Mushrooms on the Moor

Frank Boreham

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• Publié par: ucte
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 35
• Langue: English

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Title: Mushrooms on the Moor
Author: Frank Boreham
Release Date: January 3, 2008 [eBook #24134]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK MUSHROOMS ON THE MOOR***
E-text prepared by Al Haines
MUSHROOMS ON THE MOORby
F. W. BOREHAM
Author of
'Mountains in the Mist,'
'The Other Side of the Hill,'
'The Golden Milestone,'
'The Silver Shadow,'
'The Luggage of Life,'
'Faces in the Fire,' etc., etc.
The Abingdon Press
New York ——— Cincinnati
First American Edition Printed May, 1919
Reprinted August, 1919; May, 1920; July 1921CONTENTS
PART I
CHAP.
I. A SLICE OF INFINITY II. READY-MADE
CLOTHES III. THE HIDDEN GOLD IV. 'SUCH A
LOVELY BITE!' V. LANDLORD AND TENANT VI.
THE CORNER CUPBOARD VII. WITH THE
WOLVES IN THE WILD VIII. DICK SUNSHINE IX.
FORTY! X. A WOMAN'S REASON
PART II
I. THE HANDICAP II. GOG AND MAGOG III. MY
WARDROBE IV. 'PITY MY SIMPLICITY!' V.
TUNING FROM THE BASS VI. A FRUITLESS
DEPUTATION VII. TRAMP! TRAMP! TRAMP!
VIII. THE FIRST MATE
PART III
CHAP.
I. WHEN THE COWS COME HOME II.
MUSHROOMS ON THE MOOR III. ONIONS IV.
ON GETTING OVER THINGS V. NAMING THEBABY VI. THE MISTRESS OF THE MARGIN VII.
LILYBY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
I have allowed the Mushrooms on the Moor to
throw the glamour of their name over the entire
volume because, in some respects, they are the
most typical and representative things in it. They
express so little but suggest so much! What fun we
had, in the days of auld lang syne, when we
scoured the dewy fields in search of them! And yet
how small a proportion of our enjoyment the
mushrooms themselves represented! Our flushed
cheeks, our prodigious appetites, and our
boisterous merriment told of gains immensely
greater than any that our baskets could have held.
What a contrast, for example, between
mushrooms from the moor on the one hand and
mushrooms from the market on the other! What
memories of the soft summer mornings; the fresh
and fragrant air; the diffused and misty sunshine;
the sparkle of the dew on the tall wisps of
speargrass; the beaded and shining cobwebs; the
scamper, barefooted, across the glittering green! It
was part of childhood's wild romance. And, in the
sterner days that have followed those tremendous
frolics, we have learned that life is full of just such
suggestive things. As I glance back upon the years
that lie behind me, I find that they have been
almost equally divided between two hemispheres.
But I have discovered that, under any stars,
There's part o' the sun in an apple;
There's part o' the moon in a rose; There's part o' the flaming Pleiades
In every leaf that grows.
And I shall reckon this book no failure if some of
the ideas that I have tried to suggest are found to
point at all steadily to that conclusion.
FRANK W. BOREHAM.
HOBART, TASMANIA, JUNE, 1915.PART I
I
A SLICE OF INFINITY
I
Really, as I sit here in this quiet study, and glance
round at the books upon the shelves, I can
scarcely refrain from laughing at the fun we have
had together. And to think of the way in which they
came into my possession! It seems like a fairy
story or a chapter from romance. If a man wants to
spend an hour or so as delightfully as it is possible
to spend it, let him invite to his fireside some old
and valued friend, the companion of many a frolic
and the sharer of many a sorrow; let him seat his
old comrade there in the place of honour on the
opposite side of the hearth, and then let them talk.
'Do you remember, Tom, the way we met for the
first time?' 'My word, I do! Shall I ever forget it?'
And Tom slaps his knee at the memory of it, and
they enjoy a long and hearty laugh together. It is
not that the circumstances under which they met
were so ludicrous or dramatic; it is that they were
so commonplace. It seems, on looking back, the
oddest chance in the world that first brought them
together, the merest whim of chance, the veriest
freak of circumstance; and yet how all life hastaken its colour and drawn its enrichment from that
casual meeting! They happened to enter the same
compartment of a railway train; or they sat next
each other on the tramcar; or they walked home
together from a political meeting; or they caught
each other admiring the same rose at a flower
show. Neither sought the other; neither felt the
slightest desire for the other; neither knew, until
that moment, of the existence of the other; and yet
there it is! They met; and out of that apparently
accidental meeting there has sprung up a
friendship that many changes cannot change, and
a love that many waters cannot quench. Either
would cross all the continents and oceans of the
world to-day to find the other; but as they
remember how they met for the first time it seems
too queer to be credible. And they lie back in their
easy chairs and laugh again.
II
That is why I laugh at my books. Some day I intend
to draw up a list of them and divide them into
classes. In one class I shall put the books that I
bought, once upon a time, because I was given to
understand that they were the right sort of books
to have. Everybody else had them; and my shelves
would therefore be scarcely decent without them. I
purchased them, accordingly, and they have stood
on the shelves there ever since. As far as I know
they have done nobody the slightest harm in all
their long untroubled lives. Indeed, they have
imparted such an air of gravity, and such an odourof sanctity, to the establishment as must have had
a steadying effect on their less sombre
companions. But it is not at these formidable
volumes that I am laughing. I would not dare. I
glance at them with reverential awe, and am more
than half afraid of them. Then, again, there are
other books that I bought because I felt that I
needed them. And so I did, more than perhaps I
guessed when I bore them proudly home. Glorious
times I have had with them. I look up at them
gratefully and lovingly. It is not at these that I am
laughing. But there are others, old and trusted
friends, that came into my life in the oddest
possible way. I do not mean that I stole them. I
mean rather that they stole me. They seemed to
pounce out at me, and before I knew what had
happened I belonged to them: I certainly did not
seek them. In some cases I never heard of their
existence until after they became my own. They
have since proved invaluable to me, and I can
scarcely review our long companionship without
emotion. Yet when I glance up at them, and
remember the whimsical way in which we met for
the first time, I can scarce restrain my laughter.
III
It was like this. Years ago I went to an auction
sale. A library was being submitted to the hammer.
The books were all tied up in lots. The work had
evidently been done by somebody who knew as
much about books as a Hottentot knows about
icebergs. John Bunyan was tied tightly to Nat