upon the billows! A dozen men-of-war
are gliding majestically out of port, their long buntings streaming from
the top-gallant masts, calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth
from his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank
in the east? a gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a
crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to
skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their
imprudence in an English hold. Stirring times those, which I love to
recall, for they were days of gallantry and enthusiasm, and were moreover
the days of my boyhood.

CHAPTER III

Pretty D-----The Venerable Church--The Stricken Heart--Dormant
Energies--The Small Packet--Nerves--The Books--A Picture--Mountain-like
Billows--The Footprint--Spirit of De Foe--Reasoning Powers--Terrors of
God--Heads of the Dragons--High-Church Clerk--A Journey--The Drowned
Country.

And when I was between six and seven years of age we were once more at
D---, {22} the place of my birth, whither my father had been despatched
on the recruiting service. I have already said that it was a beautiful
little town--at least it was at the time of which I am speaking; what it
is at present I know not, for thirty years and more have elapsed since I
last trod its streets. It will scarcely have improved, for how could it
be better than it then was? I love to think on thee, pretty quiet D---,
thou pattern of an English country town, with thy clean but narrow
streets branching out from thy modest market-place, with thine
old-fashioned houses, with here and there a roof of venerable thatch,
with thy one half-aristocratic mansion, where resided thy Lady
Bountiful--she, the generous and kind, who loved to visit the sick,
leaning on her gold-headed cane, whilst the sleek old footman walked at a
respectful distance behind. Pretty quiet D---, with thy venerable
church, in which moulder the mortal remains of England's sweetest and
most pious bard.

Yes, pretty D---, I could always love thee, were it but for the sake of
him who sleeps beneath the marble slab in yonder quiet chancel. It was
within thee that the long-oppressed bosom heaved its last sigh, and the
crushed and gentle spirit escaped from a world in which it had known
nought but sorrow. Sorrow! do I say? How faint a word to express the
misery of that bruised reed; misery so dark that a blind worm like myself
is occasionally t