II] USK : MY EARLIEST MEMORIES 23 



pass the night without supper or bed, the resourceful Sand- 

 ford comforted him by promising that he should have both, 

 and set him to gather sticks for a fire, which he lit with a 

 tinder-box and match from his pocket. Then, when a large 

 fire had been made, he produced some potatoes which he had 

 picked up in a field on the way, and which he then roasted 

 beautifully in the embers, and even produced from another 

 pocket a pinch of salt in a screw of paper, so that the two 

 boys had a very good supper. Then, collecting fern and 

 dead leaves for a bed, and I think making a coverlet by 

 taking ofif their two jackets, which made them quite comfort- 

 able while lying as close together as possible, they enjoyed a 

 good night's sleep till daybreak, when they easily found their 

 way home. 



This seemed so delightful that one day John provided 

 himself with the matchbox, salt, and potatoes, and having 

 climbed up the steep bank behind our house, as we often did, 

 and passed over a field or two to the woods beyond, to my 

 great delight a fire was made, and we also feasted on potatoes 

 with salt, as Sandford and Merton had done. Of course we 

 did not complete the imitation of the story by sleeping in 

 the wood, which would have been too bold and dangerous an 

 undertaking for our sisters to join in, even if my brother and 

 I had wished to do so. 



Another vivid memory of these early years consists of 

 occasional visits to Usk Castle. Some friends of our family 

 lived in the house to which the ruins of the castle were 

 attached, and we children were occasionally invited to tea, 

 when a chief part of our entertainment was to ascend the old 

 keep by the spiral stair, and walk round the top, which had 

 a low parapet on the outer side, while on the inner we looked 

 down to the bottom of the tower, which descended below 

 the ground-level into an excavation said to have been the 

 dungeon. The top of the walls was about three feet thick, 

 and it was thus quite safe to walk round close to the parapet, 

 though there was no protection on the inner edge but the few 

 herbs and bushes that grew upon it. For many years this 



