186 MY LIFE 



level top of which was frequented by peewits, and whose steep 

 slopes were covered with trees and bushes. Here we lived 

 till I left Neath a year later, and were on the whole very 

 comfortable, though our first experience was a rather trying 

 one. The bedroom we occupied had been unused for years, 

 and though it had been cleaned for our use we found that 

 every part of it, bedstead, floor, and walls, in every crack and 

 cranny, harboured the Cimex lectularins, or bedbug, which 

 attacked us by hundreds, and altogether banished sleep. This 

 required prompt and thorough measures, and my brother at 

 once took them. I was sent to the town for some ounces of 

 corrosive sublimate ; the old wooden bedstead was taken to 

 pieces, and, with the chairs, tables, drawers, etc., taken out- 

 side. The poison was dissolved in a large pailful of water, 

 and with this solution by means of a whitewashed brush the 

 whole of the floor was thoroughly soaked, so that the poison 

 might penetrate every crevice, while the walls and ceiling 

 were also washed over. The bedstead and furniture were all 

 treated in the same way, and everything put back in its place 

 by the evening. We did all the work ourselves, with the 

 assistance of Mrs. Osgood and a servant girl, and so effectual 

 was the treatment that for nearly a year that we lived there 

 we were wholly unmolested by insect enemies. 



Mr. and Mrs. Osgood were both natives of the ancient 

 town of Bideford, Devon, which they continually referred to 

 as the standard of both manners and morality, to the great 

 disadvantage of the Welsh. They were both old, perhaps 

 between sixty and seventy, and thought old fashions were the 

 best. Mr. Osgood was an old-fashioned surveyor, and was 

 also a pretty good mechanic. He prided himself upon his 

 work, upon his plans of the colliery workings, and especially 

 upon his drawings, which were all copies from prints, usually 

 very common ones, but which he looked upon as works of 

 high art. Among these, he was especially proud of a horse, 

 in copying which in pen and ink he had so exaggerated the 

 muscular development that it looked as if the skin had been 

 taken off to exhibit the separate muscles for anatomical teach- 

 ing. It was a powerful-looking horse in the attitude of a 



