e from the East
India Company Service in an advanced stage of consumption came to stay
with a sister at Chelsea. The husband worked at the malt house on the
river, and there the young man died. He was a native of Mortlake and
they took him there by the river in a boat to bury him. I recollect
their going by our garden, we boys standing with our caps off while the
procession passed. There was one boat rowed by a pair of sculls,
containing the coffin and the mother and sisters as chief mourners,
followed by three or four boats full of friends, most of the women in
white dresses, and the men with white scarves and bows, which was the
usual mourning for an unmarried person.

CHAPTER 10.--A Boy's Tramp by Road to Epsom, on Derby Day, 1837.

At that time it was a difficulty to get to Epsom any other way than
tramping it, as there was no railway, and the lowest fare was ten
shillings, coach or van, and, being anxious for the treat, I had saved up
sixteen shillings and threepence, and by a little diplomacy I had
arranged to be abroad for the day without letting anyone know where I was
going. At about four o'clock on the Wednesday morning I started from
Cheyne for my trip, with my savings and two or three slices of bread and
butter in my pocket, and as I passed old Chelsea Church it was a quarter
to five, and a beautiful bright spring morning. Going over Battersea
Bridge and turning to the right through the Folley, a colony of small
cottages with a private way through them into Church Street with fields
and herb gardens on one side, then passing Battersea Church and the
draw-dock, into Battersea Square, into the High Street and outside the
Castle Tavern. This being open was the first evidence of the road to
Epsom, as there was a donkey cart with five or six gipsy men and women
and one or two children with them. They had a stack of peas and
shooters, back scratchers, paper flowers, plumes of feathers, and small
bags of flour, also wooden dolls to sell to the visitors on the road, as
at that time the favourite amusement was blowing peas through a tin tube
at the people as they drove along, and some of the peas would give one a
very painful experience. Throwing bags of flour was another amusement
indulged in.

Passing along High Street into Falcon Lane--then really a lane with
fields and market gardens on each side, and a small stream where Clapham
Junction now stands, then known as the boling brook, and past som