28 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



I may here add another illustration of how vividly these 

 scenes of my childhood remain in my memory. My father 

 was very fond of Cowper's poems, and often used to read 

 them aloud to us children. Two of these especially im- 

 pressed themselves on my memory. That about the three 

 kittens and the viper, ending with the lines — 



" With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door, 

 And taught him never to come there no more ! " 



was perhaps the favourite, and whenever I heard it or read it 

 in after years, the picture always in my mind was of the door- 

 step of the Usk cottage with the kittens and the viper in the 

 attitudes so picturesquely described. The other one was the 

 fable of the sheep, who, on hearing some unaccustomed noise, 

 rushed away to the edge of a pit, and debated whether it 

 would be wise to jump into it to escape the unknown danger, 

 but were persuaded by a wise old bell-wether that this would 

 be foolish, he being represented as saying — 



" What ! jump into the pit your lives to save, 

 To save your lives leap into the grave ! " 



And as almost the only sheep I had seen close at hand were 

 in the little narrow field between our house and the bridge, I 

 always associated the scene with that field, although there 

 was no pit of any kind in it. So, in after years, when I became 

 fascinated by the poems of Hood, the beautiful and pathetic 

 verses beginning — 



" I remember, I remember. 

 The house where I was born, 

 The Httle window where the sun 

 Came peeping in each morn ; 

 He never came a wink too soon, 

 Nor brought too long a day, 

 But now I often wish the night 

 Had borne my breath away," 



always brought to my mind the memory of the little blue- 

 papered room at Usk, which faced somewhat east of south, 

 and into which, therefore, the sun did " come peeping in each 

 morn " — at least, during a large portion of the year. 



