mother determined to make wine; a
direful experiment, which absorbed our whole harvest of good little
fruit, filled every room in the house with unutterable messes, produced
much fermentation of temper as well as wine, and ended in a liquid
product of such superlative nastiness, that to drink it defied our
utmost efforts of obedience and my mother's own resolute courage; so it
was with acclamations of execration made libations of--to the infernal
gods, I should think--and no future vintage was ever tried, to our great
joy.

The little plot of lawn on which our cottage stood was backed by the
wild purple swell of the common, and that was crested by a fine fir
wood, a beautiful rambling and scrambling ground, full of picturesque
and romantic associations with all the wild and fanciful mental
existences which I was then beginning to enjoy. And even as I glide
through it now, on the railroad that has laid its still depths open to
the sun's glare and scared its silence with the eldritch snort and
shriek of the iron team, I have visions of Undine and Sintram, the
Elves, the little dog Stromian, the Wood-Witch, and all the world of
supernatural beauty and terror which then peopled its recesses for me,
under the influence of the German literature that I was becoming
acquainted with through the medium of French and English translations,
and that was carrying me on its tide of powerful enchantment far away
from the stately French classics of my school studies.

Besides our unusual privilege of grape-growing in the open air, our
little estate boasted a magnificent beurre pear tree, a small arbor of
intertwined and peculiarly fine filbert and cobnut trees, and some
capital greengage and apple trees; among the latter, a remarkably large
and productive Ribstone pippin. So that in the spring the little plot of
land was flowerful, and in the autumn fruitful, and we cordially
indorsed my mother's preference for it to the London house in Soho
Square.

The sort of orchard which contained all these objects of our regard was
at the back of the house; in front of it, however, the chief peculiarity
(which was by no means a beauty) of the place was displayed.

This was an extraordinary mound or hillock of sand, about half an acre
in circumference, which stood at a distance of some hundred yards
immediately in front of the cottage, and in the middle of what ought to
have been a flower garden, if this uncouth protuberance had not
effectual