450 A FARMER'S YEAR 



everything above it to powder. I believe that it has now been 

 taken from its place and is preserved in the schoolhouse. 



I suppose that there are not very many people living who have 

 known a person who knew Lady Hamilton, but as it chances I 

 am one of them. In or about the year 1804, Mrs. Bolton, who 

 was Nelson's sister, and her husband hired Bradenham, my 

 brother's house, where I was born, and here Lady Hamilton used 

 to visit them. Indeed, there is a large cupboard in the Red Room 

 that was dedicated to her dresses, whereof the exceeding 

 splendours are still recorded in the traditions of the village. At 

 that time a man of the name of Canham, whom I knew well in 

 his age, was page boy at the Hall, and more than once has he 

 talked to me of Horatia and Lady Hamilton, the former of whom 

 he described as a ' white little slip of a thing.' I asked him also 

 what Lady Hamilton was like. ' Oh,' he replied, in the vigorous 

 Norfolk vernacular, 'she wor a rare fine opstanding . . . she 

 wor.' The missing word is scarcely suited to this page polite, 

 but may easily be guessed. In effect it is a curious piece of con- 

 temporary criticism from a source likely to be unprejudiced if out- 

 spoken. 



After Nelson's death all his sea-going belongings were sent to 

 Bradenham ; a piece of mahogany furniture from his cabin still 

 stands in one of the bedrooms. Also it was Canham's duty from 

 time to time to take out the coat in which he was killed at 

 Trafalgar and to air it on the lavender bushes that grow by the 

 kitchen garden railings. 



Only the other day I came across a curious souvenir of 

 Nelson. On his death a patriotic club was founded at Norwich 

 in memory of him, and called the Nelson Club. This Club, after 

 an existence of about fifty years, finally became extinct, or was 

 merged into the present Norfolk Club ; the last member of it, the 

 Rev. Henry Lombe of Bylaugh, dying less than a year ago. It 

 was a dining club, and owned two very curious pewter platters, 

 which passed into my possession through the agency of that pedlar 

 whom I have mentioned upon an earlier page. First, I bought 



