Christopher Crayon's Recollections. The Life and Times of the late James Ewing Ritchie as told by himself. James Ewing Ritchie

was a drunkard), “Well, I came to London, resolving to be either a man or a mouse”; and here he was, as respectable-looking a man as any you could see, thus proving what I hold to be the truth, that in this land of ours, however deep in the mire a man may be, he may rise, if he has the requisite power of work and endurance and self-denial. I fear he did not much profit by our Sunday-school, though he told me he had put it down in his will for a small legacy. Our chief man was a shoemaker named Roberts, who sat with the boys under the pulpit in face of all the people; the girls, with the modesty of the sex, retiring to the back seats of the gallery. In his hand he bore a long wand, and woe to the unfortunate lad who fell asleep while the sermon was going on, or endeavoured to relieve the tedium of it by eating apples, sucking sweets, or revealing to his fellows the miscellaneous treasures of his pocket in the shape of marbles or string or knife. On such an offender down came the avenging stroke, swift as lightning and almost as sharp. As to general education, there was no attempt to give it. Later on, the Dissenters raised enough money to build a day-school, and then the Churchmen were stirred up to do the same. There was a school, kept by an irritable, red-faced old party in knee-breeches, who had failed in business, where I and most of the farmers’ sons of the village went; but I can’t say that any of us made much progress, and I did better when I was taken back to the home and educated, my father hearing my Latin and Greek as he smoked his pipe, while my mother – a very superior woman, with a great taste for literature and art – acted as teacher, while she was at work painting, after the duties of housekeeping were over. I ought to have been a better boy. But there were two great drawbacks – one, the absence of all emulation, which too often means the loss of all worldly success; the other, the painful and useless effort to be good.

       CHAPTER IV.

      Village Sports and Pastimes

      It was wonderful the utter stagnation of the village. The chapel was the only centre of intellectual life; next to that was the alehouse, whither some of the conscript fathers repaired to get a sight of the county paper, to learn the state of the markets, and at times to drink more ale than was good for them. About ten I had my first experience of death. I had lost an aged grandmother, but I was young, and it made little impression on me, except the funeral sermon – preached by my father to an overflowing congregation – which still lives in my recollections of a dim and distant past. I was a small boy. I was laid up with chilblains and had to be carried into the chapel; and altogether the excitement of the occasion was pleasing rather than the reverse. But the next who fell a victim was a young girl – whom I thought beautiful – who was the daughter of a miller who attended our chapel, and with whom I was on friendly terms. On the day of her funeral her little brothers and sisters came to our house to be out of the way. But I could not play with them, as I was trying to realise the figure I thought so graceful lying in the grave – to be eaten of worms, to turn to clay. But I shuddered as I thought of what we so often say: