Ill] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 39 



houses ; and as there were abundance of lanes and footpaths, 

 it offered greater attractions to us boys than the more culti- 

 vated districts to the north and west. Walking along the 

 London Road, in about a mile and a half we reached Hertford 

 Heath at a height of three hundred feet above the sea, and 

 half a mile further was Haileybury College, then a training 

 college for the East India Company, now a public school. 

 All round here the country was woody and picturesque ; but 

 our favourite walk, and that of the Grammar School boys, on 

 fine half-holidays in summer, was to what we called the racing- 

 field, a spot about two miles and a half south of the town. As 

 this walk is typical of many of the best features of this part 

 of the town's surroundings, it may be briefly described. 



From the south-west corner of All Saints' Churchyard was 

 a broad pathway bounded by hedges, called Queen's-bench 

 Walk, near the top of which was a seat, whence there was a 

 nice view over the town, and the story was that the seat had 

 been put there for Queen Elizabeth, who admired the view. 

 This led into a lane, and further on to an open footpath across 

 a field to Dunkirk's Farm. In this field, about fifty yards to 

 the left, was a spring of pure water carefully bricked round, 

 and as springs were not by any means common, we seldom 

 went this way without running down to it to take a drink of 

 water and admire its purity and upward bubbling out of the 

 earth. At Dunkirk's Farm we crossed the end of Morgan's 

 Walk, a fine straight avenue of lofty elms (I think) about 

 three-quarters of a mile long, terminating in a rather large 

 house — Brickenden Bury. In after years, when I became 

 acquainted with Hood as a serious writer, the scene of that 

 wonderful poem which begins with the verse — 



" -Twas in a shady Avenue, 

 Where lofty Elms abound — 

 And from a tree 

 There came to me 

 A sad and solemn sound, 

 That sometimes murmur'd overhead 

 And sometimes underground " — 



was always associated with this Morgan's Walk of my 

 boyhood, an association partly due to the fact that sometimes 



