should touch his manuscripts, for they
represented to him, poor boy, silver and gold, and what he cared more
for--Fame.

A few friends stood with his tearful mother and sobbing sister at the
coach office at the Bush Inn to bid him farewell. He took both mother
and sister in his arms and kissed them lovingly, said good-bye to the
others, and then he sprang, still grasping his precious bag in his hand,
into what was called 'the basket' of the mail coach, and cheaper, by
reason of its low position outside the clumsy, lumbering vehicle, and
then he was off.

Not one backward glance did he give of regret to Bristol. He was sore at
what he conceived to be the ill treatment he had received from his
native city, and burning with desire to avenge his wrongs by returning
to it crowned with the laurel wreath of Fame, to be courted instead of
spurned, to have at his feet those who had trampled on him, and to find
his native City of the West awaking at last to the fact it had been so
slow to recognise that he was a son of whom it might be justly proud.

The fulfilment of the last part of his high-set hope may perhaps have
come, and now, at the distance of a hundred and twenty years, the figure
of the marvellous boy stands out with a distinct personality which no
'animated bust' could give it. Time throws a veil of charity over his
faults, and deep pity stirs in every heart, as in mine to-day as I write
these fragments gathered from his short life, that he had no anchor of
the soul on which to take firm hold in the troubled waters of that
stormy sea on which he was launched on the 26th day of April 1770.

Deep pity, too, that no kindly hand was outstretched to help him in his
hours of darkness, no voice to tell him of One to whom he might turn as
of old one turned in his despair with the cry of 'My Father, I have
sinned,' to find as he did pardon and peace.

* * * * *

Full tidings came to poor Bryda the day after she had parted with
Chatterton--tidings from the farm. An ill-written and hurried letter
from Betty was left at the office by the carrier that morning, and
brought by Mr Lambert to Dowry Square when he returned for dinner.

Bryda opened the letter with trembling fingers. She could not dare to
read it in the presence of others.

'DEAR BRYDA,'--Bet said,--'They brought the Squire here Sunday
evening like to die. They could not get him further. The
doctor said it would kil