Poets have long praised the merits of a pastoral life wherein man lives in perfect harmony with Nature and enjoys the fruits of her bounteousness. Were Mr Headstone familiar with these opinions - and, as he scorned all but the basest forms of verse and song, he was not - he might have had occasion to dispute them after only a few days spent in Nature's verdant bosom.
First and foremost, he objected to the general arrangement of the countryside, which had not been designed with the comfort of man in mind. There were too many obstacles to overcome - stiles, and gates, and hedgerows - and the paths were never straight or paved, and - save for an occasional milestone by the side of the road - nothing was named or numbered, which made it difficult to find anything with any degree of accuracy.
Furthermore, wild animals were allowed to roam at will and disturb the peace with their cries even in the hours when normal people were in their beds. Beasts of burden and husbandry were permitted to traverse the public highways in large numbers when it was required (for what purpose the pedagogue knew not) to move them from one pasture to another; and they always left the thoroughfare in a less handsome condition than they found it, evidence of which Mr Headstone often collected on the sole of his shoe.
It was one afternoon while the pedagogue was ruminating upon these thoughts that he was overtaken by a storm. The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs and a train of dark clouds menaced thunder and lightning and within minutes large drops of rain had begun to fall. Having no umbrella and not being conversant with the principles governing atmospheric electricity, Mr Headstone took shelter under a venerable oak tree, whose wide spreading branches offered a refuge from the pelting rain. The sky was as black as the devil's waistcoat illuminated only by the flash and glare of forked lighning, a jagged bolt of which suddenly struck the trunk of the oak, cleaving it in two and bringing the ancient timber down upon the unsuspecting schoolmaster's head.
