took my poor hat full in the
centre. Then, Ajax-like, shouting terribly, I issued from shelter
and discharged my ammunition. Woe then for the gardener's boy, who,
unprepared, skipping in premature triumph, took the clod full in his
stomach! He, the foolish one, witless on whose side the gods were
fighting that day, discharged yet other missiles, wavering and wide of
the mark; for his wind had been taken with the first clod, and he shot
wildly, as one already desperate and in flight. I got another clod in at
short range; we clinched on the brow of the hill, and rolled down to the
bottom together. When he had shaken himself free and regained his legs,
he trotted smartly off in the direction of his mother's cottage; but
over his shoulder he discharged at me both imprecation and deprecation,
menace mixed up with an under-current of tears.

But as for me, I made off smartly for the road, my frame tingling, my
head high, with never a backward look at the Settlement of suggestive
aspect, or at my well-planned future which lay in fragments around it.
Life had its jollities, then; life was action, contest, victory! The
present was rosy once more, surprises lurked on every side, and I was
beginning to feel villainously hungry.

Just as I gained the road a cart came rattling by, and I rushed for
it, caught the chain that hung below, and swung thrillingly between the
dizzy wheels, choked and blinded with delicious-smelling dust, the world
slipping by me like a streaky ribbon below, till the driver licked at
me with his whip, and I had to descend to earth again. Abandoning the
beaten track, I then struck homewards through the fields; not that the
way was very much shorter, but rather because on that route one avoided
the bridge, and had to splash through the stream and get refreshingly
wet. Bridges were made for narrow folk, for people with aims and
vocations which compelled abandonment of many of life's highest
pleasures. Truly wise men called on each element alike to minister
to their joy, and while the touch of sun-bathed air, the fragrance
of garden soil, the ductible qualities of mud, and the spark-whirling
rapture of playing with fire, had each their special charm, they did
not overlook the bliss of getting their feet wet. As I came forth on the
common Harold broke out of an adjoining copse and ran to meet me, the
morning rain-clouds all blown away from his face. He had made a new
squirrel-stick, it seemed. Made it all himsel