was years afterwards, when I had left that countryside.

My father and mother died when I was still a boy--my mother on the day
of Trafalgar battle, in 1805, my father four years later. It was very
sad at home after mother died; my father shut himself up in his study,
never seeing anybody. When my father died, my uncle came to Newnham
from his home in Devonshire; my old home was sold then, and I was
taken away. I remember the day so very clearly. It was one sunny
morning in early April. My uncle and I caught the coach at the top of
the hill, at the door of the old inn opposite the church. The coachman
had a hot drink handed up to him, and the ostlers hitched up the new
team. Then the guard (he had a red coat, like a soldier) blew his
horn, and the coach started off down the hill, going so very fast that
I was afraid, for I had never ridden on a coach before, though I had
seen them every day. The last that I saw of Newnham was the great
house at the corner. It was finished by that time, of course, and as
we drove past I saw the beautiful woman who lived there walking up and
down the lawn with her husband, Captain Rylands, a very tall, handsome
man, who used to give me apples. I was always afraid to eat the
apples, because my nurse said that the Captain had killed a man. That
was in the wars in Spain, fighting against the French.

I remember a great deal about my first coach-ride. We slept that night
at Bristol in one of the famous coaching inns, where, as a great
treat, I had bacon and eggs for supper, instead of bread-and-milk. In
the morning, my uncle took me with him to the docks, where he had some
business to do. That was the first time I ever really saw big ships,
and that was the first time I spoke with the sailors. There was a
capstan on one of the wharves, and men were at work, heaving round it,
hoisting casks out of a West Indiaman. One of the men said, "Come on,