JANUARY. 19 



way to the cupboard ; and he was glad when a gardener, who was 

 in our parts on a holiday, and used to drink with him, said he would 

 get me a place under him ; which he did, and to w^hich I w^ent near 

 forty miles in a road -wagon. All my clothes went in a handkerchief 

 bundle, and no large one neither ; and my father could ill bear to 

 see it, for he said, " Jem," as we went to the wagon, — " Jem," said 

 he, " take care of drink ; 'tis that makes your bundle so small. Pro- 

 mise me that, and never learn to swear." He was a kind, honest- 

 hearted man, ruined by drink and good fellowship, as it was called in 

 the " good old times." 



My heart was very heavy all the way ; and none the lighter when 

 I got to my journey's end, for it w^as late, and my father's friend 

 took me into a shed at the back of the greenhouses, and shewed me 

 a crib of a place where he told me I was to sleep ; and giving me 

 something to eat, said I must be tired, and had better go to bed. It 

 was a light summer's evening ; and how the birds did sing, after a 

 little rain we had ; but how heavy it made my heart to be left in 

 that place all alone ! But I said the prayer my mother taught me, 

 and in I got upon the bass mats that made the mattress, with a 

 blanket and coverlid for bed-clothes. My wages was to be five 

 shillings a- week, and find myself; and that was the reason the gar- 

 dener said why I was to sleep there, because I couldn't pay for lodg- 

 ings. I was tired, and soon fell asleep, and forgot all about wages 

 and every thing else. I was safe and sound when a strange face 

 called me in the morning to get up, and then I soon found out all 

 about it. I was to fetch and carry from the garden to the house, 

 sweep paths, and beat mats and carpets, and at spare times learn 

 to dig. And these things I did many a long day ; and they that 

 recollect what a growing body and great appetite can do at the 

 bread, let alone the beef, may guess how I felt sometimes on five 

 shillings a- week to find ail. Many a time I've seen the squire push 

 up the dining-room window and throw the dogs that lay about on 

 the lawn bones that I should have been glad to pick; and many 

 a time I've felt queer when he has called out to me, "Hoy! lay 

 down your broom, and come and take these bones off the grass," 

 which the dogs had done with ; and then he'd be stroking them, 

 and saying, " Good dog, good dog ;" and they so fat, and I so lean ; 

 they so sleek, and I so patchy, I often felt quite mangy among them. 

 But I'd a bold heart — my father was a pensioner for wounds in 

 battle — and carried my head up as well as I could. From the kitchen 

 I got nothing, except a cufF from the cook, which she never did twice, 

 however, for she liked the advantage, which that time she didn't 

 get. But I managed pretty well, especially in hard weather, when 

 mine and the birds' appetites were the keenest ; for then I caught 

 them, ay and cooked them too ; and this was my plan : — I'd pull a 

 lot of sparrows, or maybe some blackbirds and thrushes, and then 

 cut 'em down the back, and fill their bodies full of bread ; put them 

 in a tin dish, cover another over them, and put the lot pretty close 

 up to the bars of the stoke-hole on the top of a bank of hot ashes. 

 When done, and it did not take long, there was a supper for my 



