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[Illustration: _Engraved by C.H. Jeens from a Picture by G.F. Watts._]
MEMOIR OF A BROTHER.
BY
THOMAS HUGHES,
AUTHOR OF “TOM BROWN’S SCHOOLDAYS.”
[Illustration]
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
1873.
_AUTHOR’S EDITION._
PREFACE.
This Memoir was written for, and at the request of, the near relatives,
and intimate friends, of the home-loving country gentleman, whose
unlooked-for death had made them all mourners indeed. Had it been meant
originally for publication, it would have taken a very different form. In
compiling it, my whole thoughts were fixed on my own sons and nephews,
and not on the public. It tells of a life with which indeed the public
has no concern in one sense; for my brother, with all his ability and
power of different kinds, was one of the humblest and most retiring
of men; who just did his own duty, and held his own tongue, without
the slightest effort or wish for fame or notoriety of any kind. In
another sense, however, I do see that it has a meaning and interest for
Englishmen in general, and have therefore consented to its publication in
the usual way, though not without a sense of discomfort and annoyance at
having the veil even partially lifted from the intimacies of a private
family circle. For, in a noisy and confused time like ours, it does seem
to me that most of us have need to be reminded of, and will be the better
for bearing in mind, the reserve of strength and power which lies quietly
at the nation’s call, outside the whirl and din of public and fashionable
life, and entirely ignored in the columns of the daily press. The subject
of this memoir was only a good specimen of thousands of Englishmen of
high culture, high courage, high principle, who are living their own
quiet lives in every corner of the kingdom, from John o’ Groat’s to the
Land’s-End, bringing up their families in the love of God and their
neighbour, and keeping the atmosphere around them clean, and pure and
strong, by their example,—men who would come to the front, and might be
relied on, in any serious national crisis.
One is too apt to fancy, from the photographs of the nation’s life which
one gets day by day, that the old ship has lost the ballast which has
stood her in such good stead for a thousand years, and is rolling more
and more helplessly, in a gale which shows no sign of abating, for
her or any other national vessel, until at last she must roll over and
founder. But it is not so. England is in less stress, and in better trim,
than she has been in in many a stiffer gale.
The real fact is, that nations, and the families of which nations are
composed, make no parade or fuss over that part of their affairs which
is going right. National life depends on home life, and foreign critics
are inclined to take the chronicles of our Divorce Court as a test by
which to judge the standard of our home life, like the old gentleman who
always spelt through the police reports to see “what the people were
about.” An acquaintance, however, with any average English neighbourhood,
or any dozen English families taken at random, ought to be sufficient to
reassure the faint-hearted, and to satisfy them that (to use the good
old formula) the Lord has much work yet for this nation to do, and the
nation manliness and godliness enough left to do it all, notwithstanding
superficial appearances.
A life without sensation or incident may therefore well form a more
useful subject of study in such a time, than the most exciting narrative
of adventure and success, the conditions being, that it shall have been
truly lived, and faithfully told. Readers will judge for themselves
whether the former condition has been fulfilled in this case: I wish I
could feel the same confidence as to the latter. I can only say I have
done my best.
T. H.
Dedication.
_TO MY NEPHEWS AND SONS._
MY DEAR BOYS,
It has pleased God to take to Himself the head of the family of which you
are members. Most of you are too young to enter into the full meaning
of those words “family” and “membership,” but you all remember with
sore hearts, and the deepest feeling of love and reverence, the gentle,
strong, brave man, whom you used to call father or uncle; and who had
that wonderful delight in, and attraction for, young folk, which most
very gentle and brave men have. You are conscious, I know, that a great
cold chasm has suddenly opened in your lives—that strength and help
has gone away from you, to which you knew you might turn in any of the
troubles which boys, and very young men, feel so keenly. Well, I am glad
that you feel that it is so: I should not have much hope of you if it
were otherwise. The chasm will close up, and you will learn, I trust and
pray, where to go for strength and help, in this and all other troubles.
It is very little that I can do for you. Probably you can do more for me;
and my need is even sorer than yours. But what I can do I will. Several
of you have asked me questions about your father and uncle, what we used
to do, and think and talk about, when he and I were boys together. Well,
no one can answer these questions better than I, for we were as nearly of
an age as brothers can be—I was only thirteen months younger—and we were
companions from our childhood. We went together to our first school, when
I was nearly eight and he nine years old; and then on to Rugby together;
and were never separated for more than a week until he went to Oxford,
where I followed a year later. For the first part of my time there, in
college, we lived in the same rooms, always on the same staircase; and
afterwards in the same lodgings. From that time to the day of his death
we lived in the most constant intimacy and affection. Looking back over
all those years, I can call to mind no single unkind, or unworthy, or
untruthful, act or word of his; and amongst all the good influences for
which I have to be thankful, I reckon the constant presence and example
of his brave, generous, and manly life as one of the most powerful and
ennobling. If I can in any measure reproduce it for you, I know that
I shall be doing you a good service; and helping you, in even more
difficult times than those in which we grew up, to quit yourselves as
brave and true English boys and Englishmen, in whatever work or station
God may be pleased to call you to.
You have all been taught to look to one life as your model, and to
turn to Him who lived it on our earth, as to the guide, and friend,
and helper, who alone can strengthen the feeble knees, and lift up the
fainting heart. Just in so far as you cleave to that teaching, and
follow that life, will you live your own faithfully. If I were not sure
that what I am going to try to do for you would help to turn you more
trustfully and lovingly to that source of all truth, all strength, all
light, be sure I would not have undertaken it. As it is, I know it will
be my fault if it does not do this.
THOMAS HUGHES.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
FIRST YEARS 1
CHAPTER II.
RUGBY 17
CHAPTER III.
A FATHER’S LETTERS 49
CHAPTER IV.
OXFORD 59
CHAPTER V.
DEGREE 80
CHAPTER VI.
START IN LIFE 88
CHAPTER VII.
1849-50: AN EPISODE 109
CHAPTER VIII.
ITALY 121
CHAPTER IX.
MIDDLE LIFE 130
CHAPTER X.
LETTERS TO HIS BOYS 151
CHAPTER XI.
CONCLUSION 170
MEMOIR OF A BROTHER.
CHAPTER I.
_FIRST YEARS._
My brother was born on the 18th of September, 1821 at Uffington, in
Berkshire, of which your great-grandfather was vicar. Uffington was then
a very primitive village, far away from any high road, and seven miles
from Wantage, the nearest town from which a coach ran to London. There
were very few neighbours, the roads were almost impassable for carriages
in the winter, and the living was a poor one; but your great-grandfather
(who was a Canon of St. Paul’s) had exchanged a much richer living for
it, because his wife had been born there, and was deeply attached to
the place. Three George Watts’s had been vicars of Uffington, in direct
succession from father to son, and she was the daughter of the last of
them. So your grandfather, who was their only child, came to live in the
village on his marriage, in an old farmhouse close to the church, to
which your grandfather added some rooms, so as to make it habitable. If
you should ever make a pilgrimage to the place, you will not find the
house, for it has been pulled down; but the grand old church is there,
and White Horse Hill, rising just behind the village, just as they were
half a century ago, when we first looked at them. We could see the church
from our bed-room window, and the hill from our nursery, a queer upper
room amongst the rafters, at the top of the old part of the house, with a
dark closet in one corner, into which the nurses used to put us when we
were more unruly than usual. Here we lived till your great-grandfather’s
death, thirteen years later, when your grandfather removed to his house
at Donnington.
The memories of our early childhood and boyhood throng upon me, so that
I scarcely know where to begin, or what to leave out. I cannot, however,
I am sure, go wrong in telling you, how I became first aware of a great
difference between us, and of the effect the discovery had on me. In the
spring of 1828, when he was seven and I six years old, our father and
mother were away from home for a few days. We were, playing together in
the garden, when the footman came up to us, the old single-barrelled gun
over his shoulder which the gardener had for driving away birds from the
strawberries, and asked us whether we shouldn’t like to go rook-shooting.
We jumped at the offer, and trotted along by his side to the rookery,
some 300 yards from the house. As we came up we saw a small group of our
friends under the trees—the groom, the village schoolmaster, and a farmer
or two—and started forwards to greet them. Just before we got to the
trees, some of them began firing up at the young rooks. I remember, even
now, the sudden sense of startled fear which came over me. My brother ran
in at once under the trees, and was soon carrying about the powder-horn
from one to another of the shooters. I tried to force myself to go up,
but could not manage it. Presently he ran out to me, to get me to go back
with him, but in vain. I could not overcome my first impression, and kept
hovering round, at a distance of thirty or forty yards, until it was time
for us to go back; ashamed of myself, and wondering in my small mind why
it was that he could go in amongst that horrible flashing and smoke, and
the din of firing, and cawing rooks, and falling birds, and I could not.
I had encountered the same puzzle in other ways already. Some time before
my father had bought a small Shetland pony for us, Moggy by name, upon
which we were to complete our own education in riding. We had already
mastered the rudiments, under the care of our grandfather’s coachman. He
had been in our family thirty years, and we were as fond of him as if
he had been a relation. He had taught us to sit up and hold the bridle,
while he led a quiet old cob up and down with a leading rein. But, now
that Moggy was come, we were to make quite a new step in horsemanship.
Our parents had a theory that boys must teach themselves, and that a
saddle (except for propriety, when we rode to a neighbour’s house to
carry a message, or had to appear otherwise in public) was a hindrance
rather than a help. So, after our morning’s lessons, the coachman used
to take us to the paddock in which Moggy lived, put her bridle on, and
leave us to our own devices. I could see that that moment was, from the
first, one of keen enjoyment to my brother. He would scramble up on her
back, while she went on grazing—without caring to bring her to the elm
stool in the corner of the field, which was our mounting place—pull her
head up, kick his heels into her sides, and go scampering away round the
paddock with the keenest delight. He was Moggy’s master from the first
day, though she not unfrequently managed to get rid of him by sharp
turns, or stopping dead short in her gallop. She knew it quite well;
and, just as well, that she was mistress as soon as I was on her back.
For weeks it never came to my turn without my wishing myself anywhere
else. George would give me a lift up, and start her. She would trot a few
yards, and then begin grazing, notwithstanding my timid expostulations,
and gentle pullings at her bridle. Then he would run up, and pull up her
head, and start her again, and she would bolt off with a flirt of her
head, and never be content till I was safely on the grass. The moment
that was effected she took to grazing again, and I believe enjoyed the
whole performance as much as George, and certainly far more than I did.
We always brought her a carrot, or bit of sugar, in our pockets, and she
was much more like a great good-tempered dog with us than a pony.
Our first hunting experience now came off. Some staghounds—the King’s,
if I remember rightly—came down for a day or two’s sport in our part of
Berkshire, and a deer was to be turned out on the downs, a few miles
from our house. Accordingly the coachman was to take us both. I was to
go before him on one of the carriage horses, made safe by leather strap
which encircled us both, while George rode Moggy. He was anxious to go
unattached, but on the whole it was considered better that the coachman
should hold a leading rein, as no one knew how Moggy might behave with
the dogs, and no one but I knew how completely she would have to do as he
chose. We arrived safely at the meet, saw the deer uncarted, the hounds
laid on, and lumbered slowly after, till they swept away over a rise
in the downs, and we saw them no more. So, after riding about for some
time, the coachman produced some bread and cheese from his pocket, and
we dismounted, and hitched up horse and pony on the leeward side of an
old barn. We had not finished our lunch, when suddenly, to our intense
delight, the stag cantered by within twenty yards of us, and, by the
time we were on horseback again, the hunt followed. This time George
and Moggy made the most desperate efforts for freedom, but the coachman
managed to keep them in tow, and so the hunt went away from us again. I
believe it was in consequence of George’s remonstrances when he got home
that it was now settled he should be allowed to go to the next meet of
the foxhounds in our neighbourhood without a leading rein. This is his
account of that great event, in a letter to his grandmother, almost the
first he ever wrote. Those of you who have been brought up in the country
will see how respectfully he always treats the fox, always giving him a
capital F when he mentions him.
“UFFINGTON.
“DEAR GRANDMAMA,
“Your little dog Mustard sometimes teases the hawk by barking
at him, and sometimes the hawk flies at Mustard. I have been
out hunting upon our black pony, Moggy, and saw the Fox break
cover, and the hounds follow after him. I rode fifteen miles.
Papa brought me home the Fox’s lug. I went up a great hill to
see the hounds drive the Fox out of the wood. I saw Ashdown
Park House: there is a fine brass nob at the top of it. Tom and
I send best love to you and grandpapa.
“I am, your affectionate grandson,
“GEORGE HUGHES.”
On this first occasion, as you may see by the letter, your grandfather
was out with him, and he had not been allowed to follow. But soon
afterwards his great triumph occurred, at a meet to which he and Moggy
went off one morning after breakfast, in the wildest spirits. Your
grandfather did not go out that day; so one of the farmers who happened
to be going was to give an eye to Master George, and see that he got into
no trouble, and found his way home. This he did about three o’clock in
the afternoon, bearing the brush in his hand, with his face all covered
with blood, after the barbarous custom of those days. He had been in
at the death; and the honest farmer recounted to us in the broadest
Berkshire the wonders which he and Moggy had performed together; creeping
through impossible holes in great fences, scrambling along ditches and
up banks to the finish, when he had been singled out from outside the
ring of horsemen and led up to the master, the late Lord Ducie, to be
“blooded” by the huntsman, and receive the brush, the highest honour the
boy foxhunter can achieve.
And so it was with all our games and exercises, whether we were at
football, wrestling, climbing, single-stick (which latter we were only
allowed to practise in the presence of an old cavalry pensioner, who had
served at Waterloo). He seemed to lay hold of whatever he put his hand
to by the right end, and so the secret of it delivered itself up to him
at once. One often meets with people who seem as if they had been born
into the world with two left hands, and two left feet, and rarely with
a few who have two right hands; and of these latter he was as striking
an example as I have ever known. Often as a boy, and much oftener since,
I have thought over this gift, trying to make out where the secret lay.
For, though never very ambitious myself, I was more so than he was,
and had the greatest wish to do every exercise and game as well as I
possibly could; and by dint of real hard work, and years of practice,
I did manage, in one or two instances, to reach the point which he had
attained almost as it were by instinct. But I never could get nearer to
his secret than this, that it lay in a sort of unconsciousness, which I
believe to be natural courage. What I mean is, that what might possibly
happen to himself never seemed to cross his mind: that he might get a
fall and hurt himself, for instance, or get his head or his shins broken,
or the like. And so, not being disturbed by any such considerations about
himself, he had nothing to hinder him from just falling at once into the
very best way of doing whatever he took in hand. Of course, even then,
it required a fine body, as I have known boys and men, of equal natural
courage, who were awkward and slow because they were very clumsily put
together. But, on the other hand, I have known many men with equally fine
bodies who never could get any decent work out of them. Now, with all the
thinking in the world about it, I never could have acquired this natural
gift; but, by having an example of it constantly before my eyes, I got
the next best thing, which was a scorn of myself for feeling fear. This
by degrees hardened into the habit of doing what I saw him do, and so I
managed to pass through school and college without betraying the timidity
of which I was ashamed.
Why do I make the confession now to you? Because I see the same
differences in you that there were in us. One or two of you are naturally
courageous, and the rest as naturally timid as I was. The first I hope
will always bear with the others, and help them, as my brother helped
me. If he had twitted me because I could not come under the trees at
the rook-shooting, or because I was afraid of Moggy, I should probably
never have felt the shame, or made the exertion, necessary to overcome my
natural timidity. And to you who are not naturally courageous, I would
say, make the effort to conquer your fear at once; you can’t begin too
early, and will never be worth much till you have made it.
But there was another natural difference between us which deserves a few
words, as it will bring out his character more clearly to you; and that
was, that he was remarkably quiet and reserved, and shy with strangers,
and I the reverse. When we came down to dessert, after a dinner party,
and had to stand by our father’s side (as the custom was then in our
parts), and say to each guest in turn, “Your good health, Sir, or Madam,”
while we sipped a little sweet wine and water, the ceremony was a torture
to him; while to me it was quite indifferent, and I was only running my
eye over the dishes, and thinking which I should choose when it came to
my turn. In looking over his earliest letters, I find in one, written to
his mother a few weeks after we first went to school, this passage: “We
are both very well and happy. I find that I like Tom better at school
than I do at home, and yet I do not know the reason.” I was surprised for
a moment when I came on this sentence. Of course, if love is genuine,
the longer people know each other, the deeper it becomes; and therefore
our friendship, like all others, grew richer and deeper as we got older.
But this was the first time I ever had an idea that his feelings towards
me changed after we went to school. I am not sure that I can give the
reason any more than he could; but, on thinking it over, I daresay it had
something to do with this difference I am speaking of.
I remember an old yeoman, a playfellow of our father’s, who lived in a
grey gabled house of his own at the end of the village in those days, and
with whom we used to spend a good deal of our spare time, saying to a
lady, about her sons, “Bring ’em up sarcy (saucy), Marm! I likes to see
bwoys brought up sarcy.” I have no doubt that he, and others, used to
cultivate my natural gift of sauciness, and lead me on to give flippant
answers, and talk nonsense. In fact, I can quite remember occasions of
the kind, and George’s quiet steady look at them, as he thought, no
doubt, “What a fool my brother is making of himself, and what a shame of
you to encourage him!” Apart altogether from his shyness, he had too
much self-command and courtesy himself to run into any danger of this
kind.
Now, the moment we got to school, my sauciness abated very rapidly on
the one hand, and, on the other, I became much more consciously beholden
to him. We had scarcely been there a week when the first crisis occurred
which made us both aware of this fact. My form had a lesson in early
Greek History to get up, in which a part of the information communicated
was, that Cadmus was the first man who “carried letters from Asia to
Greece.” When we came to be examined, the master asked us, “What was
Cadmus?” This way of putting it puzzled us all for a moment or two, when
suddenly the words “carried letters” came into my head, and, remembering
the man with the leather bag who used to bring my father’s papers and
letters, and our marbles and whipcord, from Farringdon, I shouted, “A
postman, Sir.” The master looked very angry for a moment, but, seeing my
perfect good faith, and that I had jumped up expecting to go to the head
of the form, he burst out laughing. Of course all the boys joined in, and
when school was over I was christened Cadmus. That I probably should not
have minded, but it soon shortened into “Cad,” at which all the blood in
my eight-year-old veins was on fire. The more angry I was, the more some
of the boys persecuted me with the hateful name; especially one stupid
big fellow of twelve or so, who ought to have been two forms higher, and
revenged himself for his place amongst us little ones by making our
small lives as miserable as he could. A day or two after, with two or
three boys for audience, he had got me in a corner of the playground,
into which he kept thrusting me violently back, calling me “Cad, Cad,”
while I was ready to fly at his throat and kill him. Suddenly we heard
a step tearing down the gravel walk, and George, in his shirt sleeves,
fresh from a game of rounders, rushed into the circle, and sent my
tyrant staggering back with a blow in the chest, and then faced him with
clenched fists, and a blaze in his eye, which I never saw there more than
two or three times. I don’t think many boys, or men, would have liked
to face him when it was there. At any rate my persecutor didn’t, though
he must have been a stone heavier, and much stronger. So he slunk off,
muttering to himself, to the disgust of the boys who hoped for a row,
and I strutted out of my corner, while George went back to his rounders,
after looking round and saying, “Just let me hear any of you call my
brother ‘Cad’ again.” I don’t think I ever heard _that_ nickname again at
our first school, and it must have been very shortly after that he wrote
home, “I find I like Tom better at school than I do at home, and yet I do
not know the reason.” The strongest and most generous natures are always
fondest of those who lean on them.
But I am getting on faster than I intended. We have not quite got away
from home yet. And now let me turn again to my story. You will, I am
sure, be interested by the following letter, which was written to us
by Miss Edgeworth. You probably have never read her books; but in our
day, when there were very few children’s books, they were our great
delight, and almost the only ones we possessed, after “Robinson Crusoe,”
“The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and “Sandford and Merton.” I forget how we
discovered that the lady who wrote “Frank and Rosamond” was really alive,
and that our grandmother actually had met her, and knew her. But, having
made the discovery; we laid our heads together, and wrote two letters,
asking her to tell us what were the contents of the remaining drawers in
the wonderful Indian cabinet. Our grandmother sent her the letters, and
in due time we received the following reply:—
“EDGEWORTH’S TOWN, _July 20th, 1828_.
“To my dear young readers, GEORGE and THOMAS HUGHES.
“I am glad that you can write as well as read; your two letters
were both very well written, and I had pleasure in reading
them. I am glad that you like Harry and Lucy and Frank and
Rosamond. I wish I could tell you anything more that would
entertain you about the other nine drawers of the India
cabinet; but what I am going to tell you will disappoint you
I daresay, and I cannot help it. When Rosamond opened the 4th
drawer she found in it—nothing—but a sheet of white paper at
the bottom of the drawer, and on the paper was written only the
word _China_. The writing was in a large round hand, like that
in which your letter to me was written. Rosamond shut this
drawer and opened the next, which was the 5th—empty! On the
paper at the bottom of this drawer, in the same handwriting,
was _Constantinople_. The 6th, the 7th, the 8th which she
opened, one after another as fast as she could, were all empty!
On the paper in the 6th drawer, which was very deep, was
written—_The North Pole and Iceland—Norway—Sweden and Lapland_.
In the 8th drawer was written _Rome and Naples—Mount Vesuvius
and Pompeii_. At the bottom of the 9th drawer, _Persia—Arabia
and India_.
“Then on the paper in the 9th drawer was written in small-hand
and cramped writing without lines, and as crookedly as might be
expected from a first attempt without lines, what follows:—
“‘I, little Matt, (which is short for Matthew), promise my
dear good kindest of all aunts, Aunt Egerton, whom I love best
in the world, that when I am grown up _quite_ to be a great
man, and when I go upon my travels as I intend to do when I am
old enough and have money enough, I will bring her home all
the greatest curiosities I can find for her in every country
for these drawers. I have written in them the names of the
countries I intend to visit, therefore I beg my dear aunt will
never put anything in these 9 drawers till my curiosities
come home. I will unpack them myself. N. B.—I have begun this
morning to make a list from my book of travels and voyages of
all the curiosities I think worthy my bringing home for the
India cabinet.’ (M. E.—A true copy.)
“My dear young readers, this is all I know about the matter. I
am sorry I can tell you no more; but to no one else have I ever
told so much. This letter is all for yourselves—from one who
would like to see you very much, and who hopes that you would
like her too if you knew her, though you might not like her at
first sight; for she is neither young nor pretty, but an old
good-natured friend,
(Signed) “MARIA EDGEWORTH.”
In the winter, before we went to school first, we were left alone at
home, for the first time, while our parents paid some visits. George
was left in charge of the house (under the governess), with injunctions
to see that all things went on regularly in the village. Our mother’s
Saturday clothing club was to be held as usual, and we were not to
neglect either the poor, or the birds, who were fed daily through the
winter on a table on the lawn, just outside the dining-room window.
The following letter will show you how conscientiously the trust was
fulfilled:—
“_January 21st, 1830._
“DEAR MAMA,
“We are all well, and quite free from colds. All the people
brought their money correctly last Saturday. Tims had his
chimney began more than a week ago, and no doubt it is finished
by this time. I have told cook about making broth and gruel for
any who are sick. We constantly feed all your birds, and they
eat as much as would give baby two meals. We shall be glad to
see you and Papa.
“I am, your dutiful son,
“GEORGE HUGHES.”
One other letter I will give to amuse you. You elder boys will say, that
if he hadn’t learnt to answer questions better when he went to school, he
would never have taken a high degree at Oxford:—
“_January 26th, 1830._
“MY DEAR MAMA,
“We thank you for the conundrums you sent us, and I think we
have found out two of them:—‘If all the letters were asked out
to dinner, which of them would not go?’ The one that asked them
would not go. ‘What thing is that which lights the eyes, yet
never fails to blind?’ The sun. You must tell us when you write
whether these are right or not. We cannot find out the other
one. Give my love to papa, and tell him that I will write to
him next week. We shall be delighted to see you home again. I
think I am going on well with my Latin, and I hope Papa will be
satisfied with me.
“I am, your affectionate son,
“GEORGE HUGHES.”
We went to school together, in the autumn of this year, at Twyford, near
Winchester. On the way there we stayed a few days at Lyndhurst, in the
New Forest, at the house of an old naval officer. He had another house
near us in Berkshire, our favourite resort, as there were several little
girls in the family of our own age, all very pretty. One of these little
ladies took a fancy to some water-flower, as we were walking in the
forest, the day before the school met. Without saying a word, George just
jumped into the pond, and fetched it for her; thereby ruining a new suit
of clothes (as your grandmother remarked) and risking his life, for there
was no one but a nurse with us, and it was just as likely that the pond
might be out of his depth as not. However, as it happened, no harm came
of it, and we went on next day to Twyford.