FITZEDWARD HALL.
ONCE AND AGAIN.
Once and again I have nestled in the lap of a small village and
wondered at the necessity of any world beyond my peaceful horizon.
Once and again, after long years, I have entered the old school-room
with the fearful and impatient heart of a boy: I have paced the
play-ground and gone to and fro in the village streets singing, but
the song I once sang came not again to my lips, for it no longer
suited the time or the occasion.
I thought to take up the thread of life where I had dropped it near a
score of years before, and complete the web which fancy had
embroidered with many a flower of memory and hope and love. I had
forgotten that the loom weaves steadily and persistently whether my
hand be on it or not, and that I can never mend the rent in the fabric
I so long neglected.
My record elsewhere is replete with numerous accidents by flood and
field--with the epochs of meetings and marryings, of births and
deaths. Meanwhile, the friends who had held fast to me through all
these changes wrote ever in the selfsame vein, and plotted for my
return with such even and sturdy faith that I had grown to look upon
them as having drunk at the fountain of immortal youth.
Of course the delectable spring gushed out of the heart of one of
those dear old hills that walled in the village, for how else could
they have quaffed it? The bones of more than two centuries pave the
highway between New England and California.
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