24 MY LIFE [Chap. 



small fragment of a mediaeval castle served to illustrate for 

 me the stories of knights and giants and prisoners immured 

 in dark and dismal dungeons. In our friend's pretty grounds, 

 where we often had tea, there was a summer-house with a 

 table formed of a brick-built drum, with a circular slate slab 

 on the top, and this peculiar construction seemed to us so 

 appropriate that we named it the little castle, and it still 

 remains a vivid memory. 



Our house was less than a quarter of a mile from the old 

 bridge of three arches over the river Usk, by which we 

 reached the town, which was and is entirely confined to the 

 east side of the river, while we lived on the west. The walk 

 there was a very pleasant one, with the clear, swift-flowing 

 river on one side and the narrow fields and wooded steep 

 bank on the other ; while from the bridge itself there was a 

 very beautiful view up the river-valley, of the mountains near 

 Abergavenny, ten miles off, the conical sugar-loaf in the 

 centre, the flat-topped mass of the Blorenge on the left, and 

 the rocky ridge of the Skirrid to the right. These names 

 were so constantly mentioned that they became quite familiar 

 to me, as the beginning of the unknown land of Wales, which 

 I also heard mentioned occasionally. 



My eldest brother William was about eighteen when I 

 was four, and was articled to Messrs. Sayce, a firm of land 

 surveyors and estate agents at Kington, in Herefordshire. 

 I have an indistinct recollection of his visiting us occasionally, 

 and of his being looked up to as very clever, and as actually 

 bringing out a little monthly magazine of literature, science, 

 and local events, of which he brought copies to show us. I 

 particularly remember one day his pointing out to the family 

 that the reflection of some hills in the river opposite us was 

 sometimes visible and sometimes not, though on both occa- 

 sions in equally calm and clear weather. He explained the 

 cause of this in the magazine, illustrated by diagrams, as 

 being due to changes of a few inches in the height of the 

 water, but this, of course, I did not understand at the time. 



I may here mention a psychological peculiarity, no doubt 



