HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 31 



course, had only milk and water, with perhaps a few drops of 

 coffee as a special luxury. 



Of the next few months of my life I have also but slight 

 recollections, confined to a few isolated facts or incidents. 

 On leaving the inn we went to my aunt's at Dulwich. Mrs. 

 Wilson was my mother's only sister, who had married a 

 solicitor, who, besides having a good practice, was agent for 

 Lord Portman's London property. I remember being much 

 impressed with the large house, and especially with the beau- 

 tiful grounds, with lawns, trees, and shrubs such as I had 

 never seen before. There were here also a family of cousins, 

 some about my own age, and the few days we stayed were 

 very bright and enjoyable. 



I rather think that my father, and perhaps my brother also, 

 had left Usk a few days before us to make arrangements for 

 the family at Hertford, and I think that I was taken to a 

 children's school at Ongar, in Essex, kept by two ladies — the 

 Misses Marsh. I think it was at this place, because my father 

 had an old friend there, a Mr. Dyer, a clergyman. There 

 were a number of little boys and girls here about my own 

 age or younger, and what I chiefly remember is playing with 

 them in the playgound, garden, and house. The playground 

 was a gravel yard on one side of the house, and there we 

 occasionally found what I here first heard called " thunder- 

 bolts " — worn specimens of belemnites — fossils of the chalk 

 formation. We all believed that they fell down during thun- 

 derstorms. One rather exciting incident alone stands out 

 clear in my memories of this place. There was a garden 

 sloping down to a small pond in the centre, with rather steep 

 banks and surrounded by shrubs and flower-beds. This was 

 cut off from the house and yard by a low iron fence with a 

 gate which was usually kept locked, and we were not allowed 

 to play in it. But one day the gardener had left it open, and 

 we all went in, and began pulling and pushing an old-fashioned 

 stone roller. After a little while, as we were pushing it along 

 a path which went down to the pond, it suddenly began to 

 go quickly down hill, and as we could not stop it, and were 

 afraid of being pulled into the water, we had to let go, and the 



