you; but when I tell you of his attack upon the officers in the
tanning-yard, and his summoning us down in the dead of the night to
await the second coming, you can judge for yourselves the lengths to
which his belief would carry him. For the rest, he was an excellent man
of business, fair and even generous in his dealings, respected by all
and loved by few, for his nature was too self-contained to admit of much
affection. To us he was a stern and rigid father, punishing us heavily
for whatever he regarded as amiss in our conduct. He bad a store of
such proverbs as 'Give a child its will and a whelp its fill, and
neither will strive,' or 'Children are certain cares and uncertain
comforts,' wherewith he would temper my mother's more kindly impulses.
He could not bear that we should play trick-track upon the green, or
dance with the other children upon the Saturday night.

As to my mother, dear soul, it was her calm, peaceful influence which
kept my father within bounds, and softened his austere rule. Seldom
indeed, even in his darkest moods, did the touch of her gentle hand and
the sound of her voice fail to soothe his fiery spirit. She came of a
Church stock, and held to her religion with a quiet grip which was proof
against every attempt to turn her from it. I imagine that at one time
her husband had argued much with her upon Arminianism and the sin of
simony, but finding his exhortations useless, he bad abandoned the
subject save on very rare occasions. In spite of her Episcopacy,
however, she remained a staunch Whig, and never allowed her loyalty to
the throne to cloud her judgment as to the doings of the monarch who
sat upon it.

Women were good housekeepers fitly years ago, but she was conspicuous
among the best. To see her spotless cuffs and snowy kirtle one would
scarce credit how hard she laboured. It was only the well ordered house