As a child he specially loved the _Pilgrim's Progress_. The charm of its word-pictures, its characters fired his quick imagination. And history too, especially the history of his own country. These two, it may be, inspired him very early to a love of romance and story, and among the boys at school in Penzance he was not slow to gain the reputation of story-teller. Some were tales of fun, others tales of thrilling wonder and terror, but all flowed easily from the boy's lips and held his listeners enthralled.
When he was no more than eight years old he would take his stand on a cart in the middle of the market-place, his boyish figure drawn to its full height, and there harangue the boys who gathered in little groups to hear the young orator. At school there was nothing in any way remarkable about young Humphrey, except, perhaps, that somewhere hid away within him was the gift of rhyme or the gift of poetry. English and Latin verse alike came easy to him, and by-and-by his schoolfellows found out his facility, and they pressed him into their service to compose valentines and love-letters. But except for this he seemed in these early years to be nothing more than a happy, healthy English boy, full of fun and spirits. He would fish off Penzance Pier for grey mullet, catching more than his companions. He would bait his hooks and wait till a shoal of these difficult fish were swimming about the bait, then by a clever jerk of his tackle entangle and capture them. His love of fishing remained with him all through life--almost to the end. So strong was it that even as a man he never could conceal his annoyance if unsuccessful, or if he discovered a friend to have caught a larger number than he. So keen and ardent was he that he would dress himself in green that the wily fish might know no difference between him and the green trees and grassy banks!
In his boyhood we find it difficult to trace any germs of that talent for experimenting and inventing that distinguished him in later life. He scooped turnips hollow, and lighted up the insides with candles--but what boy has not experimented in the same way? He made squibs, or "thunder-powder," that exploded on a stone with a loud report that delighted his companions. But there is no trace of an unusual bent of mind here--just an example of an ardent, eager English boy, full of life and spirits.