How I understood the particulars of my birth will appear in the
course of these memoirs.
CHAPTER II
I grow up--am hated by my Relations--sent to School--neglected by
my Grandfather--maltreated by my Master--seasoned to Adversity--I
form Cabals against the Pedant--am debarred Access to my
Grandfather--hunted by his Heir--I demolish the Teeth of his Tutor
There were not wanting some who suspected my uncles of being
concerned in my father's fate, on the supposition that they would
all share in the patrimony destined for him; and this conjecture
was strengthened by reflecting that in all his calamities they
never discovered the least inclination to serve him; but, on the
contrary, by all the artifices in their power, fed his resentment
and supported his resolution of leaving him to misery and want.
But people of judgment treated this insinuation as an idle chimera;
because, had my relations been so wicked as to consult their interest
by committing such an atrocious crime, the fate of my father would
have extended to me too whose life was another obstacle to their
expectation. Meanwhile, I grew apace, and as I strongly resembled
my father, who was the darling of the tenants, I wanted nothing
which their indigent circumstances could afford: but their favour
was a weak resource against the jealous enmity of my cousins; who
the more my infancy promised, conceived the more implacable hatred
against me: and before I was six years of age, had so effectually
blockaded my grandfather that I never saw him but by stealth, when
I sometimes made up to his chair as he sat to view his labourers
in the field: on which occasion he would stroke my head, bid me be
a good boy, and promise to take care of me.
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