There were some of the parents of the scholars who were stern Evangelicals; amongst these were those of the family with which we had become acquainted abroad. These resisted entreaties of their sons to let them go to the races; that is to say, if they were so indiscreet as to ask for such a thing. Usually, at breakfast they growled and expressed themselves freely in condemnation of Mr. Hill for having school on that day. The parents were by this means deluded into the belief that their sons would be working on their benches all day, and let them depart without scruple. So the boys marched off, with their satchels, as if on their way to school, but when out of sight from the windows of the parental house, deposited their bags of books at the nearest "tuck shop," and sped direct to the race-course. Their sisters were not so lucky; they also longed to see the horses run, and they knew what their brothers purposed; so, as these latter departed, the girls clustered at their windows, flattening their noses against the panes, till they looked like dabs of putty.
Some of these youths thus harshly repressed, whom I heard of later, turned out badly in after-life.
On 31st October, 1846, my grandfather died, and my father and mother removed to Lew Trenchard, leaving my brother and myself at Warwick, under the supervision of my sister's governess, Miss Richardson. My sister stayed with my grand-aunts, the Misses Snow, at Belmont, near Exeter.
During the winter I went to a class for dancing-lessons, and, as I was somewhat delicate, was conveyed to and from the public-rooms engaged for the lessons in a sedan-chair. I was probably the last, or almost the last in England to ride in such a conveyance.
I believe it was at this time that the potato disease first manifested itself in England. Simultaneously there was an outbreak of cholera, and we had to walk the streets sniffing lumps of camphor in little silk bags. There was, however, no connexion between the disease of the potatoes and cholera.
At the back of our house athwart the garden in another house was a woman dying of cancer, and her moans sounded all night long. This gave me great searchings of heart as to why God suffered His creatures to endure so much pain. I lay long awake puzzling over the question. The result of my thoughts came out many years later in The Mystery of Suffering. Thoughts,
