THE LOVE-CHILD. 



THE most distant recollection of my life is exceedingly vivid : I 

 was travelling for several days and nights in a huge vehicle, which I 

 suspect to have been a road waggon. My mother was with me, and 

 often wept most bitterly, without, so far as I could perceive, the least 

 occasion, for we had plenty of straw and plenty of play-fellows. To 

 me the circumstances in which we were placed seemed glorious : she, 

 however, thought differently. At last we quitted the waggon, and 

 proceeded on foot across several fields, in which haymakers were at 

 work ; I began to grow tired ; she took me in her arms, and I fell 

 asleep. On awaking, I was in a small room, and my mother ap- 

 peared to be quarrelling with two or three other persons, who called 

 me "brat," and threatened to throw me out of doors. To appease 

 them, much to my amazement, my mother said, with great earnest- 

 ness, that I had taken off her ring while she was thinking of some- 

 thing else and lost it among the straw in the waggon. This seemed so 

 to increase the wrath of the others that I screamed with all my might, 

 that I had done nothing of the sort. My mother now hastily wrapped 

 me up in her cloak, and rushed out. I struggled to get my head at 

 liberty, but she pressed me closer, and hurried on. Presently I heard 

 voices of persons apparently in pursuit. Terrified to the utmost, 

 fearful of their overtaking us, I gasped out "Run, mother, run !" 

 In a few moments I felt a sensation of falling a heavy splash fol- 

 lowed, and the roar of rushing waters was in my ears. I clung con- 

 vulsively to my mother, and after a brief and painful dream and 

 a long sound sleep, I suddenly awoke, and began to cry for water, my 

 mouth, throat and stomach being, as it seemed, lined with red hot iron. 

 Somebody now got out of the bed in which I was lying ; a bustle 

 ensued, and presently the people with whom my mother had been 

 quarrelling, one by one appeared, and ministered to my wants with 

 the greatest tenderness and solicitude. After my thirst was a little 

 quenched, I looked about for my mother but she was not there. 



By the foregoing facts the horizon of my memory is bounded. I 

 recollect nothing with continuous distinctness of that part of my life 

 which ensued, until I became eight or nine years old. Thenceforth 

 events seem to have formed a perfect chain and I can trace them 

 link by link. A glance at the first will shew that I had not been 

 moving in a very enviable sphere of existence. 



There was a field bounded on three sides by a copse, in which 

 pheasants were most rigidly preserved, and nuts, crab-apples and bit- 

 ter sloes abounded : it, the copse, I can't conceive why, was called 

 Cuckold's Harem. The Squire owned it ; but the field which abutted 

 on its boundary was the freehold of a morose farmer, who would 

 not part with his inheritance and immense offers had been made to 

 him for " love or money." He had about sixty acres of the best 

 land in the parish, lying in the very heart of the Squire's immense 

 estate, across which he had no less than seven distinct rights of way, 

 and one of these ran right in front of the magnificent manor house. 

 The Squire's name was Patch, the farmer's Belroy. Patch's grand- 



