him, and if Mr. Worthington interfered in any way he would throw up the case.

It turned out as the lawyer expected. The other side had deeds showing the same boundary as that which Mr. Worthington had concealed. Our evidence as to possession was weak. Our counsel appealed to the jury for a poor man struggling for his rights against the power of wealth. But the judge summed up against us on the evidence, and the other side won. Mr. Worthington had insisted upon hearing his counsel's speech, which evidently gave him hopes, and when the verdict was given he was overwhelmed, looked altogether dazed, and I thought he would have a fit. But we got him at once out of court, went back to the inn, and as soon as possible drove home together. As soon as he recovered himself somewhat, he exclaimed, "My counsel was a noble fellow, he upheld the right; but we had an unjust judge, Mr. Wallace." I forgot to mention that Mr. Worthington wore a brown curly wig, which I had at first taken for his natural hair, and when he was much excited he would suddenly snatch it off his head, when he looked rather ludicrous. The costs which he had to pay were very heavy, and he had to sell Gelli to pay them, and soon afterwards left the district to return to Devonshire. I fancy he had before lost a good deal of property, and this last misfortune was almost ruin. After they left I do not think we ever heard of them again, though my brother may have done so.

After living about a year at Bryn-coch we moved a little nearer the town to the other side of the Clydach river, and lodged with an old colliery surveyor, Samuel Osgood, in the employment of Mr. Price, of the Neath Abbey Iron Works. The house was an old but roomy cottage, and we had a large bedroom and a room downstairs for an office and living room, while Mr. Osgood had another, and there was also a roomy kitchen. A tramway from some collieries to the works ran in front of the house at a little distance, and we had a good view of the town and up the vale of Neath. Behind us rose the Drymau Mountain, nearly seven hundred feet above us, the

level top of which was frequented by peewits, and whose steep slopes were covered with trees and bushes. Here we lived till I left Neath a year later, and were on the whole very comfortable, though our first experience was a rather trying one. The bedroom we occupied had been unused for years, and though it had been cleaned for our use we found that every part of it, bedstead, floor, and walls, in every crack and cranny, harboured the Cimex lectularius, or bedbug, which attacked us by hundreds, and altogether banished sleep. This required prompt and thorough measures, and my brother at once took them. I was sent to the town for some ounces of corrosive sublimate; the old wooden bedstead was taken to pieces, and, with the chairs, tables, drawers, etc., taken outside. The poison was dissolved in a large pailful of water, and with this solution by means of a whitewasher's brush the whole of the floor was thoroughly soaked, so that the poison might penetrate every crevice, while the walls and ceiling were also washed over. The bedstead and furniture were all treated in the same way, and everything put back in its place by the evening. We did all the work ourselves, with the assistance of Mrs. Osgood and a servant girl, and so effectual was the treatment that for nearly a year that we lived there we were wholly unmolested by insect enemies.

Mr. and Mrs. Osgood were both natives of the ancient town of Bideford, Devon, which they continually referred to as the standard of both manners and morality, to the great disadvantage of the Welsh. They were both old, perhaps between sixty and seventy, and thought old fashions were the best. Mr. Osgood was an old-fashioned surveyor, and was also a pretty good mechanic. He prided himself upon his work, upon his plans of the colliery workings, and especially upon his drawings, which were all copies from prints, usually very common ones, but which he looked upon as works of high art. Among these, he was especially proud of a horse, in copying which in pen and ink he had so exaggerated the muscular development that it looked as if the skin had been taken off to exhibit the separate muscles for anatomical teaching. It was a powerful-looking horse in the attitude of a

high-stepper, but so exaggerated and badly drawn as to be almost ludicrous. It was framed and hung in his room, and he always called visitors' attention to it, and told them that Mr. Price, the owner of the collieries, had said that he could never get a horse like that one, as if this were the highest commendation possible of his work.

About that time the method of measuring the acreage of fields on maps by means of tracing-paper divided into squares of one chain each, with a beam-compass to sum up each line of squares, had recently come into use by surveyors; and Mr. Osgood amused himself by making a number of these compasses of various kinds of wood nicely finished and well polished, rather as examples of his skill than for any use he had for them, though he occasionally sold them to some of the local surveyors. He had these all suspended vertically on the wall instead of horizontally, as they are usually placed, and as they look best. While we were one day admiring the workmanship of an addition to the series, he remarked, "I dare say you don't know why I hang them up that way; very few people do." Of course, we acknowledged we did not know. "Well," said he, "it is very important. The air presses with a weight of fifteen pounds on every square inch, and if I hung them up level the pressure in the middle would very soon bend them, and they would be spoilt." My brother knew it was no good to try and show him his error, so merely said, "Yes, that's a very good idea of yours," and left the old man in the happy belief that he was quite scientific in his methods. My brother took a sketch of him enjoying his pipe and glass of toddy of an evening, which was a very good likeness, and which is here reproduced.

After we had completed the survey and maps of Cadoxton, which occupied us about six months, we had not much to do except small pieces of work of various kinds. One of these was to make a survey and take soundings of the river between the bridge and the sea, a distance of three or four miles, for a proposed scheme of improving the navigation, making docks, etc., which was partly carried out some years later. We also

had a little architectural and engineering work, in designing and superintending the erection of warehouses with powerful cranes, which gave me some insight into practical building. To assist in making working drawings and specifications, my brother had purchased a well-known work, Bartholomew's "Specifications for Practical Architecture." This book,

though mainly on a very dry and technical subject, contained an introduction on the principles of Gothic architecture which gave me ideas upon the subject of the greatest interest, and value, and which have enabled me often to form an independent judgment on modern imitations of Gothic or of any other styles. Bartholomew was an enthusiast for Gothic, which he maintained was the only true and scientific system of architectural construction in existence. He showed how all the most striking and ornamental features of Gothic architecture are essential to the stability of a large stone-built structure the lofty nave with its clerestory windows and arched roof; the lateral aisles at a lower level, also with arched roofs; the outer thrust of these arches supported by deep buttresses on the ground, with arched or flying buttresses above; and these again rendered more secure by being weighted down with rows of pinnacles, which add so much to the beauty of Gothic buildings. He rendered his argument more clear by giving a generalized cross-section of a cathedral, and drawing within the buttresses the figure of a man, with outstretched arms pushing against the upper arches to resist their outward thrust, and being kept more steady by a heavy load upon his head and shoulders representing the pinnacle. This section and figure illuminated the whole construction of the masterpieces of the old architects so clearly and forcibly, and though I have not seen the book since, I have never forgotten it. It has furnished me with a standard by which to judge all architecture, and has guided my taste in such a small matter as the use of stone slabs over window openings in brick buildings, thus concealing the structural brick arch, and using stone as a beam, a purpose for which iron or wood are better suited. It also made me a very severe critic of modern imitations of Gothic in which we often