In Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross, about the year 1580, dwells Mr. Thomas Fowler, a master bricklayer. He had married, in 1575, Mrs. Margaret Jonson, a widow; and had become the protector of her little boy, Benjamin, then about a year and a half old.
Benjamin is now in his sixth year. He duly attends the parish school in St. Martin's Church; for his father was "a grave minister of the gospel," and his mother is anxious that her only child, poor although he must be, shall lack no advantages of education. We see the sturdy boy daily pacing to school, through the rough and miry way of that half-rural district. In his play-hours he is soon in the fields, picking blackberries in Hedge-lane, or flying his kite by the Windmill in Saint Giles's. His father-in-law is a plain, industrious, trusty man--not rich enough to undertake any of the large works which the luxurious wants of the town present; and oft-times interfered with, in the due course of his labor, by royal proclamations against the increase of houses, which are rigidly enforced when a humble man desires to build a cottage. But young Ben has found friends. To the parish school sometimes comes Master Camden; and he observes the bold boy, always at the head of his class, and not unfrequently having his "clear and fair skin" disfigured by combats with his dirty companions, who litter about the alleys of Saint Martin's-lane. The boy has won good Master Camden's heart; and so, in due time, he proposes to remove him to Westminster School.
Let us look at the Shadow of his Mother, as she debates this question with her husband, at their frugal supper. "The boy must earn his living," says the bricklayer. "He is strong enough to be of help to me. He can mix the mortar; he will soon be able to carry the hod. Learning! stuff! he has learning enow, for all the good it will do him."--"Thomas Fowler," responds the mother, "if I wear my fingers to the bone, my boy shall never carry the hod. Master Camden, a good man, and a learned, will pay for his schooling. Shall we not give him his poor meals and his pallet-bed? Master Camden says he will make his way. I owe it to the memory of him who is gone, that Benjamin shall be a scholar, and perhaps a minister."--"Yes; and be persecuted for his opinions, as his father was. These are ticklish times, Margaret--the lowest are the safest. Ben is passionate, and obstinate, and will quarrel for a straw. Make him a scholar, and he becomes Papist or Puritan--the quiet way is not for the like of him. He shall be apprenticed to me, wife, and earn his daily bread safely and honestly." Night after night is the debate renewed. But the mother triumphs. Ben does go to Westminster School. He has hard fare at home; he has to endure many a taunt as he sits apart in the Abbey cloisters, intent upon his task. But Camden is his instructor and his friend. The bricklayer's boy fights his way to distinction.