ping hours; but I used to make
time to assist her in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of
things: get up, light her fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm
water in cold weather, take the child while she dressed herself and got
the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her in water and wood for the
day, then dress myself neatly, and sally forth to my business. The
moment that was over I used to hasten back to her again; and I no more
thought of spending a moment _away from her_, unless business compelled
me, than I thought of quitting the country and going to sea. The
_thunder_ and _lightning_ are tremendous in America, compared with what
they are in England. My wife was, at one time, very much afraid of
thunder and lightning; and as is the feeling of all such women, and,
indeed, all men too, she wanted company, and particularly her husband,
in those times of danger. I knew well, of course, that my presence would
not diminish the danger; but, be I at what I might, if within reach of
home, I used to quit my business and hasten to her, the moment I
perceived a thunder storm approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and
last, _run_ on this errand, in the streets of Philadelphia! The
Frenchmen, who were my scholars, used to laugh at me exceedingly on this
account; and sometimes, when I was making an appointment with them, they
would say, with a smile and a bow, '_Sauve la tonnerre toujours,
Monsieur Cobbett_.'

168. I never _dangled_ about at the heels of my wife; seldom, very
seldom, ever _walked out_, as it is called, with her; I never 'went _a
walking_' in the whole course of my life; never went to walk without
having some _object_ in view other than the walk; and, as I never could
walk at a slow pace, it would have been _hard work_ for her to keep up
with me; so that, in the nearly forty years of our married life, we have
not walked out together, perhaps, twenty times. I hate a _dangler_, who
is more like a footman than a husband. It is very cheap to be kind in
_trifles_; but that which rivets the affections is not to be purchased
with money. The great thing of all, however, is to prove your anxiety at
those times of peril to her, and for which times you, nevertheless,
wish. Upon those occasions I was never from home, be the necessity for
it ever so great: it was my rule, that every thing must give way to
that. In the year 1809, some English local militiamen were _flogged_, in
the Isle of Ely, in Englan