father had put the
musket into my arms. I could scarcely lift it, but from the first it had
a charm for me, and now and then, in spite of my mother's protests,
I was let to handle it, to learn its parts, to burnish it, and
by-and-bye--I could not have been more than six years old--to rest it on
a rock and fire it off. It kicked my shoulder roughly in firing, but I
know I did not wink as I pulled the trigger. Then I got a wild hunger
to fire it at all times; so much so, indeed, that powder and shot were
locked up, and the musket was put away in my grandfather's chest. But
now and again it was taken out, and I made war upon the unresisting
hillside, to the dismay of our neighbours in Balmore. Feeding the
fever in my veins, my grandfather taught me soldiers' exercises and the
handling of arms: to my dear mother's sorrow, for she ever fancied me
as leading a merchant's quiet life like my father's, hugging the
hearthstone, and finding joy in small civic duties, while she and my
dear father sat peacefully watching me in their decline of years.

"I have told you of that river which flowed near my father's house. At
this time most of my hours were spent by it in good weather, for at last
my mother came to trust me alone there, having found her alert fears
of little use. But she would very often come with me and watch me as
I played there. I loved to fancy myself a miller, and my little
mill-wheel, made by my own hands, did duty here and there on the stream,
and many drives of logs did I, in fancy, saw into piles of lumber, and
loads of flour sent away to the City of Desire. Then, again, I made
bridges, and drove mimic armies across them; and if they were enemies,
craftily let them partly cross, to tumble them in at the moment when
part of the forces were on one side of the stream and part on the other,
and at the mercy of my men.

"My grandfather taught me how to build forts and breastworks, and I lay
in ambush for the beadle, who was my good friend, for my grandfather,
and for half a dozen other village folk, who took no offense at my
sport, but made believe to be bitterly afraid when I surrounded them and
drove them, shackled, to my fort by the river. Little by little the
fort grew, until it was a goodly pile; for now and then a village youth
helped me, or again an old man, whose heart, maybe, rejoiced to play at
being child again with me. Years after, whenever I went back to Balmore,
there stood the fort, for no one ever me