Page:Two Sussex archaeologists, William Durrant Cooper and Mark Antony Lower.djvu/36

 here that Mark Antony Lower and Mercy Holman became husband and wife at Bromley, in Kent, in the year 1838.

In or about the year 1835, Mr. Lower, by that time confirmed in his liking for his chosen vocation, and more fitted for it by his four or five years' experience in his village school ventures, removed to Lewes. He there "hired an old chapel or rather preaching room, close by the then Lancastrian School, but now the British School, in Lancaster Street." He soon gathered round him a goodly number of scholars, and made such satisfactory progress, that in due time he felt warranted in giving up his bachelor lodgings, and going into housekeeping, taking unto wife, as already mentioned, the above-named Mercy Holman: and fortunate was he, and fortunate he ever deemed himself, in drawing so unquestionable a prize in the matrimonial lottery.

Previously, however, to making this important jump in life, and full of enthusiasm, as yet uncooled, he took a prominent part in the establishment of "the Lewes New Temperance Society," the first annual Report of which, a document which need not be quoted here, proceeded from his pen. Subsequently, for reasons cogent enough to him at the time, he saw fit to secede from this body, but he did not relax in his other efforts for the mental advancement of the masses.

His successive removals from house to house, as both his school and family increased, require not to be chronicled in detail. But in connection with one of these dwellings an anecdotical incident may be related. In the garden of a next-door neighbour grew a handsome pear tree, which, in proper season, bore a full crop of fruit, and stood in tempting proximity to, in fact overhung, the dividing wall, between the school play-ground and the aforesaid garden. "Where is the school-boy who would not covet his neighbour's goods when, day after day, they thus as it were stimulated the desire of possession and enjoyment? Stone throwing was resorted to, a fall of fruit resulted, but, unfortunately, broken windows resulted also. The neighbour complained of his fractured