Cache-Cache; A Tale in Verse

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 'Twixt fields of young green corn, and budding hedges, O'er which soon rose the old grey tower that gave Its name to Castleton. Outside the town Stood Ascham-house. There Thornie left and told me, If e'er I wanted help, to send to him, By farmer Wilson, who at the Black Bull Put up on market days, and he would find Some one should thrash the town in my behalf. I laughed at the grand promise. We shook hands; And, mounted sideways on the pony stout, The old man rode away. Like bather bold, Not foot by foot encountering the flood, But, leaping headlong, so I plunged among My future school-fellows, some five-score lads, Not like the bather to emerge, and shout, And joyous cleave the waters. I was stunned. The term had reached its noon, and work was hot, And play was hotter. Entering lone that world Of busy ardent life, my spirit quailed. All was so rough and rude; the cold white walls, Bare floor, mean benches, and unsightly desks Of the vast school-room desolation cast Around my home-sick heart. At Ormathwaite All was so warm. I shrank beneath the gaze That met me everywhere, and seeking out A quiet corner, poured forth all my woe In round text to Aunt Rachel, praying her To come and take me back to Arrandale. The grief soon passed. I loosed the apron strings, As Kitty's knight to fare. A cheerful place, Despite its aspect cold, was Ascham-house, With a trim garden round it, and beyond, The ample playground, gravel half, half grass. Such shouts, such laughter, such exuberant glee, As from that play-ground rang?palaestra termed In school grandiloquence?were death to grief. Boy, to the destined bard of Christabel The awful doctor said, to check his tears, The school's your father; boy, the school's your mother; The school's your brother a...