at in
a violent thunder-storm he remained perfectly unmoved, explaining his
composure by declaring that he could not hear any noise at all. From
Portsmouth he made his way on foot to London. On presenting himself
at the wretched lodgings where his mother lived, he found that she had
gone away with Richardson's troupe. Penniless and half-starving, he
suddenly thought of his uncle, Moses Kean, who lived in Lisle Street,
Leicester Square, a queer character, who gained a precarious living by
giving entertainments as a mimic and ventriloquist. The uncle received
his nephew warmly enough, and seems to have cultivated, to the best of
his ability, the talent for acting which he recognized at once in
the boy. Edmund again enjoyed a kind of desultory education, partly
carried on at school and partly at his uncle's home, where he enjoyed
the advantage of the kind instructions of his old friend, Miss
Tidswell, of D'Egville, the dancing master, of Angelo, the fencing
master, and of no less a person than Incledon, the celebrated singer,
who seems to have taken the greatest interest in him. But the vagrant,
half-gypsy disposition, which he inherited from his mother, could
never be subdued, and he was constantly disappearing from his uncle's
house for weeks together, which he would pass in going about from one
roadside inn to another, amusing the guests with his acrobatic tricks,
and his monkey-like imitations. In vain was he locked up in rooms, the
height of which from the ground was such as seemed to render escape
impossible. He contrived to get out somehow or other, even at the risk
of his neck, and to make his escape to some fair, where he would earn
a few pence by the exhibition of his varied accomplishments. During
these periods of vagabondism he would live on a mere nothing, sleeping
in barns, or in the open air, and would faithfully bring back his
gains to Uncle Moses. But even this astounding generosity, appealing,
as it must have done, to the uncle's sentiments, could not appease
him. His uncle went so far, apparently with the concurrence of Miss
Tidswell, as to place round the boy's neck a brass collar with the
inscription, "This boy belongs to No. 9 Lisle Street; please bring him
home." His wandering propensities being for a time subdued, we find
the little Edmund again engaged at Drury Lane, and delighting the
actors in the green-room by giving recitations from _Richard III._,
probably in imitation of Cooke; and, on one occ