close that there were times when every one of our forty digits curled up like a bird’s claw.  If we went over, it would not be a fall down a good honest precipice,—­a swish through the air and a smash at the bottom,—­but a tumbling, and a rolling over and over, and a bouncing and bumping, ever accelerating, until we bounded into the level below, all ready for the coroner.  At one sudden turn of the road the horse’s body projected so far over its edge that A——­ declared if the beast had been an inch longer he would have toppled over.  When we got close to the summit we found the wind blowing almost a gale.  A——­ says in her diary that I (meaning her honored parent) “nearly blew off from the top of the mountain.”  It is true that the force of the wind was something fearful, and seeing that two young men near me were exposed to its fury, I offered an arm to each of them, which they were not too proud to accept; A——­ was equally attentive to another young person; and having seen as much of the prospect as we cared to, we were glad to get back to our four-wheeler and our hotel, after a perilous journey almost comparable to Mark Twain’s ascent of the Riffelberg.

At Great Malvern we were deliciously idle.  We walked about the place, rested quietly, drove into the neighboring country, and made a single excursion,—­to Tewkesbury.  There are few places better worth seeing than this fine old town, full of historical associations and monumental relics.  The magnificent old abbey church is the central object of interest.  The noble Norman tower, one hundred and thirty-two feet in height, was once surmounted by a spire, which fell during divine service on Easter Day of the year 1559.  The arch of the west entrance is sixteen feet high and thirty-four feet wide.  The fourteen columns of the nave are each six feet and three inches in diameter and thirty feet in height.  I did not take these measurements from the fabric itself, but from the guidebook, and I give them here instead of saying that the columns were huge, enormous, colossal, as they did most assuredly seem to me.  The old houses of Tewkesbury compare well with the finest of those in Chester.  I have a photograph before me of one of them, in which each of the three upper floors overhangs the one beneath it, and the windows in the pointed gable above project over those of the fourth floor.

I ought to have visited the site of Holme Castle, the name of which reminds me of my own origin.  “The meaning of the Saxon word ‘Holme’ is a meadow surrounded with brooks, and here not only did the castle bear the name, but the meadow is described as the ’Holme,—­where the castle was.’” The final s in the name as we spell it is a frequent addition to old English names, as Camden mentions, giving the name Holmes among the examples.  As there is no castle at the Holme now, I need not pursue my inquiries any further.  It was by accident that I stumbled on this bit of archaeology, and as I have a good many namesakes, it may perhaps please some of them to be told about it.  Few of us hold any castles, I think, in these days, except those chateaux en Espagne, of which I doubt not, many of us are lords and masters.