st in the fear of
him! I owe him no grudge for what he forced me to do (though I have had
to bear real fire without flinching when he failed in a conjuring trick,
which should only have simulated the real thing); what I learned from
him has come in so useful since, that I forgive him all.

I was there for two years longer. Snuffy bullied me less, and hated me
the more. I knew it, and he knew that I knew it. It was a hateful life,
but I am sure the influence of a good home holds one up in very evil
paths. Every time we went back to our respective schools my father gave
us ten shillings, and told us to mind our books, and my mother kissed us
and made us promise we would say our prayers every day. I could not bear
to break my promise, though I used to say them in bed (the old form we
learnt from her), and often in such a very unfit frame of mind, that
they were what it is very easy to call "a mockery."

GOD knows (Who alone knows the conditions under which each soul blunders
and spells on through life's hard lessons) if they were a mockery. _I_
know they were unworthy to be offered to Him, but that the habit helped
to keep me straight I am equally sure. Then I had a good home to go to
during the holidays. That was everything, and it is in all humbleness
that I say that I do not think the ill experiences of those years
degraded me much. I managed to keep some truth and tenderness about me;
and I am thankful to remember that I no more cringed to Crayshaw than
Lorraine did, and that though I stayed there till I was a big boy, I
never maltreated a little one.

CHAPTER XI.

"Whose powers shed round him in the common strife
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
* * * * * *
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need."
WORDSWORTH'S _Happy Warrior._

Judgement came at last. During my first holidays I had posted a letter
from Lewis Lorraine to the uncle in India to whom he had before
endeavoured to appeal. The envelope did not lack stamps, but the address
was very imperfect, and it was many months in reaching him. He wrote a
letter, which Lewis never received, Mr. Crayshaw probably knew why. But
twelve months after that Colonel Jervois came to England, and he lost no
time in betaking himself to Crayshaw's. From Crayshaw's he came to my
father, the only "unexce