64 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



father," he asked Francis; "I have said I am very sorry." Francis 

 immediately replied from Walter Scott, "I think this would do: 



' And if I live to be a man 

 My Father's death revenged shall he.'" 



"Thank you," said the little hoy, and added it to his letter. 



And again, in the first year of his going to school at age five, the 

 maid who went to fetch him home found a group of boys teasing him. 

 Francis kept them all at bay with his arm straight out : 



" Come one, come all, this rock shall fly, 

 From its firm base, as soon as I." 



Another day about this same time his mother took him into a 

 field where the servants were trying to catch some geese. Francis 

 immediately ran amongst them and seizing the old gander by the neck 

 brought him to his mother, muttering to himself the lines of Chevy Chstxc : 



"Thou art the most courageous knight 

 That ever I did see." 



On another occasion Francis fell oft' his pony into a very muddy 

 ditch, and, as he was dragged out by his legs, he sputtered out half- 

 choked with mud to his brother Darwin the lines of Hudibras : 



" I am not now in Fortune's power 

 He that is down can fall no lower." 



As his mother depicts him for us in the first half-dozen years of 

 his life Francis was a boy of mettle, full of strangely assorted know- 

 ledge, but naturally rather shy. A pretty story is told in Mrs 

 Wheler's Reminiscences, which brings together two noteworthy 

 English characters. Mrs Fry (see Plate XLVII) was a second cousin 

 of Hudson Gurney, whose wife, Margaret Barclay, was a great-aunt 

 of Francis Galton. Hudson Gurney was himself son of Agatha 

 Barclay, first cousin of Lucy Barclay, Francis Galton 's grandmother 1 . 

 Aunt Gurney's house in St James's Square was the centre from which 

 the young Galtons became acquainted with London life, and here they 

 met Mrs Fry " a very striking person, tall and dignified and yet so 

 kind and motherly, one felt one could open one's heart at once to her." 

 In 1824 Mrs Fry came to Birmingham and went to stay with 



1 Mrs Fry was also a granddaughter of Catherine Barclay, who was sister to the 

 first Lucy Barclay and to David Barclay of Youngsbury (see Pedigree Plate C). Thus 

 she was second cousin to Tertius Galton. 



