ong. My quick, impulsive nature
found in him the restful strength it needed, and learned from him the
self-control it lacked.

He was the merriest of companions in our rare hours of relaxation; for
many years he was wont to come to my house in the morning, after the
hours always set aside by him for receiving poor men who wanted advice
on legal and other matters--for he was a veritable poor man's lawyer,
always ready to help and counsel--and, bringing his books and papers,
he would sit writing, hour after hour, I equally busy with my own
work, now and then, perhaps, exchanging a word, breaking off just for
lunch and dinner, and working on again in the evening till about ten
o'clock--he always went early to bed when at home--he would take
himself off again to his lodgings, about three-quarters of a mile
away. Sometimes he would play cards for an hour, euchre being our
favourite game. But while we were mostly busy and grave, we would make
holiday sometimes, and then he was like a boy, brimming over with
mirth, full of quaint turns of thought and speech; all the country
round London has for me bright memories of our wanderings--Richmond,
where we tramped across the park, and sat under its mighty trees;
Windsor, with its groves of bracken; Kew, where we had tea in a funny
little room, with watercress _ad libitum_; Hampton Court, with its
dishevelled beauties; Maidenhead and Taplow, where the river was the
attraction; and, above all, Broxbourne, where he delighted to spend
the day with his fishing-rod, wandering along the river, of which he
knew every eddy. For he was a great fisherman, and he taught me all
the mysteries of the craft, mirthfully disdainful of my dislike of the
fish when I had caught them. And in those days he would talk of all
his hopes of the future, of his work, of his duty to the thousands who
looked to him for guidance, of the time when he would sit in
Parliament as member for Northampton, and help to pass into laws the
projects of reform for which he was battling with pen and tongue. How
often he would voice his love of England, his admiration of her
Parliament, his pride in her history. Keenly alive to the blots upon
it in her sinful wars of conquest, in the cruel wrongs inflicted upon
subject peoples, he was yet an Englishman to the heart's core, but
feeling above all the Englishman's duty, as one of a race that had
gripped power and held it, to understand the needs of those he ruled,
and to do justi