In Christmas week, 1784, while I was amusing myself with sliding on the ice at Ovingham, which was as smooth almost as a looking glass, between Eltringham and that place,—I know not what came over my mind, but something ominous haunted it, of a gloomy change impending over the family. At this I was surprised, for I had never before felt any such sensation, and presently scouted it as some whim of the imagination. The day was to be one of cheerfulness; for Mr. and Mrs. Storey—distant relations of my father’s, and for whom my parents had the greatest regard—had been, with other friends, invited to dine with us at Cherryburn. At dinner all was kindness and cheerfulness, and my father was, as usual, full of his jokes, and telling some of his facetious stories and anecdotes. For two, or perhaps three Sundays after this, I was prevented from getting over the water, by the ice and other floods, and returned from Ovingham without seeing or hearing how all were at home. The Sunday after, upon my making my usual call at the gardener’s in Ovingham,—where, when at school, we always left our dinner poke, and dined,—he informed me, with looks of grief, that my mother was very unwell. I posted off, in haste, across the river, to see her. Upon my asking her, earnestly, how she was, she took me apart, and told me it was nearly all over with her; and she described to me how she had got her death. She had been called up, on a severe frosty night, to see a young woman in the hamlet below, who was taken ill; and, thinking the bog she had to pass through, might be frozen hard enough to bear her, she “slumped” deep into it, and, before she had waded through it, she got very wet and a “perishment” of cold; and, in that state, she went to give her advice as to what was best to be done with her patient. I employed my friend, Dr. Bailes, to visit her; and I ran up from Newcastle two or three times a week with his medicines for her; but all would not do: she died on the 20th February, 1785, aged 58 years. She was possessed of great innate powers of mind, which had been cultivated by a good education, as well as by her own endeavours. For these, and for her benevolent, humane, disposition, and good sense, she was greatly respected, and, indeed, revered by the whole neighbourhood. My eldest sister, who was down from London on a visit to her home, at the time of my mother’s illness and death, by her over-exertion and anxiety, brought on an illness; and, for the convenience of medical aid, and better nursing, I brought her to my hitherto little happy cot, at the Forth, where she died on the 24th June, 1785, aged 30 years. These were gloomy days to me! Some short time before my sister died, upon her requesting me, and my promising her, that I would see her buried at Ovingham, she proposed to sing me a song. I thought this very strange, and felt both sorrow and surprise at it; but she smiled at me, and began her song of “All Things have but a Time.” I had heard the old song before, and thought pretty well of it; but her’s was a later and a very much better version of it. During this time I observed a great change in the looks and deportment of my father. He had, what is called, “never held up his head” since the death of my mother; and, upon my anxiously pressing him to tell me what ailed him, he said he had felt as if he were shot through from the breast to the shoulders with a great pain that hindered him from breathing freely. Upon my mentioning medical assistance, he rejected it, and told me, if I sent him any drugs, I might depend upon it he would throw them all behind the fire. He wandered about all summer alone, with a kind of serious look, and took no pleasure in anything, till near the 15th November, which, I understand, was his birthday, and on which he completed his 70th year, and on that day he died. He was buried beside my mother and sister at Ovingham. After this, I left off my walks to Cherryburn; the main attractions to it were gone; and it became a place the thoughts of which now raked up sorrowful reflections in my mind. Some particulars respecting my father, and illustrative of his character, may, perhaps, be thought not uninteresting. I shall give a few of such as I recollect them. In his person, he was a stout, square-made, strong, and active man, and through life was a pattern of health. I was told by some of my aunts, who were older than he, that he was never ill from a disease in his life; and I have heard him say “he wondered how folks felt when they were ill.” He was of a cheerful temper, and he possessed an uncommon vein of humour and a fund of anecdote. He was much noticed by the gentlemen and others of the neighbourhood for these qualities, as well as for his integrity. He had, however, some traits that might be deemed singular, and not in order. He never would prosecute any one for theft; he hated going to law, but he took it at his own hand, and now and then gave thieves a severe beating, and sometimes otherwise punished them in a singular and whimsical way. I have known him, on a winter night, rise suddenly up from his seat, and, with a stick in his hand, set off to the colliery, in order to catch the depredators whom he might detect stealing his coals. I remember one instance of his thus catching a young fellow, a farmer, with his loaded cart, and of his giving him a severe beating, or, what was called, a “hideing,” and of his making him leave his booty and go home empty. The thieves themselves were sure to keep the business secret, and he himself never spoke of it beyond his own fireside. In these robberies, which he saw with his own eyes, he conceived he did not need the help of either witnesses, judge, or jury, nor the occasion to employ any attorney to empty his pockets. I have someti............