MEMOIR xv 



as when he complimented a relative on the number 

 of lions in his garden, and was reprimanded for 

 " telling lies," or on another occasion when the 

 brothers went to spear " Merrymaids " * in a moat, 

 and in the ardour of pursuit the younger boy over- 

 balanced himself and was very nearly drowned. 



When very little older he was introduced to more 

 prosaic forms of sport, and he always loved to 

 remember his earliest " first of September." That 

 took place at his grandfather's home in Devonshire, 

 when he was still such a little boy, that he and his 

 brother James both rode up the steep red hillsides 

 together on one pony, and later on in the day when 

 walking with the guns they were each given a hare 

 to carry, to stop them from talking so much ; and 

 a very effectual remedy they found it ! 



As he grew older his ready resourcefulness and 

 powers of organisation quickly made him a leader 

 in the enterprises of his boyish companions. Many 

 are the tales which they can tell of the games of 

 football which he organised, his rambles over the 

 country in his ardour for birds' eggs, his search for 

 fossils in the watercourses, and his general knowledge 

 of animal and plant life. It must be admitted that 

 his ingenuity in devising new forms of activity hitherto 

 undreamt of, was a source of some disquietude to the 

 mothers of more conventionally-minded but equally 

 energetic sons. For certain brilliant ideas of his were 

 carried out with a characteristic thoroughness and dis- 

 regard of anything but the matter in hand, which was 



1 Suffolk word meaning Mermaids. 



b 



