WILLIAM ALLAIR: OR, RUNNING AWAY TO SEA. CHAPTER I. THE TWENTY-NINTH OF MAY. I LIKE writing for boys, and I am going to tell them a story of real life. I hope all those who are especially inclined to be scapegraces will learn it by heart. Never was there a pleasanter village than that of Whittermead, situated in a charming nook of old England. It had its colony of gentlemen's houses, its clustering cottages, its farm homesteads. An aristocratic village it was pleased to call itself, and a loyal village, too; which was the cause, possibly, why sundry old-fashioned customs, that had become obsolete in most places, reigned there still in triumph. Its enemies were apt to ridicule the place, and reproach it as being, in reference to the world in general, "a day behind the fair." Two days in the year were kept as public holidays, and Whittermead, in its ultra loyalty, prided itself upon the fact. The days were the twenty-ninth of May, and A the fifth of November. Had the show on the one day, and the Guy Fawkeses and fireworks on the other, been done away with, the boys would have broken out into open rebellion; more particularly, the scholars of Dr Robertson's school, a semi-public school of renown in the county. It is with the twenty-ninth of May that we have to do; but not a very recent one; I am telling you of years ago. In the heart of the town there stood a white, detached house. It was inhabited by a gentleman of the name of Allair; a solicitor of good practice for a small local place. His eldest son, William, gives the title to this book. On the morning spoken of, the church bells rang out a merry peal, heralding in the holiday; so early, that few people were awake to hear them. Their sound aroused many,―amongst others, William Allair. He started from his pillow, a good-looking, fair boy of fifteen, and stared around him. แ "The bells already!" cried he, winking and blinking his blue eyes between sleep and wake. "And-if I don't believe it's a fine morning!" Taking a flying leap from his bed, he pulled aside the window curtain, and the glorious beauty of a bright morning burst upon his delighted view-all the more beautiful from its contrast to many preceding days. The weather had been dull and gloomy up to the very last night, and bets were pending that the twenty-ninth would be the same. Boys ought not to bet; but they do: and I see no use to ignore the fact, when writing of them. It was a lovely landscape that met William's sight, as he looked forth; for this house of Mr Allair, |