I was under Jim's control for five years--years of my childhood, which I ought to be able to say were the happiest of my life. But they were just the reverse, and if I stated all that I suffered at his hands, no sane person would believe that such things could have been done with impunity.
Not many years ago Mrs. Beecher Stowe shocked the refined feelings of the civilized world with her graphic account of the sufferings of the negro slaves in the United States of America. I cannot write my history in the shape and manner of a novel, with its parts and counter-parts, but what I have written are some of the main facts and features of my boyhood life. Some people, those who have passed smoothly through their childhood, and have scarcely known sorrow, may ask whether it is possible that such things could have been done in England? My answer to this is, yes. It was not the parents, but the age that was to blame, as may be learnt from some of the works of Charles Dickens, and other writers who have given pictures of the period. I know that my brothers could write a parallel history, and they were not under the hands of so complete a blackguard as it fell to my lot to be under.
When the season for ploughing was over I used to get a few weeks' relief from the hands of my tormentor. During such times I was sent into the fields minding sheep. These were days of pleasure and happiness. I had to work hard, but toil was a pleasure as long as I had no one to abuse and ill-use me. I was the happy possessor of a tattered Testament, and I used to read from its torn pages. It began at the words, "Let not your heart be troubled," and ended with the twenty-seventh chapter of the Acts. I read the first and last chapters more than all the rest, and really knew them all, every word.
Now dear old Mr. Cornwall used to come out in the fields and find me out and ask me questions about Scripture history, and I believe I used to answer him to his satisfaction for he called me a good boy. As far as I know it was the first time I had been called a good boy except by my mother, and I fancy I grew an inch taller all at once and that his calling me a good boy had a very strong influence in making me try to be good; but whenever he talked to me my conscience pricked me relative to old George Pant's wig. I never could forgive myself for stealing it, and would have confessed to Mr. Cornwall concerning it, but I thought he would tell my father, and I did not want an extra thrashing.