Hezekiah Butterworth

“ The new growth of trees is very fine; but it is the remains of the grand old oaks that attract the tourist and summer wanderer. The wood has a ground-work of exhaustless ferns, the delicate birches flutter in the warm winds, their peculiar shade contrasting with the greenery around them. Here and there oaks of different ages and altitudes rise gray, gnarled, and almost leafless,—oaks on which a thousand tempests have beaten, and around which ten thousand storms have blown. In Henry II.’s time not only Nottingham, but the whole of England, was covered with oaks. ”

“ The Steerage.—Pilot Boats.—Tommy meets Rough Weather.—His Letter and Postscript.—Queer Passengers.—Games and Story-telling.—Story of Joan of Arc.—Signalling at Sea.—Land!
AN ocean steamer! Though a speck upon the waters, what a world it seems! What symmetry, what strength, what a triumph of human skill! What a cheerful sense of security one feels as one looks upon the oak and the iron, and hears the wind whistle through the motionless forest of cordage! There society in all its grades is seen, and human nature in all its phases. ”

“ The tides of travel everywhere seem to overflow; all is bewildering, confusing. What a map a man’s mind must be to thread the innumerable streets of London!
The Class stopped at a popular hotel in a fine part of the city, called the West End. It is pleasanter and more economical to take furnished lodgings in London, if one is to remain in the city for a week or more, but as Master Lewis was to allow the boys but a few days’ visit, he took them to a hotel in a quarter where the best London life could be seen. ”

“ The Class was now in Brittany, a province old and poor, whose very charm is its simplicity and quaintness. Normandy smiles; Brittany wears a sombre aspect everywhere. Normandy is a bed of flowers; Brittany seems to be a bed of stone. Here and there may be seen a church buried in greenery, but the landscape is one of heath, fern, and broom.
The people are as peculiar as the country. Their costumes are odd, some of them even wear goat-skins. Many of them lead a sea-faring life; it is the Bretons who chiefly man the French navy. ”

“ It is a long journey through the glittering rooms. Here you see the representation of a king in his moment of triumph, adored as a god, and there you see the same king overthrown or stretched upon his bed of death. The fountains murmur, the orange trees fill the air with perfume, and you turn from the exhibition of the glowing and faded pomps of history to the gardens, feeling that after all man’s only nobility and kingship and hope of a crown lies in his soul, and it is virtue alone that makes one royal. ”

“ The next morning the jolly harper man was seen riding out of Striveling town on a fine gray mare; but a little colt was heard whinnying alone in the high fenced lot on the side of the hill.
“It had been a day of high festival at Carlisle; it was now the cool of the summer eve; the horn of the returning hunter was heard in the forest, and gaily plumed knights and courtiers were seen approaching the illuminated palace, urging their steeds along the banks of the river Eden, that wound through the moonlit landscape like a ribbon of silver.
“The feast was at its height. The king’s heart was merry. ”

“ Many, many years ago,—as long ago as the days of Fair Rosamond, when Henry Plantagenet and his unruly family governed England, and some think as long ago as old Henry I.,—there lived in Scotland a jolly harper man, who was accounted the most charming player in all the world. The children followed him in crowds through the streets, nor could they be stopped while he continued playing; even the animals in the woods sat on their haunches to listen when he wandered harping through the country; and the fair daughters of the nobles immediately fell in love as often as he approached their castles. ”

“ The jolly harper man secretly expected him, or at least he hoped that he would come out. Like the Queen of Sheba, he wished to test the wisdom of this new Solomon, and to inquire of him if there were no way of turning his wonderful musical genius into bags of gold.
“‘Why do you wander here, my good harper?’ asked the hermit, when the last strain melted away in low, airy echoes over the lake. ‘There are neither lads to dance nor lassies to sing. This hill is my dominion, and the dominion of a hermit is solitude.’
“‘See you not Loch Lomond silvered in the moon?’ said the jolly harper man. ”

“ Ernest and Wyllys Wynn were brothers. Ernest had made himself popular at school by his generous, affectionate disposition, and his ready sympathy for any one in distress. He lived, as it were, a life outside of himself; and his interest in the best good of others made for himself unconsciously a pure and lovable character. He was fond of music, and an agreeable singer: he liked the old English and Scottish ballads, and so sung the songs of true feeling that every one is eager to hear.
He often went to an almshouse near Master Lewis’s to sing to the old people there. ”

“ Never had the boys listened to a song amid such highly romantic associations.
Bidding the entertaining Scotchman farewell, the party returned to Ayr, and thence to Glasgow, where it arrived in the lingering sunlight of the long afternoon.
The next morning it left by rail for Edinburgh, that city of high houses and terraced hills; of grandly picturesque beauty; of the times of Bruce, and the bright and dark days of the Stuarts; where one is surrounded by the relics of a thousand years, and stands under the protecting shadow of a castle that seems lifted into the regions of air. ”

“ I am Roland! there is victory in the land!”
Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city’s roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.
Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.
On entering Normandy, Master Lewis engaged passages on diligences, wherever a promise of a route amid pleasant scenery offered itself. It seemed to be the boys’ greatest delight to ride on the top of a diligence.
These French stage-coaches are lofty, lumbering vehicles, composed of three parts. ”

“ It had a greater charm for the boys than the ornate town-hall with its famous belfry and its many bells. In a side chapel was the tomb of the rash duke and that of his daughter, Mary of Burgundy.
“I can only think of the snowy field, and the naked body frozen in the ice,” said Ernest Wynn, as he left the solemn chapel.
The belfry of Bruges, of which so much has been said and sung, is really only about three hundred feet high, but affords a grand view of the surrounding country. Its chimes play by machinery four times an hour, and are regarded the finest in Europe. ”

“ From the base of its columns, the beauties of Scottish scenery began to appear.
“It is the way in which one ends life that honors the place of one’s birth,” said Frank to Tommy.
“So I see,” said Tommy, as the sun came out and covered the beautiful monument, and illuminated the record of the poet’s fame.
The tourists, under the direction of a Scottish farmer, whose acquaintance Master Lewis had made, next proceeded to an eminence commanding a view of the mansion house of Coilsfield, the romance-haunting Castle of Montgomery.
“There,” said the Scotchman, “lived Burns’s first sweetheart.” ”

“ The party took rooms on Prince’s Street, a thoroughfare one hundred feet wide and a mile in length, graced with noble monuments of art and bowery pleasure-grounds. It is considered one of the most picturesque streets in the world.
Around you are shops with splendid windows, statues, public gardens, birds, and flowers; above you are houses six or eight stories high; above these, on the rocky hillsides, are queer old buildings of other times; and high over all is the Castle, cold and grand on its rocky throne.
“I shall rest to-morrow, boys,” said Master Lewis, “and shall let you roam at will. ”

“ It is rather a matter of surprise that an enlightened people should have submitted to tyranny so long.”
Nantes is the Paris of the Loire. Its streets, boulevards, public squares, the forest of masts in the river, and the trees that line its banks, all seem a copy of the bright and gay French capital. Its old cathedral is a queer-looking building, with towers scarcely higher than its roof; but it contains a most beautiful tomb which was erected in memory of Francis II. last Duke of Bretagne. It is adorned with figures of angels, the twelve Apostles, St. Louis, and Charlemagne. ”

“ A living factory is more to my taste than a dead museum. The most interesting things I have seen are the great Glasgow factories. As for stories, I have been thinking of one that has more force for me than all the legends I ever read.”
“We shall be glad to hear you tell it,” said Master Lewis. “My business is teaching, and it is my duty to stimulate a love of literature. [Pg 102] But I have all respect for a boy with mechanical taste; no lives promise greater usefulness. ”

“ Airy terraces, basins bordered with rich foliage and gorgeous flowers carry the eye hither and thither, and call out some new expression of admiration at almost every step.
[Pg 254] “How happy the life of a French king must have been!” said Tommy Toby.
“How unhappy the lives of French kings have been!” said Master Lewis. “If you would have a view of royalty that makes a peasant’s life seem desirable, read the history of the old French kings.”
The beautiful forests of France extend to the very outskirts of the city. One of these, the Bois de Boulogne, is the favorite park of Paris. ”

“ About eight hundred years ago, William, Duke of Normandy, aspired to become King of England, and to wear the crown whose rightful claimant was Edgar Atheling. He made Harold, another heir to the English crown, support his claim, and take an oath to be true to him. To make Harold feel how solemn was an oath, he obliged him to swear it over a chest full of dead men’s bones. ”

“ In reading history always go back to the causes of things. Read backward as well as forward. All the great palaces in France you have seen were built by the money of an overtaxed people who had no political rights. They were the glittering abodes of immorality. Again and again France was governed by wicked women who became favorites of the king. The Huguenots, who were the sincerely religious people of France, were compelled to leave the nation. Think of it,—four hundred thousand people going away from their native country at the unrestrained edict of one bad man. ”

“ Monuments of kings and queens, benefactors and poets, beginning with old Edward the Confessor and coming down to the Stuarts; of Eleanor, who sucked the poison from her husband’s wounds, and Philippa, who saved the heroes of Calais. Here Bloody Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary, Queen of Scots, sleep in peace in the same chapel; and here the merry monarch, Charles II., lies among the kingly tombs without a slab to mark the place.
The new Houses of Parliament which stand between the Abbey and the Thames are the finest works of architecture that have been erected in England for centuries. ”

“ In the evening of the boys’ “own” day, George Howe and Leander Towle arrived unexpectedly at the hotel.
“We have come,” said George, “to bid you good-by.”
“Why good-by?” asked Master Lewis.
“We have been abroad a fortnight,” said George; “have seen the capitals of Scotland, England, and France; have rode through the heart of England and the most interesting part of Normandy, and, as our money is more than half gone, we must return. The steamer leaves to-morrow.” ”

“ I am told that one can live comfortably on four shillings a day in Scotland and England, and for five francs a day in Paris. You will not be able to enjoy our walks in historic places outside of the great cities, and you will probably be obliged to return before the rest of the party; but the very restraint you will have to use will be a good experience for you. As Franklin once said, ‘A good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world.’ It is good for one to bear the yoke in his youth. ”

“ In the following spring the Commune was declared the government of Paris, and it seemed bent on destroying the city’s beauty, and overturning its monuments of art. The Vendôme Column, which celebrated the victories of Napoleon the Great, was pulled down as a monument of tyranny; the Palace of the Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville were set on fire; and the wealthy citizens who had endured the siege by a foreign foe fled from their own countrymen. To-day most of the houses destroyed by the war and the Commune are rebuilt, and the streets are as splendid as in the gay days of the Empire. ”

“ You should always remember this, that a good historic story gathers color by time. The stories of Faust, Macbeth, King Lear, William Tell, Robert the Devil, and many others I might name, have but meagre facts for a starting point.”
“I know a story of Nottingham, that I think as funny as that,” said Tommy. “It is about the Wise Men of Gotham.”
“We will hear it when we go to Nottingham,” said Master Lewis. “I think we will go there at once, after an excursion to the English Lakes.” ”

“ The walls are broken, the great banqueting hall has just fallen into decay, and where the coronals flashed and astrals blazed at night, now shine only the dim light of the moon and stars. Here Queen Elizabeth was entertained by her favorite, the Earl of Leicester. The splendor of that reception has rarely been equalled. The fête, which was one long banquet, broken by a most wonderful series of dramatic representations, lasted seventeen days. There were tilts and tournaments; the park was peopled with gods and goddesses to surprise the Queen wherever she went ”

“ When the party arrived at Ayr, it was raining. The boys’ faces, too, were cloudy, and each one pressed Master Lewis with the question, “What shall we do?”
Tommy Toby at last answered the rather embarrassing question with, “Let us consult the barometer.”
The barometer, too, wore a cloudy face, and frowned at them, as though it meant never to predict fine weather again.
But, after waiting awhile at the station, there were signs of lifting clouds and clearing skies. A weather-wise old Scotchman promised the party a fair day, and bid them “God speed” for the home of “Robbie Burns.” ”