Note 8 — LETTER LI.

“When little more than nineteen, he married a daughter of Mr. Dawes, of Ewhurst. Farming in the Weald of Sussex was then, as now, a laborious and unremunerative occupation; and as an interesting record of the habits of his class at that period, it may be stated, that8 on the morning of his wedding-day he went into a wood with his father’s team for a load of hop-poles, was afterwards married in a white ‘round-frock,’ and returned to his usual work the next morning. He commenced business at Stonehouse, in Buxted, a farm of between 100 and 200 acres. Banking was in those days in its infancy, and travelling notoriously unsafe;9 so his good and prudent mother sewed up beneath the lining of his waistcoat the one-pound notes which he carried from Robertsbridge to Buxted to meet the valuation of his farm. When settled in his little homestead, his household arrangements were of the simplest kind. One boy, one girl, and one horse, formed his staff; yet he throve and prospered. And no wonder: for both himself and his young wife often rose at three in the morning; he to thrash by candlelight in his barn, she to feed or prepare her poultry for the market. His principle was—‘earn a shilling, and spend elevenpence;’ and hence, no doubt, his subsequent success.