ind 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 Foot-print--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---, 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 tempted to exclaim, Better had the world never been
created than that one so kind, so harmless, and so mild, should have
undergone such intolerable woe! But it is over now, for, as there is an
end of joy, so has affliction its termination. Doubtless the All-wise
did not afflict him without a cause