enly by the marvel of
the difference between my present and my other home. My father entered
into arrangements with a Punch and Judy man for him to pay me regular
morning visits opposite our window; yet here again his genius defeated
his kind intentions; for happening once to stand by my side during the
progress of the show, he made it so vivid to me by what he said and did,
that I saw no fun in it without him: I used to dread the heralding crow
of Punch if he was away, and cared no longer for wooden heads being
knocked ever so hard.

On Sundays we walked to the cathedral, and this was a day with a delight
of its own for me. He was never away on the Sunday. Both of us attired in
our best, we walked along the streets hand in hand; my father led me
before the cathedral monuments, talking in a low tone of British
victories, and commending the heroes to my undivided attention. I
understood very early that it was my duty to imitate them. While we
remained in the cathedral he talked of glory and Old England, and dropped
his voice in the middle of a murmured chant to introduce Nelson's name or
some other great man's and this recurred regularly. 'What are we for
now?' he would ask me as we left our house. I had to decide whether we
took a hero or an author, which I soon learnt to do with capricious
resolution. We were one Sunday for Shakespeare; another for Nelson or
Pitt. 'Nelson, papa,' was my most frequent rejoinder, and he never
dissented, but turned his steps toward Nelson's cathedral dome, and
uncovered his head there, and said: 'Nelson, then, to-day'; and we went
straight to his monument to perform the act of homage. I chose Nelson in
preference to the others because near bed-time in the evening my father
told me stories of our hero of the day, and neither Pitt nor Shakespeare
lost an eye, or an arm, or fought with a huge white bear on the ice to
make himself interesting. I named them occasionally out of compassion,
and to please my father, who said that they ought to have a turn. They
were, he told me, in the habit of paying him a visit, whenever I had
particularly neglected them, to learn the grounds for my disregard of
their claims, and they urged him to intercede with me, and imparted many
of their unpublished adventures, so that I should be tempted to give them
a chance on the following Sunday.

'Great Will,' my father called Shakespeare, and 'Slender Billy,' Pitt.
The scene where Great Will killed the deer, draggi