Cousin Phillis

Contents

PART I

It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence oflodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when,at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook’sshop in the county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon, afterdelivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly expressed, for my guidancein the new course of life on which I was entering. I was to be a clerk underthe engineer who had undertaken to make the little branch line from Eltham toHornby. My father had got me this situation, which was in a position ratherabove his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the station in which hewas born and bred; for he was raising himself every year in men’s considerationand respect. He was a mechanic by trade, but he had some inventive genius, anda great deal of perseverance, and had devised several valuable improvements inrailway machinery. He did not do this for profit, though, as was reasonable,what came in the natural course of things was acceptable; he worked out hisideas, because, as he said, “until he could put them into shape, they plaguedhim by night and by day.” But this is enough about my dear father; it is a goodthing for a country where there are many like him. He was a sturdy Independentby descent and conviction; and this it was, I believe, which made him place mein the lodgings at the pastry-cook’s. The shop was kept by the two sisters ofour minister at home; and this was considered as a sort of safeguard to mymorals, when I was turned loose upon the temptations of the county town, with asalary of thirty pounds a year.

My father had given up two precious days, and put on his Sunday clothes, inorder to bring me to Eltham, and accompany me first to the office, to introduceme to my new master (who was under some obligations to my father for asuggestion), and next to take me to call on the Independent minister of thelittle congregation at Eltham. And then he left me; and though sorry to partwith him, I now began to taste with relish the pleasure of being my own master.I unpacked the hamper that my mother had provided me with, and smelt the potsof preserve with all the delight of a possessor who might break into theircontents at any time he pleased. I handled and weighed in my fancy thehome-cured ham, which seemed to promise me interminable feasts; and, above all,there was the fine savour of knowing that I might eat of these dainties when Iliked, at my sole will, not dependent on the pleasure of any one else, howeverindulgent. I stowed my eatables away in the little corner cupboard—thatroom was all corners, and everything was placed in a corner, the fire-place,the window, the cupboard; I myself seemed to be the only thing in the middle,and there was hardly room for me. The table was made of a folding leaf underthe window, and the window looked out upon the market-place; so the studies forthe prosecution of which my father h

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