John Burnet of Barns by John Buchan — Read

Summer came on the heels of spring, and the little strip of garden below my windows grew gay as the frock of a burgher's wife on a Sunday. There were great lines of tulips, purple and red and yellow, stately as kings, erect as a line of soldiers, which extended down the long border nigh to the edge of the water. The lawn was green and well trimmed and shaded by the orderly trees. It was pleasant to sit here in the evenings, when Nicol would bring out the supper-table to the grass, and we would drink our evening ale while the sun was making all the canal a strip of beaten gold. Many folk used to come of an evening, some of them come to the university on the same errand as myself, others, Scots gentlemen out of place and out of pocket, who sought to remedy both evils by paying court to the Stadtholder. Then we would talk of our own land and tell tales and crack jests till the garden rang with laughter. I could well wish those times back, if I could bring with them the _forte latus, nigros angusta fronte capillos, dulce loqui, ridere decorum_. But fie on me for such discontent! Hath not God given good gifts for age as well as youth -- aye, perhaps in greater abundance?

I pursued my studies in the ancient literatures and philosophy with much diligence and profit. Nevertheless, there was much to turn my attention, and I doubt if I did not find the folk around me the more diverting objects of study. I lived in an air of theology and philosophy and statecraft, hearing discussions on these and kindred matters all the day long. There were many of my own countrymen in the place, who are notoriously the most contentious of mankind: so that I could scarcely walk down any street without hearing some violent disputation in my own tongue. As for the other people of the place, I found them both civil and hospitable.