For many years his excursions were chiefly made on foot. Though his health was at all times of his life delicate, yet his frame was active, and capable of great endurance. He was, when a boy, one of the quickest runners and best leapers in the school, and he became a strong swimmer. “I walked to Stourbridge once a week, to give a lesson,” he records in his Journal. “This I could do without the least fatigue, as it is only twelve miles from hence, and I have often walked upwards of thirty miles in one day.” His fondness for feats led him, he said, to hazard his health. Thus, once in a walk of five-and-twenty miles in a hilly country, he went the last mile on the run. In his Journal he recorded many of his trips. In the year 1813 he was taken, for the benefit of his health, to Margate. “We could see,” he wrote, “the coast of France. My mother was rather uneasy at being so near to the French.” He walked over to Dover, and began to sketch the castle and town from the Castle Hill. Some soldiers told him that a day or two before a man had been put into prison for drawing there:—
“I could not, however, believe them, and went on with my drawing. However, in a little time a file of soldiers came out of the Castle with fixed bayonets, and told me that if I did not go away directly they would take me into custody. I now thought it time to be gone, and so walked away to our lodgings, with no wish to stop in a town where the inhabitants were under a military government.”
The following year peace was made with France:—
“June 3rd, 1814.—About three o’clock this morning the glorious news of the signature of the preliminaries for peace arrived in Birmingham. I was up at four o’clock for the purpose of going to Hagley, to which place I had the pleasure of taking the news. I never saw so many pleasant faces in my life.”
In the summer of 1815 he again went to Margate. How he found money to pay for the trip he has thus left on record:—
“My eldest brother and I, who, on account of depressed health, had two years before been taken by my mother to Margate (much to my delight, as I then first saw London and the sea), were eager to repeat the trip, and not having the means at hand, set about to acquire them. Availing ourselves of such of the apparatus used at my father’s late lecture, and those delivered eight years before, as belonged to the family, we boldly determined to give four public lectures ourselves, the admission to be by purchased tickets. My brother was to do the speaking part, and I, as before, to manage the experiments. While, however, we made every preparation with great diligence, we unluckily had yet to learn that audiences are scarcely to be collected without full notice; and our notification to the public was so short and imperfect, that when the day was close at hand we found that either we must be satisfied with an audience of thirty persons, or fill the school-room where the lecture was to be delivered by gratuitous admission. Taking this latter course, we performed to an audience which gave us abundant applause, but did little to forward our ulterior object. Nothing daunted, we resolved to try elsewhere, in a more advised manner; and being encouraged thereto by our friend Mr. Beasley, we proceeded, after due preparation of all sorts, to the little town of Stourbridge; hiring a man with a cart to convey the apparatus, and ourselves performing the journey on foot. Here our success was considerable, the result being due, I have no doubt, in great measure to our warm-hearted friend, who was an enthusiastic admirer of us both, and by no means kept his flattering estimate to himself.
“Our total profits being sufficient to warrant the journey, we took it accordingly; intending thereby to get up such a stock of health as would carry us briskly through the next half-year.”[57]
He left Birmingham for London at half-past six o’clock in the evening of June 23rd.
“At about three o’clock in the afternoon of the next day we entered London, amidst the thunder of carriages and the buzz of people.