CHAPTER III.

MR BRADFORD, on his arrival, immediately hastened to London, and from thence wrote to my uncle, my father's elder brother, who in consequence of the late calamity was become my natural guardian, to ask his directions how he was to dispose of me. The answer he received expressed my uncle's wish that I should be brought to him without delay, and added a request that my preserver would have the goodness to accompany me. These directions were no sooner known, than they were carried into execution; and, at the end of the second day from our leaving London, we reached

in safety the place of our destination, which lay immediately on the verge of the sea, on the shores of the English channel.

I resided constantly under the roof of this uncle for the next following eight or nine years of my life; and it is therefore necessary that I should here describe the most remarkable features of this residence. I did not immediately see and feel these particulars, in such a manner as to have enabled me to describe them, if I had been early removed from the observation of them; but they insensibly incorporated themselves as it were with the substance of my mind and my character, such as it was afterwards displayed, owed much of its peculiarity to the impressions I here received.

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The dwelling-place of my uncle was an old and spacious mansion, the foundation of which was a rock, against which the waves of the sea for ever beat, and by their incessant and ineffectual rage were worked into a foam, that widely spread it

self in every direction. The sound of the dashing waters was eternal, and seemed calculated to inspire sobriety, and almost gloom, into the soul of every one who dwelt within the reach of its influence. The situation of this dwelling, on that side of the island which is most accessible to an enemy, had induced its original architect to construct it in such a manner, as might best enable it to resist an invader, though its fortifications had since fallen into decay. It was a small part of the edifice only that was inhabited in my time. Several magnificent galleries, and a number of spacious apartments, were wholly neglected, and suffered to remain in a woful state of dila

pidation. Indeed it was one wing only that was now tenanted, and that imperfectly; the centre and the other wing had long been resigned to the owls and the bitterns. The door which formed the main entrance of the building was never opened; and the master and all that be

longed to him were accustomed to pass by an obscure postern only. The courtyard exhibited a striking scene of desolation. The scythe and the spade were never admitted to violate its savage character. It was overgrown with tall and rank grass of a peculiar species, intermingled with elder trees, nettles, and briars.

The dwelling which I have thus describ ed was surrounded on three sides by the sea; it was only by the north-west that I could reach what I may call my native country. The whole situation was eminently insalubrious. Though the rock on which our habitation was placed was, for the most part, of a perpendicular acclivity, yet we had to the west a long bank of sand, and in different directions various portions of bog and marshy ground, sending up an endless succession of vapours, I had almost said steams, whose effect holds unmitigated war with healthful animal life. The tide also threw up vast quantities of sargas

sos and weeds, the corruption of which was supposed to contribute eminently to the same effect. For a great part of the year we were further involved in thick fogs and mists, to such a degree as often to render the use of candles necessary even at noonday.

The open country, which, as I have said, lay to the north-west of us, consisted for the most part of an immense extent of barren heath, the surface of which was broken and unequal, and was scarcely intersected with here and there the track of a rough, sandy, and incommodious road. Its only variety was produced by long stripes of grass of an unequal breadth, mingled with the sand of the soil, and occasionally adorned with the plant called heath, and with fern. A tree was hardly to be found for miles. Such was the character of the firm ground, which of course a wanderer like myself, avoiding as carefully as might be a deviation into quaggy and treacherous