the mill-stream into which I once fell; and the religious awe
wherewith I heard, in the warm twilight, the psalm-singing around the
house of the Methodist miller; and the door-post against which I
discharged my brazen artillery; I remember the window by which I sat
while my mother taught me French; and the patch of garden which I dug
for-- But her name is best left blank; it was indeed writ in water.
These recollections are to me like the wealth of a departed friend, a
mournful treasure. But the public has heard enough of them; to it
they are worthless: they are a coin which only circulates at its true
value between the different periods of an individual's existence, and
good for nothing but to keep up a commerce between boyhood and
manhood. I have for years looked forward to the possibility of
visiting L----; but I am told that it is a changed village; and not
only has man been at work, but the old yew on the hill has fallen, and
scarcely a low stump remains of the tree which I delighted in
childhood to think might have furnished bows for the Norman
archers."[3]

In Cowbridge is some kind of free school, or grammar-school, of a
certain distinction; and this to Captain Sterling was probably a
motive for settling in the neighborhood of it with his children. Of
this however, as it turned out, there was no use made: the Sterling
family, during its continuance in those parts, did not need more than
a primary school. The worthy master who presided over these Christmas
galas, and had the honor to teach John Sterling his reading and
writing, was an elderly Mr. Reece of Cowbridge, who still (in 1851)
survives, or lately did; and is still remembered by his old pupils as
a worthy, ingenious and kindly man, "who wore drab breeches and white
stockings." Beyond the Reece sphere of tuition John Sterling did not
go in this locality.