Under these influences pass away the first reflective hours of life, with such conclusion as they can reach.  In consequence of a fit of illness, he was taken—­I cannot ascertain in what year[127]—­to live with an aunt, at Brentford; and here, I believe, received some schooling, which he seems to have snatched vigorously; getting knowledge, at least by translation, of the more picturesque classical authors, which he turned presently to use, as we shall see.  Hence also, walks about Putney and Twickenham in the summer time acquainted him with the look of English meadow-ground in its restricted states of paddock and park; and with some round-headed appearances of trees, and stately entrances to houses of mark:  the avenue at Bushy, and the iron gates and carved pillars of Hampton,[128] impressing him apparently with great awe and admiration; so that in after life his little country house is,—­of all places in the world,—­at Twickenham!  Of swans and reedy shores he now learns the soft motion and the green mystery, in a way not to be forgotten.

And at last fortune wills that the lad’s true life shall begin; and one summer’s evening, after various wonderful stage-coach experiences on the north road, which gave him a love of stage-coaches ever after, he finds himself sitting alone among the Yorkshire hills.[129] For the first time, the silence of Nature round him, her freedom sealed to him, her glory opened to him.  Peace at last; no roll of cart-wheel, nor mutter of sullen voices in the back shop; but curlew-cry in space of heaven, and welling of bell-toned streamlet by its shadowy rock.  Freedom at last.  Dead-wall, dark railing, fenced field, gated garden, all passed away like the dream, of a prisoner; and behold, far as foot or eye can race or range, the moor, and cloud.  Loveliness at last.  It is here, then, among these deserted vales!  Not among men.  Those pale, poverty-struck, or cruel faces;—­that multitudinous, marred humanity—­are not the only things that God has made.  Here is something He has made which no one has marred.  Pride of purple rocks, and river pools of blue, and tender wilderness of glittering trees, and misty lights of evening on immeasurable hills.

Beauty, and freedom, and peace; and yet another teacher, graver than these.  Sound preaching at last here, in Kirkstall crypt, concerning fate and life.  Here, where the dark pool reflects the chancel pillars, and the cattle lie in unhindered rest, the soft sunshine on their dappled bodies, instead of priests’ vestments; their white furry hair ruffled a little, fitfully, by the evening wind deep-scented from the meadow thyme.