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It is not among the least wonders effected by the locomotive that a short hour can transport us from the midst of the busiest centres of manufactures to a solitude as complete as is to be found in the prairies of America or Australia, unless we by chance stumble upon a prying gamekeeper or an idle rustic seeking whortle-berries or snaring hares.
His brothers and cousins laid him softly on a bank of whortle-berries, and just rode back to the lonely hamlet where he had taken his death-wound. No man nor woman was left in the morning, nor house for any to dwell in, only a child with its reason gone.* *This vile deed was done, beyond all doubt.
This was touching a theme which found a responsive chord in the bosom of every man present. "Our commerce is destroyed," hollowed old John Rewcastle, a Jedburgh smuggler, from the lower end of the table. "Our agriculture is ruined," said the Laird of Broken-girth-flow, a territory which, since the days of Adam, had borne nothing but ling and whortle-berries.
He sometimes made doleful complaint that there were no stage-coaches nowadays. And he asked in an injured tone what had become of all those old square-topped chaises, with wings sticking out on either side, that used to be drawn by a plough-horse, and driven by a farmer's wife and daughter, peddling whortle-berries and blackberries about the town.
Frithiof was as happy as a released prisoner, and did not come home to dinner. The boys gathered whortle-berries, and bathed in the lake. It was the first really enjoyable day of his life. When he came home in the evening, he found the whole house in great commotion.
After thinking and thinking how he could get the money to buy it, a bright idea flashed across his mind. The bushes in the fields about the farm seemed waiting for some one to pick the ripe whortle-berries. "Why," thought he, "can't I gather and sell enough to buy my dictionary?"
"`Oh, everything! cried Frank, who had grown enthusiastic at the prospect of farming, for he was fond of agricultural pursuits; `we can have venison-pasties with our flour. "`And fruit-pies, added Harry; `there are plenty of fruits. I have found wild plums and cherries, and mulberries as long as my finger, and whortle-berries, too. What delicious puddings we can make.
I could hear it lapping and washing against the shore almost like a sea. And it was so still, so still; and I was thinking of the time when I was a little girl back at Barrington, years and years ago, picking whortle-berries down in the 'water lot, and how I got lost once in the corn the stalks were away above my head and how happy I was when my father would take me up on the hay wagon.
Oh, I would give it all gladly, gladly, to be that little black-haired girl again, back in Squire Dearborn's water lot; with my hands stained with the whortle-berries and the nettles in my fingers and my little lover, who called me his beau-heart and bought me a blue hair ribbon, and kissed me behind the pump house." "Ah," said Corthell, quickly and earnestly, "that is the secret.
His brothers and cousins laid him softly on a bank of whortle-berries, and just rode back to the lonely hamlet where he had taken his death-wound. No man nor woman was left in the morning, nor house for any to dwell in, only a child with its reason gone.* *This vile deed was done, beyond all doubt.
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