"Your nerves are all to pot," he said; "what have you been doing with yourself?"
I told him my recent history.
"But, Good Lord!" he cried, "how did you manage to find any worry in a village?"
I tried to explain. Living in a village narrows one; the outside world is gradually forgotten, and the opinions of ignoramuses gradually come to matter. I found myself beginning to worry over the adverse criticisms of villagers who could not read nor write.
"You've got neurasthenia," said Watterson; "what you want to do is to settle down on a farm for six months; live in the open air and do nothing strenuous. Don't try to think, and for God's sake don't worry. Read John Bull and The Pink 'Un, and chuck all the weekly intellectual reviews. And ... most important of all, fall in love with a rosy-cheeked daughter of the soil."
I have written to Frank Thomson, the farmer of Eagleshowe, asking if he still wants a cattleman. His last man was conscripted, and if the job is still vacant Frank will give it to me.
To-night I sit chuckling. The idea of a dismissed dominie's returning to a village to feed cattle is rich. The village will extract much amusement out of it. I imagine Peter Mitchell looking over the dyke and crying: "Weel, dominie, and how is the experiment in eddication gettin' on?"
* * *
I sit at a bright peat fire in Frank Thomson's bothy. I arrived at three o'clock and no bairn was about the station. I was glad, for I did not want to meet anyone. There was a queer feeling of shame in returning; I feared to meet anyone's glance. To return a few days after an affecting farewell is the last word in anticlimax; it is so horribly undramatic a thing to do. I wish that Lazarus had kept a diary after his resurrection; I fancy that quite a few people resented his return.
I cannot write more to-night; I am tired out. The most tiring thing in the world is to rise in one place and go to bed in another.