CHAPTER X 



KINGTON AND RADNORSHIRE 



In the autumn of 1839 brother came to Leighton to take 

 me away, and in a day or two we started for Herefordshire, 

 going by the recently opened railroad to Birmingham, where 

 we visited an old friend of my brother's, a schoolmaster, 

 whose name I forget, and who I remember showed us with 

 some pride how his school was warmed by hot-water pipes, 

 then somewhat unusual. We then went on by coach through 

 Worcester to Kington, a small town of about two thousand 

 inhabitants, only two miles from the boundary of Radnor- 

 shire. It is pleasantly situated in a hilly country, and has a 

 small stream flowing through it. Just beyond the county 

 boundary, on the road to Old and New Radnor, there is an 

 isolated craggy hill called the Stanner Rocks, which, being 

 a very hard kind of basalt very good for road-metal, was 

 being continually cut away for that purpose. It was covered 

 with scrubby wood, and was the most picturesque object in 

 the immediately surrounding country. 



We obtained board and lodging at the house of a gun- 

 maker, Mr. Samuel Wright, a jolly little man, who reminded 

 me of the portrait of the immortal Mr. Pickwick, and who, on 

 account of his rotundity, was commonly known in the town as 

 Alderman Wright. Mrs. Wright was, on the contrary, very thin 

 and angular. They were equally different in their characters ; 

 he was very slow of speech, but very fond of telling stories of his 

 early life, usually very commonplace, and told in such a way as 

 to be dreadfully wearisome. After every few words he would 



140 



