CHAPTER III.
Pretty D-----The venerable church--The stricken heart--Dormant energies--The small packet--Nerves--The books--A picture--Mountain-like billows--The footprint--Spirit of De Foe--Reasoning powers--Terrors of God--Heads of the dragons--High-Church clerk--A journey--The drowned country.
And when I was between six and seven years of age we were once more at D---, the place of my birth, whither my father had been despatched on the recruiting service.

I have already said that it was a beautiful little town--at least it was at the time of which I am speaking--what it is at present I know not, for thirty years and more have elapsed since I last trod its streets.

It will scarcely have improved, for how could it be better than it then was?
I love to think on thee, pretty quiet D---, thou pattern of an English country town, with thy clean but narrow streets branching out from thy modest market-place, with thine old-fashioned houses, with here and there a roof of venerable thatch, with thy one half-aristocratic mansion, where resided thy Lady Bountiful--she, the generous and kind, who loved to visit the sick, leaning on her gold-headed cane, whilst the sleek old footman walked at a respectful distance behind.

Pretty quiet D---, with thy venerable church, in which moulder the mortal remains of England's sweetest and most pious bard.
Yes, pretty D---, I could always love thee, were it but for the sake of him who sleeps beneath the marble slab in yonder quiet chancel.

It was within thee that the long-oppressed bosom heaved its last sigh, and the crushed and gentle spirit escaped from a world in which it had known nought but sorrow.