garden at Down was originally a bare and windy wilderness, but our
parents constructed mounds of raw red clay on which laurel and box
finally grew and made shelter. One of these mounds, covered with dwarf
box-trees, was known to us as the Pyrenees, and our pleasure was to
traverse the passes on stilts. There was a slight sense of danger and a
certain romance in climbing the heights from the lawn and descending in
what was legally a part of the orchard, where the last of the limes grew
and a particular crab-tree of which I was fond.

Then there were two swings, one of the orthodox kind between those twin
yew-trees that gave a special character to the lawn, and one consisting
of a long rope fixed high up on the tall Scotch fir that grew on the
mound. The rope of the latter had a short cross-bar at its lower end
which served as a seat or a handle. There were various tricks, some of
which were almost sure to bump the head of a strange child against the
tree trunk, to our private satisfaction.

A similar rope hanging from the ceiling of the long passage at the top of
the house supplied a more complicated set of tricks, which all had
special names. Of these, I remember that _spangle_ meant a method of
sitting on one side of the cross-bar at the end of the rope. The stairs
leading to the second floor jutted out into the passage; we used to stand
with one foot on each banister-supporting post and make it a
starting-point for a swing on the rope, also a landing-place, and if we
succeeded in getting back into position with a foot on each banister-post
we were pleased with ourselves, especially if it was done at night
without a light. The rope, working on the hooks fixed into the ceiling,
made a grinding or squeaking noise which must have been annoying to
guests, especially when mixed with much crashing and banging and
shouting.

In later years we played stump cricket and lawn tennis, but in the early
days of which I am thinking the only game I clearly remember was the
practice of the village cricketers in our field. It seems improbable,
yet I am decidedly of opinion that the pitch was the footpath, the unmown
condition of the grass making bowling elsewhere an impossibility; on the
other hand it made fielding an easy affair. I remember clearly the runs
being recorded by notches cut on a stick, a method of scoring which has
its place in literature in the match between All Muggleton and Dingley
Dell. {62}

It is curiou