CHAPTER IX. 



IN Christmas week, 1784, while I was on some 

 errand to Ovingham, amusing myself with sliding 

 on the ice, as smooth almost as a looking glass, 

 between Eltringham and that place, I know not 

 what came over my mind, but something ominous 

 haunted it, of a gloomy change impending over 

 the family. At this I was surprised, for I had 

 never before felt any such sensation, and presently 

 scouted it as some whim of the imagination. The 

 day was to be one of cheerfulness ; for Mr. and 

 Mrs. Storey distant relations of my father, and 

 for whom my parents had the greatest regard 

 had been, with other friends, invited to dine with 

 us at Cherryburn. At dinner all was kindness 

 and cheerfulness, and my father was, as usual, 

 full of his jokes, and telling some of -his facetious 

 stories and anecdotes. For two, or perhaps three 

 Sundays after this, I was prevented from getting 

 over the water, by the ice and other floods, and 

 returned from Ovingham without seeing or hear- 

 ing how all were at home. The Sunday after, 

 upon my making my usual call at John Gilchrist's, 

 the gardener in Ovingham, where, when at 

 school, we always left our dinner poke, and 

 dined, he informed me, with looks of grief, that 

 my mother was very unwell. I posted off, in 

 haste, along with him, and across the river to 

 see her. Upon my asking her, earnestly, how 

 she was, she took me apart, and told me it was 



