Here, also, Mr. Bradlaugh's younger brother found a resting place and tendance after illness; but as I shall have occasion to speak of him later, I will for the moment pass him with a mere mention.
Others, too, more than I can count, found their way to that small house in Northumberland Park. Some were nursed there, some did their courtship there, and some were even married from there. In the meantime, who can tell how many were the visitors to that little study at the back, over the kitchen? Alas! I can only remember the names of a few. There were Frenchmen like Talandier, Le Blanc, Elisée Reclus, Alphonse Esquiros; Italians and Englishmen working for Mazzini and Garibaldi; Irish politicals like General Cluseret and Kelly; and there was Alexander Herzen, for whom my father had a great admiration, and whom he always counted as a friend. These, whose names are sometimes joined to faces, and others, faces without names, lie indistinctly in the dim far-back memory of my childhood.
I was here about to break off and take up again the thread of the story of Mr. Bradlaugh's public work, but it occurs to me that I have said little about my father's treatment of us, his children, and of our early education. There is so little to say, and certainly so little of importance to linger over, that I should have passed on to other matters were it not for the imaginings of those who make it their business to spread false statements concerning Mr. Bradlaugh, even on such a purely personal matter as his children's education.
My father was away from home so much that ordinarily we saw him very little, and my earliest recollection of him is at St. Helen's Place. One evening in particular seems to stand out in my memory. The room was alight and warm with gas and fire; and at one end of the table, covered with papers, sat my father. I suppose that we were romping and noisy, and interfered with his work, for he turned towards us and said in grave tones, which I can always hear, "Is it not time you little lassies went to bed?" A trifling incident, but it shows that at that time he was obliged to do his thinking and writing in the common room in the midst of his family, and the term "little lassies" was a characteristic one with him. When we were quite little, if he had anything serious to say to us, it was his "little lassies" he talked to; as we grew older it was "my daughters," and what he had to say always seemed to have an additional emphasis by the use of the special, yet tender term, almost entirely reserved for serious occasions. In the morning, when he left home, we three children always assembled for the "goodbye" kiss; after that we seldom saw him until the next day. If, however, he was home in the evenings while we were still up, we used to sit by his elbow while he played whist or chess, and after the game was over he would so carefully explain his own moves, and perhaps the faults of his partner or his opponents, that before I was twelve years old I could play whist as well as I can to-day, and chess a great deal better, merely through watching his play, and paying attention to his comments.
Broxbourne was then his favourite place for fishing; it was easily reached from Northumberland Park, and there were in those days good fish in the Lea. He and the proprietor of the fishing-right were very good friends; and sometimes when it grew too dark to fish, he would wind up his day with a pleasant game at billiards before taking the train home. He generally took us children with him if the day was fine, and these were indeed red-letter days for us. We were on our honour not to get into any mischief, and, with the one restriction that we were not to make a noise close to the water, we were allowed a perfect, glorious liberty. Sometimes we too would fish, and my father would give us little lines and floats and hooks, and with an impromptu rod stolen from the nearest willow or ash tree we would do our best to imitate our superior. But my brother was the only one who showed great perseverance in this respect; my sister and I soon tired of watching the placid float on the sparkling water, and sought other amusements. At Carthagena Weir my father would "make it right" with old Brimsden the lock-keeper, and he would rig us up a rope swing on which he would make a seat of a most wonderful sheep-skin; or there were a score of ways in which we amused ourselves, for there was no one to say, "Don't do this" or "Don't do that." We could roll in the grass and get our white muslin dresses grass-green, jump in the ditch and fill our shoes with mud, anything so long as we enjoyed ourselves and did no harm. Whether it was the feeling of freedom and the being made our own judges of right or wrong, I do not know, but I do not remember one occasion on which we were rebuked either by the lenient guardian with us or by the stricter one when we got home again—for, of course, as is mostly the way with women, my mother was much more particular about the "proprieties" than my father; and had he brought us home in a very tumbled, muddy condition, our fishing expeditions would have been less frequent.
As to our early education, our father did the best he could for us; but his means were small, and the opportunities for schooling twenty-five and thirty years ago were not such as they are to-day. My sister and I, first alone and then with my brother, were sent to a little school taught by two maiden ladies; the boys being taught upstairs, and the girls in a room below. At this school, as always, although the contrary has been stated, we were withdrawn from religious instruction, but the Misses Burnell did not always obey this injunction: if a bogie was wanted to frighten us with, then "God" was trotted out. I remember on one occasion, when I suppose I had been naughty, Miss Burnell, pointing to the sky, told me that God was watching me from above and could see all I did. Childlike, I took this literally, though I suppose with the proverbial "grain of salt," for I leaned out of the window and gazed up into the sky to see for myself this "God" who was always watching my actions. It was just dusk, and it happened to be a time when some comet was visible. When I looked out and saw this brilliant body lighting up the darkness all about it, I was convinced that this was the "eye of God" of which Miss Burnell had been talking, and hastily drew in my head again to get out of his sight! But as at home we had no mysterious Being either to fear (because that seems the first impression generally made upon sensitive children) or to love, this awful Eye blazing away overhead merely left a vague feeling of uneasiness behind, which time and healthier thought effaced. My little brother was soon taken from this school and sent to a boarding-school, where he remained only a few months, as it was unsatisfactory; he was also over-walked, which resulted in laming him for a time. The master who took the boys out for walking exercise could not have been of an exactly cheerful disposition, for at the time of the dreadful ice accident in 1867, when forty persons were drowned, he marched the boys to Regent's Park to see the dead bodies taken out of the water. It was a terrible sight for little boys to see; and as my little brother was only just over seven years old, the remembrance of these rows of dead bodies made an indelible impression upon his mind. He was then sent to some good friends at Plymouth, Mr. and Mrs. John Williamson, and while he grew well and strong in the sea breezes, he went to school with their son. On coming home again, he was sent to Mr. John Grant, schoolmaster in the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards—then a friend of Mr. Thomson's, and so of my father's—who took him as a private pupil. My sister and I learned French of different French refugees who frequented our house, and I must do them the justice to say that our French was both a great deal better taught and learned than our English. My father used to hold sudden