-books and our mother's patience in learning his letters--not even
the mottle-backed prayer-books which were handed round for family
prayers, and out of which we said the psalms for the day, verse about
with my father. I generally found the place, and Jem put his arm over
my shoulder and read with me.

He was a yeoman born. I can just remember--when I was not three
years old and he was barely four--the fright our mother got from his
fearless familiarity with the beasts about the homestead. He and I were
playing on the grass-plat before the house when Dolly, an ill-tempered
dun cow we knew well by sight and name, got into the garden and drew
near us. As I sat on the grass--my head at no higher level than the
buttercups in the field beyond--Dolly loomed so large above me that I
felt frightened and began to cry. But Jem, only conscious that she had
no business