s to remember how solitary our life was. We had literally no
boy-friends in the whole neighbourhood; there were plenty of boys within
reach but we never amalgamated with them, and were, I imagine, despised
by them as outside the pale of Eton-dom. No opportunity was made for us
to learn to shoot; I used to wander with a gun and shoot an occasional
hare and various blackbirds, but I never had even the meanest skill, and
after suffering miseries of shame at one or two shooting-parties I am
glad to think I gave it up.

Fishing there was none in our dry country, and it was only very much
later, on the beautiful Dovey in North Wales, that I learned something of
the art.

Riding we did learn in a casual, haphazard way, and some of us hunted a
little with a mild pack (the Old Surrey) in our bad hunting country--but
all this was much later and hardly concerns my present subject.

The best practice I had as a boy was riding twice or thrice a week (from
perhaps my tenth to my twelfth year) to Mr Reed, Rector of Hayes, to be
taught Latin and a little arithmetic. Our ponies were shaggy, obstinate
little beasts, who had the strongest possible dislike of their duties. I
remember well how my pony turned round and round, and at last consented
to proceed till a new excuse occurred for a bolt towards home. It was a
secret delight to me when one of my brothers was beaten in the pony-fight
and was brought ignominiously home.

Mr Reed was the kindest of teachers, and after a short spell of Latin he
used to give me a slice of cake and allow me to look at the wonderful
pictures in an old Dutch Bible. Even under the mild discipline of this
kindest of men I used to dissolve in tears over my work.

When I was twelve years old, _i.e._ in the summer of 1860, I went to the
Grammar School at Clapham kept by Rev. Charles Pritchard. I was two
years under Pritchard, and when he left {63} I remained under his
successor, Rev. Alfred Wrigley, until I went up to Trinity College,
Cambridge, 1866. Wrigley had none of the force of Pritchard, nor had he,
I fancy, his predecessor's gift of teaching. Mathematics formed a great
part of our curriculum, and for these I had no turn. I am, however,
grateful to Wrigley for having made me work out a great many logarithmic
calculations which had to be shown up (as he expressed it) in a "neat,
tabular form." As I have said in my article on my brother George in
_Rustic Sounds_, my "recollections of George at