MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
18
side of the little river Liane, that feeds the .harbour,
at which one of our schoolfellows, a gaunt, dyspeptic¬
looking boy, performed the following feat to our
terror and admiration, as we crowded round him to see
it. He took a frog by its hind feet, opened his wide
mouth and dropped the frog's fore-feet on his tongue.
The frog struggled to get free, and at the critical
moment the hind legs were let go, and down went the
frog, head foremost, into his gullet. He was our hero
for the time ; none other dared to attempt the same
feat. He said that he felt the frog all the way as it
went down to his stomach, and in it.
The school was hateful to me in many ways, and
lovable in none, so I was heartily glad to be taken
away from it in 1832. I thence returned to my family
party, who were newly settled in Leamington. It
then consisted of my father, mother, and three sisters ;
my brothers were away, and my other sister, Lucy,
who had married, was living near Birmingham.
My grandfather Gallon had recently died, and the
consequent large accession to my father’s income
justified his change of residence, whch gave him and
my sisters a wider social intercourse than they had at
the Larches. Leamington was at that time a little
place, attractive to many eminent invalids, who
drank the waters and consulted Dr. Jephson, then
becoming celebrated.
I was next sent to a small private school at
Kenilworth, consisting of some half-dozen pupils,
where I received much kindness, and breathed the
air of unconstraint during three happy years. It was
kept by Mr. Attwood, the clergyman of the parish
(a near relative of the inventor of “ Attwood’s