Let him 'gang
his ain gait.' He comes of another breed than ours, I begin to suspect,
and our rough fodder and grooming may not suit his higher blood.--_Ach,
Himmel!_ Ned," cried he, laughing, "it pleased me, though, to see how
adroitly he contrived to twist that new reading out of the _bon homme
Francois_. It was quite in the style of St. Augustine, and would have
delighted that ex-sophist hugely; for, great as he was, and self-denying as
he was, he always had a hankering after the dialectic flesh-pots. How he
would have rubbed his hands, when Clarian wanted to persuade us that the
herb Pantagruelion was no other than Haschish, the expander of
souls!--Hollo! yonder goes the lad now. I wonder what he is up to. See him,
Ned, yonder, just coming out of the shadow of North College. How fast he
walks! how he is swinging his arms! I'll bet he is repeating poetry. I
wonder what the lad is after, anyhow.--There he goes, round the corner of
West College,--over the fence. Can he mean to have a game of ball by
moonlight?--No,--he's making across the fields; if he had a pitcher with
him now, I'd say he was going to the spring in the hollow.--Confound that
tree! I've lost him."
I proposed following Clarian, being really uneasy about him, but Mac
entered his veto,--
"No, Ned,--there's no need, and--it's none of our business. Children like
him have a hundred baby-houses we do not know anything about. He wants a
bath in the moonlight, I suppose, and wouldn't thank you for playing Actaeon
to the naked Diana of his midnight musings.
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