During my visits to Barking, I used to be my grandmother's bedfellow.
The dinner hour being as early as two o'clock, she had a regular supper,
which was served up in her own sleeping-room; and immediately after
finishing it, she went to bed. Of her supper I was not permitted to
partake, nor was the privation a matter of much regret. I had what I
preferred--a portion of gooseberry pie; hers was a scrag of mutton,
boiled with parsley and butter. I do not remember any variety.
My amusements consisted in building houses with old cards, and sometimes
playing at 'Beat the knave out of doors' with my grandmother. My time of
going to bed was perhaps an hour before hers; but by way of preparation,
I never failed to receive her blessing. Previous to the ceremony, I
underwent a catechetical examination, of which one of the questions was,
"Who were the children that were saved in the fiery furnace?" Answer,
"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." But as the examination frequently got
no farther, the word Abednego got associated in my mind with very
agreeable ideas, and it ran through my ears like "Shadrach, Meshach, and
To-bed-we-go," in a sort of pleasant confusion, which is not yet
removed. As I grew in years, I became a fit receptacle for some of my
grandmother's communications, among which the state of her family and
the days of her youth were most prominent.
There hung on the wall, perpetually in view, a sampler, the produce of
the industry and ingenuity of her mother or her grandmother, of which
the subject-matter was the most important of all theologico-human
incidents, the fall of man in Paradise. There was Adam--there was
Eve--and there was the serpent. In these there was much to interest and
amuse me. One thing alone puzzled me; it was the forbidden fruit. The
size was enormous. It was larger than that species of the genus
_Orangeum_ which goes by the name of "the forbidden fruit" in some of
our West India settlements. Its size was not less than that of the outer
shell of a cocoanut. All the rest of the objects were as usual in
_plano_; this was in _alto_, indeed in _altissimo rilievo._ What to make
of it, at a time when my mind was unable to distinguish fictions from
realities, I knew not. The recollection is strong in me of the mystery
it seemed to be. My grandmother promised me the sampler after her death
as a legacy, and the promise was no small gratification; but the
promise, with many other promises of jewels and gold coins, was
productive of nothing but disappointment. Her death took place when I
was at Oxford. My father went down; and without consulting me, or giving
the slightest intimation of his intention, let the house, and sold to
the tenant almost everything that was in it. It was doing as he was wont
to do, notwithstanding his undoubted affection for me. In the same way
he sold the estate he had given to me as a provision on the occasion of
his second marriage. In the mass went some music-books which I had
borrowed of Mrs. Browne. Not long after, she desired them to be
returned. I stood before her like a defenseless culprit, conscious of my
inability to make restitution; and at the same time, such was my state
of mental weakness that I knew not what to say for apology or defense.
My grandmother's mother was a matron, I was told, of high respectability
and corresponding piety; well-informed and strong-minded. She was
distinguished, however; for while other matrons of her age and quality
had seen many a ghost, she had seen but _one_. She was in this
particular on a level with the learned lecturer, afterwards judge, the
commentator Blackstone. But she was heretical, and her belief bordered
on Unitarianism. And by the way, this subject of ghosts has been among
the torments of my life. Even now, when sixty or seventy years have
passed over my head since my boyhood received the impression which my
grandmother gave it, though my judgment is wholly free, my imagination
is not wholly so. My infirmity was not unknown to the servants. It was a
permanent source of amusement to ply me with horrible phantoms in all
imaginable shapes. Under the pagan dispensation, every object a man
could set his eyes on had been the seat of some pleasant adventure. At
Barking, in the almost solitude of which so large a portion of my life
was passed, every spot that could be made by any means to answer the
purpose was the abode of some spectre or group of spectres. So dexterous
was the invention of those who worked upon my apprehensions, that they
managed to transform a real into a fictitious being. His name was
_Palethorp_; and Palethorp, in my vocabulary, was synonymous with
hobgoblin. The origin of these horrors was this:--
My father's house was a short half-mile distant from the principal part
of the town, from that part where was situated the mansion of the lord
of the manor, Sir Crisp Gascoigne. One morning the coachman and the
footman took a conjunct walk to a public-house kept by a man of the name
Palethorp; they took me with them: it was before I was breeched. They
called for a pot of beer; took each of them a sip, and handed the pot to
me. On their requisition, I took another; and when about to depart, the
amount was called for. The two servants paid their quota, and I was
called on for mine. _Nemo dat quod non habet_--this maxim, to my no
small vexation, I was compelled to exemplify. Mr. Palethorp, the
landlord, had a visage harsh and ill-favored, and he insisted on my
discharging my debt. At this very early age, without having put in for
my share of the gifts of fortune, I found myself in the state of an
insolvent debtor. The demand harassed me so mercilessly that I could
hold out no longer: the door being open, I took to my heels; and as the
way was too plain to be missed, I ran home as fast as they could carry
me. The scene of the terrors of Mr. Palethorp's name and visitation, in
pursuit of me, was the country-house at Barking; but neither was the
town-house free from them; for in those terrors, the servants possessed
an instrument by which it was in their power at any time to get rid of
my presence. Level with the kitchen--level with the landing-place in
which the staircase took its commencement--were the usual offices. When
my company became troublesome, a sure and continually repeated means of
exonerating themselves from it was for the footman to repair to the
adjoining subterraneous apartments, invest his shoulders with some
strong covering, and concealing his countenance, stalk in with a hollow,
menacing, and inarticulate tone. Lest that should not be sufficient, the
servants had, stuck by the fireplace, the portraiture of a hobgoblin, to
which they had given the name of Palethorp. For some years I was in the
condition of poor Dr. Priestley, on whose bodily frame another name, too
awful to be mentioned, used to produce a sensation more than mental.