70 MY LIFE [Chap. 



All Saints' Vicarage, then used as a post-office, a large 

 rambling old house with a large garden, in which there was 

 among other fruit an apple tree which bore delicious ribston- 

 pippins, of which I was allowed to eat as many as I liked of 

 the windfalls. In this house there was a loft in the roof, 

 which I was told was full of old furniture and other things, so 

 I one day asked if I might go up into it. Miss Davies, who 

 was very kind though melancholy, said I might. So I went 

 up, and found all kinds of old broken or moth-eaten furniture, 

 broken lamps, candlesticks, and all the refuse of a house 

 where a family have lived for many years. But among these 

 interesting things I hit upon two veritable treasures from my 

 point of view. One was a very good, almost new, cricket-bat, 

 of a size just suitable to me ; and the other was still more 

 surprising and attractive to me, being a very large, almost 

 gigantic, box-wood pegtop, bigger than any I had seen. It 

 seemed to me then almost incredible that such treasures 

 could have been ranked as lumber, and purposely left in that 

 old attic. I thought some one must surely have put them 

 there for safety, and would soon come and claim them. I 

 therefore waited a few days till Miss Davies seemed rather 

 more communicative than usual, when I said to her, " I found 

 something very nice in the lumber-room." " Oh, indeed ; and 

 what is it?" said she, "I did not know there was anything 

 nice there." " May I go and fetch them for you to see ? " said 

 I ; and she said I might. So I rushed off, and brought down 

 the top and the bat, and said, " I found these up there ; do 

 you know whose they are ? " She looked at them, and said, 



" They must have belonged to ," mentioning a name 



which I have forgotten. " They have been there a good 

 many years." Then, as I looked at them longingly, she said, 

 "You can have them if you like" — as if they were of not the 

 least value. I felt as if I had had a fortune left me. The 

 top was the admiration of the whole school. No one had so 

 large a top or had even seen one so large, yet I was quite 

 able to spin it properly, my hands being rather large for my 

 age. This occurred in the winter, and when the cricket 

 season came, I equally enjoyed my bat, which at once 



