My Life (Volume 1); A Record of Events and Opinions (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III HERTFORD: THE HOME OF MY BOYHOOD My recollections of our leaving Usk and of the journey to London are very faint, only one incident of it being clearly visualized?the crossing the Severn at the Old Passage in an open ferry-boat. This is so very clear to me, possibly because it was the first time I had ever been in a boat . I remember sitting with my mother and sisters on a seat at one side of the boat, which seemed to me about as wide as a small room, of its leaning over so that we were close to the water, and especially of the great boom of the mainsail, when our course was changed, requiring us all to stoop our heads for it to swing over us. It was a little awful to me, and I think we were all glad when it was over and we were safe on land again. We must have travelled all day by coach from Usk to the Severn, then on to Bristol, then from Bristol to London. I think we must have started very early in the morning and have reached London late in the evening, as I do not remember staying a night on the way, and the stage then travelled at an average speed of ten miles an hour over good roads and in the summer time. The monotony of the journey probably tired me so that it left no impression; but besides the ferry-boat the only other incident I can clearly recall is our sleeping at an old inn in London, and our breakfast there the next morning. I rather think the inn was the Green Man, or some such name, in Holborn, and the one thing that lives in my memory is that in the morning my mother ordered coffee for breakfast, and said to the waiter, Mind and make it good. The result of which injunction was that it was nearlyblack, and so strong that none of the party could drink it, till boiling water was brought for us to dilute it with. I, of course, had only milk an...