Chapter 3 - Page 2

'Arabian Nights' should
have been the next, for we got it out of the library (a penny for
three days), but on discovering that they were nights when we had
paid for knights we sent that volume packing, and I have curled my
lips at it ever since. 'The Pilgrim's Progress' we had in the
house (it was as common a possession as a dresser-head), and so
enamoured of it was I that I turned our garden into sloughs of
Despond, with pea-sticks to represent Christian on his travels and
a buffet-stool for his burden, but when I dragged my mother out to
see my handiwork she was scared, and I felt for days, with a
certain elation, that I had been a dark character. Besides reading
every book we could hire or borrow I also bought one now and again,
and while buying (it was the occupation of weeks) I read, standing
at the counter, most of the other books in the shop, which is
perhaps the most exquisite way of reading. And I took in a
magazine called 'Sunshine,' the most delicious periodical, I am
sure, of any day. It cost a halfpenny or a penny a month, and
always, as I fondly remember, had a continued tale about the
dearest girl, who sold water-cress, which is a dainty not grown and
I suppose never seen in my native town. This romantic little
creature took such hold of my imagination that I cannot eat water-
cress even now without emotion. I lay in bed wondering what she
would be up to in the next number; I have lost trout because when
they nibbled my mind was wandering with her; my early life was
embittered by her not arriving regularly on the first of the month.
I know not whether it was owing to her loitering on the way one
month to an extent flesh and blood could not bear, or because we
had exhausted the penny library, but on a day I conceived a
glorious idea, or it was put into my head by my mother, then
desirous of making progress with her new clouty hearthrug. The
notion was nothing short of this, why should I not write the tales
myself? I did write them - in the garret - but they by no means
helped her to get on with her work, for when I finished a chapter I
bounded downstairs to read it to her, and so short were the
chapters, so ready was the pen, that I was back with new manuscript
before another clout had been added to the rug. Authorship seemed,
like her bannock-baking, to consist of running between two points.
They were all tales of adventure (happiest is he who writes of
adventure), no characters were allowed within if I knew their like
in the flesh, the scene lay in unknown parts, desert islands,
enchanted gardens, with knights (none of your nights) on black
chargers, and round the first corner a lady selling water-cress.

At twelve or thereabout I put the literary calling to bed for a