Page:Footprints of former men in far Cornwall.djvu/151

Antony Payne, a Cornish Giant his schoolmates were accustomed to "borrow his back," and, for sport, to work out their geography lessons or arithmetic on the broad disc in chalk; so that, to his mother's amazement and dismay, he more than once brought home, like Atlas, the world on his shoulders, for her to rub out. His strength and skill in every boyish game were marvellous, and, unlike many other large men, his mental and intellectual faculties increased with his amazing growth.

It was Antony Payne's delight to select two of his stoutest companions, whom he termed "his kittens," and, with one under each arm, to climb some perilous crag or cliff in the neighbourhood of the sea, "to show them the world," as he said. He was called in the school "Uncle Tony," for the Cornish to this day employ the names "uncle and aunt" as titles of endearment and respect. Another relic of his boyhood is extant still: the country lads, when they describe anything of excessive dimensions, call it, "As long as Tony Payne's foot."

He grew on gradually, and in accurate proportion of sinews and thews, until, at the age of twenty-one, he was taken into the establishment at Stowe. He then measured seven feet two inches without his shoes, and he afterwards added a couple of inches more to his stately growth.