It was not his own feeling, for he knew that when his apprenticeship should be past, the place was too small, and the work too easy, for a man in full force and vigour, though for the sake of his father he was glad to accept it for the present, to train himself in the work, and to have full time for study; but he at that time looked to remaining in England during his father's lifetime, and perhaps transferring himself to Manchester, Liverpool, London, or some large city, where there was need of mission work among the neglected. His father was on the City of London Charter Commission, and was in London from November to February, the daughters joining him there, but there was no lack of friends around Alfington. Indeed it was in the midst of an absolute clan of Coleridges, and in Buckerell parish, at Deerpark, that great old soldier, Lord Seaton, was spending the few years that passed between his Commissioner-ship in the Ionian Isles and his Commandership in Ireland. He was connected with the Coleridges through the Yonge family, and the young people were all on familiar cousinly terms. Coley was much liked by him; and often joined in the rides through the lanes and to the hills with him and his daughters, when there were many conversations of much interest, as there could not fail to be with a man who had never held a government without doing his utmost to promote God's work in the Church and for education; who had, moreover, strong opinions derived from experience of the Red Indians in Upper Canada--namely, that to reclaim the young, and educate them was the only hope of making Christianity take root in any fresh nation. It was at Deerpark, at a dinner in the late autumn of this year 1853, that I saw Coley Patteson for the second and last time. I had seen him before in a visit of three days that I made at Feniton with my parents in the September of 1844, when he was an Eton boy, full of high spirits and merriment. I remember then, on the Sunday, that he and I accompanied our two fathers on a walk to the afternoon service at Ottery, and that on the way he began to show something of his inner self, and talked of his mother and her pleasure in Feniton; but it began to rain, and I stayed for the night at Heaths Court, so that our acquaintance ceased for that time. It was not a formal party at Deerpark, and the evening was chiefly spent in playing at games, thread paper verses and the like, in which Coley took his part with spirit. If I had guessed what he was to be, I should have observed him more; but though, in after years, our intercourse in letters makes us feel intimate with one another, these two brief meetings comprise the whole of my personal acquaintance with one in whom I then only saw a young clergyman with his heart in his work. Perhaps this is the best place to mention his personal appearance, as the portrait at the beginning of this volume was taken not more than a year later.