6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, i 



into disgrace and he did not. We made it up, and thereafter I 

 was unmolested. One of the greatest shocks I ever received in 

 my life was to be told a dozen years afterwards by the groom 

 who brought me my horse in a stable-yard in Sydney that he 

 was my quondam antagonist. He had a long story of family 

 misfortune to account for his position ; but at that time it was 

 necessary to deal very cautiously with mysterious strangers in 

 New South Wales, and on inquiry I found that the unfortunate 

 young man had not only been " sent out," but had undergone 

 more than one colonial conviction. 



His brief school career was happily cut short by the 

 break up of the Ealing establishment. On the death of 

 Dr. Nicholas, his sons attempted to carry on the school ; but 

 the numbers declined rapidly, and George Huxley, about 

 1835, returned to his native town of Coventry, where he 

 obtained the modest post of manager of the Coventry sav- 

 ings bank, while his daughters eked out the slender family 

 resources by keeping school. 



In the meantime the boy Tom, as he was usually called, 

 got little or no regular instruction. But he had an inquiring 

 mind, and a singularly early turn for metaphysical specula- 

 tion. He read everything he could lay hands on in his 

 father's library. Not satisfied with the ordinary length of 

 the day, he used, when a boy of twelve, to light his candle 

 before dawn, pin a blanket round his shoulders, and sit up 

 in bed to read Hutton's Geology. He discussed all manner 

 of questions with his parents and friends, for his quick and 

 eager mind made it possible for him to have friendships 

 with people considerably older than himself. Among these 

 may especially be noted his medical brother-in-law, Dr. 

 Cooke of Coventry, who had married his sister Ellen in 

 1839, and through whom he early became interested in hu- 

 man anatomy ; and George Anderson May, at that time in 

 business at Hinckley (a small weaving centre some dozen, 

 miles distant from Coventry), whom his friends who knew 

 him afterwards in the home which he made for himself on 

 the farm at Elford, near Tamworth, will remember for his 

 genial spirit and native love of letters. There was a real 

 friendship between the two. The boy of fifteen notes down 



