1839] CHILDHOOD • 83
ending at the Eectory. At five I was allowed to " amuse myself/' which generally meant nursing the cat for half-an-hour and " hearing it its lessons." All the day I had been with my mother, and now generally went to my dear nurse Lea for half-an-hour, when I had tea in the cool "servants' hall" (where, however, the servants never sat —=- preferring the kitchen), after which I returned to find Uncle Julius arrived, who stayed till my bedtime.
As Uncle Julius was never captivating to children, it is a great pity that he was turned into an additional bugbear, by being always sent for to whip me when I was naughty! These executions generally took place with a riding-whip, and looking back dispassionately through the distance of years, I am conscious that, for a delicate child, they were a great deal too severe. I always screamed dreadfully in the anticipation of them, but bore them without a sound or a tear, I remember one very hot summer's day, when I had been very naughty over my lessons, Froissart's Chronicles having been particularly uninteresting, and having produced the very effect which Ahasuerus desired to obtain from the reading of the book of the records of the chronicles, that Uncle Julius was summoned. He arrived, and I was sent upstairs to " prepare/7 Then, as I knew I was going to be whipped anyway, I thought I might as well do something horrible to be whipped/or, and, as soon as I reached the head of the stairs, gave three of the most awful, appalling and eldrich shrieks that ever were heard in Hurstmonceaux. Then I fled for my life. Through the nursery was a small bedroom,ime.^