nce! Up to the
age of ten this life was all my own." And thus it was with me.
Existence was a pleasure, and the weather, I believe, was better then
than it is now. We had summer in summer time. We had fine weather when
harvest commenced, and to spend a day at one of the neighbouring farmers
riding the fore horse was a delight which thrilled me with joy; and
winter, with its sliding and snowballing, with its clear skies and its
glittering snows, rendering the landscape lovelier than ever, made me
forget the inevitable chilblains, which was the price we had to pay for
all its glories and its charms.

Our little village was situated on the high road between London and Great
Yarmouth, along which rolled twice a day the London and Yarmouth Royal
Mail, drawn by four horses, and driven by a fat man in red, whom we raw
village lads regarded as a very superior person indeed. Behind sat the
guard, also in red, with a horn, which he blew lustily when occasion
required. There was a time, but that was much later, when a day coach
was put on, and, as it changed horses at our village inn, one of our
chief delights was to see the tired, heated, smoking horses taken out,
and their places filled by a new set, much given to kicking and plunging
at starting, to the immense delight of the juvenile spectators. Even the
passengers I regarded with awe. In fourteen hours would they not be in
London where the King lived--where were the Houses of Parliament, the
Bank and the Tower and the soldiers? What would I not have given to be
on that roof urging on, under the midnight stars, my wild career! Now
and then a passenger would be dropped in our little village. What a nine
days' wonder he was, especially if he were a Cockney and talked in the
language of Cockaigne--if he had heard the Iron Duke, or seen royalty
from afar. Nonconformity flourished in the village in spite of the fact
that the neighbouring baronet, at the gates of whose park the village may
be said to have commenced, was Sir Thomas Gooch--(Guche was the way the
villagers pronounced his dread name)--for was he not a county magistrate,
who could consign people to Beccles Gaol, some eight miles off, and one
of the M.P.'s for the county, and did not he and his lady sternly set
their faces against Dissent? If now and then there were coals and
blankets to be distributed--and very little was done in that way, charity
had not become fashionable then--you may be sure that no Disse