Chantry House

GRIFFITH had come straight home this year. There were no Peacock gaieties to tempt him in London, for old Sir Henry had died suddenly soon after the ball in December; nor was th...

CLARENCE had come home free from all blots. His summer holiday had been prevented by the illness of one of the other clerks, whose place, Mr. Castleford wrote, he had so well su...

‘The child upon the mountain side Plays fearless and at ease, While the hush of purple evening Spreads over earth and seas. The valley lies in shadow, But the valley lies afar;...

THE next day was Sunday, and no Griff appeared in the morning. Vexation, perhaps, prevented us from attending as much as we otherwise might have done to Mr. Henderson when he to...

‘As slow our ship her foamy track Against the wind was cleaving, Her trembling pennant still looked back To the dear isle ’twas leaving. So loath we part from all we love, From...

‘Though bound with weakness’ heavy chain We in the dust of earth remain; Not all remorseful be our tears, No agony of shame or fears, Need pierce its passion’s bitter tide.’

THE united force of the younger generation has been brought upon me to record, with the aid of diaries and letters, the circumstances connected with Chantry House and my two dea...

IT was in the May of the ensuing year, 1832, that Clarence was sent down to Bristol for a few weeks to take the place of one of the clerks in the office where the cargoes of the...

WHEN I emerged from my room the next morning the phaeton was at the door to take the two clergymen to reconnoitre their abode before going to church. Miss Fordyce went with them...

FOR want of being able to take exercise, the first part of the night had always been sleepless with me, though my dear mother thought it wrong to recognise the habit or allow me...

MR. FORDYCE waited at Hillside till after Sunday, and then went to Bath to hear the verdict of the physician. He returned as much depressed as it was in his sanguine nature to b...

Soon as she parted thence—the fearful twayne, That blind old woman and her daughter deare, Came forth, and finding Kirkrapine there slayne, For anguish greate they gan to rend t...

THERE was much stagnation in the Navy in those days in the reaction after the great war; and though our family had fair interest at the Admiralty, it was seven months before my...

‘O dinna look, ye prideful queen, on a’ aneath your ken, For he wha seems the farthest _but_ aft wins the farthest _ben_, And whiles the doubie of the schule tak’s lead of a’ th...

YOU will be weary of my lengthiness; and perhaps I am lingering too long over the earlier portion of my narrative. Something is due to the disproportion assumed in our memories...

ALL the rest of the family were out, and I was relieved by being alone with my distress, not forced to hide it, when the door opened and ‘Mr. Castleford’ was announced. After on...

ONE of Griffith’s briefest notes in his largest hand announced that he had accepted various invitations to country houses, for cricket matches, archery meetings, and the like; n...

If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanours you are welcome to the house; if not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell.’—...

AFTER such a rebuff as Martyn had experienced at Beachharbour, he no longer haunted its neighbourhood, but devoted the long vacation of the ensuing year to a walking tour in Ger...

‘For he that needs five thousand pound to live Is full as poor as he that needs but five. But if thy son can make ten pound his measure, Then all thou addest may be called his t...

IF anything could have made our adventure more unpleasant to Mr. and Mrs. Winslow, it would have been the presence of guests. However, inquiry was suppressed at breakfast, in de...

‘The church has been whitewashed, but right long ago, As the cracks and the dinginess amply doth show; About the same time that a strange petrifaction Confined the incumbent to...

IN imagination the piteous dejection of our family seems to have lasted for ages, but on comparison of dates it is plain that the first lightening of the burthen came in about a...

THE two families were supposed to continue on unbroken terms of friendship, and we men did so; but Mrs. Fordyce told my mother that she had disapproved of the probation, and Mrs...

IT was not till the second Christmas after dear Ellen Fordyce’s death that my eldest brother brought his wife and child to Chantry House, after an urgent letter to Lady Peacock...

CHRISTMAS trees were not yet heard of beyond the Fatherland, and both the mothers held that Christmas parties were not good for little children, since Mrs. Winslow’s strong comm...

AT school Griffith was very happy, and brilliantly successful, alike in study and sport, though sports were not made prominent in those days, and triumphs in them were regarded...

How we did enjoy our journey, when the wrench from our old home was once made. We did not even leave Clarence behind, for Mr. Castleford had given him a holiday, so that he migh...

THINGS always happen in unexpected ways. During the little hesitation and difficulty that always attend my transits at a station, a voice was heard to say, ‘Oh! Papa, isn’t that...

IT seems to me on looking back that I have hardly done justice to Mrs. Fordyce, and certainly we—as Griffith’s eager partisans—often regarded her in the light of an enemy and op...

MY father had a good deal of business in hand, and was glad of Clarence’s help in writing and accounts,—a great pleasure, though it prevented his being Griff’s companion in his...

STILL all was not over, for by the next day our brother was as ill, or worse, than ever. The doctor who came from London allowed that he had expected something of the kind, but...

SO Clarence was gone, and our new life begun in its changed aspect. Emily showed an almost feverish eagerness to make it busy and cheerful, getting up a sewing class in the vill...

WE had really lost our Griffith long before—our bright, generous, warm-hearted, promising Griff, the brilliance of our home; but his actual death made the first breach in a hith...

CLARENCE would not tell me his purpose, he said, till he had considered it more fully; nor could we have much conversation on the way home, as my mother had arranged that we sho...

C. MORBUS, Esq. Such was the card that some wicked wag, one of Clarence’s fellow-clerks probably, left at his lodgings in the course of the epidemic which was beginning its rava...

THE first that we did hear of our brother was a letter with a Falmouth postmark, which we scarcely dared to open. There was not much in it, but that was enough. ‘D. G.—I shall s...

‘Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, Like twilight too, her dusky hair, But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn, A dancing shape, an image gay, T...

‘But when I lay upon the shore, Like some poor wounded thing, I deemed I should not evermore Refit my wounded wing. Nailed to the ground and fastened there, This was the thought...

CLARENCE and Martyn walked over to Hillside the first thing the next morning to inquire for the two sisters. As to one, they were quickly reassured, for Anne was in the porch fe...

Old Mr. Frith died in the spring of 1841, and it proved that he had shown his gratitude to Clarence by a legacy of shares in the firm amounting to about £2000. The rest of his i...

‘O’er all there hung the shadow of a fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is haunted.’—HOOD.

THIS long stay of Ellen’s in our family had made our fraternal relations with her nearer and closer. Familiarity had been far from lessening our strong feeling for her goodness...

WE did not move from Beachharbour till September, and by that time it had been decided that Chantry House itself should be given up to the new scheme. It was too large for us, a...

‘Then cheerly to your work again, With hearts new braced and set To run untired love’s blessed race, As meet for those who face to face Over the grave their Lord have met.’

‘WHAT a ridiculous old fellow that Chapman is,’ said Griff, coming in from a conference with the gaunt old man who acted as keeper to our not very extensive preserves. ‘I told h...

ON the night of the 26th of December, Clarence and Martyn, well wrapped in greatcoats, stole into the outer mullion room; but though the usual sounds were heard, and the mysteri...

Looking back, I think my mother was the leading spirit in our household, though she never for a moment suspected it. Indeed, the chess queen must be the most active on the home...

while the elders were gone out to dinner; nor do I think she ever did us anything but good, though I am afraid we laughed at ‘Old Newton’ as we grew older and more conceited. We...

‘What I do remember, is my mother reading to me as _Frontispiece_. I lay in my crib’ A feeble water-coloured drawing of the trio _Vignette_. ‘That is poor Margaret who married y...