MEMOIR. 9 



Pestalozzi system. There were seven under- masters, and each class 

 never remained more than an hour at the same task. At this 

 time I had a strong inclination to go to sea, which originated from 

 perusing Captain Basil Hall's Fragments, from dislike to school, 

 and from a kind of taste for enterprise. An extraordinary freak 

 entered into my head to perform. One fine afternoon I jumped 

 over the playground palings and set off, without knowing whither 

 or wherefore. After walking till midnight in the direction of 

 Dorking, I crept into the window of a barn, and slept on a 

 ladder. At sunrise I resumed my journey, breakfasted for a 

 shilling at a roadside inn (the sign of Tangiers), and walked in 

 the direction of London, taking a considerable circuit to avoid 

 the neighbourhood of Kingston. It was a lovely day ; the sun 

 shone bright, and I enjoyed it as an escaped convict or a truant 

 schoolboy can alone do. However, after walking till four in the 

 afternoon, I arrived at Westminster Bridge, hungry, weary, and 

 quite unresolved what next to do. While I was sitting in one 

 of the alcoves on Westminster Bridge (where I thought that, if 

 it came to the worst, I might pass the night), an old man with 

 a bundle turned in and seated himself on the stone bench. He 

 had the appearance of great poverty, though his dress, patched 

 and threadbare as it was, showed attempts at neatness and 

 shabby gentility ; but there was something exceedingly mild 

 and benevolent in his thin, starved physiognomy, so that after a 

 few commonplace remarks I told him that I was a boy just come 

 up from the country in search of a place, and asked him if he could 

 recommend me where to go. Now, this poor old man was a real 

 good Samaritan, as I will presently show, and it reminds me of 



