I was often beat for being absent from school, and urged to tell the cause. The reason I felt, but could not describe; and, the same fault recurring again and again, I was at last set down as incorrigible. What most surprised my friends was, that I never had any companions in my rambles; but a companion would have spoiled all my visions. Never did I enjoy so pure unmixed delight, as in those excursions: I feel not now, as I then did, the novelty of life and nature; but memory cherishes with fondness her first-born feelings, and I regret that those happy days are gone for ever. So ill exchanged for riper times, To feel the follies and the crimes, Of others or my own. In some old romances which I had read, the life of a shepherd was described in colours so glowing, that I became quite enamoured of it, and would not give my parents rest until they procured such a situation for me. It was in vain that they assured me I would find every thing different in that life from what I imagined. I could not believe it. They made some agreement with a farmer, from whom they got their milk and butter, to take me out with him to his farm, that I might learn the truth by experience. I set off with him on his buttermilk cart, my mind filled with the most extravagant anticipations of my new employment, and arrived at the farmer’s house at night. Next morning I was called up at four o’clock to my new avocation, and an old man was sent out with me to show me my charge. I was left by him on a bleak hill, with four-score sheep, and told that my breakfast and dinner would be brought out to me. I sat down to contemplate the scene; there were no sylvan groves, no purling streams, no shepherds piping in the dale,—nothing but peat-bog was to be seen for miles around; the few scathed hills which reared their heads above the blackened soil were covered with heather, which still retained its winter suit; the shepherds had none of the appendages attributed to them in poetry or romance, they had neither pipe nor crook, and shepherdesses there were none. I tried to transform the female servant, who was in my master’s house, into a shepherdess; but it would not do. It was a horrible caricature; she was a strong masculine looking Highland girl, any thing but lovely or romantic. Surely, thought I, there must be some mistake here. I never spent a day so lonely and tiresome. My flock seemed to think they had got a fool to deal with, for they ran in every direction but the right one. It is true I had a dog, but he did not understand my language. We had not been long enough acquainted; and, by the time night came, I was pretty well convinced that the life of a shepherd was not what I had imagined it. Day after day passed, without realising any of my expectations. My feet got sore running through the rough heather, and I returned to my parents about a month after, completely cured of my predilection for a shepherd’s life. One would think