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pelled to ride so often, then he took a liking for it, and then
he really learned to sit and manage his horse. Often and often during
the last years of his life he longed to be rich enough to keep a horse,
so that he might ride to the House and wherever his business might
take him within easy distance, and thus get the exercise of which he
stood so urgently in need.

It was, too, while with his regiment in Ireland that Mr Bradlaugh
first became acquainted with James Thomson, an acquaintance which soon
ripened into a friendship which lasted for five-and-twenty years. In
the quiet nights, whilst the private was on sentry duty, he and the
young schoolmaster would have long serious talks upon subjects a little
unusual, perhaps, amongst the rank and file; or in the evening, when
Thomson's work was done, and Private Bradlaugh could get leave, they
would go for a ramble together. They each became the confidant of the
other's troubles and aspirations, and each was sure of a sympathetic
listener.

That his regiment happened to be stationed in Ireland during the whole
time he belonged to it was of immense importance to him. He learned the
character and the needs of the Irish peasantry as he could have learned
it in no other way. The sights he saw and the things he heard whilst
he was in Ireland, as the story I cited a few pages back will show,
produced in him such a profound feeling of tenderness and sympathy for
the Irish people, that not all the personal enmity which was afterwards
shown him by Irishmen could destroy or even weaken.

CHAPTER VI.

MARRIAGE.

Barely three short years away, yet how many changes in that short time.
My father found, father, aunt, and grandmother dead; his little sister
and brother--of five and eight years--in Orphan Asylums. Even his kind
friend Mrs Carlile was dead, and her children scattered, gone to the
other side of the Atlantic, to be lost sight of by him for many years.
Of their fate he learned later that the two daughters were married,
while Julian, his one time companion, was killed in the American War.

On his return my father's first endeavour was, of course, to seek for
work, so that he might help to maintain his mother and sisters; but
although he sought energetically, and at first had much faith in the
charm of his "very good" character, no one seemed to want the tall
trooper. After a little his mother, unhappily, began to taunt him with
the legacy money having been used to buy his discharge; and although
he thought, and always maintained, that the money was morally his, to
be used for that purpose, since it was carrying out the intentions of
his aunt expressed so short a time before her death, he nevertheless
determined to, and in time did, pay every farthing back again to his
mother, through whose hands the money had come to him. He was offered
the post of timekeeper with a builder at Fulham, at a salary of 20s. a
week; this Mrs Bradlaugh objected to, as taking him too far away from
home.

One day he went, amongst other places, into the office of Mr Rogers,
a solicitor, of 70 Fenchurch Street, to inquire whether he wanted a
clerk. Mr Rogers had no vacancy for a clerk, but mentioned casually
that he wanted a lad for errands and office work. My father asked,
"What wages?" "Ten shillings a week," replied Mr Rogers. "Then I'll
take it," quickly decided my father, feeling rather in despair as to
getting anything better, but bravely resolved to get something. Not
that he was in reality very long without work, for his discharge from
the army was dated at Dublin, October 14th, 1853, and I have a letter
written from "70 Fenchurch Street" on January 2nd, 1854, so that he
could not have been idle for more than about two months at the most.
There is no reference whatever in the letter to the newness of his
situation, so that he had probably been with Mr Rogers some weeks
prior to the 2nd January 1854. The solicitor soon found out that his
"errand boy" had considerable legal knowledge and, what was even more
important, a marvellous quickness in apprehension of legal points.
At the end of each three months his salary was increased by five
shillings, and after nine months he had intrusted to him the whole of
the Common Law department. Very soon he was able to add a little to his
income by acting as secretary to a Building Society at the Hayfield
Coffee House, Mile End Road.

As soon as my father found himself in regular employment he began
to write and speak again; but even as the busybodies turned the
kind-hearted baker's wife against him a few years before, so now
again they tried to ruin his career with Mr Rogers. Anonymous and
malicious letters were sent, but they did not find in him a weak though
good-hearted creature, with a fearful apprehension that the smell
usually associated with brimstone would permeate the legal documents;
on the contrary, he was a shrewd man who knew the value of his clerk,
and treated the anonymous letters with contempt, only asking of my
father that he should "not let his propaganda become an injury to his
business."

Thus it was he took the name of "Iconoclast," under the thin veil of
which he did all his anti-theological work until he became candidate
for Parliament in 1868; thenceforward he always spoke and wrote under
his own name, whatever the subject he was dealing with. Any appearance
of concealment or secrecy was dreadfully irksome to him, though in 1854
he had very little choice.

About Christmas 1853 my father made the acquaintance of a family
named Hooper, all of whom were Radicals and Freethinkers except Mrs
Hooper, who would have preferred to have belonged to Church people
because they were so much more thought of. She had great regard for
her neighbours' opinion, and for that reason objected to chess and
cards on Sunday. Abraham Hooper, her husband, must on such points as
these have been a constant thorn in the dear old lady's side: he was
an ardent Freethinker and Radical, a teetotaller, and a non-smoker.
All his opinions he held aggressively; and no matter where was the
place or who was the person, he rarely failed to make an opportunity
to state his opinions. He was very honest and upright, a man whose
word was literally his bond. He had often heard my father speak in
Bonner's Fields, and had named him "the young enthusiast." He himself
from his boyhood onward was always in the thick of popular movements;
although a sturdy Republican, he was one of the crowd who cheered Queen
Caroline; he was present at all the Chartist meetings at London; and
he was a great admirer of William Lovett. On more than one occasion he
was charged by the police whilst taking part in processions. He once
unwittingly became mixed up with a secret society, but he speedily
disentangled himself--there was nothing of the secret conspirator about
him.

He was what might be called "a stiff customer," over six feet in
height, and broad in proportion; and he would call his spade a spade.
If you did not like it--well, it was so much

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