126 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



Soon after we came to Turvey a young gentleman from 

 Bedford came to us to learn a little surveying. He was, I 

 think, the son of an auctioneer or estate agent, and was about 

 eighteen or twenty years old. As my brother was occasion- 

 ally away for several days at a time when we sometimes had 

 nothing to go on with, he would amuse himself fishing, of 

 which he was very fond. Sometimes I went with him, but I 

 usually preferred walking about the country, though I cannot 

 remember that I had at this time any special interest in 

 doing so. He often caught some large coarse fish, such as 

 bream or pike, which were the commonest fish in the river, 

 but were hardly worth eating. Towards the latter part of 

 our survey in the spring months, my brother left us a portion 

 of the work to do by ourselves when he was away for a week 

 or two, and as we worked very hard, and seldom got home 

 before six in the evening, we had an unusually good appetite 

 for our evening meal, and sometimes astonished our hosts. 

 One occasion of this kind I have never forgotten. They had 

 provided for our dinner a sparerib of young pork — a very 

 delicate dish but not very substantial — with potatoes. My 

 friend first cut the joint in half, about three or four ribs in 

 each, and said to me, " I know you like fat ; if I cut off this 

 lean piece, will you have the rest?" I joyfully assented, as 

 I was very fond of the picking on the bones. We soon 

 finished our portions, and then he cut the lean off the rest of 

 the joint, gave me the ribs, and we very soon left nothing but 

 the clean-picked bones, half of which I put on his plate so 

 that it might not be thought that I had eaten the whole 

 joint myself. The servant looked astonished at the empty 

 dish when she brought us in a rather small apple-pudding. 

 This was cut in two, and was hardly as much as we should 

 have liked ; and when the servant saw another empty dish 

 she smiled, and told us that some people had been waiting 

 for the rest of the pork and pudding, and now had nothing 

 for dinner ; at which we smiled, and asked for bread-and- 

 cheese to finish with. 



When at home and spending the larger part of every day 

 in the schoolroom, I had never liked fat, which often made 



