I Leaned Over The Paling
Of The Playground, And Watched The Scholars At Their Games, And Looked
To See If There Might Not Be Some Urchin Among Them, Like I Was Once,
Full Of Gay Dreams About Life And The World.
The play-ground seemed
smaller than when I used to sport about it.
The house and park, too, of
the neighboring squire, the father of the cruel Sacharissa, had shrunk
in size and diminished in magnificence. The distant hills no longer
appeared so far off, and, alas! no longer awakened ideas of a fairy
land beyond.
As I was rambling pensively through a neighboring meadow, in which I
had many a time gathered primroses, I met the very pedagogue who had
been the tyrant and dread of my boyhood. I had sometimes vowed to
myself, when suffering under his rod, that I would have my revenge if
ever I met him when I had grown to be a man. The time had come; but I
had no disposition to keep my vow. The few years which had matured me
into a vigorous man had shrunk him into decrepitude. He appeared to
have had a paralytic stroke. I looked at him, and wondered that this
poor helpless mortal could have been an object of terror to me! That I
should have watched with anxiety the glance of that failing eye, or
dreaded the power of that trembling hand! He tottered feebly along the
path, and had some difficulty in getting over a stile.
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