8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [ch. ii. 



ing the exact spot where the crime was committed. It 

 probably lay all the heavier from my love of dogs being 

 then, and for a long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs 

 seemed to know this, for I was an adept in robbing their 

 love from their masters. 



I remember clearly only one other incident during this 

 year whilst at Mr. Case's daily school, namely, the burial 

 of a dragoon soldier ; and it is surprising how clearly I can 

 still see the horse with the man's empty boots and carbine 

 suspended to the saddle, and the firing over the grave. 

 This scene deeply stirred whatever poetic fancy there was 

 in me.* 



In the summer of 1818 I went to Dr. Butler's great 

 school in Shrewsbury, and remained there for seven years till 

 Midsummer 1825, when I was sixteen years old. I boarded 

 at this school, so that I had the great advantage of living 

 the life of a true schoolboy ; but as the distance was hardly 

 more than a mile to my home, I very often ran there in the 

 longer intervals between the callings over and before lock- 

 ing up at night. This, I think, was in many ways advan- 

 tageous to me by keeping up home affections and interests. 

 I remember in the early part of my school life that I often 

 had to run very quickly to be in time, and from being a 

 fleet runner was generally successful ; but when in doubt I 

 prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember 

 that I attributed my success to the prayers and not to my 

 quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided. 



I have heard my father and elder sister say that I had, 

 as a very young boy, a strong taste for long solitary walks ; 

 but what I thought about I know not. I often became 

 quite absorbed, and once, whilst returning to school on the 

 summit of the old fortifications round Shrewsbury, which 

 had been converted into a public foot-path with no parapet 

 on one side, I walked off and fell to the ground, but the 

 height was only seven or eight feet. Nevertheless, the num- 

 ber of thoughts which passed through my mind during this 

 very short, but sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was as- 



* It is curious that another Shrewsbury boy should have been impressed 

 by this military funeral ; Mr. Gretton, in his Memory''s Harkbach, says that the 

 scene is so strongly impressed on his mind that he could " walk straight to 

 the spot in St. Chad's churchyard where the poor fellow was buried." The 

 soldier was an Inniskilling Dragoon, and the officer in command had been 

 recently wounded at Waterloo, where his corps did good service against the 

 French Cuirassiors. 



