CHAPTER III 



HERTFORD : THE HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 



My recollections of our leaving Usk and of the journey to 

 London are very faint, only one incident of it being clearly 

 visualized — the crossing the Severn at the Old Passage in 

 an open ferry-boat. This is so very clear to me, possibly 

 because it was the first time I had ever been in a boat. I 

 remember sitting with my mother and sisters on a seat at 

 one side of the boat, which seemed to me about as wide as a 

 small room, of its leaning over so that we were close to the 

 water, and especially of the great boom of the mainsail, when 

 our course was changed, requiring us all to stoop our heads for 

 it to swing over us. It was a little awful to me, and I think 

 we were all glad when it was over and we were safe on land 

 again. We must have travelled all day by coach from Usk 

 to the Severn, then on to Bristol, then from Bristol to London. 

 I think we must have started very early in the morning 

 and have reached London late in the evening, as I do not 

 remember staying a night on the way, and the stage then 

 travelled at an average speed of ten miles an hour over good 

 roads and in the summer time. The monotony of the journey 

 probably tired me so that it left no impression ; but besides 

 the ferry-boat the only other incident I can clearly recall is our 

 sleeping at an old inn in London, and our breakfast there the 

 next morning. I rather think the inn was the Green Man, or 

 some such name, in Holborn, and the one thing that lives in 

 my memory is that in the morning my mother ordered coffee 

 for breakfast, and said to the waiter, " Mind and make it 

 good." The result of which injunction was that it was nearly 



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