Page:The Life and Struggles of William Lovett.djvu/22

2 the port of Falmouth, where he met with my mother. He was, however, unhappily drowned in his last voyage home before I was born, so I can say nothing further respecting him. My mother, however, in her lonely position, was relieved and taken care of by an affectionate brother, one who possessed great goodness of heart. Soon after this he commenced business as a ropemaker, and, being successful in the beginning, was able to render her ample assistance while I was an infant. He possessed an amiable disposition and a well-informed mind, which he had been assiduous in cultivating, and was always held up to me as an example by my grandmother. He died, however, of a decline, in his 32nd year, and when I was very young. My mother being thus thrown entirely on her own resources, fortunately possessed a vigorous constitution and a persevering spirit, so that, by labouring industriously in the usual avocations of a fishing town, as well as by selling fish in Penzance market, she was enabled to bring me up in some degree of comfort, as well as to support for the most part her aged mother, who became greatly dependent on her. Among my earliest recollections was that of being taken in my grandmother's arms to see the illuminations for the short peace of 1803, was that of seeing a plentiful supply of raisins in the town, occasioned by the wreck of the fig-man—as she was called—the vessel that, I think, knocked down the works of the wherry mine in a storm; and was my being driven home by an old shopkeeper of the town for having run down street in my night-clothes after my mother. I have also deeply engraven on the memory of my boyhood the apprehensions and alarms that were experienced amongst the inhabitants of our town regarding the press-gang during the war. The cry that "the press-gang was coming" was sufficient to cause all the young and eligible men of the town to flock up to the hills and away to the country as fast as possible, and to hide themselves in all manner of places till the danger was supposed to be over. It was not always, however, that the road to the country was open to them, for the authorities sometimes arranged that a troop of light horse should be at hand to cut off their retreat when