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Of the men twenty-three in all those who were not called Colenso were called Pengelly; and most of them convicted landsmen by their bilious countenances and unhandy movements; men fresh from the plough-tail by their gait, yet with no ruddy impress of field-work and the open air.
The boy for he was but a boy, one of those many ill-reared country louts who leave the plough-tail for the musket, and, for a shilling a day, experience all the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war" reddened to the roots of his closely-cropped hair. "There, that's quite close enough. You're only a common soldier, Miles, and you mustn't make love to me." "Not make love to yer!" says Miles.
We have had many a rural bard since Theocritus 'watched the visionary flocks, but you are the only one of them all who has spoken the sincere Doric. Yours is the talk of the byre and the plough-tail; yours is that large utterance of the early hinds. Even Theocritus minces matters, save where Lacon and Comatas quite outdo the swains of Ayrshire.
What, dream you not that we could have clergy, and of the right sort, too, if only we cared to have them? Tush! Am I to spend my time arguing with a plough-tail Bob?
'Come, you'd better stay and get work here! I'd sooner be at the plough-tail all day, than poke out my eyes over stuff like that, pointing to Paul's slate, covered with figures. 'Here, Nelly, as she moved about, tidying the room, 'do you hear? Mr. Cope's got an offer of a place for Paul five pounds a year, and board and lodging, to be school-master's whipper-in, or what d'ye call it?
And what was very wrong of me, though I did not see it then, I kept John Fry there, to praise my shots, from dinner-time often until the grey dusk, while he all the time should have been at work spring-ploughing upon the farm. And for that matter so should I have been, or at any rate driving the horses; but John was by no means loath to be there, instead of holding the plough-tail.
He described himself as having passed his life at the plough-tail and the threshing-floor; as being destitute of all scholastic instruction; and as being long since bereft of the affectionate regards of parents and kinsmen. When questioned as to the course of life which he meant to pursue upon his recovery, he professed himself without any precise object.
There Aikenhead was hanged for a piece of boyish incredulity; there, a few years afterwards, David Hume ruined Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed and well-reputed citizen; and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns came from the plough-tail, as to an academy of gilt unbelief and artificial letters.
"It is yours," said Dame Fortune, smiling as she looked at him. "The face of a prince and the manners of a clown are poor partners," said the farmer. "My second wish is for suitable learning and courtly manners, which cannot be gained at the plough-tail." "You have them in perfection," said the Dame, as the young man thanked her by a graceful bow.
There Aikenhead was hanged for a piece of boyish incredulity; there, a few years afterwards, David Hume ruined Philosophy and Faith, an undisturbed and well-reputed citizen; and thither, in yet a few years more, Burns came from the plough-tail, as to an academy of gilt unbelief and artificial letters.
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