it was easier for my mother to keep up the appearance of a
gentlewoman when away from the circle of those to whom she could not
refuse hospitality. They were trying times those to all save the
farmers, who made such profits that they could, as I have heard,
afford to let half their land lie fallow, while living like
gentlemen upon the rest. Wheat was at a hundred and ten shillings a
quarter, and the quartern loaf at one and ninepence. Even in the
quiet of the cottage of Friar's Oak we could scarce have lived, were
it not that in the blockading squadron in which my father was
stationed there was the occasional chance of a little prize-money.
The line-of-battle ships themselves, tacking on and off outside
Brest, could earn nothing save honour; but the frigates in
attendance made prizes of many coasters, and these, as is the rule
of the service, were counted as belonging to the fleet, and their
produce divided into head-money. In this manner my father was able
to send home enough to keep the cottage and to pay for me at the day
school of Mr. Joshua Allen, where for four years I learned all that
he had to teach. It was at Allen's school that I first knew Jim
Harrison, Boy Jim as he has always been called, the nephew of
Champion Harrison of the village smithy. I can see him as he was in
those days with great, floundering, half-formed limbs like a
Newfoundland puppy, and a face that set every woman's head round as
he passed her. It was in those days that we began our lifelong
friendship, a friendship which still in our waning years binds us
closely as two brothers. I taught him his exercises, for he never
loved the sight of a book, and he in turn made me box and wrestle,
tickle trout on the Adur, and snare rabbits on Ditching Down, for
his hands were as active as his brain was slow. He was two years my
elder, however, so that, long before I had finished my schooling, he
had gone to help his uncle at the smithy.