To this dismal yard, containing as much gravel as grass, and frowned upon by a board of Rules and Regulations almost as large as itself, his mother used to convoy the nurse and the little boy through the crowds that towards noon swarmed along Cornhill and Threadneedle Street; and thither she would return, after a due interval, to escort them back to Birchin Lane.

So strong was the power of association upon Macaulay's mind that in after years Drapers' Garden was among his favourite haunts.

Indeed, his habit of roaming for hours through and through the heart of the City, (a habit that never left him as long as he could roam at all,) was due in part to the recollection which caused him to regard that region as native ground.
Baby as he was when he quitted it, he retained some impression of his earliest home.

He remembered standing up at the nursery window by his father's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring out of a tall chimney.

He asked if that was hell; an inquiry that was received with a grave displeasure which at the time he could not understand.