24 MY LIFE 



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 pecu- 

 liar 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 side 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 sur- 

 veyors 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 re- 

 flection of some hills in the river opposite us was sometimes 

 visible and sometimes not, though on both occasions 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 

 common to a considerable proportion of children of the same 

 age, that, during the whole period of my residence at Usk, I 

 have no clear recollection, and can form no distinct mental 

 image, of either my father or mother, brothers or sisters. I 



