“My mother taught me to read almost as soon as I could speak. The book she used for that purpose was the Testament. It was almost the only book in the house, except the Whole Duty of Man, and four or five black-letter volumes, tinged with smoke from having lain for ages in the chimney corner, the contents of which not the oldest man in all Yewdale even pretended to understand. By the time I was five years old, being a strong, hale boy, my father tried to make me useful about the farm, in feeding the cows, or looking after the sheep; but it would not do. I had hardly strength for the former task; and as to looking after the sheep, the temptation of joining two or three similar shepherds in an expedition of bird-nesting or nut-gathering, was always too strong to be resisted. Proving thus unequal to these important duties, my father determined to find me one which required, (in public opinion at that time,) abilities of a narrower range. I heard him say one night to my mother, after I had gone to my snug roost in the loft, where I generally slept like a top,—‘I think there is nothing for it but to make the lad a scholar—may be a parson.’ To this my mother readily consented; and the day after, I was furnished with a satchel, and sent off, with two or three other boys of the dale, to Hawkshead school, to be made a scholar! CHAPTER III. “And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school.” SHAKSPERE.