VI 



STRANGE how sharp and detailed will some of our 

 very early memories remain in after life, when even impor- 

 tant scenes of our later years are so easily forgotten ! That 

 old farm of MesniMe-Roy is still a clear picture, vignetted, 

 so to speak, upon grey pages of oblivion. ... I can yet see 

 the orchard, strewn with myriad fallen apples the byres, 

 whereto at sundown returned the slow-pacing, dreamy, 

 placid-eyed milch cows/ the giant walnut-tree, with one of 

 its main branches blasted by lightning blasted on the stormy 

 night, during which " thunder had fallen " freely <as the little 

 boy heard the labourers say, aw e-struck, in the morning / 

 but during which he had slept under the brown-tiled roof 

 without the slightest disturbance). ... I can see the Four 

 Banal, that co-operative bread-oven, a relic of mediaeval 

 institutions, which was still common enough in those days , 

 where you could have such an ent rancing view of lambent 

 blue flames lined with yellow when the door stood open to 

 receive the unbaked loaves/ and where the air smelt so 

 divinely of hot wheaten crust when they were removed on 

 completion. . . . 



It was, by the way, on that allur- 

 ing spot the boy used to find 

 his way there regularly on the 

 days when on cuisait that 

 he heard a certain remark, 

 which to his child ears had 

 no special meaning, but 

 which remainedonmemory's 

 tablets to assume later an __. 

 interesting significance. The 

 country folk were very kind. The little English boy, left for 



8 



