The way in which my Father worked, in his most desperate escapades, was to wade breast-high into one of the huge pools, and examine the worm-eaten surface of the rock above and below the brim. In such remote places-- spots where I could never venture being left, a slightly timorous Andromeda, chained to a safer level of the cliff-- in these extreme basins, there used often to lurk a marvellous profusion of animal and vegetable forms. My Father would search for the roughest and most corroded points of rock, those offering the best refuge for a variety of creatures, and would then chisel off fragments as low down in the water as he could. These pieces of rock were instantly plunged in the saltwater of jars which we had brought with us for the purpose. When as much had been collected as we could carry away--my Father always dragged about an immense square basket, the creak of whose handles I can still fancy that I hear--we turned to trudge up the long climb home. Then all our prizes were spread out, face upward, in shallow pans of clean sea-water.
In a few hours, when all dirt had subsided, and what living creatures we had brought seemed to have recovered their composure, my work began. My eyes were extremely keen and powerful, though they were vexatiously near-sighted. Of no use in examining objects at any distance, in investigating a minute surface, my vision was trained to be invaluable. The shallow pan, with our spoils, would rest on a table near the window, and I, kneeling on a chair opposite the light, would lean over the surface until everything was within an inch or two of my eyes.
Often I bent, in my zeal, so far forward that the water touched the tip of my nose and gave me a little icy shock. In this attitude, an idle spectator might have formed the impression that I was trying to wash my head and could not quite summon up resolution enough to plunge. In this odd pose I would remain for a long time, holding my breath and examining with extreme care every atom of rock, every swirl of detritus. This was a task which my Father could only perform by the help of a lens, with which, of course, he took care to supplement my examination. But that my survey was of use, he has himself most handsomely testified in his Actinologia Britannica, where he expresses his debt to the 'keen and well-practised eye of my little son'. Nor, if boasting is not to be excluded, is it every eminent biologist, every proud and masterful F.R.S., who can lay his hand on his heart and swear that, before reaching the age of ten years, he had added, not merely a new species, but a new genus to the British fauna. That however, the author of these pages can do, who, on 29 June 1859, discovered a tiny atom,--and ran in the greatest agitation to announce the discovery of that object 'as a form with which he was unacquainted',--which figures since then on all lists of sea-anemones as phellia murocincta, or the walled corklet. Alas! that so fair a swallow should have made no biological summer in after-life.
These delicious agitations by the edge of the salt-sea wave must have greatly improved my health, which however was still looked upon as fragile. I was loaded with coats and comforters, and strolled out between Miss Marks and Mary Grace Burmington, a muffled ball of flannel. This alone was enough to give me a look of delicacy which the 'saints', in their blunt way, made no scruple of commenting upon to my face. I was greatly impressed by a conversation held over my bed one evening by the servants. Our cook, Susan, a person of enormous size, and Kate, the tattling, tiresome parlour-maid who waited upon us, on the summer evening Ispeak of were standing--I cannot tell why--on each side of my bed. I shut my eyes, and lay quite still, in order to escape conversing with them, and they spoke to one another. 'Ah, poor lamb,' Kate said trivially, 'he's not long for this world; going home to Jesus, he is,--in a jiffy, I should say by the look of 'un.' But Susan answered: 'Not so. I dreamed about 'un, and Iknow for sure that he is to be spared for missionary service.'
'Missionary service?' repeated Kate, impressed. 'Yes,' Susan went on, with solemn emphasis, 'he'll bleed for his Lord in heathen parts, that's what the future have in store for 'im.' When they were gone, I beat upon the coverlid with my fists, and Idetermined that whatever happened, I would not, not, not, go out to preach the Gospel among horrid, tropical niggers.
