His nose was long and high, but symmetrical, and his distended nostrils, when excited at play, would remind you of a Kentucky racehorse in motion. His voice was sonorous and musical, and when stirred by passion or pleasure it rose and fell like the sound of waves upon a stormy or summer sea. His lips were red and full, marked by Nature, with the "bow of beauty," and when his luminous countenance was flushed with celestial light, he shot the arrows of love-lit glances around the schoolroom and fairly magnetized the boys, and particularly the girls, with the radiant influence of his unconscious genius.
Will was a constant source of anxiety and wonder to the teacher, who often marked him as the scapegoat to carry off the surface sins of sneaking and cowardly pupils. Corporal punishment was part of school discipline, and William and myself got our share of the rule and rod.
Through all the centuries, in youth and age, private and public, the scapegoat has been the real hero in all troubles and misfortunes. He seems to be a necessary mortal, but while persecution relentlessly pursues him, he almost invariably triumphs over his enemies, and when even devoted to the prison, the stake or the scaffold, as a martyr, he triumphs over the grave and is monumented in the memory of mankind for his bravery and silent self-sacrifice!
For seven school years Will and myself were daily companions. Spring, with its cowslips and primroses, and hawthorn blossoms, found us rambling through the woods and fields, and angling for the finny tribe disporting in the purling waters of the crystal Avon.
Summer brought its grain and fruits, with boys and girls scrambling over hedges, fences, stiles and brooks, in search of berries and ripe apples; autumn with its nuts, birds and hares, invited us to hunting grounds, along the rolling ridges and the dense forest of Arden, even poaching on the domain of Sir Thomas Lucy and the royal reaches of Warwick Castle, and old winter with his snowy locks and whistling airs brought the roses to our young cheeks, skipping and sporting through his fantastic realm like the snow birds whirling in clumps of clouds across the withered world.
Looking back over the fields, forests and waters of the past through the variegated realms of celestial imagination, I behold after the lapse of more than three centuries of human wrecks, the brilliant boys and glorious girls I played with in childhood years--still shining as bright and fresh as the flowers and fruits of yesterday!
