VOLUME II

LONDON GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD 1896 [_All rights reserved_]

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _At the Ballantyne Press_

CONTENTS

PAGE

OXFORD LIFE 1 FOREIGN LIFE 32 WORK IN SOUTHERN COUNTIES 130 WORK IN NORTHERN COUNTIES 259 HOME LIFE WITH THE MOTHER 367

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. II

MARIA HARE. _From G. Canevari._ (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_ PAGE DRAWING-ROOM, LIME 15 FROM THE DEAN'S GARDEN, CANTERBURY 24 LA MADONNA DEI. SASSO, LOCARNO 45 IN S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA 48 LORETO 51 MACERATA 53 CIVITA CASTELLANA 55 VALMONTONE 77 ROCCA JANULA, ABOVE SAN GERMANO 79 CAPRI 82 PÆSTUM 83 VALLOMBROSA 85 AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. _From G. Canevari._ (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 96 PONTE ALLA MADDALENA, LUCCA 96 PIETRA SANTA 102 IL VALENTINO, TURIN 107 VILLAR, IN THE VAUDOIS 110 NOTRE DAME, PARIS 117 THE PONT NEUF, PARIS 124 PORT ROYAL 126 CATHERINE STANLEY. _From E. U. Eddis._ (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 132 CANON STANLEY'S HOUSE, OXFORD 136 HODNET CHURCH 159 GIBSIDE 181 OLD BEECHES, HURSTMONCEAUX PARK 227 THE ABELES, LIME 245 MENTONE 248 GRIMALDI 251 DOLCEACQUA 254 PEGLIONE 255 VENTIMIGLIA 257 AT DURHAM 262 ON ALLEN WATER, RIDLEY HALL 273 FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE 281 VIEW FROM HOLMHURST. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 286 ENTRANCE TO HOLMHURST: "HUZ AND BUZ" 287 ALDERLEY CHURCH AND RECTORY 293 WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET 352 WINTON CASTLE 355 THE CHEVIOTS, FROM FORD 361 CARROZZA 371 ROMAN THEATRE, ARLES 378 HÔTEL DU MAUROY, TROYES 379 THE KING OF BOHEMIA'S CROSS, CRECY 380 S. FLAVIANO, MONTEFIASCONE 386 OSTIA 391 THEATRE OF TUSCULUM 392 AMALFI 397 COURMAYEUR 410 ANNE F. M. L. HARE. _From G. Canevari._ (_Photogravure_) _To face_ 416 ARS 421 TOURS 465 AT ANGOULÊME 467 PAU 471 BÉTHARRAM 481 BIARRITZ 489 THE PAS DE ROLAND 491 S. EMILION CATHEDRAL DOOR 494 AMBOISE 496

VII

OXFORD LIFE

"A few souls brought together as it were by chance, for a short friendship and mutual dependence in this little ship of earth, so soon to land her passengers and break up the company for ever."--C. KINSGLEY.

"To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." --SHAKSPEARE, _Polonius to Laertes_.

"If you would escape vexation, reprove yourself liberally and others sparingly."--CONFUCIUS.

It was the third year of our Oxford life, and Milligan and I were now the "senior men" resident in college; we sat at one of the higher tables in hall, and occupied stalls in chapel. We generally attended lectures together, and many are the amusing tricks I recall which Milligan used to play--one especially, on a freshman named Dry--a pious youth in green spectacles, and with the general aspect of "Verdant Green." An undergraduate's gown is always adorned with two long strings behind; these strings of Dry, Milligan adroitly fastened to mine, and, inventing one excuse after another, for slipping round the room to open the door, shut a window, &c., he eventually had connected the whole lecture in one continuous chain; finally, he fastened himself to Dry _on the other side_; and then, with loud outcries of "Don't, Dry,--don't, Dry," pulled himself away, the result being that Dry and his chair were overturned, and that the whole lecture, one after another, came crashing on the top of him! Milligan would have got into a serious scrape on this occasion, but that he was equally popular with the tutors and his companions, so that every possible excuse was made for him, while I laughed in such convulsions at the absurdity of the scene, that I was eventually expelled from the lecture, and served as a scapegoat.

I think we were liked in college--Milligan much better than I. Though we never had the same sort of popularity as boating-men and cricketers often acquire, we afforded plenty of amusement. When the college gates were closed at night, I often used to rush down into Quad and act "Hare" all over the queer passages and dark corners of the college, pursued by a pack of hounds who were more in unison with the general idea of Harrow than of Oxford. One night I had been keeping ahead of my pursuers so long, that, as one was apt to be rather roughly handled when caught after a very long chase, I thought it was as well to make good my escape to my own rooms in the New Buildings, and to "sport my oak." Yet, after some time, beginning to feel my solitude rather flat after so much excitement, I longed to regain the quadrangle, but knew that the staircase was well guarded by a troop of my pursuers. By a vigorous _coup d'état_, however, I threw open my "oak," and seizing the handrail of the bannisters, slipped _on_ it through the midst of them, and reached the foot of the staircase in safety. Between me and the quadrangle a long cloistered passage still remained to be traversed, and here I saw the way blocked up by a figure approaching in the moonlight. Of course it must be an enemy! There was nothing for it but desperation. I rushed at him like a bolt from a catapult, and by taking him unawares, butting him in the stomach, and then flinging myself on his neck, overturned him into the coal-hole, and escaped into Quad. My pursuers, seeing _some one_ struggling in the coal-hole, thought it was I, and flung all their sharp-edged college caps at him, under which he was speedily buried, but emerged in time to exhibit himself as--John Conington, Professor of Latin!

Meantime, I had discovered the depth of my iniquity, and fled to the rooms of Duckworth, a scholar, to whom I recounted my adventure, and with whom I stayed. Late in the evening a note was brought in for Duckworth, who said, "It is a note from John Conington," and read--"Dear Duckworth, having been the victim of a cruel outrage on the part of some undergraduates of the college, I trust to your friendship for me to assist me in finding out the perpetrators," &c. Duckworth urged that I should give myself up--that John Conington was very good-natured--in fact, that I had better confess the whole truth, &c. So I immediately sat down and wrote the whole story to Professor Conington, and not till I had _sent_ it, and it was safe in his hands, did Duckworth confess that the note he had received was a forgery, that he had contrived to slip out of the room and write it to himself--and that I had made my confession unnecessarily. However, he went off with the story and its latest additions to the Professor, and no more was said.

If Milligan was my constant companion in college, George Sheffield and I were inseparable out of doors, though I often wondered at his caring so much to be with me, as he was a capital rider, shot, oarsman--in fact, everything which I was not. I believe we exactly at this time, and for some years after, supplied each other's vacancies. It was the most wholesome, best kind of devotion, and, if we needed any ennobling influence, we always had it at hand in Mrs. Eliot Warburton, who sympathised in all we did, and who, except his mother, was the only woman whom I ever knew George Sheffield have any regard for. It was about this time that the Bill was before Parliament for destroying the privileges of Founder's kin. While it was in progress, we discovered that George was distinctly "Founder's kin" to Thomas Teesdale, the founder of Pembroke, and half because our ideas were conservative, half because we delighted in an adventure of any kind, we determined to take advantage of the privilege. Dr. Jeune, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, was Master of Pembroke then, and was perfectly furious at our audacity, which was generally laughed at at the time, and treated as the mere whim of two foolish schoolboys; but we would not be daunted, and went on our own way. Day after day I studied with George the subjects of his examination, goading him on. Day after day I walked down with him to the place of examination, doing my best to screw up his courage to meet the inquisitors. We went against the Heads of Houses with the enthusiasm of martyrs in a much greater cause, and we were victorious. George Sheffield was forcibly elected to a Founder's-kin Scholarship at Pembroke, and was the last so elected. Dr. Jeune was grievously annoyed, but, with the generosity which was always characteristic of him, he at once accorded us his friendship, and remained my most warm and honoured friend till his death about ten years afterwards. He was remarkable at Oxford for dogmatically repealing the law which obliged undergraduates to receive the Sacrament on certain days in the year. "In future," he announced in chapel, "no member of this college will be compelled to eat and drink his own damnation."

In urging George Sheffield to become a scholar of Pembroke, I was certainly disinterested; without him University lost half its charms, and Oxford was never the same to me without "Giorgione"--the George of Georges. But our last summer together was uncloudedly happy. We used to engage a little pony-carriage at the Maidenhead, with a pony called Tommy, which was certainly the most wonderful beast for bearing fatigue, and as soon as ever the college gates were opened, we were "over the hills and far away." Sometimes we would arrive in time for breakfast at Thame, a quaint old town quite on the Oxfordshire boundary, where John Hampden was at school. Then we would mount the Chiltern Hills with our pony, and when we reached the top, look down upon the great Buckinghamshire plains, with their rich woods; and when we saw the different gentlemen's places scattered about in the distance, we used to say, "There we will go to luncheon"--"There we will go to dinner," and the little programmes we made we always carried out; for having each a good many relations and friends, we seldom found we had _no_ link with any of the places we came to. Sometimes Albert Rutson would ride by the side of our carriage, but I do not think that either then or afterwards we quite liked having anybody with us, we were so perfectly contented with each other, and had always so much to say to each other. Our most delightful day of all was that on which we had luncheon at Great Hampden with Mr. and Lady Vere Cameron and their daughters, who were slightly known to my mother; and dined at the wonderful old house of Chequers, filled with relics of the Cromwells, the owner, Lady Frankland Russell, being a cousin of Lady Sheffield's. Most enchanting was the late return from these long excursions through the lanes hung with honeysuckle and clematis, satiated as we were, but not wearied with happiness, and full of interest and enthusiasm in each other and in our mutual lives, both past and present. One of the results of our frequent visits to the scenes of John Hampden's life was a lecture which I was induced to deliver in the town-hall at Oxford, during the last year of my Oxford life, upon John Hampden--a lecture which was sadly too short, because at that time I had no experience to guide me as to how long such things would take.

It was during this spring that my mother was greatly distressed by the long-deferred declaration of Mary Stanley that she had become a Roman Catholic.[109] A burst of family indignation followed, during which I constituted myself Mary's defender, utterly refused to make any difference with her, as well as preventing my mother from doing so; and many were the battles I fought for her.

A little episode in my life at this time was the publication of my first book--a very small one, "Epitaphs for Country Churchyards." It was published by John Henry Parker, who was exceedingly good-natured in undertaking it, for it is needless to say it was not remunerative to either of us. The ever-kind Landor praised the preface very much, and delighted my mother by his grandiloquent announcement that it was "quite worthy of Addison!"

At this time also my distant cousin Henry Liddell was appointed to the Deanery of Christ Church. He had previously been Headmaster of Westminster, and during his residence there had become celebrated by his Lexicon. One day he told the boys in his class that they must write an English epigram. Some of them said it was impossible. He said it was not impossible at all; they might each choose their own subject, but an epigram they must write. One boy wrote--

"Two men wrote a Lexicon, Liddell and Scott; One half was clever, And one half was not. Give me the answer, boys, Quick to this riddle, Which was by Scott And which was by Liddell?"

Dr. Liddell, when it was shown up, only said, "I think you are rather severe."

As to education, I did not receive much more at Oxford this year than I had done before. The college lectures were the merest rubbish; and of what was learnt to pass the University examinations, nothing has since been of use to me, except the History for the final Schools. About fourteen years of life and above £4000 I consider to have been wasted on my education of nothingness. At Oxford, however, I was not idle, and the History, French, and Italian, which I taught myself, have always been useful.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Oxford, Feb. 19, 1856._--Your news about dear Mary (Stanley) is very sad. She will find out too late the mistake she has made: that, because she cannot agree with everything in the Church of England, she should think it necessary to join another, where, if she receives anything, she will be obliged to receive everything. I am sorry that the person chosen to argue with her was not one whose views were more consistent with her own than Dr. Vaughan's. It is seldom acknowledged, but I believe that, by their tolerance, Mr. Liddell and Mr. Bennett[110] keep as many people from Rome as other people drive there. I am very sorry for Aunt Kitty, and hope that no one who loves her will add to her sorrow by estranging themselves from Mary--above all, that _you_ will not consider her religion a barrier. When people see how nobly all her life is given to good, and how she has even made this great step, at sacrifice to herself, because she believes that good may better be carried out in another Church, they may pity her delusion, but no person of right feeling can possibly be angry with her. And, after all, she has not changed her religion. It is, as your own beloved John Wesley said, on hearing that his nephew had become a Papist--'He has changed his opinions and mode of worship, but has not changed his religion: that is quite another thing.'"

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

"_Lime, March 30, 1856._--My mother and I have had a very happy Easter together--more than blessed when I look back at the anxiety of last Easter. Once when her bell rang in the night, I started up and rushed out into the passage in an agony of alarm, for every unusual sound at home has terrified me since her illness; but it was nothing. I have been full of my work, chiefly Aristotle's Politics, for 'Greats'--too full, I fear, to enter as I ought into all her little thoughts and plans as usual: but she is ever loving and gentle, and had interest and sympathy even when I was preoccupied. She thinks that knowledge may teach humility even in a spiritual sense. She says, 'In knowledge the feeling is the same which one has in ascending mountains--that, the higher one gets, the _farther_ one is from heaven.' To-day, as we were walking amongst the flowers, she said, 'I suppose every one's impressions of heaven are according to the feeling they have for earthly things: I always feel that a garden is my impression--the _garden_ of Paradise.' 'People generally love themselves first, their friends next, and God last,' she said one day. 'Well, I do not think that is the case with me,' I replied; 'I really believe I do put you first and self next.' 'Yes, I really think you do,' she said."

When I returned to Oxford after Easter, 1856, my pleasant time in college rooms was over, and I moved to lodgings over Wheeler's bookshop and facing Dr. Cradock's house, so that I was able to see more than ever of Mrs. Eliot Warburton. I was almost immediately in the "Schools," for the classical and divinity part of my final examination, which I got through very comfortably. While in the Schools at this time, I remember a man being asked what John the Baptist was beheaded for--and the answer, "Dancing with Herodias's daughter!" Once through these Schools, I was free for some time, and charades were our chief amusement, Mrs. Warburton, the Misses Elliot,[111] Sheffield, and I being the principal actors. The proclamation of peace after the Crimean War was celebrated--Oxford fashion--by tremendous riots in the town, and smashing of windows in all directions.

At Whitsuntide, I had a little tour in Warwickshire with Albert Rutson as my companion. We enjoyed a stay at Edgehill, at the charming little inn called "The Sun Rising," which overlooks the battlefield, having the great sycamore by its side under which Charles I. breakfasted before the battle, and a number of Cavalier arms inside, with the hangings of the bed in which Lord Lindsey died. From Edgehill I saw the wonderful old house of the Comptons at Compton-Whinyates, with its endless secret staircases and trap-doors, and its rooms of unplaned oak, evidently arranged with no other purpose than defence or escape. We went on to Stratford-on-Avon, with Shakspeare's tomb, his house in Henley Street, and the pretty old thatched cottage where he wooed his wife--Anne Hathaway. Also we went to visit Mrs. Lucy (sister of Mrs. William Stanley) at Charlecote, a most entertaining person, with the family characteristic of fun and goodhumour; and to Combe Abbey, full of relics of Elizabeth of Bohemia and her daughters, who lived there with Lord Craven. Many of the portraits were painted by her daughter Louisa. A few weeks later I went up to the Stanleys in London for the Peace illuminations--"very neat, but all alike," as I heard a voice in the crowd say. I saw them from the house of Lady Mildred Hope, who had a party for them like the one in Scripture, not the rich and great, but the "poor, maimed, halt, and blind;" as, except Aldersons and Stanleys, she arranged that there should not be a single person "in society" there.

JOURNAL.

"_Lime, June 8, 1856._--I had found the dear mother in a sadly fragile state, so infirm and tottering that it is not safe to leave her alone for a minute, and she is so well aware of it, that she does not wish to be left. She cannot now even cross the room alone, and never thinks of moving anywhere without a stick. Every breath, even of the summer wind, she feels most intensely. '"The Lord establish, _strengthen_ you," that must be my verse,' she says."

"_June 15._--I am afraid I cannot help being tired of the mental solitude at home, as the dear mother, without being ill enough to create any anxiety, has not been well enough to take any interest, or have any share in my doings. Sometimes I am almost sick with the silence, and, as I can never go far enough from her to allow of my leaving the garden, I know not only every cabbage, but every leaf upon every cabbage."

"_June 29._--We have been for a week with the Stanleys at Canterbury, and it was very pleasant to be with Arthur, who was his most charming self."

Early in July, I preceded my mother northwards, made a little sketching tour in Lincolnshire, where arriving with little luggage, and drawing hard all day, I excited great commiseration amongst the people as a poor travelling artist. "Eh, I shouldn't like to have such hard work as _that_ on. Measter, I zay, I should'na like to be you."

At Lincoln I joined my mother, and we went on together to Yorkshire, where my friend Rutson lent us a charming old manor-house, Nunnington Hall near Helmsley, the centre of an interesting country, in which we visited the principal ruined abbeys of Yorkshire. My mother entirely recovered here, and was full of enjoyment. On our way to Harrogate, a Quakeress with whom we travelled persecuted me with "The Enquiring Parishioner on the Way to Salvation," and then, after looking at my sketches, hoped that "one so gifted was not being led away by Dr. Pusey!" At Bolton we stayed several days at the Farfield Farm, and thence drove through Swale Dale to Richmond. On our way farther north, I paid my first visit to my cousins at Ravensworth, and very alarming I thought it; rejoining my mother at Warkworth, a place I have always delighted in, and where Mrs. Clutterbuck[112] and her daughters were very kind to us. More charming still were the next few days spent with my kind old cousin Henry Liddell (brother-in-law of my Aunt Ravensworth) in Bamborough Castle.

We visited Dryburgh and Jedburgh, and the vulgar commonplace villa, with small ill-proportioned rooms looking out upon nothing at all, out of which Sir Walter Scott created the Abbotsford of his imagination. Charlotte Leycester having joined us, I left my mother at the Bridge of Allan for a little tour, in the first hour of which I, Italian-fashion, made a friendship with one with whom till her death I continued to be most intimate.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Tillycoultry House, August 12, 1856._--My mother will be surprised that, instead of writing from an inn, I should date from one of the most beautiful places in the Ochils, and that I should be staying with people whom, though we met for the first time a few hours ago, I already seem to know intimately.

"When I left my mother and entered the train at Stirling, two ladies got in after me; one old, yellow, and withered; the other, though elderly, still handsome, and with a very sweet interesting expression. She immediately began to talk. 'Was I a sportsman?'--'No, only a tourist.'--'Then did I know that on the old bridge we were passing, the Bishop of Glasgow long ago was hung in full canonicals?' And with such histories the younger of the two sisters, in a very sweet Scottish accent, animated the whole way to Alloa. Having arrived there, she said, 'If we part now, we shall probably never meet again: there is no time for discussion, but be assured that my husband, Mr. Dalzell, will be glad to see you. Change your ticket at once, and come home with me to Tillycoultry.' And ... I obeyed; and here I am in a great, old, half-desolate house, by the side of a torrent and a ruined churchyard, under a rocky part of the Ochils.

"Mr. Dalzell met us in the avenue. He is a rigid maintainer of the Free Kirk, upon which Mrs. Huggan (the old sister) says he spends all his money--about £18,000 a year--and he is very odd, and passes three-fourths of the day quite alone, in meditation and prayer. He has much sweetness of manner in speaking, but seems quite hazy about things of earth, and entirely rapt in prophecies and thoughts either of the second coming of Christ or of the trials of the Kirk part of his Church on earth.

"Mrs. Dalzell is quite different, truly, beautifully, practically holy. She 'feels,' as I heard her say to her sister to-night, 'all things are wrapt up in Christ.' The evening was very long, as we dined at four, but was varied by music and Scotch songs.

"The old Catholic priest who once lived here cursed the place, in consequence of which it is believed that there are--no little birds!"

"_Dunfermline, August 13._--This morning I walked with Mr. Dalzell to Castle Campbell--an old ruined tower, on a precipitous rock in a lovely situation surrounded by mountains, the lower parts of which are clothed with birch woods. Inside the castle is a ruined court, where John Knox administered his first Sacrament. On the way we passed the little burial-ground of the Taits, surrounded by a high wall, only open on one side, towards the river Devon."

"_Falkland, August 14._--After drawing in beautiful ruined Dunfermline, I drove to Kinross, and embarked in the 'Abbot' for the castle of Loch Leven, which rises on its dark island against a most delicate distance of low mountains.... There is a charming oldfashioned inn here, and a beautiful old castle, in one of the rooms of which the young Duke of Rothesay was starved to death by his uncle."

"_St. Andrews, August 15._--This is a glorious place, a rocky promontory washed by the sea on both sides, crowned by Cardinal Beaton's castle, and backed by a perfect crowd of ecclesiastical ruins. The cathedral was the finest in Scotland, but destroyed in one day by a mob instigated by John Knox, who ought to have been flayed for it. Close by its ruins is a grand old tower, built by St. Regulus, who 'came with two ships' from Patras, and died in one of the natural caves in the cliff under the castle. In the castle itself is Cardinal Beaton's dungeon, where a Lord Airlie was imprisoned, and whence he was rescued by his sister, who dressed him up in her clothes."

"_Brechin, August 17._--The ruin of Arbroath (Aberbrothock) is most interesting. William the Lion is buried before the high altar, and in the chapter-house is the lid of his coffin in Scottish marble, with his headless figure, the only existing effigy of a Scottish king. In the chapter-house a man puts into your hand what looks like a lump of decayed ebony, and you are told it is the 'blood, gums, and intestines' of the king. You also see the skull of the Queen, the thigh-bone of her brother, and other such relics of royalty. Most beautiful are the cliffs of Arbroath, a scene of Scott's 'Antiquary.' From a natural terrace you look down into deep tiny gulfs of blue water in the rich red sandstone rock, with every variety of tiny islet, dark cave, and perpendicular pillar; and, far in the distance, is the Inchcape Rock, where the Danish pirate stole the warning bell, and was afterwards lost himself; which gave rise to the ballad of 'Sir Patrick Spens.' The Pictish tower here is most curious, but its character injured by the cathedral being built too near."

I have an ever-vivid recollection of a most piteous Sunday spent in the wretched town of Brechin, with nothing whatever to do, as in those days it would have made my mother too miserable if I had travelled at all on a Sunday--the wretched folly of Sabbatarianism (against which our Saviour so especially preached when on earth) being then rife in our family, to such a degree, that I regard with loathing the recollection of every seventh day of my life until I was about eight-and-twenty.[113] After leaving Brechin, I saw the noble castle of Dunottar, and joined my mother at Braemar, where we stayed at the inn, and Charlotte Leycester at a tiny lodging in a cottage thatched with peat. I disliked Braemar extremely, and never could see the beauty of that much-admired valley, with its featureless hills, half-dry river, and the ugly castellated house of Balmoral. Dean Alford and his family were at Braemar, and their being run away with in a carriage, our coming up to them, our servant John stopping their horses, the wife and daughters being taken into our carriage, and my walking back with the Dean, first led to my becoming intimate with him. I remember, during this walk, the description he gave me of the "Apostles' Club" at Cambridge, of which Henry Hallam was the nucleus and centre, and of which Tennyson was a member, but from which he was turned out because he was too lazy to write the necessary essay. Hallam, who died at twenty-two, had "grasped the whole of literature before he was nineteen." The Alfords were travelling without any luggage, and could consequently _walk_ their journeys anywhere--that is, each lady had only a very small hand-bag, and the Dean had a walking-stick, which unscrewed and displayed the materials of a dressing-case, a pocket inkstand, and a candlestick.

On our way southwards I first saw Glamis. I did not care about the places on the inland Scottish lakes, except Killin, where our cousin Fanny Tatton and her friend Miss Heygarth joined us, and where we spent some pleasant week-days and a most abominable Sunday. We afterwards lingered at Arrochar on Loch Long, whither Aunt Kitty and Arthur Stanley came to us from Inverary. We returned to Glasgow by the Gareloch, which allowed me to visit at Paisley the tomb of my royal ancestress, Marjory Bruce. At Glasgow, though we were most uncomfortable in a noisy and very expensive hotel, my mother insisted upon spending a wretched day, because of--Sunday! We afterwards paid pleasant visits at Foxhow and Toft, whence I went on alone to Peatswood in Shropshire (Mr. Twemlow's), and paid from thence a most affecting visit to our old home at Stoke, and to Goldstone Farm, the home of my dear Nurse Lea. Hence I returned with Archdeacon and Mrs. Moore to Lichfield, and being there when the grave of St. Chad was opened, was presented with a fragment of his _body_--a treasure inestimable to Roman Catholics, which I possess still.

During the remaining weeks of autumn, before I returned to Oxford, we had many visitors at Lime, including my new friend Mrs. Dalzell, whose goodness and simplicity perfectly charmed my mother.

We passed the latter part of the winter between the Penrhyns' house at Sheen, Aunt Kitty's house of 6 Grosvenor Crescent, and Arthur Stanley's Canonry at Canterbury. With Arthur I dined at the house of Mr. Woodhall, a Canterbury clergyman, now a Roman Catholic priest, having been specially invited to meet (at a huge horseshoe table) "the middle classes"--a very large party of chemists, nurserymen, &c., and their wives, and very pleasant people they were. I used to think Canterbury perfectly enchanting, and Arthur was most kind and charming to me. While there, I remember his examining a school at St. Stephen's, and asking the meaning of bearing false witness against one's neighbour--"When nobody does nothing to nobody," answered a child, "and somebody goes and tells."

In returning to Oxford in 1857, I terribly missed my constant companions hitherto--Milligan and Sheffield, who had both left, and, except perhaps Forsyth Grant, I had no real friends left, though many pleasant acquaintances, amongst whom I had an especial regard for Tom Brassey, the simple, honest, hardworking son of the great contractor and millionaire--afterwards my near neighbour in Sussex, whom I have watched grow rapidly up from nothing to a peerage, with only boundless money and common-sense as his aides-de-camp. The men I now saw most of were those who called themselves the ??????--generally reputed "the fast men" of the college, but a manly high-minded set of fellows. Most of my time was spent in learning Italian with Count Saffi, who, a member of the well-known Roman triumvirate, was at that time residing at Oxford with his wife, _née_ Nina Crauford of Portincross.[114] I was great friends with this remarkable man, of a much-tried and ever-patient countenance, and afterwards went to visit him at Forli. I may mention Godfrey Lushington (then of All Souls) as an acquaintance of whom I saw much at this time, and whom I have always liked and respected exceedingly, though our paths in life have not brought us often together since. It was very difficult to distinguish him from his twinbrother Vernon; indeed, it would have been impossible to know them apart, if Vernon had not, fortunately for their friends, shot off some of his fingers.

In March (1857) I was proud to receive my aunt, Mrs. Stanley, with all her children, Mrs. Grote, and several others, at a luncheon in my rooms in honour of Arthur Stanley's inaugural lecture as Professor of Ecclesiastical History, in which capacity his lectures, as indeed all else concerning him, were subjects of the greatest interest to me, my affection for him being that of a devoted younger brother.

I was enchanted with Mrs. Grote, whom De Tocqueville pronounced "the cleverest woman of his acquaintance," though her exterior--with a short waist, brown mantle of stamped velvet, and huge bonnet, full of fullblown red roses--was certainly not captivating. Sydney Smith always called her "Grota," and said she was the origin of the word grotesque. Mrs. Grote was celebrated for having never felt shy. She had a passion for discordant colours, and had her petticoats always arranged to display her feet and ankles, of which she was excessively proud. At her own home of Burnham she would drive out with a man's hat and a coachman's cloak of many capes. She had an invalid friend in that neighbourhood, who had been very seriously ill, and was still intensely weak. When Mrs. Grote proposed coming to take her for a drive, she was pleased, but was horrified when she saw Mrs. Grote arrive in a very high dogcart, herself driving it. With great pain and labour she climbed up beside Mrs. Grote, and they set off. For some time she was too exhausted to speak, then she said something almost in a whisper. "Good God! don't speak so loud," said Mrs. Grote, "or you'll frighten the horse: if he runs away, God only knows when he'll stop."

On the occasion of this visit at Oxford, Mrs. Grote sat with one leg over the other, both high in the air, and talked for two hours, turning with equal facility to Saffi on Italian Literature, Max Müller on Epic Poetry, and Arthur on Ecclesiastical History, and then plunged into a discourse on the best manure for turnips and the best way of forcing Cotswold mutton, with an interlude first upon the "harmony of shadow" in watercolour drawing, and then upon rat-hunts at Jemmy Shawe's--a low public-house in Westminster. Upon all these subjects she was equally vigorous, and gave all her decisions with the manner and tone of one laying down the laws of Athens. She admired Arthur excessively, but was a capital friend for him, because she was not afraid of laughing--as all his own family were--at his morbid passion for impossible analogies. In his second lecture Arthur made a capital allusion to Mr. Grote, while his eyes were fixed upon the spouse of the historian, and when she heard it, she thumped with both fists upon her knees, and exclaimed loudly, "Good God! how good!" I did not often meet Mrs. Grote in after life, but when I did, was always on very cordial terms with her. She was, to the last, one of the most original women in England, shrewd, generous, and excessively vain. I remember hearing that when she published her Life of her husband, Mr. Murray was obliged to insist upon her suppressing one sentence, indescribably comic to those who were familiar with her uncouth aspect. It was--"When George Grote and I were young, we were equally distinguished by the beauty of our persons and the vivacity of our conversation!" Her own true vocation she always declared was that of an opera-dancer.

Arthur Stanley made his home with me during this visit to Oxford, but one day I dined with him at Oriel, where we had "Herodotus pudding"--a dish peculiar to that college.

JOURNAL.

"_Lime, Easter Sunday, April 12, 1857._--I have been spending a happy fortnight at home. The burst of spring has been beautiful--such a golden carpet of primroses on the bank, interspersed with tufts of still more golden daffodils, hazels putting forth their fresh green, and birds singing. My sweet mother is more than usually patient under the trial of failure of sight--glad to be read to for hours, but contented to be left alone, only saying sometimes--'Now, darling, come and talk to me a little.' On going to church this morning, we found that poor Margaret Coleman, the carpenter's wife, had, as always on this day, covered Uncle Julius's grave with flowers. He is wonderfully missed by the people, though they seldom saw him except in church; for, as Mrs. Jasper Harmer said to me the other day, 'We didn't often see him, but then we knew he was always _studying_ us--now wasn't he?'"

A subject of intense interest after my return to Oxford was hearing Thackeray deliver his lectures on the Georges. That which spoke of the blindness of George III., with his glorious intonation, was indescribably pathetic. It was a great delight to have George Sheffield back and to resume our excursions, one of which was to see the May Cross of Charlton-on-Ottmoor, on which I published a very feeble story in a magazine; and another to Abingdon, where we had luncheon with the Head-master of the Grammar School, who, as soon as it was over, apologised for leaving us because he had got "to wallop so many boys." All our visits to Abingdon ended in visits to the extraordinary old brothers Smith, cobblers, who always sat cross-legged on a counter, and always lived upon raw meat. We had heard of their possession of an extraordinary old house which no one had entered, and we used to try to persuade them to take us there; but when we asked one he said, "I would, but my brother Tom is so eccentric, it would be as much as my life is worth--I really couldn't;" and when we asked the other he said, "I would, but you've no idea what an extraordinary man my brother John is; he would never consent." However, one day we captured both the old men together and over-persuaded them (no one ever could resist George), and we went to the old house, a dismal tumble-down building, with shuttered windows, outside the town. Inside it was a place of past ages--old chairs and cupboards of the sixteenth century, old tapestries, and old china, but all deep, deep in dust and dirt, which was never cleaned away. It was like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty after the hundred years' sleep. I have several pieces of china out of that old house now--"Gris de Flandres ware."

In June I made a little tour, partly of visits, and from Mrs. Vaughan's house at Leicester had an enchanting expedition to Bradgate, the ruined home of Lady Jane Grey, in a glen full of oaks and beeches of immense age.

In my final (History and Law) Schools I had passed with great ease, and had for some time been residing at Oxford as a Bachelor, having taken my degree. But as one friend after another departed, the interest of Oxford had faded. I left it on the 13th of June 1857, and without regret.

VIII

FOREIGN LIFE

"Under the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath."--ROSSETTI.

"A good mental condition includes just as much culture as is necessary to the development of the faculties, but not any burden of erudition heavy enough to diminish (as erudition so often does) the promptitude or elasticity of the mind."--HAMERTON, _French and English_.

"Who thinks the story is all told at twenty? Let them live on and try."--_Hitherto._

In June 1857 we left Lime for a long residence abroad. My mother's doctors had declared that being thoroughly imbued with heat in a warm climate was the only way in which her health could be permanently benefited. It was a journey so long prepared for by historical studies, that I imagine few people have gone to Italy with a more thorough knowledge of what they would find there than we possessed.

We took our two old servants, Lea and John (Gidman), abroad with us, and Charlotte Leycester accompanied us to Lucerne, where the family was established for the hot summer months at the Pension Faller, which stands at the end of a long green terrace behind the cathedral cloisters, with a glorious view of Mont Pilate and all the range of mountains on the other side of the lake. George Sheffield came out to Lucerne to accompany me thence to Austria; but as he was very young at the time, and his college examinations were not over, we had to gain his parents' consent to this project by consenting to his having a tutor, and chose for this purpose our common acquaintance Robinson Duckworth, afterwards tutor to Prince Leopold. The arrangement did not answer, though it must be confessed that we treated Duckworth very ill, and were always playing him tricks. One night at Linz, for instance, we were greatly annoyed by finding he would have to sleep in our room, which was a very large one. He went out to listen to the band in the evening, and we spent the time of his absence in drawing the third bed into the middle of the room, and arranging it like a kind of catafalque, with lighted candles at the four corners. We then went to bed ourselves and pretended to be deep in slumber. When Duckworth came in, though two people could just manage to move the heavy bed to its pedestal, it was quite impossible for him alone to move it back again, and he was obliged to go to bed upon it--and most absurd he looked in the morning. I do not think he ever quite forgave us for this trick.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Constance, July 24._--The Falls of Schaffhausen, with the dashing and roaring emerald water, were quite glorious. We came here from thence by steamer--the entrance to Constance very lovely, and the distant Alps lighted with the most delicate pink hues of sunset. The inn is close to the lake-pier and to the old Council-house. We have walked to the field at Bruhl where Huss was burnt, and since then Duckworth has been serenading the nuns of a Franciscan convent under their windows with airs out of 'Don Giovanni.'"

"_July 26._--We were called at four, and my companions went out fishing, and returned dragging an immense pike which they had caught. Meanwhile I had seen the Minster and drawn the Kauf-haus, and was ready to leave with them at nine. We had a delicious journey across the still lake, Sheffield and I sitting quite down in the bow of the boat, where we had nothing before us but the soft blue lake and distant snows, and where we cut through air and water at the same time."

"_July 29._--Yesterday we embarked at Donauwörth on the Danube steamer--crowded, filthy, and ceaselessly vibrating--the river the colour of pea-soup, with sandbanks on which we stuck every five minutes. There was no relief to the hideous monotony of the nine hours' voyage, the blackened swamps only changing into barren sandhills, on which a few ragged hops were vainly struggling for existence. But to-day in grand old Ratisbon has made up for yesterday's sufferings. Sheffield and I had great fun in making an expedition to the palace of the Prince of Thurm and Taxis. Numbers of people were out, and we discovered it was to greet the two young princes, who were to return that day from their travels: so we represented them, bowed to the right and left all through the street, and finally being set down at the palace, escaped into the garden and out the other way: what became of the real princes we have not heard. After all our audacity and impertinence in pushing through the Prince's courtyard and intruding upon his garden, we were rather touched by coming upon a placard inscribed--'The possessor of this garden, who has nothing nearer his heart than the promotion of universal pleasure, bids you--_welcome!_'"

"_August 1._--In early morning we were on board the Danube steamer. Immediately after, three very common-looking men came on board by a boat, and descended at once to the cabin. Soon a neighbour whispered that one of them was the Archduke Albrecht, Governor of Hungary,--and behold, in a few minutes the three strangers emerged, dressed in gorgeous uniforms and glittering with orders.... All along the shore were crowds of bowing and curtseying people. At the hotel at Linz the Archduchess and her two daughters were waiting for the Archduke on the balcony of the inn; and their presence brought a splendid band under the window in the evening. This morning the whole family came on board, amid guns firing and crowds of people, to whom we thought the Archduchess would have bowed her head off. The presence of royalties gave us a better steamer, and before reaching Vienna the scenery of the Danube improved, especially at the rocks and castle of Dürnstein, where Richard Cœur-de-Lion was imprisoned."

"_August 4._--Vienna would be delightful if it were not for the heat, but the grass is all burnt brown, and the trees almost black. Sheffield and I have driven to the old convent called Klosterneuburg, and in returning saw at Nussdorf the arrival of the Archduke Maximilian and his lovely wife,[115] radiant, unaffected, captivating all who saw her."

"_August 6._--We have been to the country-palace of Laxenburg--a terrible drive in a sirocco, which made both Sheffield and me as ill as a sea-voyage. Laxenburg was the palace of Maria Theresa, and has an English park, only the grounds are full of gothic temples, &c., and an imitation dungeon fortress, with an imitation prisoner in it, who lifts his hands beseechingly and rattles his chains as you approach. Princess Charlotte was to have her first meeting with all the imperial family in the afternoon, and we waited for the public appearance of the royalties after dinner. We saw them emerge from the palace, and then ran down to the lake to see them embark. The imperial party arrived in carriages at the water's edge, and were set down under some old plane-trees, where their barges were ready, with rowers in sailors' dresses. First came the Empress, looking very lovely and charming, bowing her way to her own boat, which was distinguished by its blue cloth linings. Then came the Emperor, _running_ as hard as he could, to be in time to hand her in: then sweet-looking Princess Charlotte, with a radiantly happy and not at all a shy expression; the mother of the Empress; Princess Marguerite; the Queen of Saxony; and the Archduchess Albrecht. All these entered the imperial boat, which was followed by another with three old countesses, and then all the court ladies in other boats. The Emperor and the Archdukes Leopold and Heinrich rowed themselves. There could hardly be a prettier scene--no crowd, no staring, and sunset on the water as the little fleet glided in among the cypress-covered islets. The last I saw of them was one of the princesses seizing hold of the old countesses' boat, and rocking it violently to give them a good fright.

"Throughout our travels we have perpetually fallen in with two solitary ladies. Yesterday one of them said to Duckworth, 'I beg your pardon, perhaps I ought not to ask, but the melancholy gentleman (meaning me) must have had a very severe disappointment; was it recent?--he seems to take on very much. Well, my idea is one must always be crossed three times before love runs smooth.' Duckworth asked where they were going. 'Oh, where is it?' said the younger lady; 'I quite forget the name of the place; something very long, I know.'--'Oh, Constantinople, my dear, that's the name, and then we go to a place they call Smyrna, and then to Algeria; for you see we've been to Rome and Naples, and if you don't mind travelling, it's just the same thing whether you go to one place or another.'"

"_Aussee in Styria, August 8._--The last thing Sheffield and I did together was to go to the Capuchin vault, where all the sovereigns of the House of Hapsburg lie in gorgeous sarcophagi and coffins: amongst them Maria Theresa, and the husband by whose grave she came to pray every Friday in this dark vault. In one corner was the little Archduchess Sophia, only dead two months, her coffin heaped still with the white garlands deposited by her father and mother, who--are out of mourning for her.

"After parting with my companions, I went by train to Modling, and drove through the Wienerwald to Heiligenkreutz,[116] a gigantic monastery on the edge of a perfectly desolate moor, but in itself magnificent, with a quadrangle larger than 'Tom Quad' at Oxford. Daylight was waning, and I hastened to get the Sacristan to show me the 'Heilige Partikel,' which is kept in a venerable old leather case, and set in a huge golden cross covered with jewels. There are beautiful cloisters, and several chapels of the fourteenth century, and in one of them a fountain, so large that its sound is that of a waterfall. From Baden I crossed the Simmering pass to Bruck-an-der-Mur. Here all the travellers who descended from the train drew diligence tickets by turns, and as mine was only No. 11, I came in for the rickety board by the driver! What a road it was, in which the heavy wheels alternately sank into quagmires of deep mud, or jolted over the piles of stones which were thrown down to fill them up. The dank marshy plain was covered with driving white fog, from which one could only take refuge in the fumes of bad tobacco around one.

"When at length it was my turn to change, it was into an old car with leathern curtains, and horses so feeble that the passengers were obliged to get out and plod through the thick mud at every incline. I had a German companion, who smoked all night in my face.

"All through the night a succession of these cars was kept up, the company being turned out every two hours in some filthy village street, while another wretched old carriage was searched for and brought out. The taverns at which we stopped were most miserable. In the only one I entered the old landlady came out in her nightgown, and seizing my straw hat from my head, placed it on the top of her own top-knot, exclaiming, 'Schöne Strohhut.' Not till midday did we arrive here, and then found the inn full and the hills shrouded in mist--the 'Mountains of the Dead,' as the surroundings of this lonely lake are called, appalling in their white winding-sheets."

"_Salzburg, August 14._--During my first days in the Salzkammergut, I might have been inside a kitchen boiler, so thick and white was the steam. But the landlord at Ischl said it was not likely to clear, and, wearied of waiting and longing to see _something_, I went off to the Traunsee, where, to my surprise, the mist suddenly gave way, the sun appeared, and in a few minutes the heavy veil rolled back, and the beautiful blue lake and high forest-clad mountains were disclosed as if by magic. In a few minutes after shivering, we were all complaining of heat again, and then luxuriating in the cool breeze as we steamed slowly under the great purple Traunstein. At Gmünden[117] we dined at the little inn, served by ladies in gold helmets, with great silver chains round their necks. I drove on to the fall in an _Einspanner_. It is a miniature Schaffhausen, and the colour of the water most beautiful. On the following day an old Colonel Woodruffe and his wife took me with them to Hallstadt, where we were rowed by women in crimson petticoats down the lovely lake to the village. The scenery is magnificent--jagged mountains melting into beautiful chestnut woods which reach to the water's edge, and at the end of the lake the little town, with its picturesque wooden houses and beautiful gothic chapel. The population consists of nine hundred Roman Catholics and nine hundred Protestants, who live together most amicably. No vehicle can enter the town, for the streets are narrow gullies, with staircases from one house to another.

"My new friends left me at Hallstadt, and early next morning I was up, and in the forest, to see the Wildbach waterfall, an exquisite walk, through green glades carpeted with cyclamen and columbines, with great masses of moss-grown rock tossed about amongst the trees, and high mountains rising all around. The goats were just getting up and coming out of their sheds, ringing their little bells as they skipped about amongst the rocks, and the flowers were all glistening with dew--no human being moving, except the goatherds directing their flocks up the mountain paths. I reached the waterfall, in its wild amphitheatre of rock, before the sun, and saw the first rolling away of the morning mist, and the clear mountain torrent foaming forth in its place; while far beyond was the great snowy Dachstein.

"At nine, a little boat took me to the Gosauswang at the other end of the lake, and while I was waiting there for an _Einspanner_, four travellers came up, one of whom--a pleasant-looking clergyman--introduced himself as Mr. Clements, the Rector of Upton St. Leonards, and informed me that his companions were his brother, just returned from Australia, and the two young Akers of Prinknash.

"As soon as they were gone off in their boat, my little carriage came, and I had a glorious drive, up the banks of the torrent Gosau, to open mountain pastures, backed by a magnificent range of bare rocky peaks. There is only a footpath from the 'Schmidt' to the Vorder See, set in the loveliest of forests, and backed by noble rugged peaks and snowy glaciers. The colour of the lake was indescribable, but oftenest like a rainbow seen through a prism--the purple, green, and clear blue melting into each other, and the whole transparent as crystal, showing all the bright stones and pebbles in the immense depths and reflecting all the snow-peaks beyond. When I returned to the inn, the Clements' party had arrived, and finding they were going the same way, I engaged to travel with them to Innsbruck.

"On Friday we all went again to the Vorder See, and then, taking a woodcutter as guide, scrambled on for two hours through woods and rocks to the Hinter See,[118] which is like a turquoise set in the mountains.

"We returned together to Ischl, and left in a carriage next day. At the end of St. Wolfgang Lake we engaged a boat and crossed to the curious old gothic church which contains the shrine of St. Wolfgang, and his rocky bed projecting through the pavement of a chapel, upon which the peasants throw kreutzers through a grating. We did not arrive at Salzburg till dark. What a fine old town it is!--but what most interested me was seeing here an old lady in black walking to church with a lady behind her. It was the Kaiserin Caroline, widow of the Emperor Francis I., grand-daughter-in-law of Maria Theresa, niece of Marie Antoinette, sister-in-law of Marie Louise!"

"_Reichenhall, August 26._--From Salzburg we visited the mines of Hallein, into which we descended in full miner's costume--thick white trousers, smock-frock, cap, and a leathern apron _behind_. The guide gave us each a light, and marshalled us in single file through the narrow dark passages. On the summit of the first descent, we were all made to sit down upon our leathern aprons, to put our legs round each others' heads, hold a rope, and then slide off like a train into the dark abyss--alarming at first, and then very amusing. After three slides, we reached a black lake like the Styx, with lamps glittering like stars on faraway rocks. Here a boat moved by invisible hands came soundlessly gliding towards us: we stepped in, and in death-like silence, without oars or rowers, floated across the ghastly waters. On the opposite bank a wooden horse was waiting, on which we were made to sit, each behind the other, and, when we were mounted, rushed away with the speed of a whirlwind through the dark unearthly passages. At last, what looked like a twinkling star appeared in the distance, and it gradually increased till we emerged in open daylight. It is a most extraordinary expedition, but as the salt is all black, there is no beauty. We went on to Berchtesgaden and the Königsee and Obersee, but the wet weather only cleared enough to show us the beauties of the myrtle-green water."

It was a most wearisome journey then--two days of twelve hours in a carriage--to Innsbruck, where I parted with my companions. Hence a terrible long diligence journey of seventeen hours brought me to Botzen. The driver beguiled the way by telling me the history of his life--how when quite young he had given up smoking, and constantly put by all the money he should have spent on tobacco, in the hope of using it in revisiting Naples and the Island of Ischia, where he had been in boyhood as a soldier; but that two years before these designs had been cut short, because one day, when he returned with his diligence from Verona, he found his house burnt to the ground, and nothing saved except six silver spoons which his wife had carried off in her apron.

From Botzen I went to Meran and Trafoi, whence I walked across the Stelvio to the Baths of Bormio; but this part of the tour was not enjoyable, as my sufferings were always so great from bad weather, and hunger owing to want of money. Still less pleasant were the immense journeys afterwards by Finstermuntz and the Great Arlberg, along horrible roads and in wretched diligences, which, in these days of luxurious railway travelling, we should think perfectly unendurable. At Wesen, on the Lake of Wallenstadt, I had the happiest of meetings with my dear mother and her old servants, and vividly does the impression come back to me of the luxurious sense of rest in the first evening, and of freedom from discomfort, privation, and want.

We crossed the Bernardino to Locarno, where we were joined by mother's widowed niece, Mrs. Charles Stanley, and by her friend Miss Cole. There were many circumstances which made me see the whole of North Italy through jaundiced eyes at this time, so that Milan, Venice, and even beautiful Verona, became more associated in my mind with mental and bodily fatigue than with any pleasure. One of the happiest recollections which comes back to me is an excursion alone with my sweet mother to the old deserted convent of Chiaravalle near Milan, and the grave of the enthusiast Wilhelmina. At Venice we had much pleasure in sight-seeing with Miss Louisa Cole, and her cousins Mr. and Miss Warre, the latter of whom afterwards married Froude the historian.

At Padua we engaged two _vetturino_ carriages, in one of which our companions travelled, and in the other my mother and I with our two old servants. The first day's journey, through the rich plain of the vintage in October, was very pleasant, meeting the immense wains and waggons laden with grapes, and the merry peasants, who delighted to give us large ripe bunches as we passed. But we had a perilous passage of the swollen Po, on which our carriage was embarked in a large boat, towed with ropes by numbers of men in smaller boats. In our long journey in our roomy excellent carriage--our home for about three weeks--we were provided with a perfect library of books, for my mother was quite of the opinion of Montaigne when he said, "Je ne voyage sans livres, n'y en paix, n'y en guerre. C'est la meilleure munition j'aye trouvé à cet humain voyage." So we studied the whole of Arnold, Gibbon, Ranke, and Milman at this time. The slower the mode of travel, the greater its variety. In the middle of the day the _vetturini_ rested often in some picturesque town, where there were churches, convents, and pictures to sketch or visit; sometimes in quiet country inns, near which we wandered in country lanes, and collected the wild-flowers of the district. How vividly the recollections of these quiet weeks come back to me--of the charm of our studies and the weekly examination upon them: of the novel which my mother and I used afterwards to tell each other alternately, in which the good characters lived at a place called "Holmhurst," but somehow contrived to have always some link with the scenes through which we were travelling: of our early luncheon of bread and preserved apricots: of our arrival in the evenings at rooms which had always a wholesome barn-like smell, from the fresh straw under the carpets: of the children, who scampered along by the sides of the carriage calling out "Tà-tà"--as short for Carità: of my mother screaming at Ferrara as she ran away from a white spectral figure, with eyes gleaming out of holes in a peaked hood and rattling a money-box--a figure to which we became well accustomed afterwards as a _Frate della Misericordia_: of the great castle of Ferrara, whose picturesque outlines seemed so strangely familiar till I recollected where I had seen them--at the bottom of willow-patterned washing-basins.

Ravenna was at this time reached by a wearisome journey through marshy flats overgrown by a dark-berried plant much used in the making of dye: we afterwards imported it to Hurstmonceaux. The Stanleys, whom we seldom contradicted, had greatly opposed our going thither, so that our journey to Ravenna had the charm of eating forbidden fruit; but I was able to silence their angry reproaches afterwards for having "taken my mother into so unhealthy a climate" by finding in Gibbon the remark that Ravenna, though situated in the midst of fœtid marshes, possesses one of the most salubrious climates in Italy! My mother was even more enchanted with the wonderful old city than myself, especially with the peerage of martyrs in the long palm-bearing procession in the mosaics of S. Apollinare Nuovo, and with the exquisite and ever-varied loveliness of the Pineta.

Deeply interesting was the historical journey afterwards along the shores of the Adriatic--the sunset on the Metaurus--the proud ruins of Roman Rimini, where also we went to see the soft lustrous picture known as "the winking Virgin," and accidentally met the father of the painter in the church--the Rubicon and Pesaro; Sinigaglia and Fano; and the exquisitely beautiful approach to Ancona, with the town climbing up the steep headland crowned by the cathedral, and the blue sea covered with shipping. In many ways Ancona has always seemed to me more beautiful than Naples. I have seen much of all these towns since, but there is nothing now like the halcyon days of _vetturino_ travelling, with the abundant time for seeing and digesting everything, and the quiet regular progression, without fuss or fatigue, or anything to mar mental impressions.

From Ancona we went to Loreto, a lovely drive then, through ranges of hills, sweeping one behind another like files of an advancing army, and crested sometimes by the picturesque roofs, domes, and towers of an old town; sometimes clothed to their summits with olives and pines, vineyards and mulberry-gardens. Here and there a decayed villa stood by the roadside in its overgrown garden, huge aloes and tall cypresses rising from its tangled grass and periwinkles. Very lovely was the ascent to Osimo, thronged with the students of the old university town in their black cloaks, amongst whom was the Cardinal-bishop, going for a walk in crimson stockings, sash, and gloves, with two footmen in cocked hats strutting behind him.

Nothing can be grander than the situation of Loreto, and the views from it over the surrounding country--the walls overlooking a wide sea-view as well. A building like a huge castle, with massive semicircular towers, dominates the town, and is the fortress which guards the holy of holies--the Santa Casa. We were called at five to go to the church. It was still pitch dark, but many pilgrims had already arrived, and waited with us in a corridor till the doors were opened. The scene inside was most singular--the huge expanse quite dark, except where a blaze of light under the dome illuminated the marble casing of the Santa Casa, or where a solitary lamp permitted a picture or an image to loom out of the chaos. The great mass of pilgrims knelt together before the shrine, but here and there a desolate figure, with arms outstretched in agonising prayer, threw a long weird shadow down the pavement of the nave, while others were crawling on hands and knees round the side walls of the house, occasionally licking up the sacred dust with their tongues, which left a bloody trail upon the floor. At either door of the House, the lamplight flashed upon the drawn sword of a soldier, keeping guard to prevent too many people pressing in together, as they ceaselessly passed in single file upon their knees, to gaze for a few seconds upon the rugged walls of unplastered brick, blackened with soot, which they believed to be the veritable walls of the cottage at Nazareth. Here, in strange contrast, the negress statue, attributed to St. Luke, gleams in a mass of diamonds. At the west end of the House was the window by which the angel entered! The collection of jewels and robes in the sacristy was enormous, though the priests lamented bitterly to us over the ravages of the Revolution, and that now the Virgin had only wardrobe sufficient to allow of her changing her dress _once_ instead of three times every day of the year.

We travelled afterwards through a country seldom visited now--by hill-set Macerata and Recanati, and picturesque Tolentino with its relics of S. Nicolas, into the central Apennines, where Sabbatarianism doomed us to spend a most miserable Sunday at the unspeakably wretched inn of La Muccia. From Foligno we made an excursion to Assisi, then filled with troops of stately Franciscan monks--all "_possidenti_;" and by the Clitumnus temple, Spoleto, and Narni to Terni. At Civita Castellana the famous robber chief Gesparoni was imprisoned at this time, this year being the thirty-third of his imprisonment. Miss Cole and I obtained an order to visit him and his band, tall gaunt forms in a large room in the castle. The chieftain had a long white beard: we bought a little knitted cap of his workmanship. There was a ghastly sensation in being alone for a few minutes with this gang of men, who had all been murderers, and mostly murderers of many.

Breathlessly interesting was the first approach to Rome--the characteristic scenery of the Campagna, with its tufa quarries, and its crumbling towers and tombs rising amidst the withered thistles and asphodels; its strange herds of buffaloes; then the faint grey dome rising over the low hills, and the unspoken knowledge about it, which was almost too much for words; lastly, the miserable suburb and the great Piazza del Popolo.

I never shall forget the ecstasy of awaking the next morning in the Hôtel d'Angleterre, and feeling that the longed-for desire of many years was realised. We engaged apartments in the upper floor of the Palazzo Lovati in the Piazza del Popolo--cold dreary rooms enough, but from my mother's bedroom there was a lovely view to St. Peter's across the meadows of S. Angelo.

Naturally one of my first visits was to Mrs. Hare and my sister, whom I found established in the first floor of the Palazzo Parisani, which occupies two sides of the little Piazza S. Claudio, a dismal little square, but which my sister regarded with idolatry, asserting that there was no house half so delightful as the Palazzo Parisani, no view which could be compared in interest to that of the Piazza S. Claudio. Making acquaintance with my sister at this time was to me like the perpetual reading of an engrossing romance, for nobody ever was more amusing, no one ever had more power of throwing an interest into the commonest things of life. She did not colour her descriptions, but she saw life through a prism, and imparted its rays to others. Her manner, her dress, all her surroundings were poetical. If one went to dine with her, the dinner was much the same as we had at home, but some picturesquely hung grapes, or a stalk of _finocchio_, or some half-opened pomegranates, gave the table an _air_ which made it all seem quite different.

"Italima" liked my coming and going, and was very angry if I did not come, though she never professed any maternal affection for me. I often found myself in difficulties between my two mothers. My adopted mother would sometimes take an alarm that I was going too often to Italima, and would demand my presence just on the particular occasion when "Italima" had counted upon it; in which case I always gave way to her. And indeed, as a rule, I always spent _all_ my time with my mother, except about two evenings in the week, when I went to Italima and the Palazzo Parisani. On rare occasions, also, I went out "into the world" with Italima and my sister, to balls at the Palazzo Borghese, and at the Palazzo di Spagna, where old Queen Christina of Spain was then living, an interesting historic figure to me as the sister of the Duchesse de Berri and great-niece of Marie Antoinette. She was very hospitable, and her parties, approached through an avenue of silver candelabra representing palm-trees--spoils from the Spanish convents--were exceedingly magnificent. At her suppers on Fridays, one side of the room was laid for "_maigre_," the other for "_gras_," and when the doors were opened, there was a general scrimmage to reach the delicious viands on the "_maigre_" table. After each of her receptions, it was the rule that five cards should be left by each guest--for herself, for her husband the Duc de Rianzares (who had been a common soldier), for her master of the household, for her equerry, and for her lady-in-waiting. The principal balls were those given by Princess Borghese, at which many cardinals were present, but would sit down to whist in a room apart from the dancers. A great feature of the Borghese parties at this time was the Princess-mother, who always sat in a conspicuous place in the anteroom, and to whom all the guests were expected to pay their court. By birth she was Adèle de la Rochefoucauld, and she was the mother of three princes--Marc-Antonio Borghese, Aldobrandini, and Salviati. She was "sage, souple, et avide des biens," as Voltaire says of Mazarin, and it was she who--probably most unjustly--had then the reputation of having poisoned the beautiful Princess Guendolina, first wife of Marc-Antonio, with all her sons, in order that her own son might marry her niece, Thérèse[124] de la Rochefoucauld, which he afterwards did. A conspicuous figure was the beautiful young Princess del Drago, one of the daughters of Queen Christina's second marriage, whose husband had a most fiendish face. I often saw the blind Duke of Sermoneta, celebrated for his knowledge of Dante, and his witty canonical brother, Don Filippo Caiëtani, generally known as "Don Pippo." The then Duchess of Sermoneta was "Margherita," _née_ Miss Knight, a most ghastly and solemn woman to outsiders, but much beloved by those who knew her intimately.

The Prince of Piombino, who lived in exile or seclusion after the change of government in Rome, was then flourishing in his immense palace in the Corso, and his children, then young married people, were the life of all the parties. Of these, Rudolfo, Duke of Sora, had married the saint-like Agnese, only surviving child of Donna Guendolina Borghese, who was supposed only by absence to have escaped the fate of her mother and brothers. Of his sisters, Donna Carolina was the clever, brilliant Princess Pallavicini, and Donna Giulia had married the Duke of Fiano, who lived in the neighbouring palace, and by marrying her had broken the heart of Mademoiselle Judith Falconnet.[125]

One of the Romans whom I saw most frequently was the Princess Santa Croce, living in the old historical palace which has the reputation of being the only haunted house in Rome, where two statues of cardinals come down from their pedestals and rattle their marble trains up and down the long galleries. The Princess was one of the daughters of Mr. Scully in Ireland. He had three, of whom two were beautiful, clever, and brilliant, but the third was uninteresting. The two elder Miss Scullys went out into the world, and were greatly admired and much made of; but the youngest stayed at home like Cinderella, and was never known at all except as "the Miss Scullys' younger sister." Many people wished to marry the elder Miss Scullys; but they said "No, for we have a presentiment that we are to marry dukes, and therefore we will wait." But no dukes came forward, and at length old Mr. Scully died, leaving his daughters three great fortunes; and being Roman Catholics, without any particular call or claim, they determined to visit Rome before they settled in life. They took many introductions with them, and on their arrival the good looks, cleverness, and wealth of the elder sisters created quite a sensation; but people asked them, Roman-fashion, "what was their vocation," for in Rome all Catholic ladies are expected to have decided this. Then they said they had never thought of it, and they went to spend a week in the convent of the Trinità de' Monti to consider it. When the day came on which the three Miss Scullys were to declare their vocation, all Rome was interested, and the "great world" thronged the parlours of the Trinità de' Monti to hear it; but the expectants were petrified when the two elder Miss Scullys came out, for they had found their vocation, and it was a convent! No doubt whatever was felt about the youngest--"of course she would follow her sisters." But no; she had found her vocation, and it was marriage! and the youngest Miss Scully, additionally enriched by half the fortunes of her two elder sisters, went out into the world, and in three weeks she had accepted the great Roman Prince of Santa Croce, who claims descent from Valerius Publicola. I often used to watch with interest the Princess Santa Croce, who went to confess and pray at the convent of the Villa Lante (which Roman princesses are wont to frequent), for the two portresses who opened the doors were her two elder sisters, the proud Miss Scullys: it was the story of Cinderella in real life. I was at Rome years afterwards (1864) when the Princess Santa Croce died. All the princesses lie in state after death, but by old custom, the higher their rank, the lower they must lie, and the Princess Santa Croce was of such excessively high rank, that she lay upon the bare boards.

I think that it was towards the middle of our stay in Rome that I received a summons to a private audience of Pius IX. Italima and my sister went with me. We went in evening dress to the Vatican in the middle of the day, and were shown into a gallery where a number of Monsignori were standing. Amongst them was Monsignore Talbot, who asked me if I did not feel very much agitated. I said "No," and he answered, "But every one must be agitated when they are about to stand in the presence of the Vicar of Christ"--and at that moment he drew aside a portière, and we found ourselves at one end of a long hall, at the other end of which a sturdy figure with a beneficent face, in what looked like a white dressing-gown, was standing leaning his hand upon a table: it was Pius IX. We had been told beforehand that, as we had asked for a _private_ audience, we must perform all the genuflections, three at the doorway, three in the middle of the room, and three at the feet of the Pope, and the same in returning; and Italima had declared that the thought of this made her so nervous that we must do all the talking. But Italima had often been to the Pope before, and she was so active and agile, that by the time my sister and I got up from the third genuflection in the doorway, she was already curvetting in the centre of the hall, and we heard the beautiful voice of the Pope, like a silver bell, say, "E come sta la figlia mia--e come sta la cara figlia mia," and by the time we were in the middle of the apartment she was already at the feet of the Pope. Eventually my sister and I arrived, and flung ourselves down, one on each side of Italima, at the feet of the Pope, who gave us his ring to kiss, and his foot, or rather a great raised gold cross upon his white slipper. "E questa la figlia?" he said, pointing to my sister. "Si, Sua Santità," said Italima. "Ed e questo il figlio?" he said, turning to me. "Si, Sua Santità," said Italima. Then my sister, who thought it was a golden opportunity which she would never have again, and which was not to be lost, broke through all the rules of etiquette, and called out from the other side of the daïs, clasping her hands, "Ma, Sua Santità, il mio fratello e stato Protestant."

Then the Pope turned to me and spoke of the great privilege and blessing of being a Catholic, but said that from what he had heard of me he felt that I did not deserve that privilege, and that therefore he could not wish that I should enjoy its blessings. He said much more, and then that, before I left, I should make him a "piccolo piccolino promessino" (the least little bit of a promise in the world), and that I should remember all my life that I had made it at the feet of Pius IX. I said that I should wish to do whatever Sua Santità desired, but that before I engaged to make a promise I should like to know what the promise was to be about. "Oh," said the Pope, smiling, "it is nothing so very difficult; it is only something which a priest in your own Church might ask: it is that you will say the Lord's Prayer every morning and evening." "Yes," I replied, "I shall be delighted to make Sua Santità the promise; but perhaps Sua Santità is not aware that the practice is not unusual in the Church of England." Then, almost severely for one so gentle, the Pope said, "You seem to think the promise a light one; I think it a very serious one; in fact, I think it so serious, that I will only ask you to promise to use one petition--'Fiat voluntas tua, O Deus, in terris ut in cœlo,' and remember that you have promised that at the feet of Pius IX." Then he blended his farewell very touchingly into a beautiful prayer and blessing; he blessed the things--rosaries, &c.--which my sister had brought with her; he again gave us his ring and the cross on his foot to kiss, and while he rang the little bell at his side, we found our way out backwards--quite a geometrical problem with nine genuflections to be made on the way.

I was often in the convent of the Trinità when I was at Rome in 1857, for visitors are allowed there at certain hours, and a great friend of my sister's, Adèle, Madame Davidoff, was then in the convent, having been sent to Rome on an especial mission to the Pope on matters connected with the French convents of the Sacré Cœur. Madame Davidoff ("Madame" only "in religion," as "a spouse of Christ") was daughter of the Maréchale Sebastiani, the stepmother of the murdered Duchesse de Praslin, and was grand-daughter of the Duchesse de Grammont, who founded the Sacré Cœur. Her own life had been very romantic. One winter there was a very handsome young Count Schouvaloff in Rome, whom my sister knew very well. She had been one day in the convent, and Madame Davidoff had accompanied her to the outer door, and was standing engrossed with last words, leaning against the green baize door leading into the church. Suddenly a man appeared, coming through the inner door of the convent, evidently from visiting the Abbess. "Mais c'est le Comte Schouvaloff!" said Madame Davidoff to my sister, and pushing the baize door behind her, suddenly disappeared into the church, while Schouvaloff, seeing her suddenly vanish, rushed forward to my sister exclaiming, "Oh, c'est elle--c'est elle! Oh, mon Adèle, mon Adèle!" He had been on the eve of marriage with her, when she had thought herself suddenly seized by a conventual vocation, had taken the veil, and he had never seen her since. The next day Count Schouvaloff left Rome. He went into retreat for some time at the Certosa of Pavia, where total silence is the rule of daily life. He took orders, and in a few years, having a wonderful gift for preaching, was sent on a mission to Paris; but the shock of returning to the scenes of his old life was too much for him, and in a few days after reaching Paris he died.

When I knew Madame Davidoff, she still possessed an extraordinary charm of conversation and manner, and the most exuberant eloquence of any person I have ever seen. Her one object was conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and into that she threw all her energies, all her charm and wit, and even her affections. Her memory was as prodigious as that of Macaulay, and she knew all the controversial portions of the great Catholic writers by heart. What was more extraordinary still was, that having many "cases" going on at the same time (for people used to go to visit her and sit round her anteroom like patients at a fashionable dentist's), she never confounded one with another in her mind, never lost time, and always went on exactly where she left off. But her love of ruling made Madame Davidoff less popular within the walls of her convent than with the outside world; and after her return to Paris, the means which she often took to attain the ends to which she devoted her life brought such trouble to the convent of the Sacré Cœur, that the nuns refused to keep her amongst them, and she afterwards lived in the world, giving frequent anxiety to her sister, the Marquise de Gabriac, and to Lord Tankerville and Lady Malmesbury, her cousins. During my first visit at Rome, I saw Madame Davidoff often, and, after a courteous expression of regret that I was sure to be eternally damned, she would do her best to convert me. I believe my dear mother underwent great qualms on my visits to her. But her religious unscrupulousness soon alienated me, and I had a final rupture with her upon her urging me to become a Roman Catholic secretly, and to conceal it from my adopted mother as long as she lived. Other Roman Catholics who made a vehement effort for my perversion were Monsignor Talbot and Monsignor Howard, the latter of whom I had known as a very handsome dashing young guardsman a few years before, but who afterwards became a Cardinal. There was a most ridiculous scene when they came to the Palazzo Lovati, where Monsignor Howard made so violent a harangue against Protestantism that Monsignor Talbot was obliged to apologise for him. Roman Catholics with whom we were intimate from circumstances were the ex-Jew Mr. Goldsmid and his wife. Mr. Goldsmid had been converted by the Père Ratisbon, whose own conversion was attributed partially to the image of the Virgin in the Church of Andrea delle Fratte, and partly to the prayers of M. de la Ferronays, which are believed to have endowed the image with speech.

A really excellent Roman Catholic priest of whom I saw much was Monsignor Pellerin, Bishop in Cochin-China. His conversation was liberal and beautiful, and he had the simplicity of a mediæval saint. He was at that time about to return to China, with a great probability of martyrdom. On his last day in Rome he celebrated mass in the Catacombs in the Chapel of Santa Cecilia, a most touching sight even to those who were not of his faith. On taking leave, he gave me a small silver crucifix, which I treasured for a long time, then it disappeared: I always thought that Lea made away with it, in the fear that it might make me a Roman Catholic. I heard of the close of Monsignor Pellerin's self-sacrificing life in China several years later.

Amongst the English we had many pleasant friends, especially the George Cavendishes and the Greene Wilkinsons, who had a great fortune left to them for opening a pew-door to an old gentleman: it used to be said that they ought to take "Pro Pudor" as their motto.

But no notice of our familiar society at Rome can be complete which does not speak of "Auntie"--Miss Paul--the sister of "Italima," who lived her own life apart in two rooms in a corner of the Parisani Palace, where she saw and observed everything, and was very ready to make her quaint original remarks upon what she had observed when she joined the rest of the family, which was only in the evenings. I never saw "Auntie" otherwise than desperately busy, sometimes with immense rolls of embroidery, sometimes with charcoal-drawing, often with extraordinary and most incomprehensible schemes for recovering the very large fortune she had once possessed, and which she had lost in "the Paul Bankruptcy." Italima was not at all kind to her, but this did not affect her in the least: she went her own way, and when she was most soundly abused, it only seemed to amuse her. My sister she absolutely adored, and then and afterwards used to think it perfect happiness to sit and watch her for hours, not being able to hear a word she said on account of her deafness. I was exceedingly fond of "Auntie," and used to delight to escape from the ungenial atmosphere of Italima's great drawing-room to the busy little den in the corner of the palace, where I was always a welcome visitor, and always found something amusing going on.

When we arrived in Rome, my sister Esmeralda was supposed to be partially engaged to Don Emilio Rignano, eldest son of the Duke Massimo, whom she had known well from childhood. Emilio at one time passed every evening at the Palazzo Parisani; but during this winter Donna Teresa Doria appeared in the world, and the old Duchess Massimo, who hated Anglo-Roman alliances, by a clever scheme soon compelled her son to consent to an engagement with her. Having learnt this, Esmeralda refused ever to receive Emilio again. On the day before his marriage, however, he found her in the Church of S. Claudio, and tried to make her marry him at once by the easy Roman form, "Ecco il mio marito--Ecco la mia moglie," but she would not listen to him. Then, when she drove to the Villa Borghese, he pursued the carriage, regardless of the people in the street. His hat fell off, but he would not stop: he seemed to have lost his senses.

At a marriage in high life in Rome, the guests are often asked, not to the actual ceremony, but to St. Peter's afterwards, to see the bridal pair kiss the foot of the famous statue. When the Duke and Duchess Rignano entered St. Peter's, they were piteous to see: they would not look at each other. Old Lady Rolle was there, standing by the statue, and when they came near she said audibly, "What a wicked scene! what a sinful marriage!" And Emilio heard her, gave her one look of agony, and flung himself down on the pavement in front of the statue.

As Duchess Rignano, Teresa Doria was wretched. We saw her afterwards at Genoa, in the old Doria Palace, with her mother, whose death was hastened by the sight of her daughter's woe and her own disappointed ambition. Before long the Duchess Teresa was separated from her husband. Her tragical fate was a good thing for her sisters: the second sister, Guendolina, made a happy marriage with the Conte di Somaglia in the Marchi, and the youngest, Olimpia, was allowed to remain long unmarried. This last daughter of the house of Doria was described by her mother as so very small when she was born, that they swathed her in flannel and laid her in the sun, in the hope that it would make her grow like a plant. I was one day at the house of Mrs. de Selby, cousin of Princess Doria, when her servant threw open the door and announced in a stentorian voice, _allo Romano_--"La sua Eccellenza l'illustrissima Principessina la Donna Olimpia di Doria,"--and there marched in a stately little maiden of eight years old!

Cardinal Antonelli obtained an order for my sister and me to visit the Madre Makrina, the sole survivor of the Polish nuns who were martyred for their faith in the terrible persecution at Minsk. The nuns were starved, flogged to death, buried alive, subjected to the most horrible cruelties. Three escaped and reached Vienna, where two of them disappeared and never were heard of again. After a series of unparalleled adventures and escapes, the Abbess, the Madre Makrina, arrived in Rome. Pope Gregory XVI. received her kindly, but made her tell her whole story once for all in the presence of sixty witnesses, who all wrote it down at once to ensure accuracy, and then he shut her up, for fear she should be turned into a saint and object of pilgrimage. It was not generally known what had become of the Madre Makrina--it was a mystery in Rome--but we were able to trace her to the tiny convent of the Monacche Polacche, which has since been destroyed by the Sardinian Government, but which then stood near the Arch of Gallienus, nearly opposite the Church of S. Eusebio. Italima wished to go with us, but we could only obtain an order for two. When we rang the convent bell and had shown our permit through the grille, a portress from within drew a bolt which admitted us to a little room--den rather--barred with iron, and with an iron cage at one side, behind which the portress, a very fat old woman, reappearing, asked us many questions about ourselves, the Pope, the state of Rome generally. At last we got tired and said, "But shall we not soon see the Madre Makrina?"--"_Io_ sono la Madre Makrina," said the old woman, laughing. Then we said, "Oh, do tell us the story of Minsk."--"No," she replied, "I promised at the feet of Pope Gregory XVI. that I would never tell that story again: the story is written down, you can read it, but I cannot break my promise."--"How dreadfully you must have suffered at Minsk," we said. "Yes," she answered, and, going backwards, she pulled up her petticoats and showed us her legs, which were enormously fat, yet, a short distance above the ankles, were quite eaten away, so that you could see the bones. "This," she said, "was caused by the chains I wore at Minsk." The Madre Makrina, when we took leave, said, "I am filled with wonder as to how you got admittance. I have never seen any one before since I came here, and I do not suppose I shall ever see any one again, so I will give you a little memorial of your visit!" and she gave me a tiny crucifix and medal off her chain. I have it still.

When the Emperor Nicholas came to Rome, he went to pay his respects to the Pope, who received him very coldly. "You are a great king," said Pius IX. "You are one of the mightiest monarchs in the world, and I am a feeble old man, the servant of servants; but I cite you to meet me again, to meet me before the throne of the Judge of the world, and to answer _there_ for your treatment of the nuns at Minsk."

But of the gathering up of reminiscences of Roman life there is no end, and, after all, my normal life was a quiet one with my mother, driving with her, sketching with her, sitting with her in the studio of the venerable Canevari,[126] who was doing her portrait, spending afternoons with her in the Medici gardens, in the beautiful Villa Wolkonski, or in the quiet valley near the grove and grotto of Egeria.

In the mornings we generally walked on the Pincio, and there often noticed a family of father, mother, and daughter working on the terrace, as the custom then was, at rope-making. One day a carriage passed and re-passed with a solitary gentleman in it, who at last, as if he could no longer restrain himself, jumped out and rushed towards the group exclaiming, "C'est elle! c'est elle!" Then he became embarrassed, retired, and eventually sent his servant to beg that the mother would bring some of her cord to his house the next morning. She obeyed, and on entering his apartment was struck at once by a portrait on the wall. "That is the picture of my daughter," she said. "No," he replied, "that is the portrait of my dead wife." He then proceeded to say that he must from that time consider himself affianced to her daughter, for that in her he seemed to see again his lost wife, and he insisted on establishing the old woman and her daughter in comfortable lodgings, and hiring all kinds of masters for the latter, saying that he would go away and leave her to her studies, and that in a year he should come back to marry her, which he did. In England this would be a very extraordinary story, but it was not thought much of at Rome.

I have always found that the interests of Rome have a more adhesive power than those of any other place, and that it is more difficult to detach oneself from them; and even in this first winter, which was the least pleasant I have spent there--the conflicting requirements of my two mothers causing no small difficulty--I was greatly distressed when my mother, in her terror of Madame Davidoff and Co., decided that we must leave for Naples on the twenty-third of February. What an unpleasant companion I was as we drove out of the Porta S. Giovanni in the large carriage of the _vetturino_ Constantino, with--after the custom of that time--a black Spitz sitting on the luggage behind to guard it, which he did most efficaciously. I remember with a mental shiver how piteously the wind howled over the parched Campagna, and how the ruins looked almost frightful in the drab light of a sunless winter morning. But though the cold was most intense, for the season really was too early for such a journey, our spirits were revived by the extreme picturesqueness of the old towns we passed through. In Valmontone, where the huge Doria palace is, we met a ghastly funeral, an old woman carried by the Frati della Misericordia on an open bier, her withered head nodding to and fro with the motion, and priests--as Lea said--"gibbering before her." Here, from the broad deserted terrace in front of the palace, we looked over the mountains, with mists drifting across them in the wind; all was the essence of picturesqueness, raggedness, ignorance, and filth. By Frosinone and Ceprano--then the dreary scene of the Neapolitan custom-house--we reached San Germano, where the inn was in those days most wretched. In our rooms we were not only exposed to every wind that blew, but to the invasions of little Marianina, Joannina, and Nicolina, who darted in every minute to look at us, and to the hens, who walked about and laid their eggs under the bed and table. Most intensely, however, did we delight in the beauties of the glorious ascent to Monte Cassino and in all that we saw there.

How well I remember the extreme wretchedness of our mid-day halting-places in the after journey to Capua, and wonder how the pampered Italian travellers of the present day would put up with them; but in those days we did not mind, and till it was time to go on again, we drew the line of old crones sitting miserably against the inn-wall, rocking themselves to and fro in their coloured hoods, and cursing us in a chorus of--

"Ah, vi pigli un accidente Voi che non date niente,"

if we did not give them anything.

While we were at Naples, every one was full of the terrible earthquake which in December had been devastating the Basilicata. Whole towns were destroyed. It was as after a deep snow in England, which covers fields and hedges alike; you could not tell in the mass of débris whether you were walking over houses or streets. The inhabitants who escaped were utterly paralysed, and sat like Indian Brahmins with their elbows on their knees, staring in vacant despair. Hundreds were buried alive, who might have been extricated if sufficient energy had been left in the survivors. Others, buried to the middle, had the upper part of their bodies burnt off by the fire which spread from the ruined houses, and from which they were unable to escape. Thousands died afterwards from the hunger and exposure.

Whilst we were at Naples my mother lost her gold watch. We believed it to have been stolen as we were entering the Museo Borbonico, and gave notice to the police. They said they could do nothing unless we went to the King of the Thieves, who could easily get it back for us: it would be necessary to make terms with him. So a _ragazaccio_[129] was sent to guide us through one of the labyrinthian alleys on the hill of St. Elmo to a house where we were presented to the King of Thieves. He mentioned his terms, which we agreed to, and he then said, "If the watch has been stolen anywhere within twelve miles round Naples, you shall have it in twenty-four hours." Meanwhile the watch was found by one of the custodes of the Museo at the bottom of that bronze vase in which you are supposed to hear the roaring of the sea; my mother had been stooping down to listen, and the watch had fallen in. But the story is worth mentioning, as the subserviency of the police to the King of the Thieves was characteristic of public justice under Ferdinand II.

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Sorrento, March 7, 1858._--Some people say Sorrento is the most beautiful place in the world, and I believe that even my town-loving sister, if she could gaze over the golden woods in the sunset of this evening, and see the crimson smoke float over dark Vesuvius and then drift far over the blue sea, would allow it to be more inspiring than the Piazza S. Claudio! Then to-day the mother and her three companions have been riding on donkeys to the lovely Vigna Sersale through a fringe of coronilla and myrtle, anemones and violets.... It is a comfort here to be free from the begging atmosphere of Naples, for in Sorrento people do not beg; they only propose 'mangiare maccaroni alla sua salute.'"

"_April 4._--We have had a charming cruise in the 'Centaur'--the sea like glass, the view clear. Captain Clifford sent his boat to fetch us, and we sat on deck in arm-chairs, as if on land. In tiny fishing-boats, lying flat on our backs, we entered the Grotta Azurra (of Capri), like a magical cavern peopled with phantoms, each face looking livid as the boats floated over the deep blue water. Then we scrambled up to the fortress-palace of Tiberius, our ascent being enlivened by a tremendous battle between the midshipmen and the donkey-women, who finally drew their stilettos!

"Amalfi is most romantic and lovely. We were there ten days, and spent the mornings in drawing amongst the purple rocks and sandy bays, and the afternoons in riding up the mountain staircases to the Saracenic rock-built castles and desolate towns.

"The mother thinks I have grown dreadfully worldly under your influence, and that my love for wild-flowers is the only hopeful sign remaining!"

From Salerno we made a glorious expedition to Pæstum, but on our return found our servant, John Gidman, alarmingly ill in consequence of a sunstroke while fallen asleep on the balcony at Amalfi. His sufferings were dreadful, and he remained between life and death for a long time, and I believe was only eventually saved by the violent bleedings (so often inveighed against) of an Italian doctor. This delayed us long at the dull Salerno, and afterwards at La Cava, where I comforted myself by much drawing at Salvator Rosa's grotto in the valley below the old Benedictine convent.

In May our companions returned to England, and having no one but ourselves to consider, we planned to make our own northern _vetturino_ journey as interesting as possible. I think it was a description in "Dennis" which made us take the route by Viterbo and Orvieto, but we went there and saw it with enthusiasm, as afterwards Perugia--to which we zigzagged back across the Apennines, and Cortona, where the hill was redolent with great wild yellow roses, and where I drew the tomb of S. Margherita in the monastery, to the great delight of the monks, who regaled us with snuff and wine.

Whilst we were at Florence, living in the Casa Iandelli, I made a delightful excursion to Vallombrosa, driving in a little carriage to Pelago, and thence riding on a cart-horse up the forest-clothed mountain by the rough track which emerges on a bright green lawn, then covered with masses of lilies and columbine, and other spring flowers of every description. All around the dark forests swept down from the mountains towards the convent, where the hospitable monks entertained me with a most excellent dinner, and the abbot showed the manuscripts.

On my return, I found my mother so convulsed with laughter that it was long before she was able to explain the cause of it. At last she showed me a letter in her hand, which was a violent declaration of love and proposal of marriage from one Giorgio Rovert--"bello--possidente--avocato"--who was even then waiting at Siena to know if his "fiamme d'amore" was responded to, and if he might hasten to Florence to throw himself at the feet of the object of his adoration. For some time we were utterly bewildered, but at length recollected that at Rome a young man had constantly followed the cousin who was with us, had lifted the heavy curtains for her at the entrance of the churches, found her places in a mass-book, &c., and we concluded that he must have tracked her to the Palazzo Lovati, inquired of the porter who lived there, and hearing it was "Mrs. Hare," had followed _us_ to Florence. Lady Anne S. Giorgio coming in soon after to see us, undertook to answer the letter, and did so most capitally; but Giorgio Rovert did not break his heart, and within three weeks we heard of him as proposing to old Lady Dillon!

The Lady Anne S. Giorgio I have mentioned began at this time to fill a great part in our life. She was a Roman Catholic, and used to say that she had become so (at sixteen) on account of the poor apology which she found made for Protestantism in Robertson's "Charles V.," which she had been reading. After she was a widow, she became a member of a Tertiary Order which binds its votaries to forsake the vanities of the world, to wear a cross, and be dressed in black. She used to be very anxious for my conversion, and have special prayers to that intent on St. Augustine's Day. She read through Madame de Sévigné every year, and her library of books excited the astonishment of her poorer neighbours, who said, "O la Contessa e tanto buona; legge sempre; prega sempre; e tanto buona," for they cannot understand any one reading anything but religious books.

Lady Anne was one of the daughters of that beautiful Lady Oxford whose offspring were named "the Harleian Miscellany." Lady Oxford lived at Genoa with her daughters, leaving Lord Oxford in England, and during her Italian life had many strange adventures, and one of a most terrible kind, the story of which was related to me by Dr. Wellesley, who was present at the time, but I will omit it. Of the weird stories of the other sisters I will say nothing, but Lady Anne in her youth was engaged to a young Italian, who, with the ugly name of Boggi, was yet of a very good family. However, before they could be married, Boggi died, and the Harleys returned to England. While there, Lady Anne wished to marry her music-master, but her family would not hear of it, and by the harshness of their opposition made her life miserable. Having striven vainly for some years to win the consent of her family, Lady Anne wrote to Madame Boggi, the mother of her late betrothed, with whom she had always kept up a communication, to say that she was in wretched health and spirits, that she required change terribly, and that she was very unhappy because her family violently opposed her marriage with a very excellent young Italian--but she did not say who he was. Madame Boggi replied by saying that nothing could give her greater happiness than having her dearest Annie with her, and imploring her to come out to her at once. The Harley family consented, thinking that the change might cure Lady Anne's heartache, and she went out to Madame Boggi, who had always said that she looked upon her as a daughter because she was once engaged to her dead son.

While Lady Anne was with Madame Boggi, she heard that her Italian lover had returned to Italy to join his friends, but that he had been stopped by illness at some place in the north of Italy, and was lying in a very critical condition. I cannot say how Lady Anne persuaded Madame Boggi, but she did persuade her to consent to her going off to nurse her lover, and, unmarried girl as she was, she nursed him through all his illness. He died, but his brother, who came to him when he was dying, was so touched by Lady Anne's devotion, that he afterwards proposed to her, and she married him.

The husband of Lady Anne was only a "cavaliere." They were dreadfully poor, and lived at a little farm somewhere in the hills above Spezia, where two boys and a girl were born. But Lady Anne did not mind poverty; she fattened her chickens and pigs for market, she studied botany and all the ologies by herself, and she taught her children. After she became a widow, she heard one day that her father, Lord Oxford, from whom she had been separated from childhood, was passing through Italy, and she threw herself in his way upon the staircase in the inn at Sarzana. When he found who she was, he was delighted both with her and her children. He said, "I have done nothing for you hitherto, and I can do nothing for you after my death, for my affairs are arranged and they cannot be altered; but whatever you ask me to do _now_ shall be granted." "Then," said Lady Anne, "you have always looked down upon me and despised me, because my husband was a simple 'cavaliere.' You are going to Rome: get me created a Countess in my own right, and then you will despise me no more." And Lord Oxford went to Rome, and, by his personal influence with the Pope, to whom he had great opportunities of being useful, his daughter Anne was created a Countess in her own right, and her sons became titular Counts and her daughter a Countess.

It was in this summer of 1858, while we were at Florence, that Lady Anne came to "Italima" (for she had known my father intimately in her palmy days) and said, "You know how I have lived like a hermit in my '_tenuto_,' and meanwhile here is Carolina grown up, and Carolina must marry somebody, and that somebody you must find, for you are almost the only person I know." And, to her surprise, Italima was able to answer, "It is really very odd, but Mrs. de Selby, the cousin of the Princesses Doria and Borghese, was here this morning, and she said, 'Here is Roberto, and I want to find somebody for him to marry. I do not want a fortune, we have plenty of money, but it must be a girl of good family, and if she is partly English so much the better.'"

We went to the betrothal dinner of Robert Selby and Carolina di S. Giorgio, and afterwards we ran about the Torrigiani gardens in the still summer evening, and made round our straw hats wreaths of the fireflies, which, when they are once fixed, seldom fly away. Carolina was afterwards a great friend of ours, and most entertaining and clever. She could imitate an old priest scolding and taking snuff so exactly, that if you shut your eyes you thought one must be in the room; and she used to create for herself little dramas and tragedies, in which she was as pathetic as she was at other times comic. As a mother she was most unfortunate. Several of her children were poisoned by eating "fungi" at a trattoria outside the Porta del Popolo, and she herself nearly died from the same cause. After Robert Selby's death she married again, and went to live at Leghorn.

I was very sorry afterwards that during this visit we never saw Mrs. Browning, who died in 1861, before we were at Florence again. We used to hear much of her--of her peculiar appearance, with her long curls, and (from illness) her head always on one side; of the infinite charm of her conversation; of her interest in spiritualism; how she would endeavour to assert her belief in it in her little feeble voice, upon which Browning would descend in his loud tones; but they were perfectly devoted to each other.

Another person whom we often saw at Florence was the foolish wife of our dear old Landor, who never ceased to describe with fury his passionate altercations with her, chiefly caused apparently by jealousy. Landor was still living at Bath at this time.

In the Cascine at Florence we found the same old flower-woman who had been there when I was a baby in the Prato, where I was taught to walk. She used to drive to the Cascine with her flowers in a smart carriage with a pair of horses, and would smile and kiss her hands to us as we passed. It was contrary to good Florentine manners not to accept the flowers which she offered to every one she saw when she arrived where the carriages were waiting, but they were never paid for at the time; only a present was sent occasionally, or given by foreigners when they left Florence, and she came to the station to see them off and present a farewell bouquet. I merely mention these customs because they are probably dying out, perhaps are already extinct.

My cousin Lady Normanby was at this time resident in her beautiful Florentine villa, with its lovely garden of roses and view over Florence, and she was very kind to us.

We were at Florence this year during the festival of Corpus Domini, and saw that curious procession, chiefly consisting of little boys in white dominos, and brown monks and brothers of the Misericordia; but, following the Archbishop under his canopy, came the Grand Duke on foot, with all the male members of the Corsini and Guicciardini families, and the young Archdukes in white satin trains.

We saw also the Foundling Hospital, where all the children were brought up and nursed by goats, and where, when the children cried, the goats ran and gave them suck.

About the 10th of June we settled at Lucca baths, in the pleasant little Casa Bertini, a primitive house more like a farm-house than a villa, on the steep hillside above the Grand Duke's palace, possessing a charming little garden of oleanders and apple-trees at the back, with views down into the gorge of the river, and up into the hilly cornfields, which were always open to us. Very delightful were the early mornings, when the mother, with book and camp-stool, wandered up the hill-path, fringed with flowers, to the Bagni Caldi. Charming too the evenings, when, after "_merenda_" at four o'clock in the garden, we used to go forth, with all the little society, in carriages or on horseback, till the heavy dews fell, and drove us in by the light of the fireflies. A most pleasant circle surrounded us. Close by, in a large cool villa with a fountain, was the gentle invalid Mrs. Greville (_née_ Locke), singing and composing music, with her pleasant companion Miss Rowland. Just below, in the hotel of the villa, "Auntie" was living with the George Cavendishes, and in the street by the river the pretty widow, Mrs. Francis Colegrave, with her children, Howard and Florence, and her sister Miss Chichester.

An amusing member of the society at the Bagni, living in a cottage full of curiosities, was Mrs. Stisted, the original of Mrs. Ricketts in "The Daltons." She had set her heart upon converting the Duke of Parma to Protestantism, and he often condescended to controversy with her. One day she thought she had really succeeded, but driving into Lucca town next day, to her horror she met him walking bare-headed in a procession with a lighted candle in his hand. Then and there she stopped her carriage and began to upbraid him. When he returned to the Bagni, he went to see her and to reprove her. "There cannot," he said, "be two sovereigns at Lucca; either I must be Duke or you must be Queen," and ever after she was called the Queen of the Bagni. Colonel Stisted had a number of curious autographs, the most interesting being the MS. of the "Lines to an Indian air"--"I rise from dreams of thee"--found in the pocket of Shelley after he was drowned.

Living beneath us all this summer were the Grand Ducal family, and we saw them constantly. They were greatly beloved, but the Grand Duchess-Dowager, who was a Sardinian princess, was more popular than the reigning Grand Duchess, who was a Neapolitan Bourbon, and ultimately brought about the ruin of the family by her influence. The Grand Duchess-Dowager was the step-mother of the Grand Duke, and also his sister-in-law, having been sister-in-law of his first wife. The Hereditary Grand Duke was married to her niece, a lovely Saxon princess, who died soon afterwards: it was said that he treated her very ill, and that his younger brother protected her. We were at a very pretty ball which was given on the festa of S. Anna, her patroness. The Grand Ducal family generally went out at the same hour as ourselves. In the middle of the day nothing stirred except the scorpions, which were a constant terror. One was found in my bath in the morning, and all that day we were in fearful expectation, as the creatures never go about singly; but in the evening we met the companion coming upstairs. There were also quantities of serpents, which in the evening used frequently to be seen crossing the road in a body going down to the river to drink.

Every Friday afternoon we had a reception in our hill-set garden, and our maid Quintilia set out tea and fruit, &c., in the summer-house. At the gate a basket was held, into which every one dropped a story as they entered, and they were all read aloud after tea. One day, one of these stories, a squib on Ultra-Protestants written by the younger Miss Cavendish, led to a great fracas with the George Cavendishes, Admiral and Mrs. Cavendish being perfectly furious with my gentle mother, who of all people was the most innocent, as she could not have an idea of what was in the stories till they were read aloud. Well do I remember coming round the corner of the villa, and finding the Admiral storming at her as she sat upon her donkey, with "My daughters shall never enter your house again--they shall never enter it again!" and her sweet smile as she replied, "Then, Admiral Cavendish, I have only to thank you so very much for having so often allowed them to come to me hitherto,"--and the Admiral's subdued look afterwards.

There was a little school established by the Grand Duchess just below us, whither my mother sometimes went in the mornings. The children were taught Scripture dialogues. One little girl would say to another, "Oh, cara mia, cara amica mia, I have such a wonderful thing to tell you," and then would narrate how a babe was born in Bethlehem, &c., upon which the hearer would exclaim, "O Gran Dio" in her amazement, and on one occasion, with a cry of "O cielo!" pretended to faint away with astonishment in the most natural way imaginable.

A long excursion from Lucca was that to Galicano, where a hermit with a reputation of great sanctity was living under an overhanging cliff in the mountains. He hid himself on our approach, but our large party hunted him, and eventually unearthed him--an old dirty man in a brown gown, with a chain of huge beads at his girdle. We wanted to see the miraculous image of which he was guardian, but he would not show it unless we were Catholics, and was much puzzled by my protesting that we were, and my mother that we were not. However, at last he consented to exhibit it, on condition that we all knelt, and that the ladies took off their bonnets. We returned home much later than was expected, and so, as we found afterwards, escaped seven bandits, who had been lying in wait for us, and at last gave us up. The whole of the road from Lucca to Galicano had then black crosses at intervals, commemorating the murders committed there.

This summer at Lucca was altogether the greatest halt in my life I have ever known. We seemed so removed from the world, and I was more free from family snubbings than I had ever been before. But, all through the time we were there, I had been far from well, and the doctor who was consulted declared that I could not survive the severities of an English winter. In spite of this, my mother never flinched in her determination to return, for having once taken the impression (without the remotest reason) that I had a tendency to Roman Catholicism, she had a far greater terror of what she considered as danger to my soul than of any danger to my body.

When we left the Bagni di Lucca on the 2nd of August, I left it in despair. Behind us was a quiet, peaceful, and a far from useless life, encircled by troops of friends, and supplying the literary and artistic occupations in which I began to feel that I might possibly in time be able to distinguish myself. Before me was the weary monotony of Hurstmonceaux, only broken by visits from or to relations, by most of whom I was disliked and slighted, if not positively ill-treated. I also felt sure that all the influence of my aunts would be used with my easily guided mother to force upon me the most uncongenial of employments, which she was only too certain to allow them to advocate as "especially desirable for Augustus, because they _were_ uncongenial!" I was at this time also in more than usual disgrace, because disgust at the sham Christians, sham Evangelicals, sham Protestants, with whom for years I had been thrown, had induced me to avow my horror of Ordination. In every way I felt myself unfitted for it. I wrote at this time--"'Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no depth of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and, because they had no root, they withered away.' If you want to know about my past religious 'impressions,' that is just my story." Still the declaration of my determination not to take Orders, dreaded and put off for years, cost me acutest suffering from the pain and disappointment which I knew it inflicted upon my mother.

When we left Casa Bertini and descended the steep hill to our carriages, we found that the whole society had been amusing themselves by dressing in mourning, and were waiting to sing "a dirge" of their own composition, as we drove away. But we had one or two more happy days. On the morning after our arrival at Lucca town, we were astonished by sounds of loud singing in the passage, and going out, found all those we had so recently parted from at the Bagni singing in chorus some more verses which they had composed as "a serenade," and bringing for us a picture of the Ponte alla Maddalena, painted on a stone out of the river. We quickly determined to spend the day in going with them to Pisa, and making an excursion to the Gombo, where the Pisan pines end in the sands by the seashore--and we did not return till midnight. It was the custom at Lucca for those who drew to make little sketches in the travellers' book at the hotel, and I had amused myself by doing one the day before, and inscribing it "View from the Walls of Lucca," though it was a wretched performance. When we came back, we found a most lovely drawing opposite, inscribed--"View from the Walls of Lucca as it really is." The Grand Duke's artist had been at the hotel in the interval.

We travelled then with delicious slowness, only rolling onwards through the most glorious scenery in the cool mornings and evenings, and resting in the heat of mid-day, while, as at this time we only took our carriage from place to place, we had no scruple in halting for days at Pietra Santa, with its glorious views over the mountains, and old convents embosomed in olives and cypresses; in making excursions to Serravezza and to dismal Carrara; in lingering at La Spezia, where the avenue of oleanders was in full blaze of bloom, and driving thence to Porto Venere with its marble church and wonderful views along the cliffs--blue, green, yellow, and coral-red, descending abruptly into the sea.

_To_ MY AUNT ELEANOR PAUL.

"_Lucca, August 3, 1858._--Once upon a time there was a lady advanced in years, who had an only child. They were sick and sorrowful, and the tempests of the world beat upon them. Driven from home, they wandered hither and thither, seeking rest and finding none, till at length one day they arrived, wearied and wayworn, at the entrance of a mountain valley. 'Alas!' they whispered, 'what place is this?'--'Take courage,' answered the trees and fountains; 'rejoice,' shouted the flowers, 'for this is the Happy Valley, where those who enter rest from all sickness and trouble: this is the place where people may have a halt in life, and where care and anxiety do not exist.' And when they heard these words, the countenances of the weary lady and her son were glad, and the flowers and the trees and the fountains laughed and shouted for joy in the ceaseless golden sunshine. For two months the strangers rested in the Happy Valley, and then once more the tempest howled to receive them, and the voices of the unseen sternly bade them depart; and slowly and sadly they arose, and went out again into the wilderness, where every solitary flower, every mountain and stream, seemed only an echo from a lost and beautiful past.

"Oh, my auntie, do you know who the mother and son were, and what was the Happy Valley to which they looked back with so much loving regret?"

"_La Spezia, August_ 8.--We have been to Carrara. Do you know, my auntie, that once upon a time there lived in the mountains of Carrara a race of funny little people called Fanticelle? They were the hobgoblins of the marble rocks, and were very merry, very useful, and highly respected by every one. Each marble had its own Fante; one was dressed in red, another in yellow, and others in stripes of various colours; but the Fante of the white marble wore only a simple dress as white as snow, and was greatly despised in consequence by her companions, who were so fashionably attired. Daily the poor white Fante was snubbed and insulted, and at last, when the ancient Romans came to make quarries, and cut and hacked her to pieces, and carried her remains away in carts, all the other Fanti smiled in their cold satire and said, 'It only served the vulgar creature right, for she did not even know how to dress herself, and sitting upon the mountain with nothing on but her night-dress was really quite indecorous.'

"But when some years had passed, the great guardian spirit came to the mountains, and, stretching forth his wings, he gathered all the Fanti beneath them, and said, 'Now, my children, you shall go forth to see the world, and, when you return, you shall each say what is most highly esteemed by the lovers of art, and what it is that the children of men consider most beautiful and best.'

"Thus the Fanti of Carrara flew forth to see the world! They alighted first in the square at Genoa. All around were huge and stately palaces, and in the centre the statue of a hero, with the world lying captive at his feet. But what the Fanti remarked most was that in the most magnificent chambers of every palace, and even upon the statue of the great Columbus himself, sat the semblance of their despised sister the white Fante, as if enshrined and honoured. 'Alas!' exclaimed the Fanti, 'what degraded notions have these Genoese; let us examine places better worth our notice.' So they came to Spain, and visited the Alhambra, but in every court, and even on the Fountain of Lions itself, they found the image of the white Fante seated before them. Thence they passed on to London, to Paris, to Berlin, to Vienna, but it was ever the same. In every gallery of statues, over the hearth of every palace, upon the altar of every church, it seemed as if the white Fante was reigning. 'Ah,' they exclaimed, 'can _all_ men be thus degraded? can _all_ good taste be banished from the earth? Let us see one more city nearer home, and from that let us form our judgment, for the inhabitants of these northern cities are not worthy to be ranked with mankind.'

"So the Fanti came to Milan, and beneath the wings of the great guardian spirit, rejoicing in their approaching triumph, they entered its vast square. And behold the spirit drew back his wings, and they beheld a mighty and an awful vision! Before them stood their sister, the Fante of the milk-white rocks, but no longer humble, no longer to be restrained even within the bounds of the greatest palace upon earth. Majestic in beauty, invincible in power, she raised her mighty wings to heaven in the aisles of a vast cathedral, and mounted higher and higher as by an aërial staircase, till, far above all human things, she flung her snow-white tresses into the azure sky!

"Then the Fanti of the coloured robes bowed their heads and trembled, and acknowledged in penitence and humility--'Truly the Fante of the white rocks is the most beautiful thing in the world!'

"Who can go to Carrara, my auntie, and not feel this?"

We were for a few days at Turin. The society there was then, as it is still, the very climax of stagnation. One of its most admired ornaments was a beautiful young Contessa la Marmora. She did nothing all day, absolutely nothing, but sit looking pretty, with her chin leaning on her hand. Her mother-in-law was rather more energetic than herself, and hoping to rouse her, left a new "Journal des Modes" upon her table. Some days after, she asked what she thought of it. "Alas!" said the young Countess, with her beautiful head still leaning upon her hand, "I have been so much occupied, that I never have found time to look into it." In all my acquaintance since with Italian ladies, I have always found the same, that they are all intensely occupied, but that it is in doing--nothing!

Since the dreadful epidemic at court, which swept away at once the Queen, the Queen-Dowager, and the Duke of Genoa, the King had never received, and as his eldest daughter, Madame Clotilde, was not old enough to do so, there were no court parties. At the opera all the young ladies sat facing the stage, and the old ladies away from it; but when the ballet began there was a general change; the old ladies moved to the front, and the young ones went behind.

A great contrast to the Italians at Turin was Mr. Ruskin, whom we saw constantly. He was sitting all day upon a scaffold in the gallery, copying bits of the great picture by Paul Veronese. My mother was very proud of my drawings at this time, and gave them to him to look at. He examined them all very carefully and said nothing for some time. At last he pointed out one of the cathedral at Perugia as "the least bad of a very poor collection." One day in the gallery, I asked him to give me some advice. He said, "Watch me." He then looked at the flounce in the dress of a maid of honour of the Queen of Sheba for five minutes, and then he painted one thread: he looked for another five minutes, and then he painted another thread.[135] At the rate at which he was working he might hope to paint the whole dress in ten years: but it was a lesson as to examining what one drew well before drawing it. I said to him, "Do you admire all Paul Veronese's works as you do this?" He answered, "I merely think that Paul Veronese was ordained by Almighty God to be an archangel, neither more nor less; for it was not only that he knew how to cover yards of canvas with noble figures and exquisite colouring, it was that it was all _right_. If you look at other pictures in this gallery, or any gallery, you will find mistakes, corrected perhaps, but mistakes of every form and kind; but Paul Veronese had such perfect knowledge, he _never_ made mistakes."

The Charles Bunsens were at Turin, and we dined with them. With Mrs. C. Bunsen was her brother, whom we thought a very dull, heavy young man. Long afterwards he became very well known as the French Ambassador, Waddington.

We saw Mr. Ruskin again several times in the Vaudois, whither we went from Turin, and stayed for several days at La Tour, riding on donkeys to the wild scene of the Waldensian battle in the valley of Angrogna, and jolting in a carriage to the beautiful villages of Villar and Bobbio--"une vraie penitence," as our driver expressed it, though the scenery is lovely. My mother was charmed to find an old woman at La Tour who had known Oberlin very well and had lived in his parish.

Amongst the endless little out-of-the-way excursions which my mother, Lea, and I have made together in little _chars-à-banc_, one of those I remember with greatest pleasure is that from Vergogna up the Val Anzasca. The scenery was magnificent: such a deep gorge, with purple rocks breaking through the rich woods, and range upon range of distant mountains, with the snows of Monte Rosa closing them in. We stayed at a charming little mountain inn at Ponte Grande, where everything was extraordinarily cheap, and wandered in the meadows filled with globe-ranunculus and over-shadowed by huge chestnut-trees. In the evening the charcoal-burners came down from the mountains, where we had watched the smoke of the fires all day amongst the woods, and serenaded us under our windows, singing in parts, with magnificent voices, most effective in the still night. We were afterwards at Domo d'Ossola for a Sunday for the extraordinary fête of the imaginary Santa Filomena--kept all day with frantic enthusiasm, cannons firing, bells ringing, and processions of girls in white, chaunting as they walked, pouring in from all the country parishes in the neighbourhood.

_To_ MRS. HARE (ITALIMA).

"_Lausanne, Sept. 3, 1858._--At Martigny we found _Galignani_, which we had not seen for some days, and you will imagine my distress at the sad news about Mr. Landor with which they were filled.[137] Dear Mr. Landor! I had always hoped and intended to be near him and watch over the last years of this old, old friend. I feel certain that there is much, which the world does not know, to be said on his side. I have known Mrs. Y. for years ... and always prophesied that she would be the ruin of Mr. Landor some day. For the poems, no excuse can be offered except that he was so imbued with the spirit of the classical authors, that when he wished to write against Mrs. Y., he thought, 'How would Horace have written this?' and wrote accordingly, only that Horace would have said things a great deal worse.

'Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong; But verse was what he had been wedded to, And his own mind did like a tempest strong Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.'[138]

Whatever his faults are, I am sure you will feel that we who have known him well must draw a veil for ourselves over the failings of his old age, and remember only the many kind words of the dear old man, so tender in heart and so fastidious in taste, the many good and generous acts of his long life, and how many they are.

"How much we have been struck with the _pale_ blue of the Swiss lakes compared with the deep blue of those of Italy."

_To_ MY AUNT, ELEANOR PAUL.

"_Dijon, Sept. 12, 1858._--We found Fribourg quite up to our expectations, quite worth coming all the way round by Switzerland to visit. And the organ, how magnificent it is! We went in the evening to hear it, when all the beautiful gothic church was wrapped in darkness, except the solitary gleam of light in the organ-loft, and we all sat long in breathless expectation. When the music came, it was like a story. One seemed to be sitting far up the nave of some great cathedral, and to hear from the distant choir the choristers chaunting a litany, answering one another, and then swelling and joining in a universal chorus. Then, while they were singing, it was as if a great storm arose, the hail rattled and the rain splashed against the windows, the thunder crashed overhead, and the wind howled around. And then a mighty earthquake convulsed and shook the church to its very foundations. But always, in the pauses of the storm, the sweet silvery voices of the choristers were heard above the roaring of the elements, and when the storm subsided, they joined in thanksgiving, which died away in the faint echoes of the surrounding hills. And all this was the organ!

"We came by Morat to Neuchâtel. It is a pretty, though not a striking place; but the view of the vast mass of Mont Blanc and of all the Oberland Alps in the rose-coloured glow is magnificent. The mother made inquiries after many old acquaintances,[139] to find most of them dead, and those who were still living old, old ladies of ninety and of one hundred.

"Did you ever hear of Doubs? We came through it yesterday, and it certainly seemed to us the most melancholy, ill-fated village we had ever seen. Some time ago there lived there a boy, whose stepmother was very cruel to him--so cruel that his whole aim and object in life was to obtain money enough to set up for himself and escape from her tyranny. At last he succeeded, and leaving his father's house with his heart full of bitterness, he invested his savings in a partnership with the owner of the village café, where he kept the accounts. One day his partner accused him of not giving him a fair share of the profits. This made him perfectly frantic--so furious that he determined to avenge himself by nothing less than the total destruction of his native place! He began by setting fire to his café, but the alarm was scarcely given when it was discovered that almost every other house was in flames. The inhabitants hurried from their beds, and were barely able to save themselves, their houses, cattle, and goods perishing at one blow. Only a few houses and the church escaped, in which the fugitives took refuge, and were beginning to collect their energies, when, after ten days, the fire broke out again in the night, and the rest of the village was consumed with all it contained, including a child of four years old. Between the two fires cholera had broken out, so that numbers perished from pestilence as well as exposure. The author of all the misery was taken and transported, but the town is only now beginning to rise again from its ruins, and the people to raise their spirits."

On reaching Paris, we found Italima and my sister at the Hôtel d'Oxford et Cambridge. Greatly to my relief, my mother decided that, as she was in perfect health and well supplied with visitors, it was an admirable opportunity for my remaining abroad to learn French: this I was only too thankful for, as it put off the evil day of my return to England, and encountering the family wrath about my refusal to take Orders. With my sister I spent an amusing day at Versailles on a visit to the Marquis and Marquise du Prât, the latter a daughter of the Duc de Grammont, and a very pretty, lively person. They lived in an ideal house of the _ancienne régime_, where the chairs, picture-frames, carpets, even the antimacassars, were carved or worked with the shields, crests, and mottoes of the family.

After my sister left, the intrigues of Madame Davidoff, whom, in compliance with my mother's wishes, I had refused to visit, brought about my acquaintance with the Vicomte de Costa le Cerda, a Franco-Spaniard and ardent Catholic, who constituted himself my cicerone, and amongst other places took me to _séances_ of the Académie de France, of which he was a member; and I should have been much interested in seeing all the celebrated philosophers, politicians, physicians, geologists, &c., if I had not been so ignorant of French literature that I had scarcely heard of any one of them before. The Marquis de Gabriac[140] (I forget how his office entitled him to do so) sent me a medal which enabled me to visit all profane, and the Archbishop of Paris a permission to enter all religious, institutions. Using the latter, I went with De Costa to the Benedictines, Ursulines, Carmelites, Petites Sœurs des Pauvres, and the Œuvre de la Compassion for bringing up little homeless boys. On Sundays I heard Père Félix, the philosophic Bourdaloue of the nineteenth century, preach with his musical voice to vast enthralled audiences in Nôtre Dame.[141]

Capital were the French lessons I received from the excellent M. Nyon, to whom I have always felt indebted. After Italima left Paris, I lodged with a Madame Barraud, who rented a small apartment at the back of a court in the Rue des Saints-Pères. Here my wretched little room looked out upon a blank wall, and was as thoroughly uncomfortable as it was possible to be. The weather soon became bitterly cold, and, to prevent being starved, I had to sit almost all day in the one poor uncarpeted sitting-room with old Madame Barraud herself, who was a most extraordinary character. Without the slightest apparent reason, a sudden suspicion would seize her, and she would rush off to the kitchen. In another minute she would return, wringing her hands, and would fling herself down in a chair with--"Oh, que je suis malheureuse! Oh, que je suis malheureuse! C'est une fille abominable cette Marie--cette tortue! elle ne sait pas le service du tout," and then, before she had time to take breath, she would run off to investigate the causes of a fresh noise in the kitchen. You were never safe from her. Every moment that old woman would dart in like a whirlwind, just to wipe off one speck of dust she had discovered on the mirror, or to smooth some crease she suspected in the tablecloth; and almost before you could look up she was vanishing with her eternal refrain of "que je suis misérable! que je suis malheureuse!"

The one subject of discussion till twelve o'clock was the déjeûner, from twelve to six the dinner, and after that the déjeûner of the next morning. Matters, however, were rather improved when Mademoiselle Barraud was at home--a thoroughly sensible, sterling person, who was generally absent on professional duties, being one of the first music-mistresses of the day. Sometimes Madame and Mademoiselle had friends in the evening, when it was amusing to see specimens of the better sort of third-class Parisians.

I made very few friends at Paris, but the persons I saw oftenest were the Marquise du Pregnier and her old mother, who remembered the Reign of Terror and had lost both her parents by the guillotine. Occasionally I went in the evening to the salon of Madame Mohl, wife of Julius Mohl, the great Orientalist, but herself an Englishwoman, who had in early life been intimate with Chateaubriand and present at his touching last hours, when his friend Madame Recamier, beautiful to the end, sat watching him with her blind eyes. Madame Mohl was a most extraordinary-looking person, like a poodle, with frizzled hair hanging down over her face and very short skirts. Her salon, at 120 Rue de Bac, especially on Friday evenings, was at that time quite one of the social features of Paris. One savant used to drop in after the other and sit round her talking in a circle, and with a _finesse d'esprit_ all her own, she would address each in turn in her quick sharp voice, always saying something pungent or clever. Politics were the chief topic, and though I remember Madame Mohl once saying that "political society was not what could be called a _nourishing_ occupation," there were no refreshments, however late the company stayed, but tea and biscuits. She had always had a sort of salon, even when, as Miss Clarke, she lived with her old mother in a very small apartment in the Abbaye-aux-Bois. Ticknor speaks of her there as keeping a little _bureau d'esprit_ all her own, _à la française_.

One night when I was shown into her salon, I found, to my horror, that I was not only the first to arrive, but that the old lady was so engrossed in administering a violent scolding to her husband, that she was promenading the drawing-room half undressed, with her strange locks still in curl-papers. It was a most ridiculous scene, and my premature appearance not a little embarrassing to them both. I retreated into the passage till Madame Mohl was "done up," though that operation was not accomplished till many other guests had arrived.

M. Julius Mohl was the greatest contrast to his quicksilver wife. He used to be called "_le bourru bienfaisant_," from his rough exterior and genuine kindness of heart. He was really ten years younger than his wife, though she considered sixty-eight the right age for a woman to attain to, and never to her last day allowed that she had passed that limit.

Madame Mohl was fond of describing how, when she was at Paris in her childhood, her elder sister, Mrs. Frewen, was taken by their mother and grandmother to the chapel royal at the Tuileries, where Marie Antoinette was then living in a kind of half-captivity. She was a very little girl, and a gendarme thought she would be crushed, and lifted her upon his shoulders, on which she was just opposite the King and Queen. She remembered, as in a picture, how on one side of them were first Madame Royale, then Madame Elizabeth, then the little Dauphin.

The cause which led to Mrs. Frewen seeing Marie Antoinette at that time was in itself very curious. She was returning from the south with her mother (Mrs. Clarke) and her grandmother. They reached Bordeaux, where they were to embark for England in a "smack." Their luggage was already on board; but, on the night before starting, the grandmother had a vivid dream that the smack was lost with all on board. In the morning she declared that nothing on earth should induce her to go in it. The daughter remonstrated vigorously about expense, but the old lady stood firm. They were able to take off their smaller things, but all their larger luggage had to be left. The smack went down on the Goodwin Sands and all was lost; so the family came to Paris.[143]

Of all the evenings I spent at Paris, the most interesting was one with the Archbishop, who kindly invited me to his old country château of Issy, once a palace of the Prince de Condé, and very magnificent. The Archbishop, however, only inhabited the porter's lodge, and all the rest was left deserted. The Archbishop was playing at bagatelle with his chaplains when we entered, upon which he seated himself opposite to us (De Costa went with me) in an arm-chair. He was a fine old man with grey hair, dressed in cardinal's robes and crimson stockings, with the chain of a Grand Almoner of France round his neck. There was only one light in the high dark room, a lamp close to his shoulder, which threw a most picturesque light over him, like a Rembrandt portrait. He inquired about my visits to the different "religious" in Paris, and spoke regretfully of the difficulties encountered by the Petites Sœurs des Pauvres. Then he talked to De Costa about his medical studies and about phrenology. This led him to the great Napoleon, of whose habits he gave a very curious account. He said that he believed his strange phrenological development was caused by his extraordinary way of feeding--that he never was known to take a regular meal, but that he had a spit on which a chicken was always roasting at a slow fire, and that whenever he felt inclined he took a slice. When demolished, the chicken was instantly replaced. It was the same with sleep: he never went to bed at regular hours, only when he felt sleepy. We had been warned that the Archbishop himself went to bed at nine, as he always rose at four; so at nine I got up and kissed his ring, as we always did then to the cardinals at Rome, but the kind old man insisted on coming out after us into the passage, and seeing that we were well wrapped up in our greatcoats.

In October, Aunt Kitty (Mrs. Stanley) came for a few days to Paris, and going about with Arthur Stanley was a great pleasure.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Paris, Oct. 19, 1858._--I have been much disturbed by my dearest mother's writing twice to Aunt Kitty to urge upon me the duty of instantly deciding upon some situation. It seems so useless to make oneself miserable in the interval because situations and professions do not drop from the clouds whenever one chooses to call for them. You know how I have dreaded the return to England, simply because I knew how wearing the family onslaught would be directly I arrived, and that all peace would be at an end, and it certainly was not likely to mend matters to write to complain to the Stanleys of how grievously I had disappointed you, and that therefore I must decide instantly! If my mother will consider, she will see that it is no question of exerting oneself. I know exactly what there is to be had and what there is not, and we both know how extremely improbable it is that I could get _anything_ without some knowledge of modern languages, at least of French. This therefore is evidently the first point, and whilst one is employed all day long in struggling and striving to attain it, is it not rather hard to see letters from England about waste of time, want of effort, &c.?

"Were I to take an office in London _now_, the pay might possibly be as much as £60 a year, without any vacation, or any hope of advance in life, and even in the most miserable lodgings it would be difficult to live in London under £200 a year. However, if my mother hears of anything which she wishes me to take, I will certainly take it.

"Aunt Kitty has been very kind, and I have enjoyed going about with Arthur. Yesterday we went to the Conciergerie, where, by help of the Archbishop's letter and an order from the Préfecture of Police, we contrived to gain admittance. It is in the centre of Louis the Ninth's palace, of which it was once the dungeon, and has been very little altered. The room in which Marie Antoinette was confined for two months before her execution has scarcely been changed at all. There are still the heavy barred doors, the brick floor, the cold damp smell, the crucifix which hung before the window and kneeling before which she received the viaticum, the place where the bed stood, upon which the Queen could not lie down without being watched by the guards--who never took their eyes off--from the wicket opposite. Opening out of the Queen's prison is the small narrow chamber in which Robespierre was confined for one day, but where he never slept--brought there at eight, tried at eleven, executed at four. This opens into a large room, now the chapel, once the prison of Madame Elizabeth, and afterwards the place in which the Girondists held their last dreadful banquet before execution, when they sang the Marseillaise around the dead man on the table, and are said to have composed 'Mourir pour la Patrie.'

"To-day Arthur and I went by rail to Versailles, and took a little carriage thence to Port Royal. The country was lovely, the forest red and golden with autumnal tints. In a wooded valley, with a green lawn winding through it like a river, watered by a little brooklet, are the remains of Port Royal, the farmhouse where Racine and Pascal lived and wrote, the dovecot and fountain of Mère Angélique, the ruins of the church, the cemetery and cross, and 'the Solitude' where the nuns sat in solemn council around a crucifix in the middle of the woods. In the house is a collection of old pictures of the celebrities connected with the place. Arthur, of course, peopled the whole place in imagination and description with the figures of the past, and insisted on our 'walking in procession' (of two) down the ruined church.

"We went on to Dampierre, a fine old château of the Duc de Luynes, with green drives and avenues; and then to Chevreuse, where we climbed up the hill to the ruined castle with machicolated towers and a wide view over the orange-coloured woods, where the famous Madame de Chevreuse lived."

"_Nov. 8._--The cold is almost insupportable! Parisians are so accustomed to their horrible climate, that Madame Barraud cannot understand my feeling it, and I have great difficulty in getting even the one little fire we have, and am occupied all day in shutting the doors, which every one else makes a point of leaving open. Madame Barraud describes her own character exactly when she stands in the middle of the room and says with a tragic voice, 'Je suis juste, Monsieur, je suis bonne; mais, Monsieur, je suis _sévère_!' She is excellent and generous on all great occasions, but I never knew any one who had such a power of making people uncomfortable by petty grievances and incessant fidgetting. Though she will give me fifty times more food than I wish, nothing on earth would induce her to light the fire in my bedroom, even in the most ferocious weather, because it is not '_son habitude_'. 'La bonne Providence m'a donné un caractère,' she said the other day, recounting her history. 'Avec ce caractère j'ai fait un mariage de convenance avec M. Barraud: avec ce caractère, étant veuve, j'ai pris ma petite fille de douze ans, et je suis venue à Paris pour faire jouer son talent: avec ce caractère, quand les fils de mon mari m'ont fait des mauvaises tournées, je n'ai rien dit, mais je les ai quittés pour toujours, parceque je n'ai pas voulu voir le nom de mon mari paraître dans des querelles: je suis bonne, Monsieur, je suis juste, c'est ma nature; mais, Monsieur, je suis _sévère_; et je ne les reverrais _jamais_.' Just now she is possessed with the idea--solely based upon her having a new pair of shoes--that Marie, the maid, certainly has a lover concealed somewhere, and she constantly goes to look for him under the kitchen-table, in the cupboard, &c. She hangs up the chicken or goose for the next day's dinner in the little passage leading to my room, and in the middle of the night I hear stealthy footsteps, and a murmur of 'Oh, qu'il est gras! Oh, qu'il sera délicieux!' as she pats it and feels it all over."

At the end of November I returned to England. Two years after, when we were in Paris on our way to Italy, I went to the Rue des Saints-Pères. Madame Barraud was dead then, and her daughter, left alone, was lamenting her so bitterly that she was quite unable to attend to her work, and sat all day in tears. She never rallied. When I inquired, as we returned through Paris, Mademoiselle Barraud had followed her mother to the grave; constantly as she had been scolded by her, wearisome as her life seemed to have been made, the grief for her loss had literally broken her heart.

During the winter we were absent at Rome, our house of Lime was lent to Aunt Esther (Mrs. Julius Hare) and Mrs. Alexander. Two cabinets contained all our family MSS., which Aunt Esther knew that I valued beyond everything else. Therefore, she forced both the cabinets open and destroyed the whole--all Lady Jones's journals and letters from India, all Bishop Shipley's letters--every letter, in fact, relating to any member of the Hare family. She replaced the letters to my adopted mother from the members of her own family in the front of the cabinets, and thus the fact they had nothing behind them was never discovered till we left Hurstmonceaux, two years after. When asked about it, Aunt Esther only said, "Yes, I did it: I saw fit to destroy them." It was a strange and lasting legacy of injustice to bequeath, and I think I cannot be harsh in saying that only a very peculiar temperament could construe such an act into "right-doing."

IX

WORK IN SOUTHERN COUNTIES

"How can a man learn to know himself? By reflection never, only by action. In the measure in which thou seekest to do thy duty shalt thou know what is in thee. But what is one's duty? The demand of the hour."--GOETHE.

"Il est donné, de nos jours, à un bien petit nombre, même parmi les plus délicats et ceux qui les apprécient le mieux, de recueillir, d'ordonner sa vie selon ses admirations et selon ses goûts, avec suite, avec noblesse."--SAINTE-BEUVE.

"Every man has a separate calling, an end peculiar to himself."--FREDERICK SCHLEGEL.

"The old lord-treasurer Burleigh, if any one came to the Lords of the Council for a licence to travel, he would first examine him of England: if he found him ignorant, he would bid him stay at home and know his own country first."--HENRY PEACHAM, 1622, _The Compleat Gentleman_.

Upon returning to England in the winter of 1858, I felt more bitterly that ever the want of sympathy which had formerly oppressed me. Though I had the most idolatrous love for my dearest mother, and the most over-anxious wish to please her, there was then none of the perfect friendship between us, the easy interchange of every thought, which there was in later years; for she was still so entirely governed by her sisters-in-law as scarcely to have any individuality of her own. Often, often, did she pain me bitterly by suspecting my motives and questioning my actions, even when I was most desirous of doing right; and from the long habit of being _told_ that I was idle and ignorant, that I cared for nothing useful, and that I frittered away my life, she had grown to believe it, and constantly assumed that it was so. Thus all my studies were embittered to me. I was quite sure that nothing I did would be appreciated, so that it never seemed worth while to do anything, and I became utterly deficient in that cheerfulness of disposition which is the most important element in all private success.

As I write this, and remember the number of delightful intimates by whom my after years have been surrounded, I find it difficult to realise that I had at this time _no_ friends who, by mutual confidence, could help or cheer me. The best of them, Milligan, was now settled in London, being in full work in the Ecclesiastical Commission Office, and though always very kind to me, he had now fallen into a new set of acquaintances and surroundings, and had no time to bestow upon me individually. George Sheffield I seldom saw; and I had no other friends worth speaking of.

At this time all the intellectual impetus I received, and without which I should have fallen into a state of stagnation, came from the house of my aunt, Mrs. Stanley. Her grace, ease, and tact in society were unrivalled. At her house, and there alone, I met people of original ideas and liberal conversation. In this conversation, however, I was at that time far too shy to join, and I was so dreadfully afraid of my aunt, who, with the kindest intentions, had a very cold unsympathetic manner in private, that--while I always appreciated her--I was unable to reap much benefit from her society. Perhaps my chief friend was my cousin Arthur Stanley, whom I was not the least afraid of, and whom I believe to have been really fond of me at this time; also, though he had a very poor opinion of my present powers and abilities, he did not seem, like other people, utterly to despair of my future.

By my mother's desire, Archdeacon Moore (an old friend of the Hare family) had written to Sir Antonio Panizzi,[146] then the autocratic ruler of the British Museum Library, with a view to my standing for a clerkship there. But this idea was afterwards abandoned, and it was owing to the kindness of my cousin Arthur and that of Albert Way (our connection by his marriage with Emmeline Stanley) that I obtained from John Murray, the publisher, the employment of my next two years--the "Handbook of Berks, Bucks, and Oxfordshire."

The commission to undertake this Handbook was one which I hailed with rapture. The work was in every respect welcome to me. I had an inner consciousness that I could do it well, and that while I was doing it I should be acquiring information and advancing my own neglected education. Besides, the people with whom the work would necessarily bring me in contact were just those who were most congenial. My principal residence would be Oxford, associated with some of my happiest days, and where it was now a real pleasure to be near Arthur Stanley; while, if my mother were ill or needed me in any way, there was nothing in my work which would prevent my returning to her, and continuing it at home. Above all, the fact of my having the work to do would silence the ceaseless insinuations to my mother as to my desire for an idle life of self-indulgence. I knew nothing then of the mercantile value of my labour. I did not know (and I had no one to inform me) that I was giving away the earnest work of two years for a pitiful sum,[147] which was not a tenth of its value, and which was utterly insufficient to meet its expenses.

How well I remember my first sight of John Murray, when he came to dine at the Stanleys' house in Grosvenor Crescent--his hard, dry questions, his sharp, concise note afterwards, in which he announced the terms of our hardly-driven bargain, received by me as if it had been the greatest of favours. Perhaps, however, the very character of the man I had to deal with, and the rules he enjoined as to my work, were a corrective I was much the better for at this time. The style of my writing was to be as hard, dry, and incisive as my taskmaster. It was to be a mere catalogue of facts and dates, mingled with measurements of buildings, and irritating details as to the "E. E.," "Dec.," or "Perp." architecture even of the most insignificant churches, this being the peculiar hobby of the publisher. No sentiment, no expression of opinion were ever to be allowed; all description was to be reduced to its barest bones, dusty, dead, and colourless. In fact, I was to produce a book which I knew to be utterly unreadable, though correct and useful for reference. Many a paper struggle did I have with John Murray the third--for there has been a dynasty of John Murrays in Albemarle Street--as to the retention of paragraphs I had written. I remember how this was especially the case as to my description of Redesdale, which was one of the best things I have ever done. Murray, however, was never averse to a contribution from one whose name was _already_ distinguished either by rank or literature, and when Arthur Stanley contributed passages with his signature to my account of Oxford, they were gladly accepted, though antagonistic to all his rules.

Arthur Stanley had been made Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford before we had gone abroad, and, while we were absent, a Canonry at Christ Church, attached to the professorship, had fallen in to him. The Canon's house was just inside the Peckwater Gate leading into Tom Quad, and had a stiff narrow walled garden behind, planted with apple-trees, in the centre of which Arthur made a fountain. It had been a trouble to the Canon that it was almost impossible in his position to make the acquaintance he wished with the young men around him, and in this I was able to be a help to him, and in some way to return the kindness which often gave me a second home in his house for many months together. His helpless untidiness, and utter inability to look after himself, were also troubles which I could at least ameliorate. I rapidly made acquaintances in Christ Church, several of which developed into friendships, and I was only too glad to accede to Arthur's wish that I should invite them to his house, where they became his acquaintances also. Of Christ Church men at this time I became most familiar with Brownlow,[148] Le Strange,[149] Edward Stanhope,[150] Stopford,[151] Addie Hay,[152] and my second cousin, Victor Williamson.[153] A little later, at the house of Mrs. Cradock, I was introduced to "Charlie Wood."[154] I did not think that I should like him at first; but we became intimate over an excursion to Watlington and Sherborne Castle, and he has ever since been the best and dearest of my friends. Very soon in constant companionship, we drew together in the Bodleian and Christ Church libraries, we read together at home, and many were the delightful excursions we made in home scenes, forerunners of after excursions in more striking scenes abroad. We also often shared in the little feasts in Mrs. Cradock's[155] garden, where we used to amuse ourselves and others by composing and reciting verses.

I frequently left Christ Church for a week or two upon exploring raids into the counties on which I was employed, and used to bring back materials to work up in Oxford, with the help of the Bodleian and other libraries. Very early, in this time of excursions, I received an invitation (often repeated) from Jane, Viscountess Barrington, a first cousin of my real mother, to visit her at Beckett near Shrivenham. I had seen so little then of any members of my real family, that I went to Beckett with more shyness and misgivings than I have ever taken to any other place; but I soon became deeply attached to my dear cousin Lady Barrington, who began from the first to show an interest in me, which was more that of a tenderly affectionate aunt than of any more distant relation. Lord Barrington, the very type of a courteous English nobleman, was also most kind. Of their daughters, two were unmarried--Augusta, who was exceedingly handsome, brimful of very accurate information, and rather alarming on first acquaintance; and Adelaide, who was of a much brighter, gentler nature. I thought at this time, however, that Lina, Lady Somerton, was more engaging than either of her sisters. I often found her at Beckett with her children, of whom the little Nina--afterwards Countess of Clarendon--used to be put into a large china pot upon the staircase when she was naughty. Beckett was a very large luxurious house in the Tudor style, with a great hall, built by Thomas Liddell, Lady Barrington's brother. The park was rather flat, but had a pretty piece of water with swans, and a picturesque summer-house built by Inigo Jones. Much of the family fortune came from Lord Barrington's uncle, Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, who used to say he was the only licensed poacher in England--"I Shute, by the grace of God," &c. This old bishop, when his nephew brought his bride to visit him--a wedding visit--at Mongewell, filled all the trees with rare cockatoos and parrots, in the hope that when she heard them scream, she would think they were the native birds of that district. Lord and Lady Barrington took me, amongst other places, to see Mr. Aitkens of Kingston Lyle--"the Squire" in Tom Hughes's "Scouring of the White Horse," and also to see the creature itself, which is far more like a weasel than a horse. The kindness of Lord Barrington also secured my favourable reception at every other house in the county, and many were the visits I paid in Berkshire at places described in my Handbook.

Much kindness was also shown me by old Lady Stanley of Alderley,[156] who was often very violent, indeed quite furious, about her own opinions; but full of the most sincere interest and kindness towards me for my mother's sake. Holmwood, near Henley, whither I went several times to visit her, was an enchanting place, with luxuriant lawn and flowers, fine trees, and beautiful distant views. A succession of grandchildren always filled the house, and found it most enjoyable, the two unmarried aunts--Rianette (Maria Margaret) and Louisa--being, as one of them (Lady Airlie) has often told me, "the good fairies of their childhood." Like most Stanleys, they were peculiarly subject to what that family calls "fits of righteous indignation" with all who differed from them; but nobody minded. Having had the most interesting youth themselves, during which their uncle (afterwards Bishop Stanley) and other relations were always inventing something for their amusement, they had a special gift for interesting others, so that those who went to visit them always felt that though they received many and often unmerited scoldings, their visit could never be dull. How well I remember still Louisa Stanley's graphic imitation of many people of her long-ago--especially of old Mr. Holland, the Knutsford doctor,[157] who would come in saying, "Well, Miss Louisa, and how are we to-day? We must take a little more rubbub and magnesia; and I would eat a leetle plain pudden with a leetle shugger over it!" and then, ringing the bell, "Would you send round my hearse, if you please?"

Lady Stanley herself had been the pupil of Gibbon at Lausanne, and had much to tell of past days; and the pertinacity with which she maintained her own opinions about them and everything else, rendered her recollections very vivid and amusing. All the family, including my mother, were so dreadfully afraid of Lady Stanley, that a visit to her always partook of the nature of an adventure; but it generally turned out to be a very charming adventure, and I always look back to her with affectionate gratitude, and feel that there was a great charm in the singleness, sincerity, and freshness of her character. When I was at Holmwood, I used to engage a little carriage and go out for long excursions of eight or ten hours into the country; and when I returned just before dinner, Lady Stanley was so anxious to hear my adventures, that she would not wait till I came down, but would insist upon the whole history through the bedroom door as I was dressing.

If people were not afraid of her, Lady Stanley liked them the better for it, and she always heartily enjoyed a joke. I remember hearing how one day at Alderley she raged and stormed because the gentlemen sat longer after dinner than she liked. Old Mr. Davenport was the first to come into the drawing-room. "Well now, what _have_ you been doing?" she exclaimed; "what _can_ you have found to talk about to keep you so long?"--"Would you really like to know what we've been talking about, my lady?" said Mr. Davenport. "Yes indeed," she stormed. "Well," said Mr. Davenport very deliberately, "we talked first about the depression in the salt (mines), and that led us on inadvertently to pepper, and that led us to cayenne, and that, my lady, led us ... to yourself,"--and she was vastly amused. One day her maid told her that there was a regular uproar downstairs about precedence, as to which of the maids was to come in first to prayers. "Oh, _that_ is very easily settled," said Lady Stanley; "the ugliest woman in the house must always, of course, have the precedence," and she heard no more about it.

Another house which I was frequently invited to use as a centre for my excursions was that of my father's first cousin, Penelope, Mrs. Warren, who was living in the old home of Lady Jones at Worting, near Basingstoke. It was in a most dreary, cold, wind-stricken district, and was especially selected on that account by Lady Jones, because of its extreme contrast to the India which she abominated. Internally, however, the old red-brick house was very comfortable and charming, and Mrs. Warren herself a very sweet and lovable old lady, tenderly cared for by her sons and daughters, many of whom were always about her, though only one of the latter, Anna, was unmarried. Mrs. Warren had been the eldest of the daughters of Dean Shipley, and the only one who never gave her family any trouble, and who was invariably loved and honoured by its other members. Her character through life had been that of a peacemaker, and in her old age she seemed almost glorified by the effulgence of the love which had emanated from her, no single member of the family having a recollection of her which was not connected with some kindly word or unselfish action.[158] That Lady Jones should bequeath Worting to her was felt by all the other nephews and nieces to have been most natural. "Who should it have been to, if not to Penelope?" She liked to talk of old times, and her reminiscences were most interesting. She was also very proud of her family, especially of the Mordaunts, and of our direct descent, through the Shipleys, from the youngest son of Edward I. It was on one of my early visits at Worting that I first made acquaintance with my cousin Harriet, Mrs. Thornton, niece of Mrs. Warren, and one of the daughters of Bishop Heber.[159] She described the second marriage of her mother to Count Valsamachi in the Greek church at Venice, and the fun she and her sister thought it to walk round the altar with huge wedding favours in their hands. She was full of amusing stories of India, from which she was just returned: would tell how one day she was sitting next a Rajah who was carving a pie, and when he lifted the crust a whole flock of little birds flew out--"Whir-r-r-r!" said the Rajah as they flew all over the room; how, one day, being surprised that an expected ham was not brought in to dinner, she went out and found it lying in the court, with all the native servants round it in a circle spitting at it; and how one day at the Cape she was told that a woman was bitten by a venomous snake, and going out, found her eating a toad as a remedy. One of Mrs. Thornton's stories, which I have often repeated since, is so curious as to deserve insertion here.

"M. de Sartines had been brought up by an old friend of his family who lived in Picardy. The château of his old friend was the home of his youth, and the only place where he felt sure that all his failings would be overlooked and all his fancies and wishes would be considered.

"While he was absent from France on diplomatic service, M. de Sartines heard with great grief that his old friend was dead. In losing him, he lost not only the friend who had been as a second father, but the only home which remained to him in France. He felt his loss very much--so much, indeed, that for many years he did not return to France at all, but spent his time of leave in travelling in Italy and elsewhere.

"Some years after, M. de Sartines, finding himself in Paris, received a letter from the nephew of his old friend, who had succeeded to the Picardy property. It was a very nice letter indeed, saying how much he and his wife wished to keep up old family ties and connections, and that though he was well aware that it would cost M. de Sartines much to revisit the château so tenderly connected with memories of the dead, still, if he could make that effort, no guest would be more affectionately welcomed, and that he and his wife would do their utmost to make him feel that the friendship which had been held had not passed away, but was continued to another generation. It was so nice a letter that M. de Sartines felt that he ought not to reject the hand of friendship stretched out in so considerate and touching a manner, and though it certainly cost him a great effort, he went down to the château in Picardy.

"His old friend's nephew and his wife received him on the doorstep. Everything was prepared to welcome him. They had inquired of former servants which room he had occupied and how he liked it arranged, and all was ready accordingly. They had even inquired about and provided his favourite dishes at dinner. Nothing was wanting which the most disinterested solicitude could effect.

"When M. de Sartines retired to his room for the night, he was filled with conflicting emotions. The blank which he felt in the loss of his old friend was mingled with a grateful sense of the kindness he had received from the nephew. He felt he could not sleep, or would be long in doing so; but having made up a large fire, for it was very cold weather, he went to bed.

"In process of time, as he lay wakefully with his head upon the pillow, he became aware of the figure of a little wizened old man hirpling towards the fire. He thought he must be dreaming, but, as he listened, the old man spoke--'Il y a longtemps que je n'ai vu un feu, il faut que je me chauffe.'

"The blood of M. de Sartines ran cold within him as the figure turned slowly round towards the bed and continued in trembling accents--'Il y a longtemps que je n'ai vu un lit, il faut que je me couche.'

"But every fibre in M. de Sartines' body froze as the old man, on reaching the bed, drew the curtains, and seeing him, exclaimed--'Il y a longtemps que je n'ai vu M. de Sartines, il faut que je l'embrasse.'

"M. de Sartines almost died of fright. But fortunately he did not quite die. He lived to know that it was his old friend himself. The nephew had got tired of waiting for the inheritance; he had imprisoned his uncle in the cellar, and had given out his death, and had a false funeral of a coffin filled with stones. The invitation to his uncle's friend was a _coup de théâtre_: if any suspicions had existed, they must have been lulled for ever by the presence of such a guest in the château. But on the very day on which M. de Sartines had arrived, the old gentleman had contrived to escape from his cell, and wandering half imbecile about the house, made his way to the room where he remembered having so often been with his friend, and found there his friend himself.

"M. de Sartines saw the rightful owner of the castle reinstated, and the villainy of the wicked nephew exposed; but the old man died soon afterwards."

Here is another story which Mrs. Thornton told, apropos of the benefits of cousinship:--

"Frederick the Great was one day travelling incognito, when he met a student on his way to Berlin, and asked him what he was going to do there. 'Oh,' said the student, 'I am going to Berlin to look for a cousin, for I have heard of so many people who have found cousins in Berlin, and who have risen through their influence to rank and power, that I am going to try if I cannot find one too.' Frederick had much further conversation with him, and on parting said, 'Well, if you trust to me, I believe that I shall be able to find a cousin for you before you arrive at Berlin.' The student thanked his unknown friend, and they parted.

"Soon after he reached Berlin, an officer of the court came to the student, and said that he was his cousin, and that he had already used influence for him with the King, who had desired that he should preach before him on the following Sunday, but that he should use the text which the King himself should send him, and no other.

"The student was anxious to have the text, that he might consider his sermon, but one day after another of the week passed, and at last Sunday came and no text was sent. The time for going to church came, and no text had arrived. The King and the court were seated, and the unhappy student proceeded with the service, but still no text was given. At last, just as he was going up into the pulpit, a sealed paper was given to him. After the prayer he opened it, and it was ... blank! He turned at once to the congregation, and showing them the two sides of the paper, said, '_Here_ is nothing, and _there_ is nothing, and out of nothing God made the world'--and he preached the most striking sermon the court had ever heard."

Mrs. Thornton described how old Mr. Thornton had been staying in Somersetshire with Sir Thomas Acland, when he heard two countrymen talking together. One of them said to the other, who was trying to persuade him to do something, "Wal, noo, as they say, 'shake an ass and go.'" Mr. Thornton came back and said to Sir Thomas, "What very extraordinary proverbial expressions they have in these parts. Just now I heard a man say 'shake an ass and go'--such a _very_ extraordinary proverbial expression." "Well," said Sir Thomas, "the fact is there are a great many French expressions lingering in this neighbourhood: that meant 'Chacun à son goût!'"

Of the new acquaintances I made in Oxfordshire, those of whose hospitality I oftenest availed myself were the Cottrell Dormers, who lived at the curious old house of Rousham, above the Cherwell, near Heythrop. It is a beautiful place, with long evergreen shrubberies, green lawns with quaint old statues, and a long walk shaded by yews, with a clear stream running down a stone channel in the midst. Within, the house is full of old family portraits, and has a wonderful collection of MSS., and the pedigree of the family from Noah! Mr. and Mrs. Dormer were quaint characters: he always insisting that he was a Roman Catholic in disguise, chiefly to plague his wife, and always reading the whole of Pope's works, in the large quarto edition, through once a year; she full of kind-heartedness, riding by herself about the property to manage the estate and cottagers, always welcoming you with a hearty "Well, to be sure, and how do _you_ do?" She was a _maîtresse femme_, who ruled the house with a sunshiny success which utterly set at nought the old proverb--

"La maison est misérable et méchante Où la Poule plus haut que le Coq chante."

Mrs. Dormer was somehow descended from one of the daughters of Sir Thomas More, and at Cokethorpe, the place of her brother, Mr. Strickland, was one of the three great pictures by Holbein of the family of Sir Thomas More, which was long in the possession of the Lenthalls.[160] Another place in the neighbourhood of Rousham which I visited was Fritwell Manor, a most picturesque old house, rented by the father of my college friend Forsyth Grant--"Kyrie." Fritwell is a haunted house, and was inhabited by two families. When the Edwardes lived there in the summer, no figure was seen, but stains of fresh blood were constantly found on the staircase. When the Grants lived there, for hunting, in the winter, there was no blood, but the servants who went down first in the morning would meet on the staircase an old man in a grey dressing-gown, bleeding from an open wound in the throat. It is said that Sir Baldwin Wake, a former proprietor, quarrelled with his brother about a lady of whom they were both enamoured, and, giving out that he was insane, imprisoned him till real madness ensued. His prison was at the top of the house, where a sort of large human dog-kennel still exists, to which the unfortunate man is said to have been chained.

I made a delightful excursion with "Kyrie" to Wroxton Abbey and Broughton Castle--Lord Saye and Sele's--where we were invited to luncheon by Mr. Fiennes and Lady Augusta, in the former of whom I most unexpectedly found 'Twisleton'[161]--an old hero boy-friend of my Harrow school-days, whom I regarded then much as David Copperfield did Steerforth. The old castle is very picturesque, and the church full of curious monuments.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Christ Church, Oxford, April 25, 1859._--Arthur and I dined last night at Canon Jelf's. He was for thirteen years tutor to the King of Hanover, and while at the court fell in love with Countess Schlippenbach, the Queen's lady-in-waiting, who married him.... Dr. Jelf told a great deal that was interesting about the King: how, as Prince George, he would insist upon playing at being his Eton fag, brush his clothes, make his toast, &c.: that he was with the Prince at the time of the fatal accident which caused his blindness, when, in the garden at Kew, having just given half-a-crown to a beggar, he was whisking his purse round and round, when the ring at the end went into his eye. A fortnight's anxiety followed, and then came the great grief of his dear Prince one day saying to him when out shooting, 'Will you give me your arm, sir? I don't see quite so well as I ought to do. I think we had better go home.' Afterwards, instead of murmuring, the Prince only said, 'Those who will not obey must suffer: you told me not to whisk my things about in that way, and I disobeyed: it is right that I should suffer for it.'

"He gave many beautiful pictures of the King's after life: how the dear blind King, who bears no outward mark of his misfortune, always turns to the sun, as if seeking the light: of his marriage with his cousin of Saxe-Altenbourg, a true love-match: that he, the old tutor, was never forgotten, and that on his last birthday, when he least expected it, a royal telegram announced--'The King, the Queen, and the royal children of Hanover wish Dr. Jelf many happy new years.' The King always writes to Dr. and Mrs. Jelf on their wedding-day, which even their own family do not always remember, and on their silver-wedding he sent them a beautiful portrait of himself.

"Arthur, I imagine, rather likes having me here, though no outsiders would imagine so; but he finds me useful after a fashion, and is much annoyed if I allude to ever going into lodgings. He certainly does _exactly_ what he likes when I am there, and is quite as unreserved in his ways as if nobody whatever was present. I am generally down first. He comes in pre-engrossed, and there is seldom any morning salutation. At breakfast I sit (he wills it so) at the end of the table, pour out his excessively weak tea, and put the heavy buttered buns which he loves within his easy reach. When we are alone, I eat my own bread and butter in silence; but if undergraduates breakfast with us, it is my duty, if I know anything about it, so to turn the conversation that he may learn what their 'lines' are, and converse accordingly. Certainly the merry nonsense and childlike buoyancy which cause his breakfast parties to be so delightful, make the contrast of his silent irresponsiveness rather trying when we are alone--it is such a complete 'you are not worth talking to.' However, I have learnt to enjoy the first, and to take no notice of the other; indeed, if I can do so quite effectually, it generally ends in his becoming pleasanter. In amiable moments he will sometimes glance at my MSS., and give them a sanction like that of Cardinal Richelieu--'Accepi, legi, probavi.' After breakfast, he often has something for me to do for him, great plans, maps, or drawings for his lectures, on huge sheets of paper, which take a good deal of time, but which he never notices except when the moment comes for using them. All morning he stands at his desk by the study window (where I see him sometimes from the garden, which he expects me to look after), and he writes sheet after sheet, which he sometimes tears up and flings to rejoin the letters of the morning, which cover the carpet in all directions.[162] It would never do for him to marry, a wife would be so annoyed at his hopelessly untidy ways; at his tearing every new book to pieces, for instance, because he is too impatient to cut it open (though I now do a good deal in this way). Meantime, as Goethe says, 'it is the errors of men that make them amiable,' and I believe he is all the better loved for his peculiarities. Towards the middle of the day, I sometimes have an indication that he has no one to walk with him, and would wish me to go, and he likes me to be in the way then, in case I am wanted, but I am never to expect to be talked to during the walk. If not required, I amuse myself, or go on with my own work, and indeed I seldom see Arthur till the evening, when, if any one dines for whom he thinks it worth while to come out of himself, he is very pleasant, and sometimes very entertaining."

My mother spent a great part of the spring of 1859 at Clifton, whither I went to visit her, afterwards making a _tourette_ by myself to Salisbury, Southampton, Beaulieu, and Winchester.

"_Salisbury, April 12, 1859._--At 8-1/2 I was out on bleak Salisbury Plain, where, as the driver of my gig observed, 'it is a whole coat colder than in the valley.' What an immense desert it is! The day, so intensely grey, with great black clouds sweeping across the sky, was quite in character with the long lines of desolate country. At last we turned off the road over the turf, and in the distance rose the gigantic temple, with the sun shining through the apertures in the stones. It was most majestic and impressive, not a creature in sight, except a quantity of rabbits scampering about, and a distant shepherd."

The latter part of June 1859 I spent most happily in a pony-carriage tour in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire with my friend George Sheffield, who had just passed his examination at the Foreign Office. It was on this occasion that, as we were driving under a park wall in Buckinghamshire, I said to George, "Inside that park is a very fine old house, and inside the house is a very fine old sundial. We will go to see the house, and we will take away the sundial;" and we _did_, though at that moment I did not even know the name of the people who lived there. The old house was the Vatche, which had belonged to my great-great-grandfather, Bishop Hare, who married its heiress in the reign of George II., and I had heard of the sundial from the churchwarden of Chalfont, with whom I had had some correspondence about my ancestor's tomb. It was made on the marriage of Bishop Hare with Miss Alston and bore his arms. The family of Allen, then living at the Vatche, allowed us to see the house, and my enthusiasm at sight of the sundial, which was lying neglected in a corner, so worked upon the feelings of Mrs. Allen, that she gave it me. It is now in the garden at Holmhurst.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_June 16._--I have enjoyed a visit to the Henry Leycesters at White Place, which lies low in the meadows, but has the charm of a little creek full of luxuriant water-plants, down which Henry Leycester punts his guests into the Thames opposite Clifden; and how picturesque are the old yew-trees and winding walks of that beautiful place. Henry Leycester, to look upon, is like one of the magnificent Vandykes in the Brignole Palace at Genoa. Little Mrs. Leycester is a timid shrinking creature, who daily becomes terribly afraid of the domestic ghost (a lady carrying her head) as evening comes on. 'Imagine my feelings, Mr. Hare,' she says, 'my awful position as a wife and a mother, when my husband is away, and I am left alone in the long evenings with _her_.'"

"_June 17, Christ Church._--Last week the Dean, with much imprudence, punished two Christ Church men most severely for the same offence, but _one more than the other_. The next night the Deanery garden was broken into, the rose-trees torn up and flower-beds destroyed, the children's swing cut down, and the name of the injured man cut in large letters in the turf. It has created great indignation.

"My chief work, now I am at Oxford, is in the Bodleian, where I have much to look out and refer to, and where everything is made delightful by Mr. Coxe, the librarian,[163] who is not only the most accurate and learned person in the world, but also the most sympathetic, lively, and lovable. 'Never mind, dear boy,' he always says, the more trouble I give him. Anything more unlike the cut-and-dried type of Oxford Dons cannot be imagined. He has given me a plant (Linaria purpurea) from the tomb of Cicero.

"I should like to take my Master's degree, but the fees will be about £20. I could then vote at the election. I should certainly vote against Gladstone, though Arthur says he should vote for him 'with both hands and both feet.' ... I have great satisfaction in being here now, in feeling that I can be useful to Arthur, in preparing drawings for his lectures, &c., also that he really prefers my presence to my absence."

"_July 4._--I sate up till twelve last night preparing 'the bidding prayer' for Arthur (who was to preach the 'Act Sermon to-day at St. Mary's)--immensely long, as the _whole_ of the founders and benefactors have to be mentioned. Imagine my horror when, after the service, the Vice-Chancellor came up to Arthur and demanded to know why _he_ had not been prayed for! I had actually omitted his name of all others! Arthur said it was all the fault of 'Silvanus.' In his sermon on Deborah, Arthur described how the long vacation, 'like the ancient river, the river Kishon,' was about to form a barrier, and might wash away all the past and supply a halting-place from which to begin a new life: that the bondage caused by concealment of faults or debts might now be broken: that now, when undergraduates were literally 'going to their father,' they might apply the story of the Prodigal Son, and obtain that freedom which is truth."

In July I paid a first visit to my cousins, the Heber Percys, at Hodnet Hall, in order to meet Countess Valsamachi (Mrs. Heber Percy's mother).[164] The old Hodnet Hall was a long low two-storied house, like an immense cottage, or rather like a beehive, from the abundant family life which overcrowded it. The low dining-room was full of curious pictures of the Vernons, whose heiress married one of the Hebers, but when the pictures had been sent up to London to be cleaned, the cleaner had cut all their legs off. At this time a debt of £40,000 existed upon the Hodnet estate. Mr. Percy's father, the Bishop of Carlisle, had promised to pay it off when certain fees came in. At last the fees were paid, and the papers were in the house, only awaiting the signature of the Bishop. That day he fell down dead. When it was told to his children, they only said, "It is the will of God; we must not complain."

I had much conversation with Lady Valsamachi. Talking of religion, she spoke of an atheist who once grumbled at the dispensation of a gourd having such a slender stem, while an acorn was supported by an oak. "When he had done speaking, the acorn fell upon his nose; had it been the gourd, his nose would have been no more!"

We walked to where Stoke had been, so tenderly connected with past days. All was altered, except the Terne flowing through reedy meadows. It was less painful to me to see it than on my last visit, but cost me many pangs.

I joined my mother at Toft, where our dear cousin Charlotte Leycester was acting as mistress of the house, and gave us a cordial welcome to the old family home. Greatly did my mother enjoy being there, and the sight of familiar things and people. Especially was she welcomed by an old woman named Betty Strongitharm; I remember how this old woman said, "When I am alone, I think, and think, and think, and the end of all my thinking is that Christ is all in all ... but I do not want to go to heaven alone; I want to take a many others along with me."

JOURNAL.

"When we left Toft, we went to our cousins at Thornycroft. At Thornycroft was a labourer named Rathbone. One winter day, when his wife was in her confinement, she was in great want of something from Macclesfield, which her husband undertook to get for her when he went to his work in the town, but he said that he must take his little girl of ten years old with him, that she might bring it back to her mother. The woman entreated him not to take the child, as the snow was very deep, and she feared that she might not find her way home again. However, the father insisted, and set off, taking his little girl with him. The purchase was made and the child set off to return home with it, but she--never arrived.

"When Rathbone reached home in the evening, and found that his child had not appeared, he was in an agony of terror, and set off at once to search for her. He traced her to Monk's Heath. People had seen her there, and directed her back to Henbury, but she seemed to have lost her way again. Rathbone next traced her to a farmhouse at Peover, where the people had had the barbarity to turn her out at night and direct her back to Henbury. Then all trace of her was lost.

"At last Rathbone was persuaded by his friends and neighbours to apply to a woman whom they called 'the White Witch' at Manchester, and to her he went. She told him to look into a glass and tell her what he saw there. He looked into the glass and said, 'I see a man holding up his hat.' 'Well,' she said, 'then go on with your search, and when you meet a man holding up his hat, he will tell you where your child is.' So he returned and went again to search, taking another man with him. At length, as they were going down a lane, Rathbone exclaimed, 'There he is!'--'Who?' said the companion, for he only saw a man running and holding up his hat. That man told them that he had just found the body of a child under a tree, and there, near a pond, frozen to death, lay Rathbone's little girl.

"When we were at Thornycroft, Rathbone was still overwhelmed with contrition for what he considered the sin of having consulted the witch."

From Cheshire we went to the English Lakes. The curious old King's Arms Inn at Lancaster, described by Dickens, was then in existence, and it was a pleasure to sleep there, and walk in the morning upon the high terrace in front of the church and castle. From Ambleside, we spent a delightful day in making the round by Dungeon Ghyll and Blea Tarn, where we drew the soft grey peaks of Langdale Pikes, framed in dark heather-covered rocks, and in the foreground the blue tarn sleeping amid the pastures. From Keswick I ascended Skiddaw, and had a glorious view across the billows of mountains to the sea and the faint outlines of the Isle of Man. Another delightful day was spent with the mother and Lea in Borrowdale. One of the most beautiful effects I have ever seen was in crossing to Buttermere by Borrowdale Hawse, a tremendous wild mountain chasm, into which the setting sun was pouring floods of crimson light as we descended, smiting into blood the waters of the little torrent which was struggling down beside us through the rocks. We arrived at Buttermere very late, and found not a single room unoccupied in the village, so had to return in the dark night to Keswick.

We were much interested in Dumfries, in many ways one of the most foreign-looking towns in Britain, where we remained several days, making excursions to the exquisitely graceful ruins of Lincluden Abbey; to New Abbey (glorious in colour), founded by Devorgilda to contain the heart of John Baliol; to the Irongray Church, where Helen Walker, the original of Jeannie Deans, is buried, and where, on a rocky knoll under some old oaks, is a desolate Covenanter's grave; to Ellisland, the primitive cottage-home of Burns, overlooking the purple hills and clear rushing Nith; and to the great desolate castle of Caerlaverock near Solway Firth. The old churchyard of Dumfries reminded us of Père la Chaise in its forest of tombs, but was far more picturesque. Burns is buried there, with all his family. The exaggerated worship which follows Burns in Scotland rather sets one against him, and shows how many a saint got into the Calendar; for there are many there whose private lives would as little bear inspection as his. His son, formerly a clerk in Somerset House, had long been living at Dumfries upon a pension, and died there three years before our visit. Many are the old red sandstone gravestones in Dumfries and its neighbourhood bearing inscriptions to Covenanters, telling how they were "martyrs for adhering to the word of God, Christ's kingly government in his house, and the covenanted work of Reformation against tyrannie, perjury, and prelacie."

Amongst our Roman friends had been Mrs. Fotheringham of Fotheringham, whom we visited at the so-called Fotheringham Castle, a comfortable modern house, in Forfarshire. We went with her to spend a day with the charming old Thomas Erskine,[165] author of the "Essays," and since well known from his "Letters." With him lived his two beautiful and venerable old sisters, Mrs. Stirling and Mrs. Paterson, and their home of Linlathen contained many noble Italian pictures. Another excursion was to visit Miss Stirling Graham at Duntrune, a beautiful place overlooking the blue firth and bay of St. Andrews. Miss Graham was the authoress and heroine of "Mystifications," intimately bound up with all the literary associations of Edinburgh in the first half of the nineteenth century. She was also the nearest surviving relation of Claverhouse, and Duntrune was filled with relics of him.[166] She was a great bee-fancier and bee-friend, and would allow the bees to settle all over her. "My dear, where can you have lived all your life not to know about bees?" she said to a young lady who asked her some simple questions about them. At Fotheringham, the principal relic is a portrait of "the Flower of Yarrow" (said by Sir Walter Scott to have been such an ugly old woman at seventy), singing from a piece of music. The last cannibals in Scotland lived in a glen near Fotheringham, where carters and ploughmen were perpetually disappearing. The glen was known to be the abode of robbers, and at last a strong force was sent against them, and they were all killed, except one little girl of ten years old, whom it was thought a shame to destroy. She had not been with her preservers many days before she said, "Why do you never eat man's flesh? for if you once ate that, you would never wish to eat anything else again." My mother made an excursion from Fotheringham to see Panmure, where the housekeeper said to her that her Lord[167] was "very bad, for he had not killed a single _beast_ that year."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_August 22._--I went early by rail to Stonehaven, and walked to Dunottar. The sea was of the softest Mediterranean blue, and the walk along the edge of the cliffs, through the cornfields, looking down first on the old town and then on the different little coves with their curiously twisted and richly coloured rocks, most delightful. The castle is hidden by the uplands at first, but crowns the ridge of a magnificent rock, which runs far out into the sea, with a line of battered towers. In the depths are reefs covered with seaweed, between which the sea flows up in deep green pools.

"A narrow ledge of rock, of which you can scarcely make out whether it is natural or artificial, connects the castle with the mainland, and here through an arch in the wall you look down into a second bay, where the precipices, crested by a huge red fragment of tower, descend direct upon the water. High up in one of the turrets lives the keeper, a girl, who said that she was so used to climbing, that she could go anywhere where there was the least rest for the sole of her foot; that she did not care to have anything to hold on by, and had never known what it was to be giddy. The 'Whigs' Vault' is shown, in which a hundred and twenty Covenanters were chained, and, beneath it, the awfully close stifling dungeon in which forty-eight were confined, and many of them suffocated. The place still remains where they were let down from the more airy vault above, and also the hole through which their food was transmitted to them. On one side of the dungeon is the well of brackish water which is said (as in the prison of St. Peter) to have sprung up in one night to quench their thirst; on the other, the hole which, in their agonised desperation, they scratched with their hands through the wall, and by which five-and-twenty tried to escape, but were all dashed to pieces against the rocks or taken, except two; while, if the dark night had only allowed them to see it, there is a little footpath near, by which they might all have passed in safety. In the castle also are the chamber in which the Regalia of Scotland were concealed, and the well once supplied by pipes, the cutting of which by Cromwell caused the surrender of the garrison."

"_August 23, Eccles Greig, Montrose._--This is a charming place belonging to Kyrie's[168] father, and of which he is the heir. Miss Grant drove me to-day to Denfenella, a beautiful ravine of tremendous depth, where a lovely burn dashes over a precipice, and then rushes away to the sea through depths of rock and fern, amid which it makes a succession of deep shadowy pools. Endless are the Scottish stories about this place:

"That Queen Fenella--the fairy queen--first washed her clothes in the bright shining Morne, and then walked on the tops of the trees, by which means she escaped.

"That Queen Fenella, having murdered her husband, fled to Denfenella, where she flung herself over the rocks to escape justice.

"That Queen Fenella, widow of Kenneth III., after the death of her husband and her own escape from the Castle of Kincardine, fled to Denfenella, where she was taken and put to death.

"That Queen Fenella loved a beautiful youth, but that her enemies tried to force her to marry another; and that, rather than do so, she fled from her father's castle, which is at an immense distance from this, but, on reaching Denfenella, she felt that farther escape was hopeless, and let herself float down the stream and be carried away over the waterfall into the sea.

"All the stories, however, agree in one fact, that at midnight the beautiful Fenella still always walks in the braes where she died, and still washes her clothes in the bright shining Morne.

"We went on to the 'Came of Mathers,' a wild cove on the seashore with a ruined castle on the farthest point of an inaccessible precipice, beneath which the green waves rush through deep rifts of the rock, which is worn into caves and arches. The Sheriff of these parts was once very unpopular, and the lairds complained to King James, who said in a joke that it would be a very good thing if the Sheriff were boiled and cut up and made into browse. When the lairds heard this, they beguiled the Sheriff to Gavoch, where they had a huge caldron prepared, into which they immediately popped him, and boiled him, and cut him up. Then, literally to carry out the King's words, they each ate a part of him. Having done this, they were all so dreadfully afraid of King James, that they sought every possible means of escape, and the Laird of Arbuthnot, who had been one of the most forward in boiling the Sheriff, built this impregnable castle, where he lived in defiance of the King.

"Beneath the castle is a deep cleft in the rock, which seems endless. It is said to continue in a subterranean passage to Lauriston. The drummer of Lauriston once went up it, and tried to work his way through, but he never was seen again; and at night, it is said, that the drummer of Lauriston is still heard beating his drum in the cavern beneath."

Upon leaving Eccles Greig, I joined my mother, and went with her to St. Andrews, which I had always greatly desired that she should see. Even more than the wonderful charm of the place at this time was that of seeing much of the genial, witty, eccentric Provost, Sir Hugh Lyon Playfair. He first came up to me when I was drawing--an old man in a cloak--and invited me into his garden, whither we returned several times. That garden was the most extraordinary place, representing all the important facts of the history of the world, from chaos and the creation of the sun down to the Reform Bill, "whence," said Sir Hugh, "you may date the decline of the British Empire." On the same chart were marked the lengths of all the principal ships, while representations of the planets indicated their distance from the sun! No verbal description, however, can recall the genial oddity of the garden's owner. On Saturdays he used to open his garden to the public, and follow in the crowd to hear their opinion of himself. He said they would often say, "Ah! the poor Provost, he has more money than brains; he is sadly deficient here," pointing to the forehead. Once some of the people said to him, "We do so want to see the Provost; how _would_ it be possible to see Sir Hugh?"--"Oh," he answered, "I think you had better go and look in at the windows, and you will be sure to see him." So they all crowded to the windows, but there was no one to be seen. "Oh," he said, "I'll tell you why that is: that is because he is under the table. It is a way Sir Hugh has. He is so dreadfully shy, that whenever he hears any one coming, he always goes under the table directly." Presently, on going out, they met an official, who, coming up, touched his hat and said, "If you please, Sir Hugh, I've spoken to that policeman, as you ordered me," and the horrified people discovered their mistake, to Sir Hugh's intense amusement.

JOURNAL.

"_August 30._--A stormy day, but I went by train to Tynehead for Crichton. Two old ladies of ninety got into the carriage after me. An old gentleman opposite made a civil speech to one of them, upon which she tartly replied, 'I don't hear a word, for I thank Almighty God for all His mercies, and most of all that He has made me quite deaf, for if I heard I should be obliged to speak to _you_, and I don't _want_ to speak to you.'

"Crichton is a red ruined castle on a hill, with a distance of purple moorland, and inside is the courtyard so exactly described in 'Marmion.' With storm raging round it, it was awfully desolate. Close by is an old stumpy-towered thoroughly Scotch church."

After a visit to the Dalzels at North Berwick, my mother went south from Durham. I turned backwards to pay my first visit to Mrs. Davidson--the "Cousin Susan" with whom I was afterwards most intimate. "The beautiful Lord Strathmore," my great-grandmother's brother, so often painted by Angelica Kauffmann, who married "the Unhappy Countess," had two daughters, Maria and Anna. After Lady Strathmore was released from her brutal second husband, the one thing she had the greatest horror of for her daughters was matrimony, and she did all she could to prevent their seeing any one. But Lady Anna Bowes, while her mother was living in Fludyer Street, made the acquaintance of a young lawyer who lived on the other side the way, and performed the extraordinary acrobatic feat of walking across a plank suspended across the street to his rooms,[169] where she was married to him. The marriage was an unhappy one, but Mr. Jessop did not survive long, and left Lady Anna with two young daughters, of whom one died early: the other was "Cousin Susan." Lady Anna was given a home (in a house adjoining the park at Gibside) by her brother, John, Lord Strathmore, and her daughters were brought up in sister-like intimacy with his (illegitimate) son, John Bowes. Susan Jessop afterwards married Mr. Davidson of Otterburn, who, being a very rich man, to please her, bought and endowed her with the old Ridley property--Ridley Hall on South Tyne.

Cousin Susan was an active, bright little woman, always beautifully dressed, and with the most perfect figure imaginable. No one except Mr. Bowes knew how old she was, and he would not tell, but she liked to be thought very young, and still danced at Newcastle balls. She was a capital manager of her large estate, entered into all business questions herself, and would walk for hours about her woods, marking timber, planning bridges or summer-houses, and contriving walks and staircases in the most difficult and apparently inaccessible places.

Ridley Hall was the most intense source of pride to Cousin Susan, and though the house was very ugly, the place was indeed most beautiful. The house stood on a grassy hill above the South Tyne Railway, with a large flower-garden on the other side, where, through the whole summer, three hundred and sixty-five flower-beds were bright with every colour of the rainbow. I never saw such a use of annuals as at Ridley Hall--there were perfect sheets of Colinsia, Nemophila, and other common things, from which, in the seed-time, Cousin Susan would gather what she called her harvest, which it took her whole evenings to thresh out and arrange. A tiny inner garden, concealed by trees and rockwork, would have been quite charming to children, with a miniature thatched cottage, filled with the smallest furniture that could be put into use, bookcases, and pictures, &c. Beyond the garden was a lovely view towards the moors, ever varied by the blue shadows of clouds fleeting across them. Thence an avenue, high above the river, led to the kitchen-garden, just where the rushing Allen Water, seen through a succession of green arches, was hurrying to its junction with the Tyne. Here one entered upon the wood walks, which wound for five miles up and down hill, through every exquisite variety of scenery--to Bilberry Hill Moss House, with its views, across the woods, up the gorge of the Allen to the old tower of Staward Peel--to the Raven's Crag, the great yellow sandstone cliff crowned with old yew-trees, which overhangs the river--and across the delicately swung chain-bridge by the Birkie Brae to a lonely tarn in the hills, returning by the Swiss Cottage and the Craggy Pass, a steep staircase under a tremendous overhanging rock.

During my first visits at Ridley Hall, words would fail to express my enjoyment of the natural beauties of the place, and I passed many delightful hours reading in the mossy walks, or sketching amongst the huge rocks in the bed of the shallow river; but at Ridley more than anywhere else I have learnt how insufficient mere beauty is to fill one's life; and in later years, when poor Cousin Susan's age and infirmities increased, I felt terribly the desolation of the place, the miles and miles of walks kept up for no one else to enjoy them--the hours, and days, and weeks in which one might wander for ever and never meet a human being.

During my earlier visits, however, Cousin Susan would fill her house in the summer, especially in the shooting season. There was nothing particularly intellectual in the people, but a large party in a beautiful place generally finds sources of enjoyment: which were always sought on foot, for there was only one road near Ridley Hall, that along the Tyne valley, which led to Hexham on the east and Haltwhistle on the west. Constant guests and great friends of Cousin Susan were the two old Miss Coulsons--Mary and Arabella--of Blenkinsop, primitive, pleasant old ladies, and two of the most kind-hearted people I have ever known. Cousin Susan delighted in her denomination of "the Great Lady of the Tyne," and, in these earlier years of our intimacy, was adored by her tenantry and the people of the neighbouring villages, who several times, when she appeared at a public gathering, insisted on taking out her horses and drawing her home. With her neighbours of a higher class, Cousin Susan was always very exacting of attention, and very apt to take offence.

But no account of Ridley Hall can be complete without alluding to the dogs, of which there were great numbers, treated quite as human beings and part of the family. An extra dog was never considered an infliction; thus, when Cousin Susan engaged a new servant, he or she was always told that a dog would be especially annexed to them, and considered to belong to them. When the footman came in to put on the coals, his dog came in with him; when you met the housemaid in the passage, she was accompanied by her dog. On the first day of my arrival, Cousin Susan said at dessert, "John, now bring in the boys," and when I was expecting the advent of a number of unknown young cousins, the footman threw open the door, and volleys of little dogs rushed into the room, but all white Spitzes except the Chowdy-Tow, a most comical Japanese. Church service at Ridley Hall was held at the Beltingham Chapel, where Cousin Susan was supreme. The miserable little clergyman, who used to pray for "Queen-Victori-[=a]," was never allowed to begin till she had entered the church and taken her place in a sort of tribune on a level with the altar. Many of the dogs went to church too, with the servants to whom they were annexed. This was so completely considered a matter of course, that I never observed it as anything absurd till one day when my connections the Scotts (daughters of Alethea Stanley) came to the chapel from Sir Edward Blackett's, and were received into Cousin Susan's pew. In the Confession, one Miss Scott after another became overwhelmed with uncontrollable fits of laughter. When I looked up, I saw the black noses and white ears of a row of little Spitz dogs, one over each of the prayer-books in the opposite seat. Cousin Susan was furiously angry, and declared that the Scotts should never come to Ridley Hall again: it was not because they had laughed in church, but because they had laughed at the dogs!

Upon leaving Ridley Hall, I paid another visit, which I then thought scarcely less interesting. My grandmother's first cousin, John, Earl of Strathmore (who left £10,000 to my grandfather), was a very agreeable and popular man, but by no means a moral character. Living near his castle of Streatlam was a beautiful girl named Mary Milner, daughter of a market-gardener at Staindrop. With this girl he went through a false ceremony of marriage, after which, in all innocence, she lived with him as his wife. Their only boy, John Bowes, was sent to Eton as Lord Glamis. On his deathbed Lord Strathmore confessed to Mary Milner that their marriage was false and that she was not really his wife. She said, "I understand that you mean to marry me now, but that will not do: there must be no more secret marriages!" and, ill as he was, she had every one within reach summoned to attend the ceremony, and she had him carried to church and was married to him before all the world. Lord Strathmore died soon after he re-entered the house, but he left her Countess of Strathmore. It was too late to legitimatise John Bowes.

Lady Strathmore always behaved well. As soon as she was a widow, she said to all the people whom she had known as her husband's relations and friends, that if they liked to keep up her acquaintance, she should be very grateful to them, and always glad to see them when they came to her, but that she should never enter any house on a visit again: and she never did. My grandmother, and, in later years, "Italima," had always appreciated Lady Strathmore, and so had Mrs. Davidson, and the kindness they showed her was met with unbounded gratitude. Lady Strathmore therefore received with the greatest effusion my proposal of a visit to Gibside. She was a stately woman, still beautiful, and she had educated herself since her youth, but, from her quiet life (full of unostentatious charity), she had become very eccentric. One of her oddities was that her only measurement of time was one thousand years. "Is it long since you have seen Mrs. Davidson?" I said. "Yes, one thousand years!"--"Have you had your dog a long time?"--"A thousand years."--"That must be a very old picture."--"Yes, a thousand years old."

Seeing no one but Mr. Hutt, the agreeable tutor of her son, Lady Strathmore had married him, and by her wealth and influence he became member for Gateshead. He was rather a prim man, but could make himself very agreeable, and he was vastly civil to me. I think he rather tyrannised over Lady Strathmore, but he was very well behaved to her in public. Soon after her death[170] he married again.

Gibside was a beautiful place. The long many-orielled battlemented house was reached through exquisite woods feathering down to the Derwent. A tall column in the park commemorates the victory of George Bowes (the father of the unhappy 9th Lady Strathmore, who married a Blakiston, the heiress of Gibside) over Sir Robert Walpole at a Newcastle election. There was a charming panelled drawing-room, full of old furniture and pictures. The house had two ghosts, one "in a silk dress," being that Lady Tyrconnel who died in the house while living there on somewhat too intimate terms with John, Earl of Strathmore. He gave her a funeral which almost ruined the estate. Her face was painted like the most brilliant life. He dressed her head himself! and then, having decked her out in all her jewels, and covered her with Brussels lace from head to foot, he sent her up to London, causing her to lie in state at every town upon the road, and finally to be buried in Westminster Abbey!

At the end of the garden was the chapel, beneath which many of my Strathmore ancestors are buried--a beautiful building externally, but hideous within, with the pulpit in the centre. During the service on Sundays a most extraordinary effect was produced by the clerk not only giving out the hymns, but singing them entirely through afterwards by himself, in a harsh nasal twang, without the very slightest help from any member of the congregation.

* * * * *

After we parted at Paris in the autumn of 1858, Mrs. Hare and my sister, as usual, spent the winter at Rome, returning northwards by the seat of the war in Lombardy. Thence Esmeralda wrote:--

"_Turin, May 25, 1859._--Instead of a _dolce far niente_ at Frascati or Albano, we have been listening to the roaring of cannon. The Austrians are said to be fourteen miles off, but there is no apparent excitement in the town. The juggler attracts a crowd around him as usual in the piazza, the ladies walk about with their fans and smelling-bottles, the men sing _vivas_. The town is guarded by the _guardia civile_; all the regular troops have left for the battlefield. The nobility are either shut up or walk about in the streets, for all their carriage and riding horses have been taken from them for the use of the army. Bulletins are published twice a day, and give a short account of the engagements. The Piedmontese are confident of ultimate success: fresh French troops are pouring in every day. The lancers came in this morning with flying colours, splendidly mounted, and were received with thundering applause, the people shouting and clapping their hands, waving their handkerchiefs, and decorating them with bouquets and wreaths of flowers. I hear the Emperor has been waiting for the arrival of this regiment to begin war in earnest, and a great battle is expected on Monday.... We left Genoa at night, and came on by the ten o'clock train to the seat of war. The French were mounting guard in Alessandria,--the Zouaves and Turcos in their African dress lounging at the railway station. The Austrians had been repulsed the day before in trying to cross the river; the cannon had been rolling all day, but the officers were chatting as gaily as if nothing had happened, and were looking into the railway carriages for amusement. I longed to stop at Alessandria and go to see the camp, but Mama would not hear of it. There were troops encamped at distances all along the line.... We have had no difficulty in coming by land, though people tried to frighten us. We proceeded by _vetturino_ to Siena: everything was quiet, and we met troops of volunteers singing 'Viva l'Italia'--so radiant, they seemed to be starting for a festival. Five hundred volunteers went with us in the same train, and when we arrived at Pisa, more volunteers were parading the streets amid the acclamations of the people. At Genoa, hundreds of French soldiers were walking about the town, looking in at the shop-windows. Prince Napoleon Bonaparte was walking about the Via Balbi with his hands in his pockets, followed by great crowds.

"We packed up everything before leaving Palazzo Parisani, in case we should not be able to return there next winter. I will not think of the misery of being kept out of Rome; it would be too great. Perhaps you will see us in England this year, but it is not at all probable."

* * * * *

Alas! my sister did not return to Rome that year, or for many years after. "L'homme s'agite et Dieu le mêne."[171] Parisani was never again really her home. A terrible cloud of misfortune was gathering over her, accompanied by a series of adventures the most mysterious and the most incredible. I should not believe all that happened myself, unless I had followed it day by day; therefore I cannot expect others to believe it. As Lucas Malet says, "English people distrust everything that does not carry ballast in the shape of obvious dulness," and they are not likely, therefore, to believe what follows. But it is _true_ nevertheless. In narrating what occurred, I shall confine myself to a simple narrative of facts: as to the source of the extraordinary powers possessed by the lady who for some time exercised a great influence upon the fortunes of our family, I can offer no suggestion.

When Mrs. Hare and my sister arrived at Geneva in June 1859, though their fortunes had suffered very considerably by the Paul bankruptcy, they were still in possession of a large income, and of every luxury of life. To save the trouble of taking a villa, they engaged an excellent suite of apartments in the Hôtel de la Metropole, where they intended remaining for the greater part of the summer.

Soon after her arrival, Italima (Mrs. Hare) wrote to her banker for money, and was much astonished to hear from him that she had overdrawn her account by £150. Knowing that she ought at that season to have plenty of money in the bank, she wrote to her attorney, Mr. B. (who had the whole management of her affairs), to desire that he would pay the rest of the money due into Coutts', and that he would send her £100 immediately. She had no answer from Mr. B., and she wrote again and again, without any answer. She was not alarmed, because Mr. B. was always in the habit of going abroad in the summer, and she supposed that her letters did not reach him because he was away. Still, as she really wanted the money, it was very inconvenient.

One day, when she came down to the table-d'hôte, the place next to her was occupied by an elderly lady, who immediately attempted to enter into conversation with her. Italima, who always looked coldly upon strangers, answered shortly, and turned away. "Je vois, Madame," said the lady, with a most peculiar intonation, "que vous aimez les princesses et les grandeurs." "Yes," said Italima, who was never otherwise than perfectly truthful, "you are quite right; I do." And after that--it was so very singular--a sort of conversation became inevitable. But the lady soon turned to my sister and said, "_You_ are very much interested about the war in Italy: _you_ have friends in the Italian army: _you_ are longing to know how things are going on. I _see_ it all: to-morrow there will be a great battle, and if you come to my room to-morrow morning, you will hear of it, for I shall be _there_."--"Yes," said Esmeralda, but she went away thinking the lady was perfectly mad--quite raving.

The next morning, as my sister was going down the passage of the hotel, she heard a strange sound in one of the bedrooms. The door was ajar, she pushed it rather wider open, and there, upon two chairs, lay the lady, quite rigid, her eyes distended, speaking very rapidly. Esmeralda fetched her mother, and there they both remained transfixed from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. The lady was evidently at a great battle: she described the movements of the troops: she echoed the commands: she shuddered at the firing and the slaughter, and she never ceased speaking. At 3 P.M. she grew calm, her voice ceased, her muscles became flexible, she was soon quite herself. My sister spoke to her of what had taken place: she seemed to have scarcely any remembrance of it. At 6 P.M. they went down to dinner. Suddenly the lady startled the table-d'hôte by dropping her knife and fork and exclaiming, "Oh, l'Empereur! l'Empereur! il est en danger." She described a flight, a confusion, clouds of dust arising--in fact, all the final act of the battle of Solferino. That night the telegrams of Solferino came to Geneva, and for days afterwards the details kept arriving. Everything was what the lady described. It was at the battle of Solferino that she had been.

When my sister questioned the landlord, she learnt that the lady was known as Madame de Trafford, that she had been _née_ Mademoiselle Martine Larmignac (de l'Armagnac?), and that she was possessed of what were supposed to be supernatural powers. Esmeralda herself describes the next incident in her acquaintance with Madame de Trafford.

* * * * *

"One day when we were sitting in our room at Geneva, a lady came in, a very pleasing-looking person, perfectly _gracieuse_, even _distinguée_. She sat down, and then said that the object of her visit was to ask assistance for a charity; that Madame de Trafford, who was living below us, had given her sixty francs, and that she hoped we should not refuse to give her something also. Then she told us a story of a banker's family at Paris who had been totally ruined, and who were reduced to the utmost penury, and living in the greatest destitution at Lausanne. She entered into the details of the story, dwelling upon the beauty of the children, their efforts at self-help, and various other details. When she had ended, Mama said she regretted that she was unable to give her more than ten francs, but that she should be glad to contribute so much, and I was quite affected by the story, which was most beautifully told.

"Meantime, Madame de Trafford, by her secondsight, knew that she was going to be robbed, yet she would not forego her usual custom of keeping a large sum of money by her. She wrapped up a parcel of bank-notes and some napoleons in a piece of newspaper, and threw it upon the top of a wardrobe in which her dresses were hung. She told me of this, and said she had hidden the money so well that it was unlikely that any one could find it.

"In a few days, the lady came again to tell us of the improvement in the poor family, and she also went to see Madame de Trafford. She was alone with her, and Madame de Trafford told her about her money, and showed her the place where she had put it, asking her if she did not think it well concealed.

"Some days after, when we came up from dinner, we found the same lady, the _quêteuse_, walking up and down the gallery fanning herself. She said she had been waiting for Madame de Trafford, but had found her apartment so hot, she had left it to walk about the passage. We all went into the public sitting-room together, but Mama and I stayed to read the papers, whilst the lady passed on with Madame de Trafford to her room beyond, as she said she wished to speak to her. Soon she returned alone, and began talking to us, when ... the door opened, and in came Madame de Trafford, dreadfully agitated, looking perfectly livid, and exclaiming in a voice of thunder, 'On m'a volé,' and then, turning to the lady, 'Et voilà la voleuse.' Then, becoming quite calm, she said coldly, 'Madame, vous étiez seule pendant que nous étions à table; je vous prie donc de vous ... déshabiller.'--'Mais, Madame, c'est inoui de me soupçonner,' said the lady, 'mais ... enfin ... Madame....' But she was compelled to pass before Madame de Trafford into the bedroom and to undo her dress. In her purse were ten napoleons, but of these no notice was taken; she might have had them before. Then Madame de Trafford gave the lady five minutes to drop the notes she had taken, and came out to us--'Car c'est elle!' she said. In five minutes the lady came out of the room and passed us, saying, 'Vraiment cette Madame de Trafford c'est une personne très exaltée,' and went out. Then Madame de Trafford called us. 'Venez, Madame Hare,' she said. We went into the bedroom, and in the corner of the floor lay a bundle of bank-notes. 'Elle les a jeté,' said Madame de Trafford."

* * * * *

Of the same week my sister narrates the following:--

"One Sunday morning, the heat was so great, I had been almost roasted in going to church. In the afternoon Madame de Trafford came in. 'Venez, ma chère, venez avec moi à vêpres,' she said. 'Oh, non, il y a trop de soleil, c'est impossible, et je vous conseille de vous garder aussi d'un coup de soleil.'--'Moi, je vais à l'église,' she answered, 'et aussi je vais à pied, parceque je ne veux pas payer une voiture, et personne ne me menera pour rien; il n'y a pas de charité dans ce monde.' And she _went_.

"When she came back she said, 'Eh bien, ma chère, je suis allé à vêpres, mais je ne suis pas allé à pied. Je n'étais que sorti de l'hôtel, quand je voyais tous ces cochers avec leurs voitures en face de moi. "Et que feras tu donc, si tu trouveras la charité en chemin?" me disait la voix. "Je lui donnerai un napoléon." Eh bien, un de ces cochers, je le sentais, me menerait pour la charité: je le sentais, mais j'avançais toujours; et voilà que Pierre, qui nous avait amené avec sa voiture l'autre journée, me poursuivit avec sa voiture en criant, "Mais, madame, où allez vous donc: venez, montez, je ne veux pas vous voir vous promener comme cela; je vous menerai pour rien."--"Mais, Pierre, que voulez vous donc," je dis. "Mais montez, madame, montez; je vous menerai pour rien," il repetait, et je montais. Pierre m'emmenait à l'église, et voila la voix qui me dit, "Et ton napoléon," parceque j'avais dit que si je trouvais la charité en chemin, je lui donnerais un napoléon. Mais je n'ai pas voulu lui donner le napoléon de suite, parceque cela pouvait lui faire tourner la tête, et j'ai dit, "Venez, Pierre, venez me voir demain au soir. Vous avez fait un acte de la charité: Dieu vous recompensera."'

"Madame de Trafford always wore a miniature of the Emperor Napoleon in a ring which she had: the ring opened, and inside was the miniature. The next morning she showed it to me, and asked me to get it out of the ring, as she was going to send the ring to a jeweller to be repaired. I got scissors, &c., and poked, and thumped, and pulled at the picture, but I could not get it out of the ring: I could not move it in the least.

"In the morning Mama was with Madame de Trafford when Pierre came. I was not there. Pierre was a dull stupid Swiss lout of a _cocher_. 'Madame m'a commandé de venir,' he said, and he could say nothing else.

"Then Madame de Trafford held out a napoleon, saying, 'Tenez, Pierre, voilà un napoléon pour vous, parceque vous avez voulu faire un acte de la charité, et ordinairement il n'y a pas de charité dans ce monde.' ... But as Madame de Trafford stretched forth her hand, the ring flew open and the portrait vanished. It did not slip out of the ring, it did not fall--it vanished! it ceased to exist! 'Oh, le portrait, le portrait!' cried Madame de Trafford. She screamed: she was perfectly frantic. 'Quel portrait?' said Pierre, for he had seen none: he was stupefied: he could not think what it all meant. As for Mama, she was so terrified, she rushed out of the room. She locked her door, she declared nothing should induce her to remain in the same room with Madame de Trafford again.

"I went down to Madame de Trafford. She offered a napoleon to any one who would find the portrait. She was wild. I never saw her in such a state, never. Of course every one hunted, _garçons_, _filles-de-chambre_, every one, but not a trace of the portrait could any one find. At last Madame de Trafford became quite calm; she said, 'Je sens que dans une semaine j'aurai mon portrait, et je vois que ce sera un des braves du grand Napoléon qui me le rapportera.'

"I thought this very extraordinary, and really I did not remember that there was any soldier of the old Napoleon in the house. I was so accustomed to Félix as our old servant, it never would have occurred to me to think of him. The week passed. 'C'est la fin de la semaine,' said Madame de Trafford, 'et demain j'aurai mon portrait.'

"We had never told Victoire about the portrait, for she was so superstitious, we thought she might refuse to stay in the house with Madame de Trafford if we told her. But the next morning she came to Mama and said that a child who was playing in a garret at the top of the house had found there, amongst some straw, the smallest portrait ever seen, and had given it to Félix, and Félix had shown it to her, saying, 'Voila c'est bien fait çà; çà n'est pas un bagatelle; çà n'est pas un joujoux çà!' and he had put it away. 'Why, it is the lost portrait,' said Mama. 'What portrait?' said Victoire. Then Mama told Victoire how Madame de Trafford had lost the portrait out of her ring, and Félix took it back to her. It was when Félix took back the portrait that I first remembered he had been a soldier of the old Napoleon, and was even then in receipt of a pension for his services in the Moscow campaign.

"Félix refused the napoleon Madame de Trafford had offered as a reward; but she insisted on his having it, so he took it, and wears it on his watchchain always: he almost looks upon it as a talisman."

* * * * *

As Italima and Esmeralda saw more of Madame de Trafford, they learned that she was the second wife of Mr. Trafford of Wroxham in Norfolk. He did not live with her, because he said that when he married her he intended to marry Mademoiselle Martine Larmignac, but he did not intend to marry "Maricot," as she called the spirit--the "voice"--which spoke through her lips, and live with Maricot he would not. He showed his wife every possible attention, and placed implicit confidence in her. He left her entire control of her fortune. He constantly visited her, and always came to take leave of her when she set off on any of her journeys; but he could not live with her.

One day Italima received a letter from her eldest son Francis, who said that he knew she would not believe him, but that Mr. B. was a penniless bankrupt, and that she would receive no more money from him. She did not believe Francis a bit, still the letter made her anxious and uncomfortable: no money had come in answer to her repeated letters, and there were many things at Geneva to be paid for. That day she came down to the table-d'hôte looking very much harassed. Madame de Trafford said to my sister, "Your mother looks very much agitated: what is it?" Esmeralda felt that, whether she told her or not, Madame de Trafford would know what had happened, and she told her the simple truth. Madame de Trafford said, "Now, do not be surprised at what I am going to say; don't be grateful to me; it's my vocation in life. Here is £80: take it at once. That is the sum you owe in Geneva, and you have no money. I knew that you wanted that sum, and I brought it down to dinner with me. Now I know all that is going to happen: it is written before me like an open book,--and I know how important it is that you should go to England at once. I have prepared for that, and I am going with you. In an hour you must start for England." And such was the confidence that Italima and Esmeralda now had in Madame de Trafford, such was her wonderful power and influence, that they did all she told them: they paid their bills at Geneva with the money she gave, they left Félix and Victoire to pack up and to follow them to Paris, and they started by the night-train the same evening with Madame de Trafford.

That was an awful night. My sister never lost the horror of it. "Madame de Trafford had told me that extraordinary things often happened to her between two and four in the morning," said Esmeralda. "When we went with her through the night in the coupé of the railway-carriage, she was very anxious that I should sleep. Mama slept the whole time. 'Mais dormez donc, ma chère,' she said, 'dormez donc.'--'Oh, je dormirai bientôt,' I always replied, but I was quite determined to keep awake. It was very dreadful, I thought, but if anything _did_ happen, I would see what it was. As it drew near two o'clock I felt the most awful sensation of horror come over me. Then a cold perspiration broke out all over me. Then I heard--oh, I cannot describe it! a most awful sound--a voice--a sort of squeak. It spoke, it was a language; but it was a language I did not understand,[172] and then something came out of the mouth of Madame de Trafford--bur-r-r-r! It passed in front of me, black but misty. I rushed at it. Madame de Trafford seized me and forced me back upon the seat. I felt as if I should faint. Her expression was quite awful. No one knows it but Mama. Some time after, Mr. Trafford spoke to me of a hunchback in Molière, who had a voice speaking inside him, over which he had no control, and then he said, 'What my wife has is like that.'"

As they drew near Paris, Madame de Trafford began to describe her apartments to my sister. It was like a description of Aladdin's palace, and Esmeralda did not believe it. When they reached the station, Madame de Trafford said, "I have one peculiarity in my house: I have no servants. I used to have them, but I did not like them; so now, when I am at Paris, I never have them: therefore, on our way from the station, we will stop as we pass through the Rue St. Honoré, and buy the bread, and milk, and candles--in fact, all the things we want." And so they did.

The carriage stopped before a _porte cochère_ in the Champs Elysées, where Madame de Trafford got a key from the concierge, and preceded her guests up a staircase. When she unlocked the door of the apartment, it was quite dark, and hot and stuffy, as closed rooms are, but when the shutters were opened, all that Madame de Trafford had said as to the magnificence of the furniture, &c., was more than realised--only there were no servants. Madame de Trafford herself brought down mattresses from the attics, she aired and made the beds, and she lighted the fire and boiled the kettle for supper and breakfast.

Of that evening my sister wrote:--

"I shall never forget a scene with Madame de Trafford. I had gone to rest in my room, but I did not venture to stay long. She also had been up all night, but that was nothing to her--_paresse_ was what she could never endure. When I went into her room, she had the concierge with her, but she was greatly excited. She was even then contending with her spirit. 'Taisez-vous, Maricot,' she was exclaiming. 'Voulez vous vous taire: taisez-vous, Maricot.' I saw that the concierge was getting very angry, quite boiling with indignation, for there was no one else present, and she thought Madame de Trafford was talking to her. 'Mais, madame, madame, je ne parle pas,' she said. But Madame de Trafford went on, 'Va-t'en, Maricot: va-t'en donc.'--'Mais, madame, je suis toute prête,' said the concierge, and she went out, banging the door behind her."[173]

* * * * *

Madame de Trafford told my sister in Paris that her extraordinary power had first come to her, as it then existed, many years before in the Church of S. Roch. She had gone there, not to pray, but to look about her, and, as she was walking round the ambulatory, there suddenly came to her the extraordinary sensation that she _knew_ all that those kneeling around her were thinking, feeling, and wishing. Her own impression was one of horror, and an idea that the power came from evil; but kneeling down then and there before the altar, she made a solemn dedication of herself; she prayed that such strange knowledge might be taken away, but, if that were not to be, made a vow to turn the evil against itself, by using it always for good.

People suddenly ruined--whom Madame de Trafford called "the poor rich"--she considered to be her peculiar vocation, because in her younger life she had twice been utterly ruined herself. Once it was in England. She had only a shilling left in the world, and, in her quaint way of narrating things, she said, "Having only a shilling left in the world, I thought what I had better do, and I thought that, as I had only a shilling left in the world, I had better go out and take a walk. I went out, and I met a man, and the man said to me, 'Give me something, for I have nothing left in the world,' and I gave him sixpence, and I went on. And I met a woman, and the woman said to me, 'Give me something, for I have nothing whatever left in the world.' And I said, 'I cannot give you anything, for I have only sixpence left in the world, so I cannot give you anything.' And the woman said, 'But you are much richer than I, for you are well dressed; you have a good bonnet, a gown, and shawl, while I am clothed in rags, and so you must give me something.' And I thought, 'Well, that is true,' so I gave her the sixpence, and I went on. At the corner of the street I found a sovereign lying in the street. With that sovereign I paid for food and lodging. The next day I had remittances from an uncle I had long supposed to be dead, and who expressed the wish that I should come to him. He died and left me his heiress: money has since then always flowed in, and I go about to look for the poor rich." A presentiment would come to Madame de Trafford, or the voice of Maricot would tell her, where she would be needed, and she would set out. Thus she went to Geneva to help some one unknown. She moved from hotel to hotel until she found the right one; and she sat by person after person at the table-d'hôte, till she felt she was sitting by the right one; then she waited quietly till the moment came when she divined what was wanted.

The morning after their arrival in Paris, Madame de Trafford stood by my sister's bedside when she awoke, ready dressed, and having already put away most of the things in the apartment. As soon as breakfast was over, a carriage came to take them to the station, and they set off for Boulogne, where Madame de Trafford set her guests afloat for England with £40 in their pockets. Thus they arrived on the scene of action.

Straight from London Bridge Station they drove to Mr. B.'s office. He was there, and apparently delighted to see them. "Well, Mr. B., and pray why have you sent me no money?" asked Italima. "Why, I've sent you quantities of money," said Mr. B., without a change of countenance. "If you write to Messrs. O. & L., the bankers at Geneva, you will find it's all there. I have sent you money several times," and he said this with such perfect _sangfroid_ that they believed him. Italima then said, "Well now, Mr. B., I should wish to see the mortgages," because from time to time he had persuaded her to transfer £46,000 of her own fortune from other securities to mortgages on a Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall. Mr. B. replied, "Do you know, when you say that, it would almost seem as if you did not quite trust me."--"That I cannot help," said Italima, "but I should wish to see the mortgages."--"There is no difficulty whatever," said Mr. B.; "you could have seen them last year if you had wished: to-day you cannot see them because they are in the Bank, and the Bank is closed, but you can fix any other day you like for seeing them,"--and they fixed the following Wednesday. Afterwards Mr. B. said, "Well, Mrs. Hare, you do not seem to have trusted me as I deserve, still I think it my duty to give you the pleasant news that you will be richer this year than you have ever been in your life. A great deal of money is recovered from the Paul bankruptcy, which you never expected to see again; all your other investments are prospering, and your income will certainly be larger than it has ever been before." Italima was perfectly satisfied. That evening she made my sister write to Mrs. Julius Hare and say, "We are convinced that Mr. B. is the best friend we have in the world. Augustus was always talking against him, and we have been brought to England by a raving mad Frenchwoman who warned us against him; but we will never doubt or mistrust him any more."

When the Wednesday came on which they were to see the mortgages, Italima was not well, and she said to my sister, "I am quite glad I am not well, because it will be an excuse for you to go and fetch the mortgages, when we can look them over quietly together." My sister went off to Lincoln's Inn, but before going to Mr. B., she called at the house of another lawyer, whom she knew very well, to ask if he had heard any reports about Mr. B. "I pray to God, Miss Hare, that you are safe from that man," was all he said. She rushed on to the office. Mr. B. was gone: the whole place was _sotto-sopra_: everything was gone: there were no mortgages: there was no Mr. Howell's estate: there was no money: £60,000 was gone: there was absolutely nothing left whatever.

Never was ruin more complete! Italima and Esmeralda had _nothing_ left: not a loaf of bread, not a penny to buy one--nothing. My sister said she prayed within herself as to how she could possibly go back and tell her mother, and it seemed to her as if a voice said, "Go back, go back, tell her at once," and she went. When she reached the door of Ellison's hotel, where they were staying, the waiter said a gentleman was sitting with her mother, but it seemed as if the voice said, "Go up, go up, tell her at once." When she went in, her mother was sitting on the sofa, and a strange gentleman was talking to her. She went up to her mother and said, "Mama, we are totally ruined: Mr. B. has taken flight: we have lost everything we have in the world, and we never can hope to have anything any more." The strange gentleman came in like a special intervention of Providence. He was a Mr. Touchet, who had known Italima well when she was quite a girl, who had never seen her since, and who had come that day for the first time to renew his acquaintance. He was full of commiseration and sympathy with them over what he heard; he at once devoted himself to their service, and begged them to make use of him: the mere accident of his presence just broke the first shock.

Lady Normanby was at Sydenham when the catastrophe occurred; she at once came up to London and helped her cousins for the moment. Then Lady Shelley, the daughter-in-law of Italima's old friend Mrs. Shelley (see chap. i.), fetched them home to her at Boscombe near Bournemouth, and was unboundedly kind to them. Sir Percy Shelley offered them a cottage rent-free in his pine-woods, but they only remained there three weeks, and then went to Lady Williamson at Whitburn Hall near Sunderland, where I first saw them.

Everything had happened exactly as Madame de Trafford had predicted. My sister wrote to me:--

"The most dreadful news. We are _ruined_. Mr. B. has bolted, and is a fraudulent bankrupt. Nobody knows where he is. We are nearly wild. God help us. I hardly know what I am writing. What is to become of Francis and William? We hardly know what we have lost. I fear B. has seized on Mama's mortgages. Pray for us."

We received this letter when we were staying at Fotheringham. We were very much shocked, but we said that when my sister talked of absolute ruin, it was only a figure of speech. She and her mother might be very much poorer than they had been, but there was a considerable marriage settlement; that, we imagined, B. could not have possessed himself of.

But it was too true; he had taken everything. The marriage settlement was in favour of younger children, I being one of the three who would have benefited. Some years before, Mr. B. had been to Italima and persuaded her to give up £2000 of my brother William's portion, during her life, in order to pay his debts. On her assenting to this, Mr. B. had subtly entered the whole sum mentioned in the settlement, instead of £2000, in the deed of release, and the two trustees had signed without a question, so implicit was their faith in Mr. B., who passed not only for a very honourable, but for a very religious man. Mr. B. had used the £2000 to pay William's debts, and had taken all the rest of the money for himself. About Italima's own fortune he had been even less scrupulous. Mr. Howell's estate in Cornwall had never existed at all. Mr. B. had taken the £46,000 for himself; there had been no mortgages, but he had paid the interest as usual, and the robbery had passed undetected. He had kept Italima from coming upon him during the last summer by cutting off her supplies, and all might have gone on as usual if Madame de Trafford had not brought his victims to England, and Italima had not insisted upon seeing the mortgages.

The next details we received were from my aunt Eleanor Paul.

"_Sept._ 1, 1859.--B. is bankrupt and has absconded. They think he is gone to Sweden. The first day there were bills filed against him for £100,000, the second day for £100,000 more, all money that he swindled people out of. I have not suffered personally, as the instant I heard there was anything against him, I went to his house, demanded my securities, put them in my pocket, and walked away with them. But I fear B. has made away with all the mortgages your mother and sister were supposed to have, or that they never existed, as they are not forthcoming. It is supposed that he has also made away with all the trust-money, besides the £5000 left to your sister by her aunt. At this moment they are penniless.... Your mother went to B. as soon as she arrived and desired to have the mortgages. He promised to have them ready in a few days, and meantime he talked her over, and made her believe he was a most honourable man. Before the day came he had bolted...."

I went from Gibside to Whitburn to be there when Italima arrived. Her despair and misery were terrible to witness. She did nothing all day but lament and wail over her fate, and was most violent to my sister, who bore her own loss with the utmost calmness and patience. Nothing could exceed Lady Williamson's kindness to them. She pressed them to stay on with her, and cared for them with unwearied generosity during the first ten months of their destitution. Many other friends offered help, and the Liddell cousins promised an annual subscription for their maintenance; but the generosity which most came home to their hearts was that of their old Roman friend Mr. William Palmer, who out of his very small income pressed upon them a cheque for £150. In this, as in all other cases of the kind, those who had least gave most. One idea was to obtain admission for them to St. Catherine's Almshouses for ladies of good family, but this was unwisely, though generously, opposed by my Aunt Eleanor.

"I am inclined to quarrel with you for ever mentioning the word 'Almshouse.' I have lived with my sister during her richer days, and certainly do not mean to desert her in her distress. I only wish she could think as I do. We can live in a smaller domain very happily, and if the worst come to the worst, I have £300 a year, and if the Liddell family allow £150, that, with the colliery shares, would make up £500 a year between us: and I have every prospect of recovering at least a portion of my fortune, and if I do, shall have £200, perhaps £300 a year more, making £800. Knowing this, I think it wrong to make oneself miserable. Francis and William must work: they have had their share of the fortune. I am only waiting till something is settled with regard to my affairs, but desertion has never for a moment entered my brain, and I hope you never gave me credit for anything so barbarous."[174]

_To_ MY MOTHER (before seeing Italima).

"_Whitburn Hall_, _Sept._ 13.--Nothing can exceed Lady Williamson's kindness about Italima. Though she can ill afford it, she at once sent them £110 for present necessities.... She does not think it possible they can ever return to Rome, but having to part with Félix and Victoire is the greatest of their immediate trials. In addition to her invalid husband and son, Lady Williamson, the good angel of the whole family, has since her father's death taken the entire charge of his old sister, Mrs. Richmond--'Aunt Titchie.' Victor and I have just been paying a visit in her bedroom to this extraordinary old lady, who was rolled up in petticoats, with a little dog under a shawl by way of muff. She is passionately fond of eating, and dilated upon the goodness of the cook--'Her tripe and onions are de-licious!'--'I like a green gosling, and plenty of sage and stuffing, that's what _I_ like.'

"She is a complete Mrs. Malaprop. 'I was educated, my dear,' she said, 'at a cemetery for young ladies;' but this is only a specimen. She is also used to _very_ strong language, and till she became blind, she used to hunt all over the country in top-boots and leathern breeches, like a man. When her husband died, she went up from Mrs. Villiers' house at Grove Mill to prove his will. Adolphus Liddell met her at the station, and helped her to do it, and then took her to the 'Ship and Turtle' and gave her real turtle--in fact, a most excellent luncheon. He afterwards saw her off at Euston. She is blind, you know, and took no notice of there being other passengers in the carriage, and greatly astonished they must have been, as he was taking leave of her, to hear the old lady say in her deliberate tones, 'Capital turtle! de-e-licious punch! Why, lor bless ye! I'd prove my husband's will once a week to get such a blow-out as that.'

"I thought this place hideous at first, but it improves on acquaintance, and has its availabilities, like everything else: there is a fine sea with beautiful sands, and the flower-garden is radiant."

"_Sept. 15._--I long for you to know Lady Williamson. Of all people I have ever known, she has the most _truly_ Christian power of seeing the virtues of every one and passing over their faults. She also has to perfection the not-hearing, not-seeing knack, which is the most convenient thing possible in such a mixed family circle.

"Charlie Williamson arrived yesterday, and, with the most jovial entertaining manner, has all his mother's delicacy of feeling and excessive kindness of heart. When he heard of the B. catastrophe, he went up at once from Aldershot to see Italima in London. 'Your mother was quite crushed,' he says, 'but as for your dear sister, there isn't a girl in England has the pluck she shows. She never was down for a moment, not she: no, she was as cheery as possible, and said, "Mama, it is done, and it is not our fault, so we must learn to make the best of it." People may say what they like, but she is real downright good, and no mistake about it.'

"I have been with Victor to Seaton Delaval--the 'lordly Seaton Delaval' of 'Marmion,' scene of many of the iniquities of the last Lord Delaval. It is a magnificent house, but the centre is now a ruin, having been burnt about eighty years ago, by the connivance, it is said, of its then owner, Sir Jacob Astley. There is a Norman chapel, full of black effigies of knights, which look as if they were carved out of coal, and in one of the wings is a number of pictures, including Lord Delaval's four beautiful daughters, one of whom married the village baker, while another was that Lady Tyrconnel who died at Gibside.

"I hope I shall know all these cousins better some day. At present, from their having quite a different set of friends and associations, I always feel as if I had not a single thing to say to them, and I am sure they all think I am dreadfully stupid.... But I am enchanted with Charlie Williamson, his tremendous spirits and amusing ways."

"_Sept. 17._--At 8-1/2, as we were sitting at tea, Lady Williamson put her head in at the drawing-room door and said, 'Come down with me; they are arriving.' So we went to the hall-door just as the carriage drove up, and Italima got out and flung herself into Lady Williamson's arms.... Both she and Esmeralda looked utterly worn-out, and their account was truly awful.... Lady Normanby came at once to their assistance--but what touched them most was the kindness of dear good Charlie Williamson, who came up directly from Aldershot, bringing them all he had--£50."

"_Sept. 18._--It has now come out that Mr. B. was the person who had Francis arrested, and he kept him in prison while he plundered his estate of £17,000. It has also transpired that when, on a former occasion, Sir J. Paul gave Mr. B. £1000 to pay Francis's debts, he never paid them, but appropriated the money. B. has robbed Italima of the whole of her own fortune besides her marriage settlement. Two years ago he arranged with the trustees and Italima to sell £2000 of the settlement fund to pay William's debts, and presented to the trustees, as they supposed, papers to sign for this purpose. They trusted to B. and did not examine the papers, which they now find empowered him to take possession not only of the £2000, but of the whole fund!"

"_Sept. 19._--Italima's state is the most hopeless I ever saw, because she absolutely refuses to find hope or comfort or pleasure in anything, and as absolutely refuses to take any interest or bestir herself in any measures for the recovery of her lost fortune.... When any one tries to elicit what she recollects about the mortgages, she will begin the story, and then bury herself in the sofa-cushions, and say we are killing her by asking her questions, and that if we do not want her to die, she must be quiet. She is furious with me because I will not see that the case is quite hopeless, and quite acts up to her promise of never regarding me with the slightest affection.... The state of Italima is appalling, but my sister is perfectly calm. Lady Williamson is kindness itself; and as for Charlie, I never knew his equal for goodness, consideration, and generosity.

"I wish you could hear Lady Williamson sing; even when she was a little girl, Catalani said that her voice was better than her own, and that if it were necessary for her to sing publicly, she would be the first singer in Europe."

"_Sept. 21._--Italima is daily more entirely woe-begone, and her way of receiving her misfortunes more bitter.... It seems a trouble to her even to see her cousins so prosperous, while she ...! The Normanbys are here and most kind, though much out of patience with her.... Old Mrs. Richmond, who has been very kind throughout, sent for my sister the other day to her room, and gave her five pounds to buy winter clothes, and has sent for patterns to Edinburgh for a warm dress for her."

"_Sandhutton Hall, Sept. 24._--I left Whitburn yesterday, very sorry to part with the dear kind cousins, with whom I had a tender leave-taking--not so with Italima, who took no more notice of my departure than she had done of my visit."

The only event of our home-autumn was the death of the Rector of Hurstmonceaux, who had succeeded my uncle, and the appointment of the charming old Dr. Wellesley[175] in his place. In November I was at Harrow with the Vaughans, meeting there for the first time two sets of cousins, Lord and Lady Spencer,[176] and Sir John Shaw-Lefevre,[177] with two of his daughters. With the latter cousins I made a great friendship. Then I returned to Oxford.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Christ Church, Dec. 6, 1859._-My whole visit here this time has been enjoyable. Arthur is always so very good and kind, so _knowing_ in what will give one pleasure: which I especially feel in his cordiality to all my friends when they come here. Then it is so interesting and delightful being perpetually examined by him in different parts of history, and charming to feel that I can in a small way be useful to him in looking out or copying things for his lectures, &c. Victor Williamson and Charlie Wood come in and out constantly.

"Mr. Richmond the artist is here. I quite long to be Arthur, going to sit to him: he is so perfectly delightful: no wonder his portraits are always smiling."

In the winter of 1859-60 I made a much-appreciated acquaintance with Sir George Grey, author of "Polynesian Mythology."

JOURNAL.

"_Dec. 15, 1859._--At the Haringtons' I met Sir George and Lady Grey. I was very anxious to make acquaintance, but much afraid that I should not have an opportunity of doing so, as I was never introduced. As they were going away, I expressed regret at having missed them before, and he hoped that we should meet another time. I suppose I looked very really sorry for not seeing more of him, for, after a consultation in the passage, he came back, and asked if I would walk part of the way with him. I walked with him all the way to Windmill Hill, where he was staying: he walked home with me: I walked home with him; and he home with me for the third time, when I was truly sorry to take leave, so very interesting was he, and so easy to talk to. We began about Polynesian Mythology--then poetry--then Murray, who, he said, had just paid Dr. Livingstone £10,000 as _his_ share of the profits on his book--then of Lord Dillon, who, he said, had led them the most jovial rollicking life when he went to Ditchley to look over MSS., so that he had done nothing.

"Then he talked of the Church in the Colonies. He said that High Churchism had penetrated to the Cape to the greatest extent, and that the two or three churches where it was carried out were thronged as fashionable: that one of the views preached was, that religion was a belief in whatever you fancied was for your good, so that if you fancied that, our Lord being one with God, it would be well for you to have a mediator between yourself and Him, you ought then to believe in that mediator, and to invoke your guardian angel as the mediator most natural. Another tenet was that prayer was only 'a tracter' to draw down the blessings of God--that, as there were three kinds of prayer, so there were three kinds of tracters--that individual prayer would draw down a blessing on the individual, family prayer on a family, but that public prayer, as proceeding from the mouth of a priest, could draw down a blessing on the whole state. Sir George had heard a sermon on 'It is needful for you that I go away from you,' &c., proving that it _was_ needful, because if not, Christ would have to have remained as an earthly king, have had to negotiate with other kings, meddle in affairs of state, &c.--also because he would have been made 'a lion' of--perhaps have become an object of pilgrimage, &c.

"Sir George said that the Wesleyan Methodists lived a holier, more spiritual life in the Colonies, but then it was because religion was there so easy to them; in London it would not be so; that London, the place in the world most unsuited to Christianity, lived on a great world of gambling-houses, brothels, &c., as if there were no God; no one seemed to care. He said what a grand thing it would be if, in one of the great public services in St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey, the preacher were to shout out as his awful text--'Where art thou, Adam?'--and show how the Lord would look in vain for _His_ in most parts of London--where, _where_ had they hidden themselves?

"Sir George told me an anecdote of a dog in New Zealand--that two officers were walking by the shore, and that one of them said, 'You declare your dog will do everything. I'll bet you he does not fetch that if you tell him,' and he threw his walking-stick into a canoe lying out at some distance in the shallow water, where the natives wade up to their waists to get into them, and where they are secured by strong hempen cords. The dog, when told, instantly swam out, but, as the man who made the bet had foreseen, whenever he tried to scramble into the canoe to get the stick, it almost upset, and at length, after repeated struggles, he was obliged to swim to shore again and lie down to rest. Once rested, however, without a second bidding, he swam out again, and this time gnawed through the cord, pulled the canoe on shore, and then got the stick out, and brought it to his master."[178]

I told Arthur Stanley much of this conversation with Sir George Grey. Some time after, he was very anxious that I should go to hear Dr. Vaughan preach in a great public service under the dome of St. Paul's. I went, and was startled by the text--"Where art thou, Adam?"

In January 1860 I paid a delightful visit to Sir John Shaw-Lefevre at Sutton Place, near Guildford, a beautiful old brick house with terra-cotta ornaments, which once belonged to Sir Francis Weston, Anne Boleyn's reputed lover. Besides the large pleasant family of the house, Lord Eversley and his daughter were there, and Sophia, daughter of Henry Lefevre, with Mr. Wickham, whom she soon afterwards married.

JOURNAL.

"_Sutton Place, Jan. 8._--Lord Eversley has been talking of Bramshill, the old home of Prince Henry, where Archbishop Abbott shot a keeper by accident, in consequence of which it became a question whether consecration rites received at his hands were valid. Lord Eversley did not believe that the oak in the park, from which the arrow glanced (with the same effect as in the case of Rufus), was the real tree, because it was _too_ old: oaks beyond a certain age, after the bark has ceased to be smooth, do not allow an arrow to glance and rebound.

"The Buxtons sent me a ticket for Lord Macaulay's funeral, but I would not leave Sutton to go. Sir John went, and described that, as often in the case of funerals and other sad ceremonies, people, by a rebound, became remarkably merry and amusing, and that they had occupied the time of waiting by telling a number of uncommonly good stories. The sight of Lady Holland[179] and her daughters amongst the mourners had reproduced the bon-mot of Mrs. Grote, who, when asked how this Lady Holland was to be distinguished from the original person of the name, said, 'Oh, this is New Holland, and her capital is Sydney.'

"Apropos of Macaulay, Sir John remarked how extraordinary it was in growing age to see a person pass away whose birth, education, public career, and death were all within your memory.

"He said how unreadable 'Roderick Random' and 'Tom Jones' were now. A lady had asked to borrow 'Pamela' from his library, saying she well remembered the pleasure of it in her youth; but she returned it the next day, saying she was quite ashamed of having asked for anything so improper.

"Yesterday was Sunday, and I groped my way through the dark passages to the evening service in the Catholic chapel, which has always been attached to the house. An old priest, seated on the steps of the altar, preached a kind of catechetical sermon upon Transubstantiation--'My flesh is meat _indeed_'--'and the poor Protestants have this in their Bibles, and yet they throw away the benefit of the _indeed_.' The sight was most picturesque--the dark old-fashioned roof, only seen by the light of the candles on the richly decorated altar, and the poor English peasants grouped upon the benches. It carried one back to the time before the Reformation. In his discourse, the old priest described his childhood, when he sat in the east wing of the house learning his catechism, and when there were only two Catholics in Guildford; and 'what would these two solitary ones say now if they had seen the crowd in St. Joseph's Chapel at Guildford this morning? Yes, what would old Jem Savin say if he could rise up and see us now, poor man?'"

_To_ MY MOTHER (after I had returned to my Handbook explorations).

"_Aldermaston Hall, Berks, Jan. 14, 1860._--I came here from Newbury. The weather was so horrible, and the prospect of a damp lonely Sunday in an inn so uninviting, that I thought over all possible and impossible houses in the neighbourhood, and finally decided upon Aldermaston as the best, and have taken it by storm.

"It was the dampest and dreariest of mornings as I came from the station, but this place looked beautiful in spite of it--a wild picturesque park, and a large house, full of colour inside, like a restored French château. Mrs. Higford Burr (who seems to live more in Italy than here) wears a sort of Greek dress with a girdle and a broad gold hem.... I was at once, as I rather expected, invited to stay _per l'amore d'Italia_, and my luggage sent for. This afternoon Mrs. Burr, who is a most tremendous walker, has taken me to Upton Court, the home of Arabella Fermor (Pope's Belinda), a charming old house with a ghost, which the farm-people described as 'coming a clinkerin upstairs right upon un loike.'"

"_Christ Church, Feb. 4._--I have had a terribly cold tour to Drayton-Beauchamp, Ashridge, Aylesbury, &c. The pleasantest feature was a warm welcome from Mrs. Barnard, wife of the great yeoman-farmer at Creslow Pastures, the royal feeding-grounds from the time of Elizabeth to Charles II., with a lovely and interesting old house overlooking Christ Low (the Christ's Meadow) and Heaven's Low (Heaven's Meadow). Thence I went to North Marston, where was the shrine of Sir John Shorne, a sainted rector, who preserved his congregation from sin by 'conjuring the devil into his boot.' Buckinghamshire is full of these quaint stories.

"Arthur has just been making great sensation by a splendid sermon at St. Mary's, given in his most animated manner, his energies gradually kindling till his whole being was on fire. It was on, 'Why stand ye here idle all the day long?--the first shall be last and the last first.' 'Why stand ye here idle, listless, in the quadrangle, in your own rooms, doing nothing; so that in the years to come you will never be able to look back and say, "In such a year, in such a term, I learnt this or that--that idea, that book, that thought _then_ first struck me"? Perhaps this may be a voice to the winds, perhaps those to whom it would most apply are even now in their places of resort, standing idle: probably even those who are here would answer to my question, "Because no man hath hired us."'

"Then he described the powers, objects, and advantages of Oxford. Then the persons who had passed away within the year, leaving gaps to be filled up--the seven great masters of the English language,[180] the German poets and philosophers,[181] the French philosopher[182]--'and their praise shall go forth from generation to generation.' Then he dwelt on the different duties of the coming life to be prepared for, and he described the model country-clergyman (Pearson), the model teacher (Jowett), the model country-gentleman. Then came a beautiful and pictorial passage about the eleventh hour and the foreboding of the awful twelfth. The congregation was immense, and listened with breathless interest. When the signatures were being collected for the Jowett appeal, Arthur was hard at work upon them on Sunday when Mr. Jowett came in. Arthur said, 'You need not mind my being at work to-day, for I can assure you it is quite a Sunday occupation, a work of justice, if not of mercy.'--'Yes,' said Jowett, 'I see how it is: an ass has fallen into a pit, and you think it right to pull him out on the Sabbath-day.'"

Arthur Stanley used to see a great deal of Mr. Jowett during this year--far too much, my mother thought when she was staying with him at Oxford; for Jowett--kind and unselfish as a saint--was only "Christian" in so far that he believed the central light of Christianity to spring from the life of Christ. He occasionally preached, but his sermons were only illustrative of practical duties, or the lessons to be learnt from holy and unselfish lives. It was during this year, too, that the English Church recognised with surprise that it was being shaken to its foundations by the volume of--mostly feeble and dull--"Essays and Reviews." But to turn to a very different religious phase.

JOURNAL.

"_Wantage, Feb. 21, 1860._--I came here yesterday over dreary snow-sprinkled downs. Wantage is a curious little town surrounding a great cruciform church in the midst of a desert. The Vicar (Rev. W. J. Butler[183]) welcomed me at the door of the gothic vicarage, and almost immediately a clerical procession, consisting of three curates, schoolmaster, organist, and scripture-reader, filed in (as they do every day) to dinner, and were introduced one by one. The tall agreeable Vicar did the honours just as a schoolmaster would to his boys. There was such a look of daily service, chanting, and _discipline_ over the whole party, that I quite felt as if Mrs. Butler ought also to be a clergyman, and as if the two little girls would have been more appropriately attired in black coats and bands.

"After dinner, in raging snow and biting east wind, we sallied out to survey the numerous religious institutions, which have been almost entirely founded by the energy and perseverance of this Vicar in the thirteen years he has been at Wantage. The church is magnificent. There is an old grammar-school in honour of Alfred (who was born here), a National School painted with Scripture frescoes by Pollen, Burgon, &c., a training school under the charge of Mrs. Trevelyan, a cemetery with a beautiful chapel, and St. Mary's Home for penitents. At seven o'clock all the curates dispersed to various evening services, Mr. Butler went to St. Mary's Home, and Mrs. Butler and I to the church, where we sat in the dark, and heard a choir chant a service out of what looked like a gorgeous illumination.

"I was aghast to hear breakfast was at half-past seven, but as I could not sleep from the piercing cold, it did not signify. At seven a bell rang, and we all hurried to a little domestic chapel in the house, hung with red and carpeted with red, but containing nothing else except a cross with flowers at one end of the room, before which knelt Mr. Butler. We all flung ourselves down upon the red carpet, and Mr. Butler, with his face to the wall, intoned to us, and Mrs. Butler and the servants intoned to him, and all the little children intoned too, with their faces to the ground.

"Now there is to be full church service again, and then--oh! how glad I shall be to get away."[184]

The society of Mrs. Gaskell the authoress was a great pleasure during this term at Oxford. I made great friends with her, and we kept up a correspondence for some time afterwards. Everybody liked Mrs Gaskell.[185] I remember that one of the points which struck me most about her at first was not only her kindness, but her extreme courtesy and deference to her own daughters. While she was at Oxford, the subject of ghosts was brought forward for a debate at the Union; she wished to have spoken from the gallery, and if she had, would probably have carried the motion in favour of ghosts at once. Here is one of her personal experiences:--

"Mrs. Gaskell was staying with some cousins at Stratford-on-Avon, who took her over to see Compton Whinyates. On their return she stayed to tea at Eddington with her cousins--cousins who were Quakers. Compton Whinyates naturally led to the subject of spirits, and Mrs. Gaskell asked the son of the house whether there were any stories of the kind about their neighbourhood; upon which the father, who was a very stiff, stern old man, reproved them for vain and light talking.

"After tea Mrs. Gaskell and her cousins went out to walk about the place with the younger Quaker, when the subject of the supernatural was renewed, and he said that their attention had lately been called to it in a very singular manner. That a woman who was a native of the place had many years ago gone as a lady's-maid to London, leaving her lover, who was a carter, behind her. While in London, she forgot her carter and married some one else, but after some years her husband died, leaving her a large competence, and she came back to spend the rest of her life in her native village. There she renewed her acquaintance with the carter, to whom, after a fortnight's renewal of courtship, she was married. After they had been married a few weeks, she said she must go up to London to sell all the property she had there, and come down to settle finally in the country. She wished her husband to go with her, and urgently entreated him to do so; but he, like many countrymen in that part, had a horror of London, fancied it was the seat of all wickedness, and that those who went there never could come back safe: so the woman went alone, but she did not return. Some time after her husband heard that she had been found in the streets of London--dead.

"A few weeks after this the carter husband was observed to have become unaccountably pale, ill, and anxious, and on being asked what was the matter with him, he complained bitterly, and said that it was because his wife would not let him rest at nights. He did not seem to be frightened, but lamented that his case was a very hard one, for that he had to work all day, and, when he wanted rest, his wife came and sat by his bedside, moaning and lamenting and wringing her hands all the night long, so that he could not sleep.

"Mrs. Gaskell naturally expressed a wish to see the man and to hear the story from his own lips. The Quaker said that nothing could be easier, as he lived in a cottage close by; to which she went, together with five other persons. It was like a Cheshire cottage, with a window on each side of the door, and a little enclosure, half-court, half-garden, in front. It was six o'clock in broad summer daylight when they arrived. The door was locked and the Quaker went round to try the back entrance, leaving Mrs. Gaskell and her friends in the enclosure in front. They all, while there, distinctly saw a woman, of hard features, dressed in a common lilac print gown, come up to the latticed window close by them on the inside and look out. They then saw her pass on and appear again at the window on the other side of the door, after which she went away altogether.

"When the Quaker appeared, unsuccessful in opening the back-door, they said, 'But there is some one who could have let you in, for there is a woman in the house.' They tried unsuccessfully, however, to make her hear. Then they went to the adjoining cottage, where the people assured them that the man was gone out for the day, and that there could not possibly be any one in the house. 'Oh,' said Mrs. Gaskell, 'but we have _seen_ a woman in the house in a lilac print gown.' 'Then,' they answered, 'you have seen the ghost: there is no _woman_ in the house; but that is _she_.'"

It was when I was at Beckett, just before Easter 1860, that I was first told that we should have to leave our dear home at Hurstmonceaux. Many years before, there had been an alarm, and my mother would then have bought the Lime property, but that the price asked was so greatly above its value, and no other purchasers came forward. So she was satisfied to go on renting Lime and the surrounding fields for a small sum, especially as she had a promise from those who had charge of the sale that no other offer should be accepted without giving her the preference. In the spring of 1860, however, Mr. Arkcoll, a rich old Hurstmonceaux farmer and churchwarden, died, leaving a large fortune to his nephew and a considerable sum of ready money to buy a house near his property. Lime had long been as Naboth's vineyard in the younger Mr. Arkcoll's eyes, and before we knew that the uncle was dead, we heard that the nephew was the purchaser of Lime, the promise to us having been broken.

My mother immediately offered Mr. Arkcoll a much larger sum than he had paid to save Lime, but not unnaturally he was inexorable.

Thus it was inevitable that at Michaelmas we must leave our dear home, and, though I had suffered much at Hurstmonceaux, and though our position there as a ruined family was often a dismal one, yet we felt that nothing could ever replace what Lime itself was, where every plant was familiar, and every tree had its own little personal reminiscence. And there was also the great difficulty of finding a new home within our small means, and yet large enough to house our many books and pictures.

I met my mother at Bournemouth to talk over plans and possibilities for the future, and we went on to Weymouth, where we remained some weeks. It was bitterly cold weather, but I always liked Weymouth, and the pleasant walks in Sandyfoot Bay, and excursions to Bow and Arrow Castle, Corfe Castle, Abbotsbury, and Lyme Regis. In April I was again at Beckett.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Beckett, April 8, 1860._--Yesterday I went with Lady Barrington and Lady Somerton to Ashdowne (Lord Craven's). It is a most awfully desolate place, standing high up on the bare downs. Four avenues approach the house from the four sides. It was built by a Craven who was Lord Mayor of London, and who, flying from the great plague, rode fiercely on and on, till upon this bleak down he saw a desolate farmhouse, where he thought that the plague could not penetrate, and there he rested, and there he eventually built. The four avenues, and the windows on every side, were intended to let the plague out in one direction if it came in at the other. Inside the house are great stag's horns which Elizabeth of Bohemia brought with her from Germany, and portraits of her, Prince Rupert, Prince Maurice, and the four princesses her daughters, painted by one of them. The young Ladies Craven showed us the house amid shouts of laughter at their own ignorance about it, which certainly was most dense.

"We went on by roads, which were never meant for a carriage, to a point whence Lady Barrington and I walked across the down to 'Wayland Smith's Cave,' a very small cromlech, in which Wayland could hardly have stood upright when he used it for a forge."

"_Hendred House, April 15._--It is a proof how necessary it is for the writer of a Handbook to see himself all that he writes about, that I found East Hendred, of which I had heard nothing, to be one of the most romantic villages I ever saw--groups of ancient gable-ended houses, black and white or black and red, with turreted chimneys--a ruined moss-grown chapel dedicated to 'Jesus of Bethlehem'--a fine old grey church in a glen--and a beautiful Catholic chapel attached to this quaint old house, which contains a great Holbein of Sir Thomas More and his family, his cup, a portrait of Cardinal Pole, and the staff upon which Bishop Fisher leant upon the scaffold!"

My next visit was to Dr. Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton, to whom I became much attached. Being in the house with him was a constant intellectual feast, he was so accomplished as well as learned. Beautiful and interesting books were produced to illustrate all he said, and it would be hard to say how much Latin or Italian poetry he daily read or repeated to me. It was impossible not to be perfectly at home with him, he was so easy and natural. Of the two old sisters who had resided with him, and who were known by Eton boys as Elephantina and Rhinocerina, only one was still living, in a gentle and touching state of childishness, keeping up all her old-fashioned habits of courtesy and politeness; the mind now and then taking in an idea like a flash of light, and immediately losing it again. The Provost's attention to this old sister was quite beautiful, and her affection for him. When she was going to bed she would "pack up" and carry off all the things upon the table--books, envelope-boxes, &c., which were soon sent downstairs again.

I went with the Provost to dine at New Lodge (Mr. Van de Weyer, the Belgian Minister's), and found there the Dean of St. Paul's and Mrs. Milman, he most bright and animated, she "icily bland and coldly amiable as ever." I was quite delighted with the Van de Weyers, especially the second son Albert (who afterwards died young). M. Sylvain Van de Weyer, through life the trusted friend and representative of Leopold I. of Belgium, had the expensive hobby of books, collecting rare editions and the earliest printed classics, a taste inherited from his father, who kept a circulating library at Louvain. When he showed us two shelves of books in his library he said, "I have read all these whilst waiting for dinner. I am always down punctually, and my guests are always late. From my library I see them arrive, and never join them till a good many are come: thus I have got through all these." Madame Van de Weyer was immensely fat. She had lately been with her husband to a concert at Windsor, and been much jostled, at which she was very indignant. "Why, they take us for pages," she said to her husband. "No, my dear," he replied; "they take me for a page, but they take you for a volume."

On the last occasion on which I saw the Provost Hawtrey before his death, he said to me that he knew I collected curious stories, and that there was one story, intimately connected with his own life, which he wished that I should write down from his lips, and read to him when I had written it, that he might see that it was perfectly correct.

Here is the story as he gave it:--

"In the time of my youth one of the cleverest and most agreeable women in Europe was Madame de Salis--the Countess de Salis--who had been in her youth a Miss Foster, daughter of the Irish Bishop of Kilmore. As a girl she had been most beautiful and the darling of her parents' hearts, but she married against their will with the Count de Salis. He was a Swiss Count, but he took her, not to Switzerland, but to Florence, where he hired a villa at Bellosguardo. There the life of Madame de Salis was a most miserable one: she had many children, but her husband, who cut her off from all communication with her friends, was exceedingly unkind to her. She was married to him for several years, and then she was mercifully released by his death. It was impossible for her to pretend to be sorry, and she did not pretend it: she hailed it as the greatest mercy that could have befallen her.[186]

"Madame de Salis went back to Ireland, where her parents, the old Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster, were still alive, and welcomed her with rapture. But she had left them a radiant, beautiful, animated girl; she returned to them a haggard, weird, worn woman, with that fixed look of anguish which only the most chronic suffering can leave. And what was worst was that her health had completely given way: she never slept, she never seemed able to rest, she had no repose day or night: she became seriously ill.

"All the best advice that could be procured was hers. There was a great consultation of doctors upon her case, and after it had taken place, the doctors came to the Bishop and said, 'The case of Madame de Salis is an extraordinary one; it is a most peculiar, but still a known form of hypochondria. She cannot rest because she always sees before her--not the horrible phantom which made her married life so miserable, but the room which was the scene of her suffering. And she never will rest; the image is, as it were, branded into her brain, and cannot be eradicated. There is only one remedy, and it is a very desperate one. It will probably kill her, she will probably sink under it, but it may have happy results. However, it is the only chance of saving her. It is that she should see the real room again. She can never get rid of its image: it is engraven upon her brain for life. The only chance is for her to connect it with something else.' When Madame de Salis was told this, she said that her returning to Florence was impossible, absolutely impossible. 'At any rate,' she said, 'I could not go unless my younger sister, Miss Foster, might go with me; then possibly I might think of it.' But to this Dr. and Mrs. Foster would not consent. The happiness of their lives seemed to have been extinguished when their elder daughter married Count de Salis, and if their beautiful younger daughter went abroad, perhaps she also would marry a foreigner, and then what good would their lives do them? However, Madame de Salis grew daily worse; her life was evidently at stake, and at last her parents said, 'Well, if you will make us a solemn promise that you will never, under any circumstances whatever, consent to your sister's marrying a foreigner, she shall go with you;' and she went.

"Madame de Salis and Miss Foster went to Florence. They rented the villa at Bellosguardo which had been the scene of the terrible tragedy of Madame de Salis's married life. As they entered the fatal room, Madame de Salis fell down insensible upon the threshold. When she came to herself, she passed from one terrible convulsion into another: she had a brain fever: she struggled for weeks between life and death. But nature is strong, and when she did rally, the opinion of the Irish doctors was justified. Instead of the terrible companion of her former life and the constant dread in which she lived, she had the companionship of her beautiful, gentle, affectionate sister, who watched over her with unspeakable tenderness, who anticipated her every wish.... The room was associated with something else! Gradually, very gradually, Madame de Salis dawned back into active life. She began to feel her former interest in art; in time she was able to go and paint in the galleries, and in time, when her recovery became known, many of those who had never dared to show their sympathy with her during her earlier sojourn at Florence, but who had pitied her intensely, hastened to visit her; and gradually, as with returning health her brilliant conversational powers came back, and her extraordinary gift of repartee was restored, her salon became the most _recherché_ and the most attractive in Florence.

"Chief of all its attractions was the lovely Miss Foster. When, however, Madame de Salis saw that any one especially was paying her sister attentions, she took an opportunity of alienating them, or, if there seemed to be anything really serious, she expressed to the individual her regret that she was unable to receive him any more. But at last there was an occasion on which Madame de Salis felt that more stringent action was called for. When a young Count Mastai, in the Guardia Nobile, not only felt, but showed the most unbounded devotion to Miss Foster, Madame de Salis did more than express to him her regret that untoward family circumstances prevented her having the pleasure of seeing him again; she let her villa at Bellosguardo, she packed up her things, and she took her sister with her to Rome.

"The reputation of the two sisters had preceded them, and when it became known that the Madame de Salis who had had so romantic a history was come to Rome with her beautiful younger sister, all that was most intellectual and all that was most remarkable in the old Papal capital gathered around them. But now the scene had changed. It was no longer Madame de Salis who was the invalid. Miss Foster grew pale and languid and unable to occupy herself, and gradually she became so pale and so changed, and the cause of it was so evident, that Madame de Salis felt that she must choose between two alternatives: she must either break her word to her parents and save the life of her sister, or she must keep her promise to her parents and see her sister sink into the grave.

"And she decided on the former course. She wrote two letters--one letter to Count Mastai, telling him that he might come back and see her sister again, and the other letter to the Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster. She said to her parents that she knew they measured a foreign marriage by her own dreadful life with Count de Salis: that in Count Mastai they must imagine the exact opposite of Count de Salis: that he was honourable, noble, chivalrous, generous, disinterested--in fact, that had she to seek through the whole world the person to whom with the greatest confidence she could commit her sister's happiness, she could not do otherwise than choose Count Mastai. This letter she sent too late to have the refusal which she knew it would bring. Count Mastai flew to the feet of the beautiful Miss Foster, and was accepted at once. The wedding-day was fixed, the wedding-dress was made, the wedding-feast was prepared.[187]

"When the day came, all the friends of Madame de Salis collected in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, where the marriage was to take place. According to the custom of brides in Rome, Miss Foster, accompanied by Madame de Salis, came first to the altar and waited for the bridegroom. He never came--he never came at all--he never, never, never was heard of again. And that is the end of the first part of the story.

* * * * *

"The second part of the story is quite different. It was the time of the great famine and pestilence in the Basilicata. The misery was most intense, hundreds perished daily everywhere. Every one who could get away did; those who could went to Switzerland, others went to Sicily; bishops abandoned their dioceses, priests abandoned their flocks: there was a general stampede.

"But in that terrible time, as in all seasons of great national suffering, there were instances of extraordinary devotion and heroism. There was one young bishop of a Neapolitan diocese, who was absent in Switzerland at the time, who came back like San Carlo Borromeo over the Alps, who sold his library for the poor, who sold his carriages, who sold at last even his episcopal ring, who walked day and night in the hospitals, and by whose personal devotion many lives were saved, while thousands were cheered and encouraged by his example. The consequence was, that when the famine and the pestilence in the Basilicata passed away, at an early age--at a much earlier age than is usual--that young bishop was made a cardinal.

* * * * *

"The third part of the story is again quite different. It was when Pope Gregory XVI. lay upon his deathbed. There was the greatest possible difficulty about who should be his successor; one member of the Sacred College was too old, another was too young, another was too much bound up with the princely families: there seemed to be no one. The person who was of most influence at that time was Count Rossi, the French Ambassador, and he was very anxious for a liberal Pope, for some one who would carry out his own liberal views. One day as he was walking pensively, filled with anxieties, down the Corso, there passed by in a carriage that young bishop of the Basilicata, once Bishop of Imola, now Archbishop of Spoleto, who had been so distinguished during the famine. And when Count Rossi saw him, he felt _that_ is the man--_that_ is the man who would further my ideas and carry out my views. And by the wonderful influence of Count Rossi on separate individuals, and by his extraordinary powers of combination in bringing the mind of one person to bear upon another, that person was chosen Pope. And on the day on which he mounted the Papal throne as Pius IX., he revealed that he was the person who, as Count Mastai Ferretti in the Guardia Nobile, had been engaged to be married to the beautiful Miss Foster. He had belonged to a Jesuit family: he had been summoned on a Jesuit mission from which no one can shrink: his value to the Church had been estimated: he was sent off to the West Indies: letters were intercepted, and he was induced to believe that Miss Foster had ceased to care about him: he was persuaded to take Orders; he became bishop in the Basilicata, Bishop of Imola, Archbishop of Spoleto, Pope of Rome--and Miss Foster lived to know it.

* * * * *

"'Now,' said Dr. Hawtrey, 'if you ever tell that story, recollect to say that it is no mere story I have heard; it is part of my own life. Madame de Salis and her sister were my relations, and I was most intimate with them. I was there when Madame de Salis made her miserable marriage; I was there when she came back so terribly changed. I shared in the consultations as to whether her sister should go with her: I was with Dr. and Mrs. Foster when they received the letter about Count Mastai: I was there when they heard of the disappearance of the mysterious bridegroom: and I have lived to think of him as Pope.'"

I am surprised to find no letters recording the long and happy visit which I made during the latter part of April 1860 to Chequers, the beautiful old house of Lady Frankland Russell, to whom I had been introduced by Lady Sheffield, who was her cousin. With this most interesting old lady I made great friends and received the greatest kindness from her. Owing to the marriage of Sir John Russell of Chequers with Mrs. Rich, youngest daughter of Cromwell, the house was perfectly full of Cromwell relics, and in its grand old gallery hung portraits of the Protector, his mother, brother, his four daughters, two sons-in-law, secretary, &c. Here, also, enclosed in a cabinet, was a very awful mask taken from Cromwell's face after death, which Lady Frankland used to uncover with great solemnity. In the garden was a wonderful wych elm, said to have been planted by King Stephen, and behind rose the Chiltern Hills, the most beautiful point of which--Velvet Lawn, covered with indigenous box--was in the immediate neighbourhood.

All through the summer of 1860 we were occupied in considering our new home. We sent for all the London agents' lists of places to be let or sold south of the Humber, and many of these, in Kent, Surrey, Berks, Bucks, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, I went to see, either with or without my mother. If she were not with me, I wrote to her long accounts, always concluding with saying, "They are not like Holmhurst, not in the least like Holmhurst,"--Holmhurst being the ideal place in the unwritten novels which my mother and I had been accustomed to narrate to each other in our long journeys abroad. My being difficult to satisfy gave the aunts an unusual handle for abuse, and plentifully did they bestow it upon me. "What can it signify whether you have a view or not? No one but you would care to waste your time in always looking out of the window," &c., &c. Especially was indignation roused by my refusing to consider an old house which the Stanleys were determined upon our taking in Oxfordshire,[188] and which was to be had very cheap because no servants could be persuaded to stay there on account of a frightful apparition which was supposed to haunt it. At last we almost despaired of finding any place to suit us, and determined to take the farm of Belhurst at Hurstmonceaux to put our furniture in, and to go abroad till quite a different set of places were to be disposed of. Just then a neighbour sent us a Hastings paper with a very humble advertisement marked, "At Ore, a house, with thirty-six acres of land, to be let or sold." "What a horrible place this must be," I said, "for which they cannot find one word of description;" for the very ugliest places we had seen had often been described in the advertisements as "picturesque manorial residences," "beautiful villas with hanging woods," &c. But my mother rightly thought that the very simple description was perhaps in itself a reason why we should see it, and after breakfast we set off in the little carriage. It was a drive of about fourteen miles. Long before we could arrive at Ore, we passed under a grey wall overhung by trees. "It looks almost as if there might be a Holmhurst inside that wall," I said. Then we reached a gate between two clipped yew-trees, and a board announced, "This house is to be let or sold." We drove in. It was a lovely day. An arched gateway was open towards the garden, showing a terrace, vases of scarlet geraniums, and a background of blue sea. My mother and I clasped each other's hands and simultaneously exclaimed--"This is Holmhurst!"

The house was let then, and we were refused permission to see the inside, but my mother bought the property at once: she was as sure as I was that we should never like any other place as well.

We found that the name of the place was Little Ridge. There were six places called Ridge in the neighbourhood, and it was very desirable to change the name, to prevent confusion at the post-office and elsewhere. Could we call it anything but Holmhurst? Afterwards we discovered that Holmhurst meant an ilex wood, and our great tree is an ilex.

On September 24 my mother left Lime. The day before was Sunday, and very sad--so many tearful farewells, so many poor women crying in the churchyard as we passed through. I stayed at Lime to pack up and arrange everything. On October 6, in the gloaming of the autumn evening, while the sunlight was streaming through the diminishing leaves of the old abele trees, and throwing long shadows upon the green lawn and bright flower-beds, we took a last farewell of our dear Hurstmonceaux home. Lea delivered up the keys, and we walked away (to the Rectory) up the drive, our drive no longer.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Holmhurst, Oct. 8, 1860._--This morning we left Hurstmonceaux Rectory directly after breakfast, good old Dr. Wellesley quite affected, and Harriet Duly, and even begging Mrs. Havendon, crying bitterly on taking leave of Lea. We met a smart carriage with two white horses going to fetch the Arkcolls, who made a triumphal entry to Lime just after our departure. Winchester drove us, in order to bring back the horse--John and Romo (the dog) on the box: Lea and I with Julietta (the cat) and her kitten inside, and no end of provisions under the seats. We stopped first at Mrs. Taylor's farm, and she gave Lea a new loaf and some cheese to begin housekeeping with, and me some excellent cakes. Lea thought the drive charming. I walked up all the hills and we arrived about one o'clock. It was impossible to enter the gates on account of the waggons of the outgoing tenants, but Joe and Margaret Cornford from the lodge hailed us with the joyful news that they had themselves departed a few hours before."

"_Oct. 9._--We began work at six, a lovely morning, and the view exquisite as I opened my window, the oak-trees with which the meadows are studded casting long shadows on the grass, the little pond glittering in the sun, and the grey castle rising against the softest blue sea beyond. John is awed by the magnitude of the grounds.... Julietta cries to go home, and would certainly set off, if it were not for little black pussy. I think the winding walks and obscure paths are enchanting, and the fir-woods are really large enough for you to 'inhale the turpentine air' as at Bournemouth."

My mother came to Holmhurst in about ten days, but not to stay, as we had arranged to break the transition between our two homes by spending the winter at Mentone. We took the route to the south by Orleans (whence I made a most interesting excursion to Notre Dame de Clery), Bourges, and then lingered at Oranges, Avignon, &c. I have always looked back upon the earlier part of this journey with remorse, as one in which I took my mother a longer way, in cold weather, simply to gratify my own wishes.

The dear mother, however, was very well, and this winter was therefore perhaps the happiest of the many we have spent abroad. Mentone consisted then only of the old town on a promontory above the sea, ending in a little island-tower, and clambering up the sides of the hill to the castle and cemetery. On either side were a very few villas scattered amid the olive and orange groves. In one of these,[189] above the terrace which led from the eastern gate of the town to the little chapel of St. Anne, we rented the first floor. On the ground floor lived our worthy landlord, M. Trenca, and his Swiss wife, with whom we made much acquaintance. In the neighbouring villas also we had many friends, and often gave little parties,--for the tiny society was most simple and easily pleased. We all enjoyed Mentone, where we had no winter, and breakfasted with windows wide open at Christmas. Our old servants, Lea and John, amused themselves by collecting roots of anemones and other plants; I drew, and sought materials for my little book "A Winter at Mentone;" and my mother was always gay and happy, betaking herself every morning with her camp-stool to draw in some sheltered nook, and returning proud of having discovered some new pathlet, or some fresh bank of rare flowers in the olive groves; and in the afternoons often going to sit with and read or sing to some of the invalid visitors.

JOURNAL.

"_Dec. 1860._--Our apartment has a bright salon looking towards the garden, with glass doors opening on a balcony. All the rooms except one overlook a vast expanse of blue sea, above groves of magnificent olivetrees, and from the garden a fresh scent of flowers is wafted up, even in December. From this garden the peaks of the Berceau are seen rising above the thickets of oranges and lemons, and beyond is a chain of rosecoloured rocks descending in an abrupt precipice to the blue waters of the bay, while on the farthest promontory Bordighera gleams white in the sunshine. Twice a day a lovely fairy vision salutes us; first, when, in the sunrise, Corsica reveals itself across the sapphire water, appearing so distinctly that you can count every ravine and indentation of its jagged mountains, and feel as if a boat would easily take you to it in an hour; and again in the evening, when, as a white ghost, scarcely distinguishable from the clouds around it, and looking inconceivably distant, it looms forth dimly in the pink haze of sunset.

"We were here a very little while before several donkey-women presented themselves to secure our custom. We engaged ourselves to a wild Meg Merrilies figure in a broad white hat, with a red handkerchief tied underneath, and a bunch of flowers stuck jauntily in the side of her hair, who rejoices in the name of Teresina Ravellina Muratori de Buffa! With her we have made many excursions. It is impossible for anything to be more beautiful than the variety of green in the valleys: the blue-green of the gigantic euphorbias, which fringe the rocks by the wayside, the grey-green of the olives, the dark green of the old gnarled carouba trees, and the yellow-green of the canes and the autumnal vineyards. The walls are beautiful with their fringe of mesembryanthemum--'Miss Emily Anthem' as the servants call it. Most of the paths are a constant 'excelsior,' and beginning with the steep yellow tufa rocks behind the town, gradually enter the pine-woods, and ascend towards the blue peaks of Sant' Agnese, which are always visible through the red stems of the pine-trees, and across the rich foreground of heath and myrtle. The trees are full of linnets, which the natives call 'trenta-cinque' from the sound of their note, and the air resounds with the cries of the donkey-drivers--'Ulla'--go on, and 'Isa'--for shame."

"_Jan. 11, 1861._--We have been climbing up to Grimaldi, whose broad sunny terrace is as Italian a scene as any on the Riviera, for it is crossed by a dark archway, and lined on one side with bright houses, upon whose walls yellow gourds hang in the sun, with a little church, painted pink and yellow, while the other side is overshadowed by old olive-trees, beneath which is seen the broad expanse of sea, here deep blue, there gleaming silver white in the hot sunshine. Children in bright handkerchiefs and aprons were playing about, and singing 'Tanta di gioja, tanto di contento,' while we were drawing.

"Beyond Grimaldi the path becomes intensely steep, but we were repaid for going on when we reached to the top of the hills, as the scenery there is almost Alpine in its bold rocky foregrounds, beneath which yawns the deep black chasm of St. Louis, with a huge cliff towering above. On the scorched rock is Ciotti Superiore, a quaint cluster of houses, while the church, quite separated from the village, stands farther off, on the highest ridge of the mountain. Behind the church, the sea view is magnificent, embracing the coast, with its numerous bays, as far as the Estrelles, which turn golden and pink in the sunset; the grand mountain barriers, with all the orange-clad valleys running up into them; and S. Agnese rising out of the blue mist on its perpendicular cliff.... And, even in this high situation, lovely narcissus and pink carnations were blooming in January.

"People here are unconventional. When it began to rain on Tuesday, as we were going to a picnic, the coachman said 'Ah! le bon Dieu a oublié que c'est un jour de fêtes.'"

It was a great delight during our winter at Mentone that Lady Mary Wood and her family were spending the winter at Nice with old Lady Grey, so that my friend Charlie and I often met, and became greater friends than ever, entirely sympathising in all we did and saw. I went to Nice to spend some days with the Woods, and they came to Mentone for Easter, when we saw the Mentonais assemble to "grind Judas's bones," and many other of their strange ceremonies.

"_Good Friday, 1861._--When Charlie and I went to S. Michele at eight o'clock in the evening, we found the church crowded from end to end with people chanting the Miserere, and radiant with a thousand waxlights. In the choir, under a canopy, upon a raised bier surrounded by a treble row of tall tapers, lay the body of Christ, for which the whole service was a funeral celebration. Soon after we arrived, a sudden hush in the crowd showed that something important was going to happen, and a huge friar's lanthorn carried in by a boy preceded the celebrated 'Pilgrim Preacher of the Riviera,' a Capuchin monk with a long white beard, who exercises his wonderful gift of preaching all along the Riviera during Lent. His sermon was short, but very graphic and striking. He began by describing a dreadful murder which people had committed upon the person of their kindest friend, with the horror it excited; and then, pointing to the white corpse which lay before him amid the blazing candles, he declared that those around him were themselves the perpetrators of the crime, and that the object of it was no other than their Saviour, whose image they saw there pale and bleeding before their eyes. Then, snatching the crucifix from the support by his side, he held it aloft to urge repentance by the sufferings there portrayed. As he concluded, soldiers filed into the church, and, amid rolling of drums and blowing of trumpets which intermingled with the chanting, the body was taken up and carried three times round the church by the Black Penitents, Mentonais nobles supporting a canopy over the bier."

With Charlie Wood, also, I went to Dolceacqua, which will always come back to me as one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, with its forest-clad mountains, its tall bridge, its blue river Nervia, and the palatial castle of the Dorias on a cliff, with sunlight streaming through its long lines of glassless windows. Almost equally picturesque were Peglia and Peglione, the latter on the top of a conical rock, with tremendous precipices and extraordinary mountain forms all around.

In the spring we went for a few days to S. Remo, accompanied by several friends. With them, when my mother returned to Mentone, I travelled farther along the Riviera, an excursion which was most amusing, as we bargained for a little carriage from place to place, giving ridiculously small sums, and living entirely like Italians. We went on to many-towered Albenga, to Savona, and eventually to Genoa, making all the excursions belonging to each place. From Genoa we joined Mr. and Mrs. Strettel in an excursion to Porto Fino. When we returned, it was too late to reach Mentone before Sunday, and my companions refused to travel on that day, so we employed the interval in going to Piacenza, Parma, and Modena! Thence we were obliged to telegraph to Mr. Strettel (then chaplain at Genoa) to send us some money to get home with, which we did in a series of little carriages as we had come, but travelling all day and night, driving in the moonlight along the Riviera roads, or often walking for miles at night upon the sands by the sea.

Mr. Petit, the famous ecclesiologist,[195] spent some time at Mentone afterwards, and was very kind in taking me sketching excursions, as a fourth in the carriage with his sister, Miss Emma Petit, and his niece, Miss Salt. Mr. Petit was extraordinarily clever, especially as an artist, but most eccentric. He covered the backs of his pictures with caricatures of goblins, &c., representing the events of each day on which the pictures were done. When they travelled, this extraordinary family used to keep what they called "the Petit count:" if they met a cat, it counted for so much--a black goat for so much more, and so on: but if they met a royal prince, it annihilated the whole of the Petit count, and the party would consequently go a whole day's journey out of their way to evade a royal prince. Mr. Petit was most striking in appearance, with a great deal of colour and snow-white hair and beard. I remember the start which our donkey-boy François gave when he first saw him, and his exclaiming, "Je crois, Monsieur, que c'est le frère du Père Eternel!" One day I had gone with Mr. Petit and Miss Salt to Ventimiglia, and we were returning at a most alarming speed (with their horses, from Toulon, unaccustomed to the road) along the edge of an almost unguarded and perpendicular precipice. Suddenly the horses made a great dash, and I _felt_, rather than saw, that they were leaving the road. I threw myself out instantly over the side of the carriage. As I picked myself up, I had the horror of seeing the horses _over_, hanging in the branches of an olive-tree which overhung the sea at a tremendous height, and on the tiny plateau on which it grew. The carriage was swaying to and fro on the wall, which it had broken down, and which was rapidly giving way altogether. "Uncle, shall I get out?" said Miss Salt, as coolly as if nothing was going on. "Yes," he said--and they both got out. A crowd of men came and rescued the horses with ropes from their perilous position, and we walked home.

As usual, in our return to England, we lingered much by the way. The railway then only reached as far as Aix in Provence, and we joined it there after a long _vetturino_ journey; then, after visiting the wonderful deserted town of Les Baux near Arles and Vaucluse near Avignon, we went to S. Laurent du Pont and the Grande Chartreuse, greatly enjoying the beauty of the spring flowers there, as well as the scenery.

X

WORK IN NORTHERN COUNTIES

"Al ogni uccello suo nido par bello."

--_Italian Proverb._

"O my life! have we not had seasons That only said, Live and rejoice? That asked not for causes or reasons, But made us all feeling and voice."

--LOWELL.

On our arrival in England, we were delighted with our little Holmhurst, which we arranged to be as much like Lime as possible, while many of the plants and shrubs we had brought with us, were, in the garden, a perpetual reminder of our old home. To my mother, however, our return was greatly clouded by the loss of her only brother, my Uncle Penrhyn, who died at Sheen while we were at Mentone, passing away most peacefully, surrounded by his family. This uncle is one of the few figures connected with my childhood with whom I have no associations but those of unvarying kindness, and in later years we had been brought nearer to him in our long winter visits at Sheen, and we missed him greatly.

My Handbook (nominally Murray's) of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire had been published during our winter absence: my little book "A Winter at Mentone" appeared soon after our return. With Murray's Handbook I had taken as much pains as if it were to appear in my own name, and felt as strongly the responsibility of what Miss Edgeworth calls "irremediable words," once past the press. The "Winter at Mentone" fell perfectly flat, but Murray was so pleased with the laudatory notices which followed the appearance of the Handbook, that he asked me to select any other counties I liked. I chose Durham and Northumberland, and after the middle of July went there for three months. In undertaking these counties, I again assented to an arrangement by which I was never repaid for my work; but the work was one which I liked extremely, bringing me in contact with endless interesting persons, enabling me to be much with "Cousin Susan," who gave me a second home at Ridley Hall, and opening a field of historic study of the most interesting kind. On the way north I went to the Vaughans at Doncaster, of which Dr. Vaughan had lately become Vicar.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Doncaster, July 24, 1861._--The people here are a perpetual amusement to Kate, they are so quaint and original. She spoke to one old woman the other day about her sinful ways and the necessity for amendment. 'Na, na, Mrs. Vaughan,' she replied, 'I be got too old for Mr. Satan noo; he canna hurt I noo.' Another old woman who was brought into the hospital swore dreadfully all night long, to the great annoyance of her neighbours; but when they complained she said, 'Wal, I niver did it afore I coomed here, but I be gettin' old, and I canna help it--and it's the will o' God, and I canna help it.'

"Kate said to an old man, 'What are you so low about, my man?' 'Why,' he said, 'what wi' faith, and gas, and balloons, and steam-ingines a-booming and a-fizzling through t' warld, and what wi't' arth a going round once in twenty-four hours, I'm fairly muzzled and stagnated.'

"I have been to call on the daughters of 'Presence-of-mind Smith,' who was Dean of Christ Church, and to the close of his life used to tell this story of himself. 'In my life,' he said, 'there has been one most fortunate incident. A friend of mine persuaded me to go out with him in a boat upon a lake. I did not wish to go, but he persuaded me, and I went. By the intervention of Providence, I took my umbrella with me. We had not been long on the lake when the violence of the waves threw my friend out of the boat drowning, and he sank. Soon, as is the case with drowning persons, he came up again, and clutched hold of the side of the boat. Then such, providentially, was my presence of mind, that I seized my umbrella and rapped him violently on the knuckles till he let go. He sank, and I was saved.'"

When I arrived at Durham, I presented myself at once to my cousins the George Liddells, who lived at a dingy brick house in the suburb called Old Elvet. They had never seen me before, but welcomed me with the utmost kindness and hospitality, making me quite at home with them. I took a little lodging close by, but they made me dine with them almost every day, and I went constant expeditions with them, staying to dinner at the neighbouring houses, Elemore, Aldin Grange, &c. Durham itself I always found charming. The smoke only gave a picturesqueness of its own, and on Sunday there was a Sabbath of nature, for when the chimneys ceased smoking, the birds began to sing, the flowers to bloom, and the sky to be blue. Sunday, however, was a severe day with the George Liddells, almost entirely spent in going to church, reading prayers, and listening to long sermons at home. Even on ordinary days, _after_ long morning prayers, we were expected to read all the Psalms and Lessons for the day, verse by verse, before we went out. But with all this, George Liddell was the very dearest and kindest of old men, and I was very fond too of his wife--"Cousin Louise"--who was most amusing and original.

Other cousins, who were intensely good to me at this time, were old Henry Liddell, brother of my great-uncle Lord Ravensworth, and his wife, who was daughter of Thomas Lyon of Hetton, my great-grandmother's youngest brother. I had known them first at Bath many years before, where they were kind to me when I had very few friends. With them lived their daughters Charlotte and Amelia, and their youngest son William, a very tall, very excellent, and very shy clergyman, who was his father's curate at Easington. Here I paid my first visit to them. It is an ugly village in the Black Country, but the Liddells' house was most comfortable, having the sea close by, with delightful sands and rocks, and many wooded "denes" running down to it, of which Castle Eden is especially beautiful.

I remember one day, after returning from Easington, dining with Dr. Phillpotts, the celebrated Bishop of Exeter, who had a Canonry at Durham. He was very old, and was obliged to have a glass of wine given to him to obtain strength to go in to dinner, and every one wished him good-night when he left the dinner-table. He was good enough also to send for me alone to wish success to my book, &c. It was my only sight of this kindly old man, though I knew his daughter well, and valued her many good qualities. They both died shortly afterwards. Amongst the company at the Bishop's were Mr. and Mrs. Johnson of Akeley Heads, whom I also visited at their own beautiful place, which is on a high terrace overlooking Durham. It came to them in a curious way. Mr. Johnson was at school at Durham, and went out with his two elder brothers to spend the day with a rich old uncle who lived there. The eldest brother was his uncle's heir. They were sent to play in the garden, and seeing there a beautiful ripe peach upon the wall, they were unable to resist it, and ate it up. Soon the uncle came into the garden to look for that identical peach. "Where is my peach gone?" he said. The three boys were dreadfully frightened, and the two eldest denied knowing anything about it, but the youngest said, "We picked it and ate it up." The old man said nothing, but went home and altered his will that very afternoon, and when he was killed by an accident three weeks afterwards, his youngest nephew was found to be the heir of Akeley Heads.

I was frequently invited by Dean Waddington, who was a man of stately presence, "grand seigneur, fastueux, homme du monde," and had a great reputation for learning and cleverness; but in my acquaintance with him he seemed to care for nothing but his dinner, and his chief topic of conversation was his sherry of 1815, for which he gave £12 a dozen. "What with _diner à la Russe_, crinoline, and pale sherry," he said one day, "England is fast going to the dogs."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Dilston, August 28._--The Greys gave me a warm welcome to Dilston--Mr. Grey being agent for the Greenwich Hospital Estates there, and a great agriculturist. Dilston is lovely. The house stands on a terraced height, covered with hanging woods, beneath which flows the Devil's Water, the most beautiful of Northumbrian rivers, with trout dancing about in its transparent brown currents, and floating away over its crumpled-looking rocks. On the hilltop is the ruined castle of the Earl of Derwentwater, with his nursery, now overgrown by huge elder-trees, and the little chapel beneath which he was buried at night beside his ancestors. Below is the old grey pointed bridge, upon which, as he rode over, he repented of his rebellion and turned back to the castle, when his wife threw her fan at him, and calling him a coward, drove him forth to his destruction."

"_Ridley Hall, Sept. 1._--'How happily the days of Thalaba roll by' might be applied to all the dwellers at Ridley Hall; for 'Cousin Susan' is so truly genial to her many guests, that they cannot fail to enjoy being with her."

"_Chillingham Castle, Sept. 6._--I went with Cousin Susan to spend two days at Matfen, Sir Edward Blackett's, a large modern Tudor house with a church beside it, looking into a great park, and entered through a stately gothic hall. Sir Edward and Lady Blackett have not been married many years, but four of his daughters by his first wife are now out. Lady Blackett also had another Northumbrian husband, Mr. Orde of Whitfield, and, as daughter of Sir Charles Lorraine, was once thought a great beauty. Sir Edward drove me to see Aydon, a curious old castle which belongs to him.

"Yesterday I came to Chillingham from Belford, a beautiful drive, over hills first, and then descending into moorland, purple with heather, and bounded by the Cheviots, which rose deep blue against the sunset sky. The castle, which is partly as old as King John, is built round a great courtyard, from which flights of stone steps go up to the principal apartments. On the stairs I found Lord Tankerville, a handsome middle-aged man, with grey hair, romping with his children. He is quite charming, so merry and so courteous. He took me at once to my room, which is high up in one of the old towers, and at eight we dined. Lady Tankerville is sister of the Duke of Manchester, very pretty, and looks quite a girl, though her three boys must be eight, nine, and ten years old."

"_Chillingham, Sept. 8._--This park is quite as beautiful in its way as any scenery abroad, and much more so, I think, than any in Scotland. It is backed by the Cheviot Hills, and often broken into deep dells, with little streamlets rushing down them, and weird old oaks whose withered branches are never cut off, sheltering herds of deer. Great herds too of wild cattle, which are milk-white, and have lived here undisturbed from time immemorial, come rushing every now and then down the hillsides like an army, to seek better pasture in the valley. Deer of every kind are to be seen upon the hills, and Lady Tankerville hunts them furiously, tiring out twelve horses in succession, placed to await her at different points in the park. Nothing can be more lovely than the evening effects each day I have been here, the setting sun pouring streams of golden light into the great grey mysterious basins of the Cheviots, amid which Marmion died and Paulinus baptized the ancient Northumbrians.

"If the place is charming, the people are even more so. The family is the happiest and most united I have ever seen. Lord Tankerville is the best and kindest of human beings. Lady Tankerville, whose spirits are so exuberant she scarcely knows how to get rid of them, dotes on her 'Hossinun,' plays with her children, gallops on her horses, hunts her deer, and manages her household, with equal vivacity. She is the most amusing person possible, is never ill, laughs fine-ladyism to scorn, and scrambles about the park, regardless of colds and crinolines, in all states of the weather. The three little boys, Charlie, Georgie, and Peddie, are all quite as engaging in their different ways, and the two little girls are lovely little creatures.

"The prettiest story of an acceptance I ever heard of is that of Lord Tankerville. He was playing at billiards with Lady Olivia Montagu when he proposed, but she gave no definite answer. At last she said, 'I think we must go into the drawing-room now; we have been away long enough.'--'But what may I think, what may I say?' he asked in agitation. 'Say that we have played our game, and that you have won,' she answered.

"Yesterday, as soon as luncheon was over, Lady Tankerville and I set off for a regular good sketching, in which she soon outstripped me, for her drawings are first-rate. In some she has been helped by Landseer, who is often here, and who has added beautiful misty backgrounds, and put herds of deer into her fern.

"In the park is a beautiful old Peel tower, the home of the Hepburns."

"_Chillingham, Sept. 10._--Lord Tankerville says, 'I do not see why any one should ever go away from a place as long as he can make himself happy there.' On that principle I should certainly never leave Chillingham, which is the pleasantest place I ever was at. I feel as if I had known Lord and Lady Tankerville all my life, his kindness and her fun make one so entirely at home; and as for Charlie, Georgie, and Peddie, there never were such little boys.

"Yesterday I was awakened by the servant saying that an order had just come out to have breakfast ready in twenty minutes, as we were all going to Dunstanborough for the day. So we hurried down, and as soon as we had eaten our breakfast, set off in two little basket-carriages across the park and up the steep hills to the moors. At the top we found a larger carriage, packed with luncheon, and with plenty of wraps, for the day was most unpromising; but Lady Tankerville had quite made up her mind that it _should_ be fine, and that we _would_ enjoy ourselves; and so we most certainly did. The drive across the moorlands was charming, such sweeps of purple heather, with blue mountain distance. Then, after twelve miles, we descended through the cornland to Dunstanborough, and walked through the sandhills covered with rye-grass and bloody cranesbill to the castle, on a reef of basaltic rocks overhanging the sea, which in one place roars up beneath in a strange cavern, known as the Rumbling Churn. Lady Tankerville and I drew Queen Margaret's Tower, where she was concealed after the battle of Hexham, and then we picnicked and rambled about. Coming home we told stories. A tremendous shower came on, and then the sky cleared for a golden sunset over the mountains, and a splendid descent into the old deer-park."

"_Bamborough Castle, Sept. 12._--Yesterday, at four, we set off on a gipsy picnic from Chillingham--little 'Co' (Corisande) on a pony, with the tea-things in panniers; Lady Tankerville, a fat Mr. Athelstane from Portugal, Charlie, Georgie, Peddie, and I walking. The pouring morning turned into a beautiful afternoon, and we had a delightful scramble through the ferny glades of the park, and up the steep craggy hills to the moorlands. Here Lady Tankerville went off through the heather to look after her little girl, and I told the three boys the story of Littlecot Hall, till the Shetland pony, 'Piccolomini,' arrived by the longer path. Then we lighted a fire between two rocks, and Lady Tankerville and her children boiled a kettle and cooked omelets over a fire of heather and fern, and beautiful grapes, greengages, jam, and cakes unfitted us for the eight-o'clock dinner. Then we came down like bushrangers, breaking a path through the bracken, a great deal taller than ourselves, and seeing in the distance the herds of wild white bulls. One or two people came to dinner, but it was just the same simple merry meal as usual.

"The Tankervilles sent me here to-day--twelve miles--in their carriage."

"_Bamborough Castle, Sept._ 13.--It is very pleasant, as you will imagine, to be here again, and I have much enjoyed the delightful sands and the splendid green waves which came rolling in all yesterday afternoon. It was a lovely evening, warm enough to enjoy sitting out on the seat amongst the tall bent-grass, and to watch Holy Island quite distinct in the sunset, with all the little fleet of red-sailed herring-boats coming round from North Sunderland. Old Mrs. Liddell sits as usual in her deep window and looks through the telescope. Amelia wanders about with her black spaniel, and Charlotte rides furiously on the sands when out, and talks incessantly, though pleasantly, when in."

"_Bamborough, Sept. 16._--Yesterday I set off at 8 A.M. in a dogcart for Holy Island, one of the castle cart-horses being harnessed for the purpose, and the castle joiner going with me to find old wood for repairs. It was a wild morning, but gleams of light made the country picturesque, and Waren Bay looked very striking, backed by its angular purple hills, and strewn with pieces of wreck, over which sea-birds were swooping. Only one bit of sand was visible when we reached the ford, but the horse plunged gallantly in. Then we had a very rough crossing of a quarter of an hour in a boat through the great green waves to the island, where we landed on the yellow rocks. Close by, on the green hill, stand the ruins, so well described in 'Marmion,' of St. Cuthbert's Abbey, the old cathedral of Lindisfarne--rather small after descriptions, but beautiful in colour, and its massive round pillars, with patterns upon them, almost unique in England. Beyond, was the still blue harbour filled with fishing-boats, and the shore was lined with men and women packing herrings in barrels of salt. At one corner of the bay rises the castle on a conical hill like a miniature Mont St. Michel, and Bamborough and Dunstanborough are blue in the hazy distance."

"_Sept. 17._--Stephen Denison is here (my cousin by his marriage with Miss Fellowes[196]), and I have been with him to pay a long visit to Grace Darling's[197] old father, an interesting man, with as much information as it is possible for any one to have who has lived since he was one year old on a desolate island rock tending a lighthouse. He lent us his diary to read, which is very curious, and an awful record of wrecks and misery."

"_Ridley Hall, Sept. 19._--Cousin Susan and her old friend Miss Coulson, with 'the boys' (the dogs), were waiting to welcome me in the avenue, when I got out at the private station here. The house is quite full of people, to whom it is amusing to help to do the honours. Great is the autumnal beauty of the place. I have been with Cousin Susan up the Birky Brae, and down by the Craggy Pass and the Hawk's Nest--streams of sunlight falling upon the rocks and river, and lighting up the yellow and red leaves which now mingle with the green. The dogs walked with us to church to-day--Tarlie was allowed to enter with the family, and Bloomer with the maids, but Perette, Bianca, Fritz, and the Chowdy-Tow were sent back from the door!

"We have had a remarkable visit from an old Miss Clayton, an eccentric, strangely-attired, old, very old lady, who had travelled all the way from Chesters, on North Tyne, to see Staward Peel, and then had rambled on foot hither down the rocks by the Allen. Both she and her friend had fallen into the river in crossing the stepping-stones above the wood, and arrived, carrying a large reticule basket, and dripping with wet and mud, about five o'clock; yet, as soon as she had been dried and fed, she insisted on setting off again on foot to visit Haltwhistle and Bellister Castle before going home at night!"

"_Streatlam Castle, Sept. 25._--I came with Cousin Susan to this curious place, to which our cousin Mr. Bowes[198] has welcomed us very cordially. The house is in a hollow--an enormous building of the last century, enclosing a mediæval castle. I sleep in the ghost-room, looking most grim and weird from its black oak with red hangings, and containing a tall bed with a red canopy. Here the only existing local Handbook says that 'the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots expired in captivity.' I am afraid the next Handbook will be obliged to confess that she was beheaded at Fotheringay.

"The long galleries are full of family portraits--Hyltons, Blakistons, and Bowes's--one of whom, Miss Bowes of Streatlam, was Mrs. John Knox! More interesting to me is the great picture of Mary Eleanor, the unhappy Countess of Strathmore,[199] walking in the gardens of Pauls-Walden. This house was the scene of her most terrible sufferings."

"_Streatlam Castle, Sept. 27._--This is the oddest house I ever was in! Everything is arranged for you, from the moment you get up till the moment you go to bed, and you are never allowed to deviate from the rules laid down: I even write this in time stolen from the half-hour for dressing. We are called at eight, and at ten march in to breakfast with the same procession as at dinner, only at this meal 'Madame Bowes' does not appear, for she is then reclining in a bath of coal-black acid, which 'refreshes her system,' but leaves her nails _black_. After breakfast we are all set down to employments appointed for the morning. At twelve Madame appears, having painted the under-lids of her jet-black eyes with belladonna. At two the bell rings for luncheon, and we are fetched if not punctual to an instant. At three we are all sent out driving (the coachman having exact orders where to take us) immense drives (twenty-four miles to-day) in an open barouche and pair. At seven we dine in great splendour, and afterwards we sit in the oak drawing-room and talk about our ancestors!

"The town of Barnard Castle is most picturesque, with a ruined castle of the Baliols. Dickens, in early life, used frequently to come down and stay there with some young artist friends of his. The idea of 'Humphrey's Clock' first sprung from Humphrey, the watchmaker in the town, and the picture in the beginning of the book is of the clock over the door of his shop. While at Barnard Castle, Dickens heard of the school at Bowes which he afterwards worked up as Dotheboys Hall. Many of these schools, at £15 and £20 a year, existed at that time in the neighbourhood, and were principally used for the sons of London tradesmen, who, provided their sons got a moderate education, cared little or nothing what became of them in the meantime. Dickens went over to see the school at Bowes, and was carefully shown over it, for they mistook him for a parent coming to survey it, with a view of sending his son there. Afterwards the school was totally ruined. At one of Mr. Bowes's elections, the Nicholas Nickleby or former usher of the school, who was then in want of a place, wrote to him to say in what poverty he was. He 'had formerly been living with Mr. Shawe at Bowes, and they had been happy and prosperous, when Mr. Dickens's misguided volume, sweeping like a whirlwind over the schools of the North, caused Mr. Shawe to become a victim to paralysis, and brought Mrs. Shawe to an untimely grave.'"

_"Morpeth Rectory, Oct. 8._--My present host is Mr. Francis Grey, an old likeness of his nephew, Charlie Wood: his wife, _née_ Lady Elizabeth Howard, is as sweet-looking as she is charming.

"Friday morning was pouring, with a thick sea-fog hiding the country. Nevertheless Mr. Grey did not think it too bad for a long expedition, and drove me in his little pony-carriage a dreary twelve miles to Wallington, where we arrived about half-past twelve. Wallington is a huge house of the elder branch of the Trevelyans, represented in the North by Sir Walter, who is at the head of teetotallers and Low Churchmen, while his wife is a great friend of Ruskin, Rossetti, and all the Pre-Raphaelites. It is like a French château, with tall roofs and chimneys, enclosing a hall, once a court, which Lady Trevelyan and her artists have covered in and painted with beautiful fresco studies of Northumbrian birds, flowers, and insects, while the intervening spaces are filled with a series of large pictures of the chief events in Northumbrian history--very curious indeed.

"Lady Trevelyan[200] is a little, bright, black-eyed woman, who was charmed to see us, and more to see my drawings, which Mr. Grey had brought. Any good opinion of me, however, which they led her to entertain was quelched by my want of admiration for some wretched little scraps by Ruskin--very scratchy sketches, after his manner. After luncheon, which was as peculiar as everything else (Lady Trevelyan and her artists feeding solely on artichokes and cauliflowers), we went to the upper galleries to look at more pictures.

"Yesterday morning we went to the fine old Morpeth Church, which has been 'restored,' one of the stained windows having been put in by a poor old woman in the village. We saw her afterwards in her garden gathering cabbages, and I told her I had seen the window. 'Eh, hinnie,' she said, 'and ain't it bonnie? and I be going to case it i' marble afore I dee, to mak it bonnier.' And then she said, 'And noo come ben, hinnie, my dear, and see me hoose;' and she showed me her cottage.

"The Greys are one of the families who have a sort of language of their own. A bad cold the Greys always call a _Shelley_, because of a famous cold old Lady Shelley had when she came to stay with them. This was the Lady Shelley who, when her carriage, full of people, upset, and there was a great entanglement of legs, called out to the footman, who came to extricate them, 'John, the black ones are mine--the black ones are mine.'"

"_Warkworth, Oct. 6._--It is very pleasant being here with my kind Clutterbuck cousins,[201] and this old-fashioned house, though small, is most refined and comfortable, with its pervading smell of roseleaves and lavender."

"_The Rock, Alnwick, Oct. 10._--I am now staying with the father of a college friend, Charles Bosanquet, in a pleasant old-fashioned house, an enlarged 'Peel tower.' The family are very united, genial and kind; are friends of the Arnolds, Gaskells, &c., and related to Mr. Erskine of Linlathen. I like Charlie Bosanquet so much in his own home, that I am quite ashamed of not having tried to cultivate him more when at Oxford. Yesterday he drove me to Craster Tower, the old castellated house of the Crasters, a very ancient Northumbrian family, now well represented by the old Squire and his wife, their three tall daughters, and seven stalwart sons, one of whom was at college with me. After luncheon we went over the tower, its vaulted cellars and thickly walled rooms, and then walked to the wild heights of Dunstanborough, with its ruins overhanging the waves, and large white gulls floating up from the 'caverned shore' of 'Marmion.' Then we went to Embleton to see one of the curious fortified rectories of the North--fortified against the Scots."

"_Ford Castle, Oct. 15._--I enjoyed my visit at Rock increasingly, and we made interesting excursions to Falloden and Howick. At the former we dined with Sir George and Lady Grey. On Sunday the beautiful little Norman chapel at Rock was filled from end to end with the whole population of the village, all responding, all singing, and forty-three (in that tiny place) remaining to the Sacrament. Mrs. Bosanquet says they are truly a God-fearing people. They live (as all over Northumbria) bound by the year like serfs, close around the large farms. At Rock the people seem perfectly devoted to the Bosanquets, who are certainly quite devoted to them. 'My Missis herself can't feel it more than I do,' said the gamekeeper when he heard the sailor son was coming home.

"Yesterday morning I set off directly after breakfast with Charles Bosanquet, in the sociable, on a long expedition. It was a really lovely day, and the drive over the wild moorlands, with the pink and blue Cheviot distances, was quite beautiful. At one we reached Hedgeley, where we had been asked to luncheon at the fine old house of the Carrs, looking up a mountain ravine, but a soldier-son first took us up to Crawley Tower, a neighbouring ruined Peel. At three we came on to Roddam, where an uncle and aunt of Charlie Bosanquet's live--a beautiful place, with a terraced garden almost overhanging the moorlands, and a dene stretching up into the Cheviots. I had ordered a gig to meet me and take me to Ford, where I arrived about half-past six, seeming to be driving into a sort of gothic castle of Otranto, as we passed under the portcullis in the bright moonlight. I found Lady Waterford sitting with her charming old mother, Lady Stuart de Rothesay.... Her drawings are indescribably lovely, and her singing most beautiful and pathetic. Several people appeared at dinner, amongst them Lord Waterford (the brother-in-law), who sat at the end of the table, a jovial white-headed young-old man."

"_Ford Castle, Oct. 17._--Being here has been most pleasant, there is so much to do and see both indoors and out. Lady Waterford is perfectly charming.... She is now occupied in putting the whole architecture of the castle back two centuries. Painting is her great employment, and all evening she makes studies for larger drawings, which she works upon in the mornings. She is going to make a 'Marmion gallery' in the castle to illustrate the poem.

"Yesterday we went to Palinsburn, where Paulinus baptized, and on to Branxton to see Mr. Jones, who is the great authority about the battle of Flodden, which he described to us till all the dull ploughed fields seemed alive with heroes and armies. He is coming to-night to talk about it again, for Flodden seems to be the great topic here, the windows of the castle looking out upon the battle-field. The position of the different armies and the site of Sybil's Well are discussed ten times a day, and Lady Waterford herself is still sufficiently a stranger here to be full of her first interest about it.

"To-day the pony-carriage took me part of the way to the Rowting Lynn, a curious cleft and waterfall in the moorland, with a 'Written Rock,' supposed to have been the work of ancient Britons. Thence I walked by a wild path along the hills to Nesbitt, where I had heard that there was a chapel of St. Cuthbert, of which I found no vestiges, and on to Doddington, where there is a Border castle. If you look on the map, you will see that this was doing a great deal, and I was very glad to get back at five to hot tea and a talk with Lady Stuart."

"_Roddam, Oct. 20._--I had not promised to return here, and I was received almost rapturously, so welcome is any stray guest in this desolate place.... Sunday here was a curious contrast to that at Rock, for though there is a population of nine hundred, the Rector waited for us to begin afternoon service, as no one else came!"

"_Roddam, Oct. 22._--Yesterday was terribly dark and cold, but we went a long expedition across the moorland to the Raven's Burn, a wild tumbling rivulet in a chaos of grey rocks, and thence by the farm of 'Blaw Weary'--picturesquely perched upon rocks which were covered with white goats, like a bit of Roman Campagna--to the 'Raven's Rock' in a rugged cleft of the moorland. To-day I have been to Linhope Spout, a waterfall at the end of a gorge, and to-morrow we go to the Three Stone Burn, where there are Druidical remains."

"_Ripley Castle, Yorkshire, Oct. 25._--Lady Ingilby (who is sister of Mr. Bosanquet of Rock) kindly pressed my coming here on my way south, and here I am. It is a fine old castle added to, about four miles from Harrogate, with beautiful gardens and a lovely neighbourhood. At the head of the stairs is the portrait of a Nun, who is said to descend from her picture at night and tap at the bedroom doors, when, if any one says, 'Come in'--in she comes. Eugene Aram was the gardener here, and the Ingilbys have all his letters. Cromwell insisted on taking the castle, but the then Lady Ingilby, a staunch Royalist known as 'Trooper Jane,' would not let him have either food or rest there, and sat opposite him all the night through with two loaded pistols in her girdle."

"_Hickledon Hall, Yorkshire, Oct. 27._--Sir Charles Wood's carriage was waiting at Doncaster for me and a very nice young Seymour.[202] Charlie seems delighted to have me here, and I think Sir Charles quite charming, not a bit as if he had the government of all India upon his shoulders."

Many of the visits which I paid in 1861 laid the foundation of after friendships, but chiefly that to Ford, whither I went again and again afterwards, and where I have passed some of the happiest days of my life. Lord and Lady Tankerville, after a few years, passed out of my horizon--I never have quite known how or why. The Liddells, Mrs. Clutterbuck and her daughters, and the saintly Lady Ingilby, added much to my enjoyment for several years. This was especially happy for me, as I see by my journals of the time how in the following winter I felt more than ever depressed by the constant snubbing I received from different members of my immediate family. Such snubs are trifling in themselves, but, like constant dropping of water in one place, they wear away the spirit at last. All this time my sister was bravely exerting herself in cheering her mother and aunt, as well as in a clever (and eventually successful) scheme for the improvement of their fortunes. Miss Hughan (afterwards Lady John Manners) showed her at this time an unwearied kindness which I can never forget.

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Holmhurst, Dec. 18, 1861._--I went to-day to see three ladies take the veil in the convent at Hastings. I had to get up in the cold early morning and be in the chapel by half-past eight. At nine the Bishop of Brighton arrived in a gold robe and mitre, and took his place with his back to the altar, leaning against it. Then a side door opened, and a procession came in singing--some nuns, and the three brides of Christ dressed in white watered silk, lace veils, and orange flowers. There were six little bridesmaids also in white veils and wreaths. The brides looked ghastly livid, and one of them would have fallen if a nun had not rushed forward to support her. The Bishop then made them an address, the point of which was that they were not going into a convent for their own benefit or that of the world, but for 'the consolation of Christ'--_that_ was to be their work and duty through life--'the consolation of Christ for the sins of the world.' Then he fixed his eyes upon them like a basilisk and cried, 'Venite.' They tottered, quivered, but scarcely moved; again in a louder voice he called 'Venite;' they trembled and advanced a few steps. Once more 'VENITE,' and they all three fell down prostrate at his feet.

"Then the most solemn music was played, the most agonising wailing dirges were sung, and the nuns coming behind with a great black pall, spread it over the prostrate figures. It was as if they were dead. The bridesmaids strewed flowers, rosemary and laurestinus, as they sang out of their books: the spectators cried and sobbed till they were almost hysterical; but nothing was to be seen but the sunlight streaming in upon a great black pall.

"Then all the saints of the monastic orders were invoked and responded to, and then the nuns closed in, so that no one could see how the three novices were hurried away, only to reappear in their nun's dress. Then they received the Sacrament.

"It is impossible to say how well this little Holmhurst seems suited to the mother. There is still a lingering of autumnal leaves and flowers, and the grey castle rises against a gleaming sea. Thinking of her, and of our home view as it is now, one cannot help recalling Keble's lines:--

'How quiet shows the woodland scene, Each flower and tree, its duty done, Reposing in decay serene, Like weary men when age is won, Such calm old age as conscience pure And self-commanding heart ensure, Waiting their summons to the sky, Content to live, but not afraid to die.'"

JOURNAL.

"_Holmhurst, Dec. 27._--It was on Monday, the 16th, that I was sitting in my study in the twilight, when the mother came in suddenly. She had been down to Hastings with Mrs. Colegrave and Miss Chichester to see Florence Colegrave at the convent, and there first heard the dreadful news of the event of Saturday. Seeing her so much agitated terrified me to the last degree. I thought that it was Arthur who was dead, and when I heard that it was the Prince Consort, the shock was almost as great. It seems impossible to realise that one will not be able to say 'the Queen and Prince Albert' any more: it is a personal affliction to every one, and the feeling of sympathy for the Queen is overpowering. The Prince sank from the time he read the letter about the deaths of the King and Princes of Portugal. Then they tried to persuade him not to see the messengers who returned from taking the letters of condolence: he insisted upon doing so, and never rallied.... From the first the Prince thought that he should not live, and from the Wednesday Sir Henry Holland thought so too, and wrote in the first bulletin, '_Hitherto_ no unfavourable symptoms,' to prepare the public mind; but the Queen came into the anteroom, saw the bulletin, and scratched out the 'hitherto:' she would entertain no idea of danger till the last[203].... When the Prince was dying, he repeated the hymn 'Rock of Ages.' ... A letter from Windsor Castle to Mr. P. describes the consternation and difficulty as to how the Queen was to be told of the danger: no one would tell her. At last Princess Alice relieved them all by saying, 'I will tell her,' and took her out for a drive. During the drive she told the Queen that the Prince could not recover. When he died, the Queen gave one piercing, heart-rending scream, which echoed all over the castle, and which those who stood by said they could never forget, and threw herself upon the body. Then she rose and collected her children and spoke to them, telling them that they must rally round her, and that, next to God, she should henceforth look to them for support.

"C. W. sends an odd story about the King of Portugal. After his death, Princess Alice made a drawing of him lying dead, and, at the top of the drawing, the gates of heaven, with Queen Stephanie waiting to receive the spirit of her husband. A little while after, M. Lavradio sent the Queen a long account of the King's illness, in which it was said that when the King lay dying he fell into a deep sleep, and woke up after some little time saying that he had dreamt, and wished he could have gone on dreaming, that he lay dead, and that his spirit was going up to heaven, and that at the gates he saw 'Stephanie' waiting to welcome him in. Everything fresh that one hears of Prince Albert makes one realise, 'Le prince était grand, l'homme l'était davantage.'"[204]

In the course of the winter I was at Miss Leycester's house in Wilton Crescent, and saw there Miss Marsh and Sir Culling Eardley, both of whom told me much that was curious. I remember Sir Culling Eardley's saying, "I feel sure that the destruction of the temporal power will be the end of the Papacy, and I am also sure that there is one person who agrees with me, and that is Pio Nono!" He also told me that--

"One morning Mrs. Pitcairn at Torquay told her husband that she had been very much disturbed by a dream. She said she had seen her little boy of four years old carried into the house dreadfully crushed and hurt, and that all the principal doctors in the town--Madden, Mackintosh, &c.--had come in one after the other to see him.

"Her husband laughed at her fears, but said, 'Whatever you do, don't tell this to the boy; it would only frighten him unnecessarily.' However, Mrs. Pitcairn did not promise, and when her husband was gone out, she called her little boy to her, and taking him on her knee, spoke to him very seriously, saying, 'If anything happened to you now, where would you be?' &c.

"That afternoon, the little boy went with his elder brother to see some new houses his father was building. In crossing the highest floor, the ill-fastened boards gave way, and he fell, passing through all the floors, into the cellar. Half-an-hour afterwards his mother saw him carried into the house, and all the doctors come in to see him, one after another, in the exact order of her dream.

"The little boy recovered; but four years after, his elder brother, playing on the shore at Babbicombe, pulled down some rocks upon himself, and was killed upon the spot."

In March 1862 an event occurred which caused a great blank in our circle, and which perhaps made more change in my life than any other death outside my own home could have done--that of my aunt Mrs. Stanley.

JOURNAL.

"_Holmhurst, March 23, 1862._--In March last year dear Uncle Penrhyn died. Aunt Kitty was with him, and felt it deeply. Now she also, on the same day of the same week, the first anniversary of his death, has passed away from us--and oh! what a blank she has left! She was long our chief link with all the interest of the outside world, writing almost daily, and for years keeping a little slate always hanging to her davenport, on which, as each visitor went out, she noted down, from their conversation, anything she thought my mother might like to hear.

"Five weeks ago Arthur went to join the Prince of Wales at Alexandria. He was very unwilling to leave his mother, but he took the appointment by her especial request, and she was delighted with it. He took leave of her in the early morning, receiving farewells and blessings as she lay on the same bed, from whence she was unable afterwards to speak one word to her other children. When he went, my mother was very ill with bronchitis. Aunt Kitty also caught it, but wrote frequently, saying that 'her illness did not signify, she was only anxious about my mother.' It did signify, however. She became rapidly weaker. Congestion of the lungs followed, and she gradually sank. The Vaughans were sent for, and Mary was with her. We were ready to have gone at any moment, if she had been the least bit better, but she would not have been able to have spoken to the mother, perhaps not have known her, so that I am thankful for my sweet mother's sake that she should have been here in her quiet peaceful home.

"There were none of the ordinary features of an illness. Aunt Kitty suffered no pain at all: it was a mere passing out of one gentle sleep into another, till the end.

"Kate wrote--'What a solemn hour was that when we were sitting in silence round her bed, watching the gradual cessation of breathing--the gradual but sure approach of the end! Not a sound was heard but the sad wailing of the wind as her soul was passing away. She lay quite still: you would hardly have known who it was, the expression was so changed--Oh no, you would never have known it was the dear, dear face we had loved so fondly. And then, when all ceased, and there was stillness, and we thought it had been the last breath, came a deep sigh, then a pause--then a succession of deep sighs at long intervals, and it was only when no more came that we knew she was gone. Charles then knelt down and prayed for us, "especially for our dear absent brother, that he might be comforted"--and then we rose up and took our last look of that revered countenance.'

"When people are dead, how they are glorified in one's mind! I was almost as much grieved as my mother herself, and I also felt a desolation. Yet, on looking back, how few words of tenderness can I remember receiving from Aunt Kitty--some marigolds picked for me in the palace garden when I was ill at Norwich--a few acknowledgments of my later devotion to my mother in illness--an occasional interest in my drawing: this is almost all. What really makes it a personal sorrow is, that in the recollection of my oppressed and desolate boyhood, the figure of Aunt Kitty always looms forth as that of _Justice_. She was invariably just. Whatever others might say, she never allowed herself to be biassed against me, or indeed against any one else, contrary to her own convictions.

"I went with Mary and Kate to the funeral in Alderley churchyard. We all assembled there in the inner school-room, close to the Rectory, which had been the home of my aunt's happiest days, in the centre of which lay the coffin covered with a pall, but garlanded with long green wreaths, while bunches of snowdrops and white crocuses fell tenderly over the sides. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' was sung as we passed out of the church to the churchyard, where it poured with rain. The crowds of poor people present, however, liked this, for 'blessed,' they said, 'is the corpse that the rain falls on.'"

During this sad winter it was a great pleasure to us to have our faithful old friend the Baroness von Bunsen at St. Leonards, with two of her daughters--Frances and Matilda. She had been near my mother at the time of her greatest sorrow at Rome, and her society was very congenial at this time. We were quite hoping that she would have made St. Leonards her permanent winter-home, when she was recalled to live in Germany by the death of the darling daughter of her heart--Theodora von Ungern-Sternberg--soon after giving birth, at Carlsruhe, to her fifth child.

In this winter I went to stay at Hurstmonceaux Rectory with Dr. Wellesley, who was never fitted to be a country clergyman, but who never failed to be the most agreeable of hosts and of men. In person he was very like the Duke of Wellington, with black eyes, shaggy eyebrows, and snow-white hair. His courtesy and kindness were unfailing, especially to women, be their rank what it might. A perfect linguist, he had the most extraordinary power of imitating Italians in their own peculiar dialects. Most diverting was his account of a sermon which he heard preached in the Coliseum. I can only give the words--the tone, the gestures are required to give it life. It was on the day on which the old Duke of Torlonia died. He had been the great enemy of the monks and nuns, and of course they hated him. On that day, being a Friday, the Confraternità della Misericordia met, as usual, at four o'clock, in SS. Cosmo and Damiano in the Forum, and went chanting in procession to the Coliseum. Those who remember those days will recall in imagination the strong nasal twang of "Sant' Bartolome, ora pro nobis; Santa Agata, ora pro nobis; Sant' Silvestro, ora pro nobis," &c. Arrived at the Coliseum, the monk ascended the pulpit, and began in the familiar style of those days, in which sermons were usually opened with "How do you do?" and some remarks about the weather.

"Buon giorno, cari fratelli miei. Buon giorno, care sorelle--come state tutti? State bene? Oh, mi fa piacere, mi fa molto piacere! Fa bell' tempo stasera, non e vero? un tempo piacevole--cielo sereno. Oh ma piacevole di molto!

"Ebbene, cari fratelli miei--Ebbene, care sorelle--sapete cosa c' è di nuovo--sapete che cos' è successo stammattina in città? Non lo sapete--maraviglia! Oh, non vi disturbate--nò--nò--nò--non vi disturbate affatto--ve lo dirò, io ve lo spieghierò tutto.

"Stammattina stessa in città è morto qualcheduno. Fu un uomo--un uomo ben inteso--ma che specie d' uomo? Fu un uomo grande--fu un uomo ricco--fu un uomo potente--fu un uomo grandissimo, ricchissimo, potentissimo, magnificentissimo, ma morì!--morì, cari fratelli miei, quell' uomo così grande, così ricco, così potente--morì!--così passiamo tutti--così finisce il mondo--moriamo.

"E che fu quell' uomo così importante che è morto? Fu un Duca! un Duca, cari fratelli miei! E, quando morì, cosa fece? È montato sopra, montato sopra su alla porta del Paradiso, dove sta San Pietro, colle sue sante chiavi. Picchia il Duca.... 'Chi è là,' disse San Pietro. 'Il Duca di Torlonia!'--'Ah, il Duca di Torlonia,' disse San Pietro, 'quel nome è ben conosciuto, ben conosciuto davvero.' Quindi si voltò San Pietro all' angelo custode che teneva il libro della vita, e disse, 'Angelo mio, cercate un pò se trovate quel nome del Duca di Torlonia.' Dunque l'angelo cercò, cercò con tanta pena, con tanta inquietudine, voltò tante pagine in quel libro così grande della vita, ma disse infine, 'Caro Signor San Pietro mio, mi rincresce tanto, ma quel nome lì non mi riesce di trovarlo.'

"Allora si voltò San Pietro, e disse, 'Caro Signor Duca mio, mi rincresce tanto, ma il suo nome non si trova nel libro della vita.' Rise il Duca, e disse, 'Ma che sciocchezza! cercate poi il titolo minore, cercate pure il titolo maggiore della famiglia, cercate il Principe di Bracciano, e lo troverete sicuramente.' Dunque l'angelo cercò di nuovo, cercò con sollecitudine, voltò tante tante pagine in quel libro così immenso--ma alla fine disse, 'Caro Signor San Pietro mio, mi rincresce tanto--ma quei nomi non si trovan qui, nè l'uno, nè l'altro.' Allora disse San Pietro, 'Mi dispiace tanto, Signor Duca mio--ma bisogna scendere più giù--bisogna scendere più giù.'

"Scese dunque il Duca--poco contento--anzi mortificato di molto--scese giù alla porta del Purgatorio. Picchia il Duca. 'Chi è là,' disse il guardiano. 'Il Duca di Torlonia' (_piano_). 'Ah, il Duca di Torlonia,' disse il guardiano. 'Anche qui, quel nome è ben conosciuto, molto ben conosciuto--ma bisogna scendere più giù--bisogna scendere più giù.'

"Scese dunque il Duca. Ahimè! quant' era miserabile! come gridava, quanto piangeva, ma--gridando, piangendo--scendeva--scendeva giù--alla porta dell' Inferno, dove sta il Diavolo. Picchia il Duca. 'Chi è là,' disse il Diavolo. 'Il Duca di Torlonia' (_pianissimo_). 'Ah, il Duca di Torlonia,' disse il Diavolo, 'oh siete il benvenuto, entrate qui, caro amico mio, oh quanto tempo siete aspettato, entrate qui, e restate per sempre.' Ecco cari fratelli miei, ecco care sorelle, quel ch' è successò quest' oggi, stammattina, in città, a quel povero Duca di Torloni-a!" &c.

I narrated this story afterwards to Mrs. F. Dawkins and her daughters, and they told me that some friends of theirs were at Rome on August 10, St. Laurence's Day--which fell on a Friday that year--and St. Laurence, as all know, was roasted on a gridiron. That day, the monk began as usual--

"Buon giorno, cari fratelli miei--buon giorno, care sorelle (sniff, sniff, sniff)--ma sento qualche cosa (sniff, sniff)--che cosa sento io (sniff)--sento un odore. E l'odore de che? (sniff, sniff, sniff)--è l'odore di carne (sniff). Chi specie di carne può essere? E l'odore di carne bollito? (sniff). Nò, nò, nò, non e bollito (sniff, sniff, sniff). Ah, lo vedo, è l'odore di carne arrosto, è l'odore di carne arrostito--è l'odore d'un santo arrostito--è l'odore di San Lorenzo."

Lady Marian Alford used to tell a similar story. Lord Brownlow was at S. Agostino, when a monk, who was walking about, preaching, in the great pulpit there, said, "Che odore sento io? E l'odore di montone?--nò! È l'odore di presciutto?--nò! È l'odore delle anime che friggono nell' inferno."

I cannot remember whether it was in this or the preceding winter that I spent an evening with Dr. Lushington, the famous judge, who, having been born in the beginning of 1782, and preserving evergreen all the recollections of his long life, was one of the most delightful of men. I remember his describing how all the places ending in _s_ in England take their names from people who have lived there. Leeds is so called from an old person called Leed or Lloyd, of whom the great city is now the only memorial. Levens is from Leofwin.

He said that "the Duchesse d'Angoulême never forgave the Court of Rome for not canonising her father." She always regarded Louis XVI. as a saint. Of her mother she spoke with less confidence--"she had faults," she said, "but they were terribly expiated."

Dr. Lushington said that when he was a very little child travelling alone with his father, the carriage stopped near a public-house, and the footman and coachman, with the license of those times, went in to drink. He was himself asleep in the corner of the carriage, when a pistol, directed at his father, came crashing in at the window, with a demand for money. Dr. Lushington distinctly remembered his father drawing out a long green silk purse, in which were one hundred guineas, and deliberately counting out twelve guineas into the man's hand, and saying, "There, take that, that is enough." "Well," said the man, "but I must have your watch."--"No," said his father, "it is an old family watch, and I cannot give it to you." Upon this the man said, "Well, God bless you," and went away. Immediately after the servants came out of the inn, and hearing what had happened, said they were armed, they could pursue the highwayman, and they could easily take him. "No," said Dr. Lushington's father, "let him go. The man God-blessed _me_, and I'll be damned if I hang _him_."

At this time I took the opportunity of persuading Dr. Lushington to tell me himself the most celebrated of his stories, which I had already heard from his son Godfrey and from Arthur Stanley. I wrote it down at the time, and here it is, in the very words of the old judge.

"There was once, within my memory, an old gentleman who lived in Kent, and whose name, for very obvious reasons, I cannot mention, but he lived in _Kent_. He was a very remarkable old man, and chiefly because in the whole course of his very, very long life--for he was extremely old--he had never been known on any single occasion to want presence of mind; he had always done exactly the right thing, and he had always said exactly the right word, at exactly the right moment. The old gentleman lived alone. That is to say, he had never married, and he had no brother or sister or other relation living with him, but he had a very old housekeeper, a very old butler, a very old gardener--in fact, all the old-fashioned retinue of a very old-fashioned household, and, bound together by mutual respect and affection, the household was a very harmonious one.

"Now I must describe what the old gentleman's house was like. Upstairs, there was a very long passage, which ended in a blank wall. At the end of the passage, on the left, was a dressing-room, and on the right was a bedroom, the room in which the old gentleman himself slept. The bedroom was entered by a very heavy swing-door, which could only be opened from the inside--that is to say, the old gentleman carried the key upon his watch-chain, and let himself in and out. When he wished housemaids or other persons to go in or out, he left the door open; but when he was inside and shut the door, no one could come in unless he opened the door to them. People may say 'it was very eccentric;' it _was_ very eccentric: but the old gentleman was very peculiar; it was the way he chose to live: at any rate, it was a fact. Through the bedroom, opposite the door into the passage, was another door which led into the plate-room. This was also a very heavy swing-door, which could only be opened from the _outside_, and very often in summer the old gentleman would set it open at night, because he thought it gave more air to the bedroom. Everything depends upon your attending to and understanding the geography of these rooms. You see they were all _en suite_ cross-wise. If you stood in the plate-room, and all the doors were open, you would see the dressing-room, and _vice versâ_.

"One morning when the old gentleman came down to breakfast, he found upon his plate a note. He opened it, and it contained these words--'Beware, you are in the hands of thieves and robbers.' He was very much surprised, but he had such presence of mind that he threw the note into the fire and went on buttering his toast, having his breakfast. Inwardly he kept a sharp look-out upon all that was going on. But there was nothing special going on whatever. It was very hot summer weather; the old gardener was mowing the lawn, the old housekeeper cooked the dinner, the old butler brought it in: no, there was nothing whatever especial going on.

"That night, when the old gentleman went to bed, he took particular care to examine his room, and to see that his heavy swing-door was well fastened, so that no one could come in to disturb him. And when he had done this, he went to bed and fell asleep, and slept very well till the next morning, for nothing happened, nothing whatever.

"When the next morning came, he rang his bell for his hot water as usual, but nobody came. He rang, and rang, and rang again, but still nobody came. At last he opened his bedroom door, and went out down the passage to the head of the staircase, and called to the butler over the banisters. The butler answered. 'Why did you not attend to my bell?' said the old gentleman. 'Because no bell rang,' answered the butler. 'Oh, but I have rung very often,' said the old gentleman; 'go downstairs again, and I will pull the bell again; watch if it rings.' So the butler went downstairs, and the old man pulled the bell, but no bell rang. 'Then,' said the old gentleman, 'you must send for the bell-hanger at once; one cannot live with broken bells; that sort of thing cannot be allowed to go on in the house,'--and he dressed and went down to breakfast.

"While he was eating his breakfast, the old gentleman found he had forgotten his pocket-handkerchief, and went up to his room to get it. And such was the promptitude of that old-fashioned household, that the village being close to the house, and the bell-hanger living in the village, the master's orders had already been obeyed, and the bell-hanger was already in the room, standing on a ladder, arranging the new wire of the bell. In old-fashioned houses, you know, the bell wires come through the wall and go round the top of the room, so that you can see them, and so it was in this house in Kent. You do not generally perhaps observe how many wires there are in your room, but it so happened that, as he lay in bed, the old gentleman had observed those in his, and there were three wires. Now he looked, and there were four wires. Yes, there was no doubt there were four wires going round his room. '_Now_,' he said, '_now_ I know exactly what is going to happen,' but he gave no outward sign of having discovered anything, and he went down and finished his breakfast.

"All that day everything went on as usual. It was a dreadfully hot day in July--very sultry indeed. The old gentleman was subject to bad nervous headaches, and in the afternoon he pretended to be not quite so well. When dinner-time came, he was very suffering indeed. He spoke of it to the butler. He said, 'It is only one of my usual attacks; I have no doubt it is the weather. I shall be better to-morrow; but I will go to bed early.' And towards half-past nine he went upstairs. He left the door of the bedroom ajar, so that any one could come in; he set the door of the plate-room wide open, for the sake of more air to the bedroom, and he went to bed. When he was in bed, he rang the bell, the new bell that the bell-hanger had put up that morning. The butler came. The old gentleman gave some orders about horses for the next day, and then said, 'Do not disturb me in the morning. I had better sleep off my headache; I will ring when I want to get up. You can draw the curtains round the bed, and then shut the door.' So the butler drew the curtains round the bed, and went out, shutting the door after him.

"As soon as the old gentleman heard the footsteps of the butler die away down the passage, he dressed himself completely from head to foot; he took two loaded pistols and a blunderbuss. He stealthily opened the heavy swing-door of the bedroom. He let himself out into the dark passage. He shut to the bedroom door behind him. It fastened with a click; he could not go in himself any more, and he crossed the passage, and stood in the dark dressing-room with the door open.

"It was still very early, and eleven o'clock came, and nothing happened; and twelve came and nothing happened; and one o'clock came and nothing happened. And the old gentleman--for he was already very old--began to feel very much exhausted, and he began to say to himself, 'Perhaps after all I was wrong! Perhaps after all it is a hallucination; but I will wait till two o'clock.'

"At half-past one o'clock there was a sound of stealthy footsteps down the passage, and three figures passed in front of him and stood opposite the bedroom door. They were so near that he could have shot them every one; but he said to himself, 'No, I'll wait, I'll wait and see what is going to happen.' And as he waited, the light from the dark lantern which the first man carried fell upon their faces, and he recognised them. And the first figure was the butler, and the second figure was the bell-hanger, and the third figure, from having been long a magistrate on a London bench, he recognised as the most notorious ruffian of a well-known London gang. He heard the ruffian say to the butler, 'I say, it's no use mincing this kind of thing: no use doing this kind of thing by halves: better put him out of the way at once, and go on to the plate afterwards.'--'Oh no,' said the butler, 'he has been a good master to me; I'll never consent to that. Take all he has; he'll never wake, not he; but you can't do him any harm; I'll never consent to that.' And they wrangled about it for some time, but at last the butler seemed to get the better, and the ruffian had to consent to his terms.

"Then exactly what the old gentleman had expected happened. The butler, standing on tiptoe, could just reach the four wires of the bells, which came through into the low passage above the bedroom door. As the butler reached the lowest of the wires, and by leaning his weight upon it, pulled it downwards, it was seen that the wire was connected with the bolt of the door on the inside; the bolt rolled up, and the heavy swing-door of the bedroom, of which the hinges were well oiled for the occasion, rolled open. 'There,' said the butler, as they passed into the room, 'master always sleeps like that. Curtains drawn all round the bed. He'll not hear anything, not he.' And they all passed in through the open door of the plate-room. The old man waited till they were entirely occupied with the plate-chest, and then he slipped off his slippers, and, with a hop, skip, and a jump, he darted across the room, and--bang! they were all caught in a trap. He banged to the heavy swing-door of the plate-room, which could only be opened from the outside.

"Having done that--people may believe it or not, but I maintain that it is true--the old man had such presence of mind, that he undressed, went to bed, and slept soundly till the next morning. Even if this were not so, till the next morning he did not send for the police, and the consequence was that when he did send for the police, and the door was opened, the following horrible scene revealed itself: The ruffian had tried to make a way of escape through the roof, had stuck fast, and was dreadfully mangled in the attempt: the bell-hanger had hung himself from the ceiling: and the butler was a drivelling idiot in the corner, from the horror of the night he had gone through."

Dr. Lushington had been employed in the inquiry which ensued, and had personal knowledge of all he narrated. I must record one more story which he told me--in his words:--

"I had a great-uncle, and as I am a very old man, you may imagine that my great-uncle was alive a very long time ago. He was a very eccentric man, and his peculiar hobby when in London was to go about to dine at all sorts of odd places of entertainment, to amuse himself with the odd characters he fell in with. One day he was dining at a tavern near St. Bride's in Fleet Street, and at the table opposite to him sat a man who interested him exceedingly, who was unusually amusing, and quaint, and agreeable. At the end of dinner the stranger said, 'Perhaps, sir, you are not aware that you have been dining with a notorious highwayman?'--'No, indeed,' said my great-uncle, not the least discomposed. 'What an unexpected pleasure! But I am quite sure, sir, that you cannot always have been a highwayman, and that your story must be a very remarkable one. Can I not persuade you to do me the honour of telling it to me?'--'Well,' said the stranger, 'we have had a very pleasant dinner, and I like your acquaintance, and I don't mind if I do tell you my story. You are quite right in thinking that I was in early life as free as you are, or indeed, for that matter, as I myself am now. But one day, as I was riding over Hounslow Heath, I was surrounded by highwaymen. They dragged me from my horse, and then said, "We don't want your money, and we don't want your life, but we want _you_, and you we must have. A great many of us have been taken, and we want recruits; you must go with us." I protested in vain; I said it was impossible I could go with them; I was a respectable member of society, it was quite impossible that I could become a highwayman. "Then," they said, "you must die; you cannot be allowed to live, to go out into the world, and tell what has been proposed to you." I was in a terrible strait, and eventually I was obliged to promise to go with them. I was obliged to promise, but I made such difficulties that I was able to exact two conditions. One was that at the end of seven years I should be allowed to go free, and that I should never be recognised or taken by them again. The other was that in the seven years I was with them, no deed of actual cruelty should ever be committed in my presence.

"'So I rode with the highwaymen, and many strange things happened. I saw many people robbed and pillaged, and I helped to rob and pillage them, but no deed of actual cruelty was ever committed in my presence. One day, after I had been with the band four years, we were riding in Windsor Forest. I saw a carriage approaching down the long avenue. It was sure to have ladies in it; there was likely to be a disagreeable scene; it was not necessary that I should be present, so I lingered behind in the forest. Presently, however, I was roused by so dreadful a scream from the carriage that I could no longer resist riding forward, and I spurred on my horse. In the carriage sat a lady, magnificently dressed, evidently just come from Windsor Castle, and the highwaymen had torn the bracelets from her arms and the necklace from her neck, and were just about to cut off her little finger, because there was a very valuable diamond ring upon it, which they could not otherwise get off. The lady implored me to have pity upon her, to intercede for her, and I did. I represented that the highwaymen had made me a solemn promise that no deed of personal cruelty should ever be committed in my presence, that on that condition only I was with them, and I called upon them to keep their promise. They disputed and were very angry, but eventually they gave in, and rode off with the rest of their booty, leaving me alone with the lady.

"'The lady then said she owed me everything. She certainly owed me her life, for she was quite sure that she should never, never, have survived the loss of her little finger. She was quite sure, she said, that I could not like being a highwayman, and she entreated me to abandon the road and reform my life. "I can get you a pardon," she said, "I can set you up in life--in fact, I can do anything for you." Then I told her my story. I told her how the highwaymen had made a promise to me, and they had kept it; and I told her how I had made a promise to them, and I must keep it also. I had promised to go with them for seven years, and I had only been with them four; I must go with them for three years more. "Then," said the lady, "I know what will happen; I know what stringent measures are going to be enforced for the suppression of highwaymen. I am certain you cannot escape for three years: you will be taken, and you will be condemned to death. When this happens, send for me, and I will save your life. I am Mrs. Masham."

"'It was indeed Mrs. Masham, the great favourite of Queen Anne.

"'Before the expiration of the three years I was taken, I was tried, and I was condemned to death. While I was lying in Newgate under sentence of death, I sent to Mrs. Masham, and Mrs. Masham flung herself at the feet of Queen Anne, and the Queen spared my life.'"

This was the story of Dr. Lushington's great-uncle's friend.

* * * * *

In April I returned to my work in the North. My first visit worth recording was one to the old house of Mainsforth in Durham, the home of Mrs. Surtees, widow of the genial and delightful historian, who was the intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, though he offended him when it was discovered that he had himself written the glorious ballads which he had imposed upon Sir Walter as originals.[205] He was also the author of many ballads of a simpler and more touching character, which have never attained to the position in English poetry which they surely deserve.

* * * * *

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Mainsforth, April 26, 1862._--This has been a most interesting visit, both the old ladies of the house so amusing, and so full of stories of the past, in which they are still living, having shut out the present ever since the death of Mr. Surtees, twenty years ago. Miss Robinson has lived with 'my Sister Surtees' for the last fifteen years, and thinks there is no place in the world like Mainsforth: and indeed it is a most pleasant old house, thoroughly unpretending, but roomy and comfortable, close to the road on one side, but a very quiet road, with a fringe of ancient trees and a rookery, and on the other looking out on the wide green lawn and broad terrace-walk, bordered by clumps of hyacinths and tall turncap lilies. My room has two low windows, which slide back like doors, and look down through glades of hollies, like a picture, to the silvery windings of the Skene. It is quiet, and stillness itself; no sound but the cawing of the rooks, and the ticking of the clock on the broad old staircase.

"Ever since an accident five years ago, 'my Sister Surtees' has sat on a sofa in a sitting-room covered with fine old prints pasted on the walls, with a large tapestry screen on one side of her, and during the three days I have been here, I have never seen her move from this place, to which she appears to be glued. 'My Sister Mary' does all the hospitalities of the house, in the heartiest, most cordial way, and both always keep open house at Mainsforth for every one who likes to come. University students from Durham are constantly here, and the house is a second home to all the poor clergy of the neighbourhood, who come whenever they want a good dinner, or ready interest and kindly sympathy. A new curate was appointed to the neighbouring church of Bishop Middleham, and was asked to stay here while he looked out for lodgings: he stayed on and on, till he never went away again: he stayed here three years! The students of Durham University have just put up two stained glass windows in the church here, in token of gratitude for the kindness they have received at Mainsforth. Imagine the students of Oxford doing such a thing!

"On Thursday I went by the early train to Darlington, and, after seeing the town, set off in a gig on a long round of country villages. I saw the 'Hell Kettles,' three pools which are supposed to be fathomless, and into which, if a sheep falls, it is believed to be always 'a going' to the end of all time: and at one o'clock came to Sockburne, a lovely peninsula on the Tees, where an old ruined chapel stands on the edge of the green lawn above the rushing river, and beside it 'the Wishing-Tree,' a chestnut 1100 years old, where everything wished for comes true. I had an introduction to Mrs. Blackett, the owner, who lives in a beautiful modern house with terraces above the river, and when I was shown in, I found with her, in three young ladies spinning, three friends of last year, daughters of Sir Edward Blackett of Matfen. After luncheon, though it rained, they all walked with me three miles along the lovely hanging woods by the Tees to 'the Leper's Bath.'

"Yesterday I went off again, before the family breakfast, to Stockton-on-Tees, a manufacturing town, celebrated for possessing the widest street in England. I dined at Greatham Hospital with Mr. Tristram, the Master. It seemed a most melancholy place morally, no one speaking to anybody else, every one quarrelling about their rights of way, the keys of their church, even about their interest in the poor old men of the Hospital. The country is now all blackened with coal-pits, and it is curious to hear my present hostesses describe it all trees and verdure, as it was in their youth. But the natives are still wonderfully simple and full of kind-heartedness. At Billingham a poor woman having spent half-an-hour in trying to find the keys of the church for me, said, when I begged her to give it up, 'Na, na, I'll try once again, if only to show a willin'.'"

JOURNAL.

"_Mainsforth, April 24, 1862._--Sitting alone with Miss Robinson just now, she talked much of Sir Walter Scott.

"'I knew Sir Walter Scott very well: to hear him talk was like hearing history with all the disagreeable parts weeded out. I often dined with him in Edinburgh. I went with my Sister Surtees to his house just after his first paralytic seizure. We went to take him a book, and, not knowing of his illness, my Sister Surtees asked if he was at home. The servant said he did not know; so my sister told him just to give Sir Walter the book and say it was left by Mrs. Surtees of Mainsforth. But Sir Walter, who was sitting in his study, heard my sister's voice, and said, "I am sure that is Mrs. Surtees of Mainsforth," and sent to desire us to come in. We found him dreadfully altered, and he described to us all that had happened. "I was sitting with Sophy, when I was taken," he said (she is dead--they are all dead now), "and I could not speak; so I ran upstairs into the drawing-room, where there were several ladies in the room, and there I soon became insensible and could not be roused. I remember it as if it were to-day," he said; "they all began to beel, and they made such a tiran, you can scarcely imagine it. I did not wish to frighten them more, so I did not say what I felt, but I'll tell you what it was, Mrs. Surtees--_I shook hands with death_."

"'Lady Scott was brought up in France. She was a very frivolous person--very exceedingly. The first time I dined with them, I sat next to her, and she wore a brocaded silk gown which she told me cost two hundred guineas. "Dear me, Lady Scott," I said, "but is not that a very large price?"--"Yes," she replied, "but that's what my dressmaker charges _me_." People never knew what present to give to Sir Walter; so, when they wished to make a present, they gave ornaments to Lady Scott, and she would come down to a common dinner with her arm quite covered with bracelets. What more she could have worn if she went to court, I cannot imagine. She never entered into Sir Walter's pursuits at all.

"'Donald was the old piper, and a very fine-looking person he was. He used to walk about the gallery outside playing the pibroch on the bagpipes. He could not have done it in the room, it was so deafening. Even from outside, the noise was tremendous, but Sir Walter liked it because it was national.'"

"_April 25._--I have had a long talk with Mrs. Surtees. I wish I could put down half she said about the Ettrick Shepherd.

"'Once we wanted to go to the Highlands. There were my sister and two other ladies: we were a party of four. Surtees would not go with us because he said we should be such a trouble to him; but he said, "What I advise you to do is, to go to Mr. Blackwood when you get to Edinburgh, and ask him to give you a tour." So when we got to Edinburgh, we went to Mr. Blackwood, and told him what Surtees said. "Oh dear, Mrs. Surtees," said Mr. Blackwood, "what a pity you were not here a minute ago, for Mr. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, has only just gone out of the shop, and he would have been the very person to have told you all you wanted to know." Now you must know that Surtees had been very kind to Hogg, and I was very anxious to see him, so I said, "Oh dear, but can we not still see him?"--"Well," said Mr. Blackwood, "he is going out of town now, but he will be back in a short time, and if you like to leave your address, he will come and call upon you." So I was just going to write my name on a card, when who should come in again but the Ettrick Shepherd. "Oh, sir," said Mr. Blackwood, "I'm so glad to see you back, for this is Mrs. Surtees, and she wants you to give her a tour in the Highlands."--"Eh!" said the Shepherd, "coom awa then wi' me into th' backshop, and I'll do't."

"'So we went into the backshop, and he told me where to go, and showed me all the route on a large map that was there; and when he had done he said, "Weel, Mrs. Surtees, an noo I've shown ye the route, I'd jist like to go wi' ye."--"Well," I said, "Mr. Hogg, we are only four ladies, but we would do all we could to make it agreeable to you, if you liked to go."--"Eh," said the Shepherd, "but I could'na just leave the lammies."

"'So then he said, "Eh, Mrs. Surtees, but my wife's here, and I'm just a going to choose her a silk gown: will ye coom awa along wi' us an' help to choose it?" So I went with them (a very nice-looking woman too Mrs. Hogg was) and helped to choose the gown.

"'Once I met them at dinner at Sir Walter's. Sir Walter treated Mrs. Hogg very well, and thought her (as the poet's wife, you know) every bit as good as Lady Scott; but Lady Scott thought her very different, and she did not carry it off very well.

"'We were at Abbotsford when Washington Irving was there. When people went away, Sir Walter used to conduct all those he especially liked over the hill as far as a particular little wicket. When Mr. Irving went, he said, "Now I'll take you as far as the wicket." I walked with them, and when they parted, I so well remember Mr. Irving saying what a pleasant visit he had had, and all that kind of thing--and then Sir Walter's hearty, earnest "Coom again."'

"Mrs. Surtees had also much to say of Mrs. Siddons.

"'I used often to meet Mrs. Siddons at the house of the Barringtons when they lived at Sedgefield. She was always acting. I remember as if it were yesterday her sitting by me at dinner and asking George Barrington how Chinamen eat their rice with chopsticks. "Well, but I pray you, and how do they do it?" she said in a theatrical tone; and then, turning to the footman, she said, "Give me a glass of water, I pray you; I am athirst to-day." After dinner, Lord Barrington would say, "Well now, Mrs. Siddons, will you give us some reading?"

"'Her daughter was with her, who was miserably ill-educated. She could not even sew. The Miss Barringtons took her in hand and tried to teach her, but they could make nothing of her.'"

"_April 26._--Miss Robinson has been telling me, 'When we were in London, we went to a chapel in Bedford Place where Sydney Smith often used to preach, and we were shown into a pew; for, you know, in London you do not sit where you like, but they show you into pews--the women people that keep the church do. There was a strange lady in the seat, and I have never seen her before or since. It was not I that sat next to her--my Sister Surtees was the person. The service was got through very well, and when the preacher got up, it was Sydney Smith. I remember the sermon as if it were to-day. It was from the 106th Psalm. He described the end of man--the "portals of mortality." "Over those portals," he said, "are written Death! Plague! Famine! Pestilence!" &c., and he was most violent. I am sure the poor man that had read the service and was sitting underneath would rather have been at the portals of mortality than where he was just then, for Sydney Smith thumped the cushion till it almost touched his head, and he must have thought the whole thing was coming down upon him. The lady in the pew was quite frightened, and she whispered to my Sister Surtees, "This is Sir Sydney Smith, who has been so long in the wars, and that is what makes him so violent."--"Oh dear, no," said my Sister Surtees, "you are under a great mistake," &c.

"Miss Robinson described her youth at Houghton-le-Spring, now almost the blackest place in Durham.

"'Houghton-le-Spring was a lovely rustic village. There was not a pit in the neighbourhood, and the neighbourhood was the best that was known in England. Sixteen or seventeen carriages waited at the church-gate every Sunday. My father lived at Herrington Hall, and our family were buried in Bernard Gilpin's tomb, because they were related.

"'The Lyons[206] of Hetton were a beautiful family, but Mrs. Fellowes was the loveliest. Jane and Elizabeth died each of a rapid decline. Mrs. Lyon embarked £60,000 in the pit at Hetton, lost it, and died of a broken heart. People used to say, 'Do you know where Mrs. Lyon's heart is? At the bottom of Hetton coal-pit.'"

After a visit to the George Liddells at Durham, I went on to Northumberland.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Westgate Street, Newcastle, May 6, 1862._--Yesterday afternoon I came here, to the old square dark red brick house of the Claytons, who are like merchant-princes in Newcastle, so enormous is their wealth, but who still live in the utmost simplicity in the old-fashioned family house in this retired shady street. The family are all remarkable. First comes Mr. John Clayton of Chesters, the well-known antiquary of North Tyne, a grand, sturdy old man, with a head which might be studied for a bust of Jupiter;[207] then there is his brother Matthew, a thin tall lawyer, full of jokes and queer sayings; then the venerable and beautiful old sister, Mrs. Anne Clayton (beloved far and wide by the poor, amongst whom she spends her days, and who are all devoted to 'Mrs. Nancy Claytoun'), is the gentlest and kindest of old ladies. And besides these, there is the nephew, George Nathaniel, a college friend of mine, and his wife, Isabel Ogle, whom we have often met abroad.

"Last night, Dr. Bruce[208] dined, the leader of the 'Romanist' antiquarians in the county, in opposition to Dr. Charlton and the 'Mediævalists.'"

"_May 7._--How amused my mother would be with this quaintest of families, who live here in the most primitive fashion, always treating each other as if they were acquaintances of the day, and addressing one another by their full titles, as 'Miss Anne Clayton, will you have the goodness to make the tea?'--'Mr. Town-Clerk of Newcastle, will you have the kindness to hand me the toast?' &c. Miss Anne is a venerable lady with snow-white hair, but her brother Matthew, who is rather older, is convinced that she is one of the most harum-scarum young girls in the world, and is continually pulling her up with 'Miss Anne Clayton, you are very inaccurate,'--'Miss Anne Clayton, be careful what you say,'--'Miss Anne Clayton, another inaccuracy,'--while the poor old sister goes on her own way without minding a bit.

"This afternoon we have been to Tynemouth, and most refreshing was the sea-air upon the cliffs, and the sight of that enchanting old ruin standing on its rocky height. The journey was very curious through the pit, glass, and alkali country.

"This evening old Mr. Matthew has been unusually extraordinary, and very fatiguing--talking for exactly two hours about his bootmakers, Messrs. Hoby & Humby, whence they came, what they had done, and how utterly unrivalled they were. 'Miss Anne Clayton,' he said at the end, 'I hope you understand all I've been saying. Now wait before you give an opinion, but above all things, Miss Anne Clayton, don't, don't be inaccurate.'"

"_Dilston Hall, May 8, 1862._--I left Westgate Street this morning directly after breakfast, and getting out of the train at Blaydon, walked by Stella and Ryton to Wylam. Ryton was very interesting to me, because the church is full of monuments of my Simpson relations, including that of old Mrs. Simpson, the mother-in-law of Lady Anne, of whom we have a picture, and of her father, Mr. Andersen,[209] from whom the property came. As I was going through the churchyard, the sexton poked up his head from an open grave to stare at me. 'Where can I get the church keys?' I said. 'Why, I'll tell you wherefrom you'll get them; you'll just get them out of my coat-pocket,' he answered, and so I did. It was a beautiful church, with rich stained windows, oak stalls, and tombs, and outside it lovely green haughs sloping down to the Tyne.

"Thence I walked on to see Bradley,[210] the home of my great-grandmother Lady Anne Simpson. It is a charming place, with deep wooded glens filled with what Northumbrians call rowan and gane trees, and carpeted with primroses and cowslips.

"I arrived at Dilston by tea-time, and afterwards we went out along the terraced heights, and I longed for you to see the view--the rich hanging woods steeped in gold by the setting sun, while behind rose the deep blue moorlands, and from below the splash of the Devil's Water came through the gnarled oaks and yellow broom."

"_Old Elvet, Durham, May 4._--On Friday I drew in the lovely woods by the Devil's Water, and then walked, overtaken by a dreadful storm on the way, to Queen Margaret's cave in Deepden, where she met the robber. Yesterday a wild moorland drive took me to Blanchland,[211] a curious place, with a monastic church and gateway, and a village surrounding a square, in the deep ravine of the Derwent. Then a still wilder drive brought me to Stanhope, whence I came here by rail to the kind Liddell cousins.

"George Liddell has been telling me how, when they lived out of the town at Burnopside, a poor woman lived near them at a place called 'Standfast Hill,' who used to have periodical washings, and put out all the things to dry afterwards on the bank by the side of the road. One day a tramp came by and carried them all off: when the daughter came out to take the things in, they were all gone, and she rushed back to her mother in despair, saying that they were all ruined, the things were all gone, &c.

"The Liddells went up to see that poor woman afterwards and to tell her how sorry they were; but she said, 'Yes, there's my poor Mary, she goes blearing about like a mad bull; but I say to her, "Dinna' fash yersel, but pray to the Lord to have mercy on them that took the things, for they've paid far dearer than I ever paid for them."'"

In June I was at Chartwell in Kent, when Mr. Colquhoun (who was one of the most perfect types of a truly Christian _gentleman_ I have ever known), told me the following story, from personal knowledge both of the facts and persons:--

"On awaking one morning, Mr. Rutherford of Egerton (in Roxburghshire) found his wife dreadfully agitated, and asked her what was the matter. 'Oh,' she said, 'it is something I really cannot tell you, because you could not possibly sympathise with it.'--'But I insist upon knowing,' he said. 'Well,' she answered, 'if you insist upon knowing, I am agitated because I have had a dream which has distressed me very much. I dreamt that my aunt, Lady Leslie, who brought me up, is going to be murdered; and not only that, but in my dream I have seen the person who is going to murder her:--I have seen him so distinctly, that if I met him in any town of Europe, I should know him again.'--'What bombastical nonsense!' said Mr. Rutherford; 'you really become more and more foolish every day.'--'Well, my dear,' said his wife, 'I told you that it was a thing in which you could not sympathise, and I did not wish to tell you my dream.'

"Coming suddenly into her sitting-room during the morning, Mr. Rutherford found his wife still very much agitated and distressed, and being of choleric disposition, he said sharply, 'Now do let us have an end once for all of this nonsense. Go down into Fife and see your aunt, Lady Leslie, and then, when you have found her alive and quite well, perhaps you will give up having these foolish imaginations for the future.' Mrs. Rutherford wished no better; she put a few things into a hand-bag, she went to Edinburgh, she crossed the Firth of Forth, and that afternoon at four o'clock she drove up to Lady Leslie's door. The door was opened by a strange servant. It was the man she had seen in her dream.

"She found Lady Leslie well, sitting with her two grown-up sons. She was exceedingly surprised to see her niece, but Mrs. Rutherford said that having that one day free, and not being able to come again for some time, she had seized the opportunity of coming for one night; and her aunt was too glad to see her to ask many questions. In the course of the evening Mrs. Rutherford said, 'Aunt, when I lived at home with you, whenever I was to have an especial treat, it was that I might sleep in your room. Now I am only here for one night; do let me have my old child's treat over again: I have a special fancy for it;' and Lady Leslie was rather pleased than otherwise. Before they went to bed, Mrs. Rutherford had an opportunity of speaking to her two cousins alone. She said, 'You will be excessively surprised at what I ask, but I shall measure your affection for me entirely by whether you grant it: it is that you will sit up to-night in the room next to your mother's, and that you will tell no one.' They promised, but they were very much surprised.

"As they were going to bed, Mrs. Rutherford said to Lady Leslie, 'Aunt, shall I lock the door?' and Lady Leslie laughed at her and said, 'No, my dear; I am much too old-fashioned a person for that,' and forbade it. But as soon as Mrs. Rutherford saw that Lady Leslie was asleep, she slipped out of bed and turned the lock of the door. Then, leaning against the pillow, she watched, and watched the handle of the door.

"The reflection of the fire scintillated on the round brass handle of the door, and, as she watched, it almost seemed to mesmerise her, but she watched still. Suddenly the speck of light seemed to appear on the _other_ side; some one was evidently turning the handle of the door. Mrs. Rutherford rang the bell violently, her cousins rushed out of the next room, and she herself threw the door wide open, and there, at the door, stood the strange servant, the man she had seen in her dream, with a covered coal-scuttle in his hand. The cousins demanded why he was there. He said he thought he heard Lady Leslie's bell ring. They said, 'But you do not answer Lady Leslie's bell at this time in the night,' and they insisted upon opening the coal-scuttle. In it was a large knife.

"Then, as by sudden impulse, the man confessed. He knew Lady Leslie had received a large sum for her rents the day before, that she kept it in her room, and that it could not be sent away till the next day. 'The devil tempted me,' he said, 'the devil walked with me down the passage, and unless God had intervened, the devil would have forced me to cut Lady Leslie's throat.'

"The man was partially mad--but God had intervened."

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Holmhurst, July 27, 1862._--A gorgeous beautiful summer day at length, and it is our last here. To-morrow we go north. It has been a pleasant summer, and it will be a very bright one to look back upon. I have had the great delight of having Charlie Wood here for four days--days of endless conversations, outpourings of old griefs and joys, of little present thoughts and anxieties, of hopes and aspirations for the future, which I should not venture upon with any one else. And besides, we have had a succession of visitors, each of whom has enjoyed our home, whilst our little Holmhurst daily twines itself more and more round our own hearts. Sometimes I have a sort of inward trembling in thinking that I trace an additional or increasing degree of feebleness or age in my sweetest mother, but I do not think her ill now, and may go to the North with a confident feeling that it will be at the time which will suit her best, as she will have other friends with her with whom she would rather be alone. My sweet darling! what should I do without her? and how blank and black the whole world would seem! Yet even then I should bless God that this place, now consecrated by memories of her, would still be my home, and, in fulfilling her wishes, her designs, I should try to link the desolate present to the sunny past. I cannot be grateful enough for her power of bearing and rallying from great blows. The loss of Aunt Kitty in the spring, the impending loss of Aunt Esther, are furrows which God permits, but which He too smooths over. I have even the comfort of feeling that it would be thus in case of my own death, dreadful as that would be to her at the time."

Early in August I went with my mother for a long visit to Buntingsdale in Shropshire, the old pleasant friendly home of the Tayleurs. The master of the house, William Tayleur, had come very late into his property, after a long period of almost cruel repression during the life of his eccentric father; but, unlike most people, the late attainment of great wealth only made him full of anxiety that as many as possible should benefit by it, and he was the very soul of courtesy, hospitality, and generosity. With him lived his two delightful old sisters (already mentioned in the account of my childhood), emancipated when past fifty from a thraldom like that of the schoolroom. Of these, my mother's great friend, Harriet, was the younger--a most bright, animated, clever, and thoroughly excellent person, exceedingly popular in Shropshire society. The elder, Mary, was very delicate in health, but a very pretty, gentle old lady, who always wore an immense bonnet, ending in a long shade of the kind called "an ugly," so that people used to call her "the old lady down the telescope." Buntingsdale is one of the finest houses in Shropshire, a large red brick mansion, with very handsome stone mouldings and pillars, and a most splendid flower-garden, bordered by a high terrace overlooking the little shining river Terne and its pretty watermeadows. I have seldom known my mother happier than during this visit. It touched her so much to find how she was considered by these faithful old friends--how, after many years' absence, all the people she wished to see were asked to meet her, yet all arranged with thoughtful care, so as to cause her the least possible amount of fatigue and emotion.

We went to Stoke to visit my grandfather's grave, and any of his old parishioners who wished to see my mother were bidden to meet her in the churchyard. There we found fourteen poor women and three old men waiting. To the changed Rectory she never looked. Then we were for some days at Hodnet, where Lady Valsamachi[212] was staying, and both at Hodnet and Hawkestone my mother was warmly welcomed by old friends. I was glad to have the opportunity of walking with her in the beautiful fields consecrated to her by recollections of her happy life long ago in intimacy with the Hebers. From Hodnet we went to spend a few days with Henry de Bunsen at Lilleshall Rectory, which had a charming garden, where all his parishioners were invited to walk on Sunday afternoons. Thence my mother returned home, and I went towards my northern work.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Weeping Cross, Stafford, August 21, 1862._--Miss Sarah Salt met me at the Stafford station, and drove me here--a moderate-sized house, simply furnished, but with the luxury of a cedar-wood ceiling, which smells delicious. Out of a window-seat in the low comfortable library rose the thin angular figure of Harriet Salt, speaking in the subdued powerless way of old. She had a huge cat with her, and an aunt--rather a pretty old lady. 'What is your aunt's name?' I said afterwards to Miss Sarah. 'Oh, Aunt Emma.'--'Yes, but what is her other name? what am I to call her?'--'Oh, call her Aunt Emma; she would never know herself by any other name.'--'And what do you do when your Aunt Emma Petit is here too?'-'Oh, she is only Aunt Emma, and this is the other Aunt Emma; so when Aunt Emma from Lichfield is here, and we want this one, we say, "Other Aunt Emma, will you come here?"'

"After luncheon, we went out round the domain--paddocks with round plantations, and a good deal of garden. Miss Salt rode a white pony, we walked. Then the aunt mounted the pony, and she and Miss Sarah and I went a longer round, Miss Sarah breaking down the fences and pulling the pony through after her. 'Will not the farmers be angry?' I said. 'Oh, no; I threatened to have them up before the magistrates for stopping up a road, so we compromised; they are to have their road, and I am to break down their fences and go wherever I like, whether there is a road or not.'

"At seven the clergyman and his wife came to dinner. I took in the aunt, a timid old lady, who seldom ventured a remark, and then in the most diffident manner. This was her first--'I think I may say, in fact I believe it has been often remarked, that Holland is a very flat country. I went there once, and it struck me that the observation was correct.' In the evening Miss Sarah looked at my drawings, and said, 'Well, on the whole, considering that they are totally unlike nature, I don't dislike them quite so much as I expected.'

"We breakfasted this morning at half-past seven, summoned by a gong; Miss Sarah having said, 'At whatever hour of the day or night you hear that gong sound, you will know that you are expected to appear _somewhere_.' She presided at the breakfast-table with a huge tabby-cat seated on her shoulder. 'Does not that cat often tear your dress?' I asked. 'No,' she replied, 'but it very often tears my face,' and went on pouring out the tea."

"_August 22._--Yesterday was hot and steamy, without a breath of air. Miss Sarah drove me and the clergyman's wife to Cannock Chase, a wild heathy upland, with groups of old firs and oaks, extending unenclosed for fifteen miles, and surrounded by noblemen's houses and parks. Here we joined a picnic party of fifty people. English fashion, scarcely anybody spoke to anybody else, and the families sat together in groups. Afterwards the public played at 'Aunt Sally,' and I walked with Miss Salt and her friends Misses Anastasia and Theodosia Royd far over the moorlands. A ridiculous old gentleman went with us, who talked of 'mists, while they enhanced the merits of nature, obscuring the accuracy of vision.' He also assured us that whenever he saw a snake, he shut his eyes and cried 'Murder!' We mounted another hill for kettle-boiling and tea, and then danced country-dances to the sound of a fiddle. It was seven o'clock and the mists were rolling up from the hollows when we turned to go home. Mr. Salt was heard blowing a horn in the distance, which his daughter answered by a blast on her whistle, and so we found the carriage."

I am sorry not to find any letters recording the visit I paid after this to Mr. Petit, the ecclesiologist. He lived at Lichfield in a house built by Miss Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter. With him resided his three sisters and seven cats, who appeared at all meals as part of the family, and rejoiced in the names of "Bug, Woodlouse, Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel, Bezor, Rabshakeh, and Eva--'the mother of all the cats.'" Mr. Petit was most extraordinary, but a very interesting companion. I had a capital sight of the cathedral with him, beautiful still, though sadly "jemmyfied" by Scott, who has added some immense statues in the choir which put everything out of proportion, and has put up a bastard-gothic metal screen. At the end of an aisle is Chantrey's monument of the two Robinson children. One of them was burnt to death in reaching to get from the chimney-piece the snowdrops represented in her hand; the other died of consumption caused by too much rowing. When I was at Lichfield their mother was still living there with her third husband.

We went up Borrow Copp, a charming mound near the town, crowned by a chapel-like summer-house. Here the three Saxon kings are supposed to be buried whose bodies are represented in the arms of Lichfield.

The Petits are Petits des Etampes, and were refugees from Caen. They had a valuable miniature of Mary Queen of Scots by Bernard Lens, from their family connection with the Guises. Far more extraordinary than any other house I have ever seen was their country place of--"Bumblekite Hall!"

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Ripley Castle, August 28, 1862._--In coming down to dinner, I found a tall distinguished-looking lady upon the staircase, with whom I made friends at once as Charlie Wood's aunt, Lady Georgiana Grey. This afternoon I went with her and Miss Ingilby to Knaresborough, a town with stone roofs on a height above the Nid, crowned by the ruins of the castle which contains the vaulted dungeon where the murderers of Thomas à Becket were confined. Below the castle is the public-house called 'Mother Shipton,' bearing her picture and the inscription--

'Near to this petrifying well I first drew breath, as records tell.'

Through the inn--kept "by one 'Almeda Burgess'--is a walk by the wooded bank of the river to the petrifying well, which is highly picturesque. The water falls from an overhanging umbrella-like cliff into a deep basin. A chain of stuffed birds is hung up for petrifaction, taking from twelve to fifteen months to turn into stone: bird's-nests take twelve months.

"Also in the valley of the Nid, on the east of the town, is St. Robert's Cave, excavated, as the guide told us, by St. Robert, 'a gentleman who wished to live very retired.' This was the place where the body of Clarke was discovered, which led to the execution of Eugene Aram. It is a most curious story.

"Eugene was the son of Peter Aram, who was head-gardener at Ripley Castle, and very respectable. But, together with two others, Housman and Clarke, Eugene arranged a curious scheme of robbery. They gave out that they were going to give a grand supper, and borrowed a quantity of plate, which they made away with, and on the night of the supposed supper Eugene and Housman murdered Clarke, that it might be supposed, when he was not forthcoming, that he alone was the robber. Afterwards Eugene went at night to Housman's house and talked over what was to be done. Before they left he said, 'If your wife is in bed upstairs, she must have heard us; we must make this secure,' and they went up intending to murder her if she was awake, but they passed the candle before her eyes, and she bore it without flinching. Then they went down again and burnt the clothes of the murdered man. Only the buttons fell uninjured amongst the cinders, and were found next morning by the wife. Afterwards, whenever she had a quarrel with her husband, she frightened him by saying, 'How about those buttons?'

"Housman and Aram buried the body in St. Robert's Cave, which was then filled with earth. Brushwood and briars grew over it, and no trace was left; but the murderers had a perpetual dread that some day the Nid would rise and lay the body bare, and whenever there was a very high wind, Housman for years used to go to see that it was not uncovered.

"Eugene Aram went away to Norfolk, where he prospered exceedingly, and 'visited with the best families.' But fourteen years after the murder, some workmen digging in St. Robert's Cave found a skeleton. 'I shouldn't wonder if this were Clarke,' said one of them. 'No, it is not,' said one of his companions, and this led to his arrest. It was Housman. He then confessed to the murder, and said that Eugene Aram was his accomplice; but Eugene Aram was gone.

"It happened, however, that a Knaresborough pedlar, in his walks through Norfolk, accidentally recognised Eugene Aram in a garden. On his return home, he gave notice to the constables, who went to Norfolk and fetched him away, and he was executed. The murder took place in 1745, the execution in 1759. It is said that after the murder Eugene never gave his right hand to any one. After he was executed, the 'finger of scorn pointed at his family,' and they went to America. The mother of the old woman who showed us the cave knew Clarke's widow intimately.

"A letter of Eugene Aram is preserved at Ripley Castle.[213] There were many letters there from Peter Aram, his father, but they were destroyed by the late Lady Ingilby, because they were 'so wicked and blasphemous.' The chief point against Eugene Aram was that, when he was discovered, a defence was found which he had written twelve years before: this is made use of in Bulwer's novel.

"In the evening something was said about many ghost-stories being the result of a practical joke. Lady Georgiana Grey, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly rose--awful almost with her white face and long black velvet dress--and exclaimed, 'If any one ever _dared_ to play a practical joke upon me, _all_ my fortune, _all_ my energies, my whole _life_ would be insufficient to work my revenge.' And she swept out of the room. They say it is because of the Grey story about a head. Lady Georgiana first saw the head, when she was in bed in Hanover Square, in the autumn of 1823. She rushed for refuge to her mother's room, where she remained all night. Lady Grey desired her on no account to mention what she had seen to her father. But a fortnight later Lord Grey came into the room where Lady Georgiana was sitting with her mother and sister, much agitated, saying that he had just seen a head roll towards him."

"_Ripley Castle, August 30._--The old Ladies Ruthven and Belhaven came to-day. They appear to have spent their lives in an atmosphere of dukes, but are very simple great ladies, chiefly interested by art and artists, and draw well themselves. Lady Belhaven is allowed by her husband to be with her sister now because of the odd illness of the latter, an invincible sleeplessness, which makes her very peculiar, and gives her a habit of talking to herself in a low murmur, however many people are around her. Rather to my alarm, I had to take her in to dinner, and as she is very deaf, to talk to her the whole time at the pitch of my voice; but we got on very well notwithstanding, so well indeed, that before the fish had been taken away she had asked me to come to stay with her at her castle in Scotland. As soon as dinner was over she made me bring my portfolio and sit the whole evening talking to her about my drawings. However, I was very glad of it, as, when she went to bed, she said, 'I have been so very happy this evening.'

"_September 1._--Saturday was a dismally wet day. We sat in the oak parlour, drew, and told stories. Lady Ruthven has lived many years at Athens, and four years--winter and summer--at Rome, and in summer used to study 'Roma Adombrata,' which taught her how to walk in the shade. On Sundays she invited all the artists, who never went to church, to her house, and 'read them a sermon, poor things, for the good of their souls.'

"She used when at Rome to go to 'La toilette des pieds' of Pauline Borghese. Regular invitations were issued for it. When the guests arrived, they found the Princess--supremely lovely--with her beautiful little white feet exposed upon a velvet cushion. Then two or three maids came in, and touched the feet with a sponge and dusted them with a little powder--'ç'était la toilette des pieds.' The Duke of Hamilton used to take up one of the little feet and put it inside his waistcoat 'like a little bird.' ... Lady Ruthven and all her household are still wearing mourning for Lord Ruthven, who died seven years ago.

"The people here are full of quaint character, especially two brothers 'Johnny and Jacky.' Said Johnny to Jacky the other day, 'I've found a saxpence.'--'That's moine,' said Jacky, 'for I've lost un.'--'Had thoine a haule in it?' said Johnny.--'Ees,' said Jacky.--'Then this ain't thoine,' said Johnny, 'for there's na haule in't.'

"Mrs. Ingilby herself is perfection--so refined and agreeable. No one would believe, when they see how admirably and unaffectedly she manages the castle and £20,000 a year, that seven years ago she and her husband lived in a Lincolnshire cottage with only £300 a year of income.

"Lady Georgiana Grey told me a curious story of some friends of hers.

"Lady Pennyman and her daughters took a house at Lille. The day after they arrived they went to order some things from a warehouse in the town, and gave their address. 'What,' said the man, 'are you living there, ma'am? Did I not misunderstand you?'--'Yes,' said Lady Pennyman, 'that is where I live. Is there anything against the place?'

"'Oh dear, no, ma'am,' said the warehouseman; 'only the house has been for a long time without being let, because they say it's haunted.' Going home, Lady Pennyman laughed to her daughters, and said, 'Well, we shall see if the ghost will frighten _us_ away.'

"But the next morning Lady Pennyman's maid came to her and said, 'If you please, ma'am, Mrs. Crowder and me must change our rooms. We can't remain where we are, ma'am; it's quite impossible. The ghost, he makes such a noise over our heads, we can get no sleep at all.'--'Well, you can change your room,' said Lady Pennyman; 'but what is there over your room where you sleep? I will go and see;' and she found a very long gallery, quite empty except for a huge iron cage, in which it was evident that a human being had been confined.

"A few days after, a friend, a lady living in Lille, came to dine with them. She was a very strong-minded person, and when she heard of the servants' alarm, she said, 'Oh, Lady Pennyman, do let me sleep in that room; I shall not be frightened, and if I sleep there, perhaps the ghost will be laid.' So she sent away her carriage and stayed; but the next morning she came down quite pale and haggard, and said certainly she had seen the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing opposite her bed, and yet the door was locked, and there could have been no real person there. A few days afterwards, towards evening, Lady Pennyman said to her daughter, 'Bessie, just go up and fetch the shawl which I left in my room.' Bessie went, and came down saying that as she went up she saw the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing on the flight of stairs opposite to her.

"One more attempt at explanation was made. A sailor son, just come from sea, was put to sleep in the room. When he came down in the morning, he was quite angry, and said, 'What did you think I was going to be up to, mother, that you had me watched? Why did you send that fellow in the dressing-gown to look after me?' The next day the Pennymans left the house.

"Lady Georgiana also told me:--

"There was once a Bishop Thomas.[214] His mother one day awoke, having dreamt that her husband had fought a duel and was killed. She was much frightened by her dream, and, having great influence over her husband, she persuaded him not to go out that day as usual, but to stay at home with her. They lived in Spring Gardens, and having stayed in all day, towards four o'clock Mr. Thomas began to repine, and to wish to go out and walk in the Park. Mrs. Thomas assented on condition of going with him, and they walked in the Park and enjoyed it very much. While they were out, they met an old Indian friend of Mr. Thomas, whom he had not seen for years, and was delighted to meet. They talked over old times and scenes with great avidity, and at last Mr. Thomas said that he would see his old friend back to his hotel. Mrs. Thomas, being tired, begged to be left at her own house on the way.

"Mrs. Thomas waited long for her husband's return. At last she heard a sound of many footsteps coming down the street, and a voice asking which was Mrs. Thomas's house. She rushed down saying, 'You need not tell me; I know what has happened,' and she found her dream realised. Mr. Thomas had gone back to the hotel with his friend. According to the custom of that time, they drank a good deal together: they quarrelled over their wine, they fought, and Mr. Thomas was killed. The child that was born afterwards was Bishop Thomas."

"_Middleton in Teesdale, Sept. 3._--Yesterday I went with the party at Ripley to Brimham Rocks, a most curious place--the rocks clustered in groups of enormous and fantastic forms on the very top of the Yorkshire range, and with a splendid view over the country, even York Minster appearing in the hazy distance.

"I slept at Barnard Castle last night, and set out at eight this morning for the Fells. It was gloomy and dismal, with mists gathering black over the distance, and constant rain falling; but there was no alternative. The valley of Upper Teesdale is in some ways like a valley in the Alps, the glaringly white farmhouses scattered thinly over the brilliantly green meadows, the hedgerows and trees replaced by low rugged stone walls, 'the Grass of Parnassus' springing up by the side of all the clear streams. The people are all 'kin' to one another, and are singularly honest and truthful. 'They are all sincere men in these parts,' said the guide, 'and if they tell you a tale, you may know it's because they're deceived.' We met a man on a horse. 'What a long cloak that man has,' I said. 'Yes,' answered the driver, 'but he's a good man and a just, and he fears God rather than men.'

"The High Force is a truly grand waterfall, where the whole river tosses over a huge precipice in the black basaltic cliff. We left the gig at a little inn at Langdon Beck, whence we set out on a weary foot-pilgrimage--a most fatiguing walk of ten miles, over broken edges of scars, along the torrent-bed, through rushes and bogs and heather, and across loose slippery shale--all this too in ceaseless rain and wind, and with the burden of a thick Scotch cloak. But Cauldron Snout is a very curious waterfall, quite out in the desolate moorlands, with the Westmorland Fells looming behind it. I was completely wet through before we got there, and came back plunging from tuft to tuft of rushes in the boggy moorlands. At one time we took refuge in a shepherd's hut, where an old shepherd, with flowing white hair and horn spectacles, was reading the Bible to his grandchildren--a group like many pictures one has seen. Here my socks were dipped in hot water and put on again, the mountaineer's remedy against cold."

"_Ridley Hall, Sept. 7._--Yesterday Cousin Susan sent me to Bonnyrigg, Sir Edward Blackett's place in the moors--an enchanting drive, out of the inhabited country into the purple heather-land, where the desolate blue Northumbrian lakes lie at the foot of their huge precipitous crags. Bonnyrigg itself is embosomed in woods, yet surrounded on all sides by rock and moorland, and with a delightful view of Greenlea Lough. The Scotts were staying there, and I walked with the General[215] along the Roman Wall, high on the cliffs and running from crag to crag, as perfect in its 1600th year as in its first."

"_Chesters, Hexham, Sept. 10._--I came here yesterday. My aged hostess, the eldest sister of the Newcastle Clayton family, is of a most tall, weird figure, and speaks in an abrupt, energetic, startling manner, but she is the most perfect _lady_ imaginable, both in feeling and manners, and her kindness and thoughtfulness and consideration for others make her beloved far and wide. Chesters is famous for its liberal unostentatious hospitality, and Miss Clayton always lives here, though it is her brother's place, and he resides at Newcastle. She reads everything, and is ready to talk on any subject, but her great hobby is Roman antiquities, and she is one of the best antiquarians in the North, which is only as it should be, as Cilurnum, one of the finest of the Roman stations, is here in the garden, where there is also a museum of Roman relics. This house is about the size of Hurstmonceaux Place,[216] and most thoroughly comfortable, with wide well-lighted galleries on each storey, filled with water-colour drawings by Richardson, with Roman antiquities, and curiosities of all kinds.

"This morning we were called at six, breakfasted at seven, and at half-past seven in the bright cold morning Miss Clayton herself drove me down to the train at Chollerford. A delightful journey brought me to Kielder, where, under the heather-clad hills, close to the Scottish Border, is the Duke of Northumberland's favourite castle and the scene of the beautiful ballad of the 'Cout of Kielder.' I wandered through the valley:--

"Up to 'the bonny brae, the green, Yet sacred to the brave; Where still, of ancient size, is seen Gigantic Kielder's grave.

'Where weeps the birch with branches green Without the holy ground, Between two old grey stones is seen The warrior's ridgy mound.'

Coming back, I left the train at Bellingham, and walked to Hesleyside, the fine place of the Roman Catholic Charltons, where the celebrated Charlton spur is preserved, which the lady of the house, in time of Border raids, used to serve up at dinner whenever she wished to indicate that her larder needed replenishing."

"_Chesters, Sept. 13._--On Thursday Miss Clayton drove me in her Irish car up North Tyne to Chipchase Castle, a noble old Jacobean house on a height, with a Norman tower, and afterwards to Simonburn and Tecket Lynn--a most picturesque waterfall through fern-fringed rocks; a very artistic 'subject,' too little known. Mr. John Clayton and Dr. Bruce arrived in the evening, and Roman antiquities became the order of the next day. We set off in a hurricane of cold wind, in the Irish car, along the Roman Wall, and spent the whole day amongst Roman remains, lunching at Hotbank Farm, where the Armstrongs live--last relics of the great mosstrooping family--inspiring a sort of clannish attachment still, as, when the last farmer died in 1859, two hundred mounted Borderers escorted him across the moorland to his grave.

"The great Roman station of Housesteads (Borcovicus) is a perfect English Pompeii of excavated houses and streets. Hence we clambered across stone walls and bogs for several miles to Sewing Shields, where Arthur and Guinevere and all their knights lie asleep in a basaltic cavern.... The Claytons are indescribably kind, and spare no pains to amuse, interest, and instruct me, and their horses seem as untirable."

"_Chesters, Sept. 15._--I am becoming increasingly attached to 'Aunt Saily,' who is always finding out all the good she can in her neighbours and guests, and doing everything possible to make the world bright and pleasant to them: being really so loving and gentle herself, she influences all around her. On Saturday she took me to Houghton Castle, one of the most perfect inhabited feudal fortresses in the county; and to-day to Fallowfield, where there is a Roman inscription on a grey rock--'the Written Rock'--in the moorland."

"_Otterburn, Sept. 18._--I left the train at Bellingham, where I found no further means of locomotion except a huge chariot with two horses. So, after going on a vain search for a cart to all the neighbouring farmhouses, I was obliged to engage it; but then there was another difficulty, for the key of the coach-house was lost, and I had to wait an hour till a smith could be brought to break it open. At length I set off in the great lumbering vehicle across the roughest moorland road imaginable--mere blocks of stone, scarcely chipped at all, with gates at every turn, over hideous barren moorland, no heather, only dead moss and blackened rushes and fern. It was like the drive in 'Rob Roy.' At last, in the gloaming, we drove over a rude bridge and up to this gothic castle, with terraces in front sloping down to the sullen Reedwater and barren deserted Fells. My host, Mr. James, has nine sons, of whom the two youngest, Charlie and Christie, are here now, and scamper on two little ponies all over the country. The whole family are inclined to abundant rude hospitality, and delight to entice visitors into these deserts. They have taken me to Elsdon, a curious desolate village in the hills, where the Baillies are rectors, and live in a dismal old castle, built to fortify the rector in mosstrooping times. It is a place quite out of the world, so very high up, that the coming of any chance stranger is quite an event: its people live entirely by keeping sheep and rearing geese in large flocks."

"_Matfen, Sept. 20._--We had a very long excursion from Otterburn on Thursday. In these high moorlands, thirty-five miles is thought nothing extraordinary, and we drove in a brilliant morning all up the course of the Reedwater, through rocky valleys and relics of ancient forest, and by the Roman station of High Rochester to the Scottish border, upon the famous Reedswire. Here we carried our baskets up the hills and picnicked just inside Scotland, looking over the Lammermoor Hills and the valley of Jedburgh to Edinburgh far in the hazy distance. I long for my mother in all these moorland scenes--such feasts of beauty to mind and eye. The next morning we walked to Troughend, the grim haunted house of the Border hero Percy Reed.[217] Then I went with 'Christie' to Percy's Cross, where Percy fell in the battle of Chevy Chase, and Witherington fought upon his stumps.[218] Altogether it is an enchanting neighbourhood, full of ballads and traditions.... I much enjoy, however, the comparative rest at Matfen, nine or ten hours being the least time I was out any day at Chesters or Otterburn. Lady Blackett has been telling me a very curious story--from her personal knowledge.

"Mrs. Bulman went up from Northumberland to London, taking her little child with her. The evening after she arrived at her London house, she had occasion to go downstairs, and at the foot of the stairs passed a man talking to her maid; at that time she happened to have a bank-note in her hand. Afterwards she went upstairs again, and put her child to bed. In a little while she went up to see if it was comfortable. When she went into the room, the child was in bed, but appeared to be in rather an excited state, and said, 'Mama, I feel quite sure that there is somebody under the bed.' Mrs. Bulman said, 'Nonsense, my dear; there is nothing of the kind: only you are over-tired; so go to sleep, and do not think of anything else foolish;' and she went downstairs.

"I don't know what the child did then, but when Mrs. Bulman went up again, there was no one under the bed, but the window was open, and the lock of the desk on the table had been tried.

"Many years afterwards, Mrs. Bulman had occasion to visit a London prison. When she was going away, the governor came to her and said that there was a man there who was under sentence of death, and that he could not account for it, but, having seen Mrs. Bulman pass as she went into the prison, he was exceedingly importunate to be allowed to speak to her, if it were only for a moment. 'Well,' said Mrs. Bulman, 'if it will be any comfort to the poor man, I am sure I shall be very glad to speak to him,' and she went to his cell. She did not recollect ever having seen the man before, but he said that as he was so soon to go into another world, it could not matter to him what he confessed now, and that he thought it might be some satisfaction to her to know what a very narrow escape she had once had of her life.

"He said he was in the house talking to her maid, having gone in to visit one of her servants, when she came downstairs with the bank-note in her hand, and that he could not say what tempted him, but that he had seized a knife and hidden himself behind a door till she passed on her way upstairs again. Then he found his way to her room and concealed himself under her bed. There he had heard her come in and put the child to bed and leave it, and then, amazed at the strangeness of his situation, he turned round. She came back, and he heard the child tell her that there was a man under the bed, and if at that moment she had looked under, he should have sprung out and murdered her. She did not, and afterwards hearing a noise downstairs, he thought it was better to make his escape, which he did by the window, leaving it open behind him."

"_Wallington, Sept. 24._--On the way here I stopped to see Belsay, the finest of the Border fortresses, a grand old gothic tower, standing in a beautiful garden and amongst fine trees.

"Opening from the enclosed courtyard, which now forms a great frescoed hall in the centre of this house of Wallington, are endless suites of huge rooms, only partly carpeted and thinly furnished with ugly last-century furniture, partly covered with faded tapestry. The last of these is 'the ghost-room,' and Wallington is still a haunted house: awful noises are heard all through the night; footsteps rush up and down the untrodden passages; wings flap and beat against the windows; bodiless people unpack and put away their things all night long, and invisible beings are felt to breathe over you as you lie in bed. I think my room quite horrid, and it opens into a long suite of desolate rooms by a door which has no fastening, so I have pushed the heavy dressing-table with its weighty mirror, &c., against it to keep out all the nasty things that might try to come in. Old Lady Trevelyan was a very wicked woman and a miser: she lived here for many years, and is believed to wander here still: her son, Sir Walter, has never been known to laugh.

"Sir Walter is a strange-looking being, with long hair and moustache, and an odd careless dress. He also has the reputation of being a miser.[219] He is a great teetotaller, and inveighs everywhere against wine and beer: I trembled as I ran the gauntlet of public opinion yesterday in accepting a glass of sherry. Lady Trevelyan is a great artist. She is a pleasant, bright little woman, with sparkling black eyes, who paints beautifully, is intimately acquainted with all the principal artists, imports baskets from Madeira and lace from Honiton, and sells them in Northumberland, and always sits upon the rug by preference.

"There is another strange being in the house. It is Mr. Wooster, who came to arrange the collection of shells four years ago, and has never gone away. He looks like a church-brass incarnated, and turns up his eyes when he speaks to you, till you see nothing but the whites. He also has a long trailing moustache, and in all things imitates, but caricatures, Sir Walter. What he does here nobody seems to know; the Trevelyans say he puts the shells to rights, but the shells cannot take four years to dust."

"_Sept. 26._--Such a curious place this is! and such curious people! I get on better with them now, and even Sir Walter is gruffly kind and grumpily amiable. As to information, he is a perfect mine, and he knows every book and ballad that ever was written, every story of local interest that ever was told, and every flower and fossil that ever was found--besides the great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers of everybody dead or alive. His conversation is so curious that I follow him about everywhere, and take notes under his nose, which he does not seem to mind in the least, but only says something more quaint and astonishing the next minute. Lady Trevelyan is equally unusual. She is abrupt to a degree, and contradicts everything. Her little black eyes twinkle with mirth all day long, though she says she is ill and has 'the most extraordinary _feels_;' she is 'sure no one ever had such extraordinary feels as she has.' She never appears to attend to her house a bit, which is like the great desert with one or two little oases in it, where by good management you may possibly make yourself comfortable. She paints foxgloves in fresco and makes little sketches à la Ruskin in the tiniest of books--chiefly of pollard willows, which she declares are the most beautiful things in nature. To see pollard willows in perfection she spent six weeks last spring in the flattest parts of Holland, and thought it lovely--'the willows so fine and the boat-life so healthy.' 'Well, you _will_ go to the bad,' she said to me yesterday, because I did not admire a miserable little drawing of Ruskin: my own sketches she thinks quite monstrous.

"We went the day before yesterday to Capheaton, the home of the Swinburnes, a very curious old house, and Sir John Swinburne, a very pleasing young miser, is coming to dinner to-day. Yesterday we went through fog and rain to Camphoe, Kirk Whelpington, and Little Harle, a fine inhabited castle. Sir Walter made me wade through the Wansbeck as we came back!"

"_Sept. 28._--The more one knows Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan, the more one finds how, through all their peculiarities, they are to be liked and respected. Everything either of them says is worth hearing, and they are so full of information of every kind, that the time here has been all too short for hearing them talk.[220] On Thursday, Miss Ogle, the authoress of that charming novel 'A Lost Love,' came. She has lived here a great deal, and says the Wallington ghost is a lady with her head under her arm, who walks about at night. She has heard all the extraordinary rappings very often, and says they cannot be accounted for in any way, but she has never seen the lady.

"The library here is delightful, full of old topographical books and pamphlets; and sleek Mr. Wooster, with whites of his eyes turned up to the skies, is always at hand to find for you anything you want.

"On Friday Sir Walter took me a long drive through the beautiful forest-land called the Trench, and by Rothley Crags to Netherwitton, where the Raleigh Trevelyans live. Mrs. Raleigh Trevelyan, a stately and beautiful old lady, is the direct descendant of the Witherington who fought upon his stumps. She has pictures of Lord Derwentwater and his brother, and one of her ancestors concealed Simon, Lord Lovat, in his house for months: the closet where he was hidden is still to be seen, and very curious. Then we went to Long Witton, to Mrs. Spencer Trevelyan, a great botanist and eccentric person, who breakfasts at six, dines at twelve, teas at four, and goes to bed at seven o'clock.

"Yesterday Miss Ogle and I went to Harnham, where Mrs. Catherine Babington, a famous Puritan lady who was excommunicated, is buried in the rock; to Shortflat Tower, the old peel castle of the Dents; and to the Poind and his Man, Druidical antiquities, and Shaftoe Crag, a beautiful wild cliff overgrown with heather. The country round this is singularly interesting--the view from the church (Cambo), where we have just been, quite beautiful over the endless waves of distant hill."

"_Warkworth, Oct. 2._--My mother will like to think of me with the Clutterbucks in this charming sunny old house, the most perfect contrast to Wellington; but if Sir Walter saw his house papered and furnished like those of other people's, he would certainly pine away from excess of luxury. I have spent two days with the Ogles, whom we have often met abroad, with their dark handsome daughters--dark, people say, because their grandmother was a Spaniard. They are proud of their supposed Spanish blood, and when Isabel Ogle married George Clayton, all her sisters followed in long _black_ lace veils. Near their modern house is the old moated family castle of Ogle."

"_St. Michael's Vicarage, Alnwick, Oct. 4._--I have been kindly received here by the Court Granvilles: he is a fiery, impetuous little man; she (Lady Charlotte) a sister of the Duke of Athole. The Duke of Northumberland sent for me to his hot room at the castle, where he sits almost immovable, fingers and toes swollen with gout, and talked a great deal about the importance of my work, the difficulty of getting accurate information, &c.; but I do not think he heard a word that I said in reply, for when he has the gout he is almost quite deaf. Then he sent for the Duchess, who good-naturedly knotted her pocket-handkerchief round her throat, and went through all the rooms to show me the pictures. We went again to dinner--only Sir Cresswell Cresswell, the famous judge, there, and Lady Alvanley, sister of the Duke of Cleveland. Sir Cresswell was most amusing in describing how, when a lady was being conveyed in a sedan-chair to a party at Northumberland House, the bottom fell out, and, as she shouted in vain to make her bearers hear, she was obliged to run as fast as she could all the way through the mire inside the shell of the chair."

"_Blenkinsopp Castle, Oct. 11._--This is the castellated house of the Coulsons, in the upper part of South Tyne Valley--very large and comfortable. The owner, Colonel Coulson, is a great invalid, and his daughter-in-law, a daughter of Lord Byron, does the honours. We have made pleasant excursions to Gilsland Spa, and to Llanercost and Naworth, the latter--externally a magnificent feudal castle--the home of Belted Will Howard in mosstrooping times."

"_Bamborough Castle, Oct. 17._--How enchanting it is in this grand old castle looking out on the sea, with all the Farne Islands stretched out as on a map. I think even the Mediterranean is scarcely such a beautiful sea as this, the waves are so enormous and have such gorgeous colouring. I have had delightful walks with the dear old cousin on the sands, and to Spindleston, where the famous dragon lived."

"_Winton Castle, Tranent, Oct. 17, Evening._--As my mother will see, I have come here for holidays, and shall be glad of a day or two in which the mind is not kept in perpetual tension. I heard from Lady Ruthven that I was to meet Lord Belhaven at Prestonpans station, and had no doubt which was he--an old gentleman in a white hat with white hair and hooked nose. We drove here together, and very pleasant it was to exchange the pouring rain without for the large, low, old-fashioned drawing-room, with a splendid ceiling and sculptured chimney, thick Indian carpets, and fine old pictures and china. Soon Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven came in, calling out 'welcome' as they entered the room. The other guests are Lady Arthur Lennox and her youngest daughter, who looks, as Lady Ruthven says, 'just like a Watteau;' also Lord Leven, cousin of our hostess, and Miss Fletcher of Saltoun."

"_Winton Castle, Oct. 20._--When I awoke on Saturday, I was surprised to see a fine old tower opposite my windows, with high turrets and richly-carved chimneys and windows; but the castle has been miserably added to. Lady Ruthven is most original, with a wonderfully poetical mind, and is very different from her regal-looking sister, Lady Belhaven, who, still very handsome, sweeps about the long rooms, and for whom 'gracious' is the only befitting expression. All the guests are pushed together by Lady Ruthven in a way which makes it impossible that they should not be intimate. For instance, as we went in to breakfast on Saturday, she said, 'Now, Mr. Hare, you are to sit next to Lord Leven, for you will not see any more of him; so mind you devote yourselves to one another all breakfast time.'

"On Saturday we all went to luncheon at Saltoun, the great place of the neighbourhood, where Mr. Fletcher lives, whose wife, Lady Charlotte, is one of Lady Ruthven's nieces. It is a large, stately, modern castle, containing a fine library and curious MSS. The tables were loaded with 'loot' from the Summer Palace in China.

"Yesterday we all went at twelve o'clock to the Presbyterian church at Pencaitland, one of the oldest in Scotland. The singing was beautiful, and we had an admirable sermon from the minister, Mr. Rioch, who came in the evening and made a very long 'exposition' to the servants."

"_Oct. 21._--The Mount-Edgecumbes and I went to-day with Lady Ruthven to Gosford--her nephew Lord Wemyss's place, near the sea. I walked for some time in the shrubberies with Lady Mount-Edgecumbe, till we were sent for into the house. There we found old Lady Wemyss with her daughter, Lady Louisa Wells, and her daughter-in-law, Lady Elcho. The last is a celebrated beauty, and has been celebrated also for fulfilling the part of 'Justice' in a famous tableau. In ordinary life she is perfectly statuesque, with a frigid manner. She was very kind, however, and took us over the house, full of works of art, of which we had not time to see a tenth part, but there is a grand Pordenone."

"_North Berwick, Oct. 23._--It has been charming to be here again with dear Mrs. Dalzel.... What a quaint place it is. Formerly every one who lived in North Berwick was a Dalrymple: there were nine families of Dalrymples, and seventeen Miss Dalrymples, old maids: the only street in the town was Quality Street, and all its houses were occupied by Dalrymples. North Berwick supported itself formerly upon its herring-fishery, and it is sadly conducive to strict Sabbatarianism that the herrings have totally disappeared, and the place become poverty-stricken, since an occasion in the spring when the fishers went out on a Sunday."

"_Kings Meadows, Oct. 25._--This comfortable house of kind old Sir Adam Hay is close to Peebles. 'As quiet as Peebles or the grave,' is a proverb. The Baillie, however, does not think so. He went to Paris, and when he came back, all his neighbours were longing to know his impressions. 'Eh, it's just a grand place, but Peebles for pleasure,' he said. Ultra-Sabbatarianism reigns supreme. An old woman's son whistled on a Sunday. 'Eh, I could just put up wi' a wee swearing, but I canna thole whistling on the Sabbath,' she lamented. Another woman, being invited to have some more at a dinner given to some of the poor, answered, 'No, thank ye, mum, I won't have any more, mum; the sufficiency that I have had is enough for me.'"

"_Wishaw House, Motherwell, Oct. 27._--When I came here, I found Lord and Lady Belhaven alone, but a large party arrived soon afterwards, who have since been admirably shaken together by their hostess. The place is almost in the Black Country, but is charming nevertheless. A rushing river, the Calder, dashes through the rocky glen below the castle, under a tall ivy-covered bridge, and through woods now perfectly gorgeous with the crimson and golden tints of autumn. Above, on either side, are hanging walks, and in the depth of the glen an old-fashioned garden with a stone fountain, clipped yew-trees, and long straight grass walks.

"We have been taken to Brainscleugh, a wonderful little place belonging to Lady Ruthven--a sort of Louis XIV. villa, overhanging the river Avon by a series of quaint terraces, with moss-grown staircases and fountains--more like something at Albano than in Scotland. Miss Melita Ponsonby, Sir Charles Cuffe, and I walked on hence to the old Hamilton Chase, full of oaks which have stood there since the Conquest, and part of the forest which once extended across Scotland from one sea to the other. It poured with rain, but we reached the place where the eighty wild milk-white cattle were feeding together. Then we pursued the rest of the party to Hamilton Palace, which is like a monster London house--Belgrave Square covered in and brought into the country. There are endless pictures, amongst them an awful representation of Daniel in an agony of prayer in the lions' den. 'It is no wonder the lions were afraid of him,' the Duchess of Hamilton overheard one of the crowd say as they were being shown round. In the park is a huge domed edifice something like the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna. It was erected by the last Duke for himself, his son, grandson, and his nine predecessors. 'What a grand sight it will be,' he said, 'when twelve Dukes of Hamilton rise together here at the Resurrection!' He lies himself just under the dome, upon a pavement of coloured marbles and inside the sarcophagus of an Egyptian queen, with _her_ image painted and sculptured outside. He had this sarcophagus brought from Thebes, and used frequently to lie down in it to see how it fitted. It is made of Egyptian syenite, the hardest of all stones, and could not be altered; but when dying he was so haunted by the idea that his body might be too long to go inside the queen, that his last words were, 'Double me up! double me up!' The last drive he took had been to buy spices for his own embalming. After he was dead, no amount of doubling could get him into the mummy-case, and they had to cut off his feet to do it![221] The mausoleum is a most strange place, and as you enter mysterious voices seem to be whispering and clamouring together in the height of the dome; and when the door bangs, it is as if all the demons in the Inferno were let loose, and the shriekings and screamings around you are perfectly terrific. Beneath lie all the house of Hamilton in their crimson coffins, which you survey by the light of a single tallow candle.

"Yesterday I went to Dalzell, the old fortified house of the Hamiltons, and we have also been taken to the Falls of the Clyde at Stonebyres, which were magnificent, the river tossing wildly through woods which now have all the gorgeous colouring of an Indian autumn."

"_Ford Cottage, Nov. 5._--This is a charming little house, nestling at the foot of the castle-hill, and it has been an amusement to Lady Waterford to fit it up temporarily with the most interesting contents of the castle. The walls are hung with beautiful pictures and the rooms furnished with ivory and ebony cabinets, quantities of old china, tall glasses piled with ferns and flowers, old-fashioned tables and deep velvet arm-chairs. She will be here for another year probably, and thoroughly enjoys the life, saying that she never knew what it was to have a garden before.

"Dear old Lady Stuart is here in her deep mourning, and Lady Waterford, now her only remaining child, has been more closely united to her mother than ever since Lady Canning's death.[222]

"Lady Waterford is indeed perfectly delightful--brimming with originality and enthusiasm, and with the power--which so few people have--of putting all her wonderfully poetical thoughts into words, and so letting others have the benefit of them. Sometimes she will sit down to the pianoforte and sing in the most thrilling way--Handel or Beethoven, or old Spanish ballads--without having the music or words before her. At others she will draw, suddenly and at once, the beautiful inspirations which come to her. Last night it was a lovely child crowned and sporting with flowers, and four other sweet little maidens dancing round her with garlands; it was from the childhood of Mary Queen of Scots and her four Maries. She is never tired of hearing of _people_; she says she sees so few and knows so little of them now--_places_ she does not care to hear about.

"In the afternoon we went up to the castle, which is entirely changed since I saw it last, having gone back from a gingerbread gothic house to the appearance of an ancient building. The drawing-room is beautiful, with its ceiling and ornaments copied from that at Winton. Lord Durham was drilling his volunteer corps before the castle, and a mock siege was got up, with a storming of the new bridge over the dene. Then we walked to a new lodge which is building. All around are improvements--church restored, schools built, cottages renewed, gardens made, and then the castle."

"_Nov. 5_ (_Evening_).--The hard frost last night preluded a bright beautiful day. Lady Waterford let me have the pony-carriage with two white ponies to go where I liked, and I went to a ruined peel at Howtell Grange, and then through hollows in the Cheviots to Kirk-Newton, where Paulinus baptized his Northumbrian converts. 'Oh! if my Lady were only here, for it is quite lovely!' exclaimed the coachman, as we turned the corner of the mountains. He told me about Lord Waterford's death, how he was riding by his side over the mountain when his horse stumbled. He got up safely, and then somehow overbalanced himself and fell from the saddle upon his head. They could not believe that he was hurt at first, for he lay in his hunting-coat quite unbruised and beautiful; but when they raised him up, his head fell down, for his neck was broken and he was dead. 'Then there was an awful wail,' said the man, 'though we could none of us believe it. Dr. Jephson rode on to break it to my Lady, and he met her driving her two white ponies up to the door, all gay and happy, and told her at first that my Lord had broken his thigh-bone and was very much hurt; but she saw by his face that it was worse than that, and said so, and he could not speak to her. Then she went away to her own room and locked herself in. When my Lord had been brought home and night came on, she ordered every one away from her, and she looked on his face once more, but what my Lady did that night we none of us knew.'

"She cannot bear a horse now: she has only this little pony-carriage.

"This afternoon I have been with her to her school. She is covering it with large pictures which have the effect of frescoes. All the subjects are Bible stories from the lives of good children. In the first, of Cain and Abel, the devout Abel is earnestly offering his sacrifice of the lamb; while careless Cain, attracted by the flight of some pigeons, looks away and lets his apples fall from the altar. All the children are portraits, and it was interesting to see the originals sitting beneath the frescoes, slates and pencils in hand.

"It seems to me as if Lady Waterford had become strangely spiritualised this year since Lady Canning's death. She is just what she herself describes Miss Boyle to have become, 'A calm seeker after good, in whatever way she may find it.'"

"_Falloden, Nov. 7, 1862._--I have been most kindly received by Sir George and Lady Grey.... He has the reputation of being the most agreeable 'gentleman' in England, and certainly is charming, so cordial and kind and winning in manner.... We have been this evening to Dunstanborough--most lovely, the tall tower in the evening light rising rosy-pink against a blue sea."

"_Roddam, Nov. 13._--I have been with Mrs. Roddam at Eslington, a large grey stone house on a terrace, with a French garden and fine trees. Hedworth Liddell received us, and then his many sisters came trooping in to luncheon from walking and driving. 'We are sure this is our cousin Augustus Hare: we saw you through the window, and were sure it was you, you are so like your sister.' ... They were much amused at my delight over the portraits of our ancestors."

"_Chillingham, Nov. 14._--There is a large party here, including Captain and Mrs. Northcote, a very handsome, distinguished-looking young couple, and my hitherto unknown cousins, Lord and Lady Durham.[224] He has a morose look, which does him great injustice; she is one of Lord Abercorn's charming daughters--excessively pretty, natural, and winning."

"_Nov. 15._--Each evening we have had impromptu charades, in which Lord Durham acts capitally. Yesterday we went to a review of his volunteer corps on Millfield Plain, and afterwards to tea at Copeland Castle, an old Border fortress on the Till, which the Durhams are renting. You would be quite fascinated by Lady Durham--'the little Countess,' as Lady Tankerville calls her. Lord Durham does not look a bit older than I, though he has seven children. They have given me a very cordial invitation to stay with them."

"_Morpeth, Nov. 16._--We dispersed yesterday evening. Lord Tankerville wished me to have stayed, and it was very pleasant at the end of an enchanting visit to have one's host say, 'I am so very sorry you are going; and, though the Greys are very nice people, I quite hate them for taking you away from us.' They sent me in one carriage, and my luggage in another, to meet the coach at Lilburn. I had three-quarters of an hour to wait, and took refuge in a shepherd's hut, where the wife was very busy washing all her little golden-haired children in tubs, and putting them to sleep in box-beds."

"_Morpeth, Nov. 19._--On Monday I got up in pitch darkness and went off at half-past seven by coach to Rothbury, a lonely little town amid moorland hills with sweeping blue distance. There I got a gig, and went far up Coquetdale to Harbottle, a most interesting country, full of peel towers and wild rocky valleys. Coming back, I stopped at Holystone, where a tall cross and an old statue near a basin of transparent water mark the place where Paulinus baptized three thousand Northumbrians. Then, in the gloaming, I saw the fine old Abbey of Brinkburn, close upon the shore of Coquet, celebrated in many old angling songs.

"To-day I have been with the Greys to Cresswell, the largest modern house in the county, with an old peel tower where an ancestress of the family starved herself to death after seeing her three brothers murder her Danish lover upon the shore."

Several more visits brought me home at the end of November, with an immense stock of new material, which I arranged in the next few months in "Murray's Handbook of Durham and Northumberland"--work for which neither Murray nor any one else gave me much credit, but which cost me great labour, and into which I put my whole heart.

XI

HOME LIFE WITH THE MOTHER

"Golden years Of service and of hope swept over us Most sweetly. Brighter grew our home, more dear Our daily life together. And as time went by, God daily joined our hearts more perfectly."

--B. M.

"Look at a pious person, man or woman, one in whom the spirit sways the senses; look at them when they are praying or have risen from their knees, and see with how bright a ray of divine beauty their faces are illuminated: you will see the beauty of God shine on their faces: you will see the beauty of an angel. All those who in adoring humility partake of the Holy Sacraments are so united to God that the presence of the divine light is manifest upon their faces."--SAVONAROLA, _Sermons_.

"God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world."

--BROWNING, _Pippa Passes_.

When I returned from the North in the winter of 1862-63, I was shocked to find how much a failure of power, which I had faintly traced in the summer, had increased in my dearest mother. But I cannot describe the unspeakable thankfulness I felt that the work which had taken me so much away from her during her four years of health was ended just when she needed me; that it would never be absolutely necessary for me to leave her again; and I inwardly vowed never again to undertake anything which should separate me from her. Some work which might be done at home would doubtless turn up, and meanwhile I had constant employment in the service and watchings which scarcely ever permitted me to be away from her side.

Meanwhile all the sympathy which I had to spare from the sick-room at home was called forth by the suffering of my sister, who had struggled bravely under the depression of her mother's ceaseless despair and wilful refusal to be comforted, but upon whom that struggle was beginning to tell most severely. My mother allowed me to have her at Holmhurst a great deal this winter, and she was no trouble, but, on the contrary, a constant source of interest to my mother, who, while deprecating the fact of her Roman Catholicism, became full of respect for her simple faith, large-hearted charity, and reality of true religion--so different from that of most perverts from the national faith of England. In her changed fortunes, accustomed to every luxury as she had been, she would only see the silver linings of all her clouds, truly and simply responding to Thackeray's advice--

"Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let young and old accept their part, And bow before the Awful Will, And bear it with an honest heart."

At Christmas my mother suffered terribly, and was so liable to a sudden numbness which closely threatened paralysis, that by day and night remedies had always to be prepared and at hand. In the last days of January she was moved to London, and immediately felt benefited; but the doctors who then saw my mother agreed with our old friend Dr. Hale at St. Leonards that it was absolutely necessary that she should go abroad. This gave rise to terrible anxiety. I remember how then, as on many other occasions when I was longing to stay at home, but felt certain the path of duty lay abroad, all my difficulties were enormously added to by different members of the family insisting that my mother ought to stay at home, and that I knew it, but "dragged her abroad for my own pleasure and convenience." This tenfold increased my fatigue when I was already at the last gasp, by compelling me to argue persistently to misinformed persons in favour of my convictions, _against_ my wishes. On February 16 we left home, and went by slow stages to Hyères, whence we proceeded to Nice.

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Pension Rivoir, Nice, March 16, 1863._--We stayed at Hyères ten days, but did not like the place at all, though it has a tropical vegetation, and there are pretty corkwoods behind it. The town is a prolonged village, clouded with dust and reeking with evil odours.... We took a _vetturino_ from Les Arcs to Cannes, but found prices there so enormously raised, that we decided on coming on here. This place also is very full, but we like our tiny apartment, which has the sea on one side, and a beautiful view across orange-groves to the snow mountains on the other. The mother already seems not only better but--quite well! We have found a great many friends here, including Sir Adam Hay and all his family, and Lord and Lady Charles Clinton, the latter charming and most affectionately attentive to the mother."

The spring we spent at Nice is one of those I look back upon with the greatest pleasure--my mother recovered so rapidly and entirely, and was so pleased herself with her own recovery. The weather was beautiful, and as I was already in heart looking forward to drawing as the one lucrative employment which would not separate me from my mother, I devoted myself to it most enthusiastically, inwardly determined to struggle to get a power of colour which should distinguish me from the herd of sketchers and washers, and I made real progress in knowledge and delicacy. It was the greatest help to me in this, as it was the greatest pleasure in everything else, to have our dear old friend Lady Grey with her niece Miss Des Vœux settled close by us, and I constantly drew and made excursions with them, dining with them afterwards: my only difficulty being that my mother was then often left alone longer than I liked, with only Lea as a companion. During the close of our stay I had some really adventurous expeditions with Miss Des Vœux, Mrs. Robert Ellice, and Miss Ellice along the bed of the Var and up Mount Chauve and to Aspromonte; with Miss Des Vœux and the Stepneys to Carrozza and Le Broc, proceeding with the carriage as far as it would go, and then on chairs lashed upon a bullock-cart--the scenery most magnificent; and with a larger party to the glorious Peglione.

Addie Hay was often the companion of our excursions, and deeply attached himself to the mother, sitting by us for hours while we drew at Villeneuve or other mountain villages. His sister Ida did the honours at splendid parties which were given by Mr. Peabody the philanthropist, so I was invited to them. Mr. George Peabody--"Uncle George," as Americans used to call him--was one of the dullest men in the world: he had positively no gift except that of making money, and when he was making it, he never parted with a penny until he had made hundreds of thousands, and then he gave vast sums away in charity. When he had thus become quite celebrated, he went back to America, and visited his native place of Danbury, which is now called Peabody. Here some of his relations, who were quite poor people, wishing to do him honour, borrowed a silver tea service from a neighbour. He partook of their feast, and, when it was over, he looked round and said, "I am agreeably surprised to find that you are in such very good circumstances as to want nothing that I could do for you,"--and he did nothing for them.

There was, however, at least one very interesting story connected with George Peabody's life. He was going to Berlin for some important financial meeting, in which he was to take a prominent part. On the way his carriage broke down, and he was in despair as to how he was to get on, when a solitary traveller passed in a carriage and offered to take him up. Soon they began to converse. "I had a remarkably good dinner to-night," said George Peabody; "guess what it was."--"Well, I guess a good turkey."--"Better than that," said Peabody, slapping his companion on the knee. "Well, a piece of Welsh mutton."--"Better than that," with another slap; "why, I've had a prime haunch of venison from a Scotch forest." Soon they were approaching Berlin, and every one saluted the carriage as it passed. "May I ask to whom I am so much indebted for my drive?" said Peabody. "Well, guess," said his companion, as they were passing some soldiers who saluted. "Well, I guess you're a captain in the army."--"Better than that," said the stranger, slapping Peabody on the knee. "Well, perhaps you're a general."--"Better than that," with another slap. "Well, sir, I am--the Crown Prince of Prussia."

At Mr. Peabody's parties I always used to see the old King Louis of Bavaria, then a dirty dissipated old man, though Munich will ever bear witness to the great intelligence he showed in early life.

At dinner at Lady Grey's I used to meet Dr. Pantaleone, who was then practising at Nice as a Roman exile. Here are some fragments of his ever-amusing conversation:--

"What is gout, Dr. Pantaleone?"

"Why, the Clerici Canonici do say it is the divil, and the doctors do say it is the nerves, and the statesmen do say it is Lord Palmerston or Lord John Russell, as the case may be!"

"Have you studied the subject much?"

"Ah, yes! oh, it is beautiful to follow the gout. But I have felt it too, for my grandfather he did eat up all his fortune and leave us the gout, and that is what I do call cheating his heirs!"

"I have never had gout, but I have had rheumatism."

"Ah, yes; rheumatism is gout's brother."

* * *

"Why is Mr. B. in love with Miss M.?"

"Why, you see it is an ugly picture, but is beautiful _encadré_. She has £1500 a year--that is the _cadre_, and the husband will just step into the frame and throw the old picture into the shade?"

* * *

"They seem to be giving up the Bishops in Piedmont."

"Yes, but they must not do it: it is no longer wise. With us all is habit. We have now even been excommunicated for three years, and as we find we do as well or rather better than before, we do not mind a bit."

* * *

"I have often been miserable when I have lost a patient, and then I have cursed myself for wasting my time and sympathy when I have seen that the relations did not mind. It is always thus. Thus it was in that dreadful time when the Borghese lost his wife and three children. I was so grieved I could not go near the Prince. Some days afterwards I met him in the garden. 'Oh, M. le Prince,' I said, 'how I have felt for you!'--'Dr. Pantaleone,' he replied, 'if I could have them back again now I would not, for it was the will of God, and now I know that they are happy.' Then I did curse myself. 'Ah, yes, you are quite right, M. le Prince,' I said, and I did go away, and I never did offer condolences any more."

* * *

"Do you know Courmayeur?"

"Yes, that is where our King (Victor Emmanuel) goes when he wants to hunt. And when Azeglio wants the King back, he writes to his ministers, 'The tyrant wants to amuse himself,'--because his enemies do call him the tyrant."

* * *

"It is a dreadful thing not to remember. I had a friend once who married an Italian lady. One day they were at a party, and he went out in the course of the evening. Nothing was thought of it at the time; Italians often do go out. At last his wife became excited--agitated. They tried to calm her, but she thought he had poséd her there and gone away and left her for ever. She flew home, and there he was comfortably seated by his fireside. 'Oh, Tommaso, Tommaso!' she exclaimed. 'Che, che!' he said. 'Oh, why did you leave me?' she cried. 'Oh,' said he, striking his forehead, 'I did forget that I was married!'"[226]

* * *

"There was a poor woman whose son was dreadfully ill, and she wanted to get him a doctor; but somehow, instead of going for the doctor, she fell asleep, and _dreamt_ that her son was ill, and that she was going for the doctor. She went first (in her dream) to the house of the first physician in the town, but, when she arrived, the door was crowded with a number of pale beings, who were congregating round it, and calling out to those within. So the woman asked them what they were, and they said, 'We are the spirits of those who have been killed by the treatment of this doctor, and we are come to make him our reproaches.' So the woman was horrified, and hurried away to the house of another doctor, but there she found even more souls than before; and at each house she went to, there were more and more souls who complained of the doctors who had killed them. At last she came to the house of a very poor little doctor who lived in a cottage in a very narrow dirty street, and there there were only two souls lamenting. 'Ah!' she said, 'this is the doctor for me; for while the others have killed so many, this good man in all the course of his experience has only sent two souls out of the world.' So she went in and said, 'Sir, I have come to you because of your experience, because of your great and just reputation, to ask you to heal my son.' As she talked of his great reputation the doctor looked rather surprised, and at last he said, 'Well, madam, it is very flattering, but it is odd that you should have heard so much of me, for I have only been a doctor _a week_.' Ah! then you may imagine what the horror of the woman was--he had only been a doctor a week, and yet he had killed two persons!... So she awoke, and she did not go for a doctor at all, and her son got perfectly well."

In May we went to spend a week at Mentone, seeing old haunts and old friends; thence also I went for three days with Lady Grey to S. Remo, where we drew a great deal, but I did not then greatly admire S. Remo. We stayed a few days at Arles, where M. and Madame Pinus, the landlord of the Hôtel du Nord and his wife, had become quite intimate friends by dint of repeated visits. Each time we stayed at Arles we made some delightful excursion: this time we went to S. Gilles. Then by a lingering journey, after our fashion of the mother's well-days, loitering to see Valence and Rochemaure, we reached Geneva, where we had much kindly hospitality from the family of the Swiss pasteur Vaucher, with whose charming daughter we had become great friends at Mentone two years before. We were afterwards very happy for a fortnight in the pleasant Pension Baumgarten at Thun, and went in _einspanners_ in glorious weather to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. On our way north, we lingered at Troyes, and I also made a most interesting excursion from Abbeville to St. Riquier and the battlefield of Crecy, where the old tower from which Edward III. watched the battle still stood,[229] and the cross where the blind King of Bohemia fell amid the corn-lands.

It was the 9th of June when we reached Holmhurst, and on the 15th I went to Arthur Stanley's house at Oxford for the Commemoration, at which the lately married Prince and Princess of Wales were present, she charming all who met her as much by her simplicity as by her grace and loveliness. "No more fascinating and lovely creature," said Arthur, "ever appeared in a fairy-story." Mrs. Gladstone was at the Canonry and made herself very pleasant to everybody. "Your Princess is so lovely, it is quite a pleasure to be in the room with her," I heard her say to the Prince of Wales. "Yes, she really is _very_ pretty," he replied.

Afterwards I went to stay with Miss Boyle, who had lately been "revived," and it was a most curious visit. Beautiful still, but very odd, she often made one think of old Lady Stuart de Rothesay's description of her--"Fille de Vénus et de Polichinelle."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Portishead, June 27, 1863._--Miss Boyle is quite brimming with religion, and, as I expected, entirely engrossed by her works. She preaches now almost every night. She began a sort of convertive talking instantly. She asked at once, 'Are you saved?' &c. She seems to have in everything 'une grande liberté avec Dieu,' as Madame de Glapion said to Madame de Maintenon. She thinks Arthur an infidel, and said that there had been a meeting of six thousand people at Bristol to pray that his influence at Court may be counteracted. Speaking of this, on the spur of the moment she had up the servants and prayed for 'our poor Queen, who is in ignorance of all these things.' Then, at great length, for me, 'Thy child and servant who is just come into this house.' She said she had put off her meeting for the next day on my account, but I begged that she would hold it, even though the bills were not sent out.

"On Friday she did not appear till one. We dined at three, and then an 'Evangelist' came in, who also asked at once 'if I was saved?' and then knelt down and made a long prayer, 'O God, I thank Thee that I am a saved sinner,' with a sort of litany of 'Yes, bless the Lord,' from Miss Boyle. Then I was prayed for again: it felt very odd.

"Then we went off in a fly, with one of the maids and another Evangelist called Mr. Grub, a long drive through a series of country lanes to solitary farmhouses amongst the hills. It was like the description in 'The Minister's Wooing.' At one of the houses a young woman came out and said to me that she 'hoped we were one in Christ.'

"From a turn of the road I walked down to Pill, the rude town on the Avon where Miss Boyle preaches almost every evening to the wharfingers and sailors, nearly two hundred at a time. I saw her pulpit in the open air close to the river, with the broad reaches of the Channel and ships sailing in behind it. When she preaches there it must be a very striking scene. Numbers of people crowded round to ask--'Isna Lady Boyle a cooming down?'--and all the little children, 'Is Lady Boyle a cooming? Tell us, Mister, where's Lady Boyle?'

"When we returned to the other village, St. George's, Miss Boyle and her maid were sitting on a well in an old farmhouse garden, singing beautiful revival hymns to a troop of mothers and little children, who listened with delight. As the crowd gathered, she came down, and standing with her back against the fly, beneath some old trees in the little market-place, addressed the people. Then Miss Boyle prayed; then the Evangelist preached. Then came some revival hymns from Dick Weaver's hymn-book. The people joined eagerly, and the singing was lovely--wild, picturesque choruses, constantly swelled by new groups dropping in. People came up the little lanes and alleys, listening and singing. Great waggons and luggage-vans passing on the highroad kept stopping, and the carters and drivers joined in the song. At last Miss Boyle herself preached--most strikingly, and her voice, like a clarion, must have been audible all over the village. She preached on the ten lepers, and words never seemed to fail her, but she poured out an unceasing stream of eloquence, entreating, warning, exhorting, comforting, and illustrating by anecdotes she had heard and from the experiences of her own life. The people listened in rapt attention, but towards the end of her discourse a quantity of guns and crackers were let off close by by agents of a hostile clergyman (Vicar of Portbury), and a fiddle interrupted the soft cadences of the singing. On this she prayed aloud for 'the poor unconverted clergyman, that God would forgive him,' but when she had done, the people sang one of Weaver's hymns, 'He is hurrying--he is hurrying--he is hurrying down to hell.' Some of the clergy uphold her, others oppose. She has had a regular fight with this one. The meeting was not over till past nine; sometimes it lasts till eleven. The people did not seem a bit tired: I was, and very cold."

I seldom after this saw my old friend, Miss Boyle. I could not press her coming to Holmhurst, because she forewarned me that, if she came, she _must_ hold meetings in the village. A sister of John Bright declared, "I always agree with my old gardener, who says 'I canna abide a crowing hen';" and latterly I have been of much the same opinion.

We left home again for Italy on the 26th of October. In those days there was no railway across the Mont Cenis, but my mother enjoyed the _vetturino_ journey along the roads fringed with barberries. Beyond this, travelling became difficult, owing to the floods. At Piacenza we were all ejected from the train, and forced to walk along the line for a great distance, and then to cross a ford, which made me most thankful that my mother was tolerably well at the time.

JOURNAL.

"_Nov. 7, 1863._--We left Bologna at 5 A.M. In the journey to Vergato the colouring was beautiful, the amber and ruby tints of autumn melting into a sapphire distance. At Vergato we engaged the coupé of the diligence, and had a pleasant passage over the Apennines, sometimes with four, sometimes with seven horses in the ascent. The richness of the autumnal glory was beyond description--a tossing torrent, rocky moss-grown forests of old oaks and chestnuts, their leaves golden in death: here and there thickets of holly and box: an old castle on a rock: a lonely old town (La Porretta) in a misty hollow: and then a grand view from the top of the pass over purple billowy mountains. The scenery becomes suddenly Italian--perfectly Italian--in the descent, cypresses and stone-pines, villas and towers, cutting the sky and relieved upon the delicate distance: and in the depth Pistoia, lying like a map, with dome and towers like a miniature Florence."

At the station of Ficulle near Orvieto, where the railway to the south came to an end altogether at that time, the floods were out all over the country, and there were no carriages--everything being quite disorganised. We arrived at a miserable little station, scarcely better than a small open shed, in torrents of rain, at twelve o'clock in the day, and had to wait till the same hour of the day following, when carriages would arrive from Orvieto. After some time my mother was conveyed to a wretched little inn, but it was necessary for some one to remain to guard the luggage, and knowing what a fearful hardship it would be considered by our cross-grained man-servant, John Gidman, I remained sitting upon it, without any food except a few biscuits, in pitch darkness at night, and with the swelching rain beating upon my miserable shed, for twenty-four hours. It was a very unpleasant experience.

When at length we got away, we had to take the road by Montefiascone and Viterbo, which was then almost untravelled, and the postboys took advantage of the utter loneliness of the road and disturbed state of the country to be most insolent in their demands for money. Sometimes they would stop altogether in a desolate valley and refuse to let their horses go an inch farther unless we paid a sort of ransom. On such occasions we always took out our books and employed ourselves till they went on from sheer weariness. We were never conquered, but it made the journey very anxious and fatiguing.

It was with real thankfulness that we reached Rome on November 12, and engaged the upper apartment of 31 Piazza di Spagna, our landlady being the pleasant daughter of Knebel the artist, who lived in some little rooms above us, with her brother Tito and her nurse Samuccia.

The first days at Rome this winter were absolute Elysium--the sitting for hours in the depth of the Forum, then picturesque, flowery, and "unrestored," watching the sunlight first kiss the edge of the columns and then bathe them with gold: the wanderings with different friends over the old mysterious churches on the Aventine and Cœlian, and the finding out and analysing all their histories from different books at home in the evenings: the very drives between the high walls, watching the different effects of light on the broken tufa stones, and the pellitory and maiden-hair growing between them.

We were also especially fortunate this winter in our friends. At first I much enjoyed very long walks with a Mr.[232] and Mrs. Kershaw, who lived beneath us. Taking little carriages to the gates, we wandered forth to the Aqueducts and Roma Vecchia, where we spent the day in drawing and picking up marbles, not returning till the cold night-dews were creeping up from the valleys, and the peasants, as we reached the crowded street near the Theatre of Marcellus, were eating their fritture and chestnuts by lamplight, amid a jargon of harsh tongues and gathering of strange costumes.

We saw much of the handsome young Marchese Annibale Paolucci di Calboli, in the Guardia Nobile, whose wife was an old friend of early Hurstmonceaux days, and whose children, especially the second son, Raniero, have always remained friends of mine. This is the family mentioned by Dante in "Purgatorio," xiv.--

"Questo è il Rinier; quest' è il pregio e l'onore Della casa da Calboli."

Old Lady Wenlock[233] came to the Hôtel Europa close beside us, and was a constant pleasure. My mother drove with her frequently. She scarcely ever said anything that was not worth observing, and her reminiscences were of the most various kinds. She it was who, by telling my mother of her own strong wish and that of other people to possess some of my sketches, first suggested the idea of selling my drawings. We amused ourselves one evening by putting prices on the backs of sketches of the winter--highly imaginative prices, as it seemed to us. Some time afterwards Lady Wenlock had a party, and asked for the loan of my portfolio to show to her friends: when they came back there were orders to the amount of £60.

Other friends of whom we saw much this winter were old Lady Selina Bridgeman, sister of my mother's dear friend Lady Frances Higginson; and Lord and Lady Hobart. Lord Hobart was afterwards Governor of Madras, but at this time he was excessively poor, and they lived in a tiny attic apartment in the Via Sistina. At many houses we met the long-haired Franz Liszt, the famous composer, and heard him play. Mr. and Mrs. Archer Houblon also were people we liked, and we were drawn very near to them by our common interest in the news which reached us just after our arrival in Rome of the engagement of Arthur Stanley, just after his appointment to the Deanery of Westminster, to Lady Augusta Bruce (first cousin of Mrs. Houblon), the person whom his mother had mentioned as the one she would most like him to marry.

A little before Christmas--a Christmas of the old kind, with a grand Papal benediction from the altar of St. Peter's--Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury, and his family came to Rome. With them I went many delightful expeditions into the distant Campagna: to Ostia, with its then still gorgeous marbles and melancholy tower and pine; to Castel Fusano, with its palace, like that of the Sleeping Beauty, rising lovely from its green lawns, with its pine avenue and decaying vases with golden-flowered aloes, and beyond all the grand old forest with its deep green recesses and gigantic pines and bays and ilexes, its deep still pools and its abysses of wood, bounded on one side by the Campagna, and on the other by the sea; to Collatia, with its woods of violets and anemones, and its purling brook and broken tower; to Cerbara, with its colossal caves and violet banks, and laurustinus waving like angels' wings through the great rifts; to Veii, with its long circuit of ruins, its tunnelled Ponte Sodo and its mysterious columbarium and tomb. Another excursion also lives in my mind, which I took with Harry and Albert Brassey, when we went out very early to Frascati, and climbed in the gorgeous early morning to Tusculum, where the little crocuses were just opening upon the dew-laden turf, and then made our way across hedge and ditch to Grotta Ferrata and its frescoes.

I have always found--at Rome especially--that the pleasantest way is to see very little, and to enjoy that thoroughly. "Je n'avale pas les plaisirs, je sais les goûter."

In the spring our sketchings and excursions were frequently shared by our cousins, Maria and Mary Shaw-Lefevre, who came to Rome with their maternal aunt, Miss Wright, whom I then saw for the first time, but who afterwards became the dearest of my friends--a nominal "Aunt Sophy," far kinder and far more beloved than any real aunt I have ever known.

But most of all does my remembrance linger upon the many quiet hours spent alone with the mother during this winter, of an increasing communion with her upon all subjects, in which she then, being in perfect health, was able to take an active and energetic interest.

Especially do I look back to each Sunday afternoon passed in the Medici Gardens, where she would sit on the sheltered sunny seats backed by the great box hedges--afternoons when her gentle presence, when the very thought of her loved existence, made all things sweet and beautiful to me, recalling Cowper's lines--

"When one that holds communion with the skies Has filled her urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings; Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, And tells us whence her treasures are supplied."

These afternoons with the mother are my real Roman memories of 1863-64--not the hot rooms, not the evening crowds, not the ceremonies at St. Peter's!

This year I greatly wished something that was not compatible with the entire devotion of my time and life to my mother. Therefore I smothered the wish, and the hope that had grown up with it. Those things do not--cannot--recur.

One day in the spring, mother and I drove to our favourite spot of the Acqua Acetosa, and walked in the sun by the muddy Tiber. When we came back, we found news that Aunt Esther was dead. She had never recovered a violent cold which she caught when lying for hours, in pouring rain, upon her husband's grave. Her death was characteristic of her life, for, with the strongest sense of duty and a determination to carry it out to the uttermost, no mental constitution can possibly be imagined more happily constructed for self-torment than hers. My mother grieved for her loss, and I grieved that my darling had sorrow.... How many years of heartburnings and privation are buried for ever out of sight in that grave! _Requiescat in pace._ I believe that I have entirely forgiven all the years of bitter suffering that she caused me. "He who cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself: for every man hath need to be forgiven," was a dictum of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. I believe that I really feel this; still "les morts se prétent aux réconciliations avec une extrême facilité," as Anatole France says.[236]

We did not go to many of the services. The most impressive processions we saw were really those of the bare-footed monks who followed the funerals, many hundreds of them, each with his lighted candle: we used to hear their howling chant long before they turned the corner of the Piazza di Spagna.

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_31 Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Feb. 1864._--Manning is indefatigable in proselytising. I once went to hear him preach at San Carlo: anything so _dull_, so wholly unimpassioned, I never heard. There was a great function at the Minerva the other day as a protest against Renan. Michelangelo's statue of Christ was raised aloft and illuminated. A Dominican friar preached, and in the midst of his sermon shouted, 'Adesso, fratelli miei, una viva per Gesù Cristo!' and all the congregation shouted 'Viva.' And when he finished, he cried 'Adesso tre volte viva per Gesù Cristo!' and when they were given, 'E una viva di più,' just as if it were a toast. The Bambino of Ara Cœli has broken its toe! It was so angry at the church door being shut when it returned from its drive, that it kicked the door till one of its toes came off, and the monks are in sad disgrace.

"The old Palace of the Cæsars, as we have always called it, is being superseded by immense _scavi_, opened by the French Emperor in the Orti Farnesiani: these have laid bare such quantities of old buildings and pavements, that the Orti are now like a little Pompeii."

We left Rome before Easter, and spent it quietly at Albano, where we had many delightful days, with first the Hobarts and then the Leghs of Booths in our hotel, and I made charming excursions up Monte Cavi and round the lake of Nemi with Alexander Buchanan and the Brasseys. On Good Friday there was a magnificent procession, the dead and bleeding Christ carried by night through the streets upon a bier, preceded and attended by monks and mutes with flaming torches, and followed by a wailing multitude. In the principal square the procession stopped, the bier was raised aloft, and while the torchlight flamed upon the livid features of the dead, a monk called upon the people to bear witness and to account for his "murder."

At Sorrento we spent a fortnight at the Villa Nardi, with its quiet orange-grove and little garden edged with ancient busts overlooking the sea. At Amalfi, the Alfords joined us. We went together to Ravello. I remember how the Dean insisted on calling the little dog that went with us from the inn "Orthodog," and another dog, which chose to join our company, "Heterodog," on the principle of Dr. Johnson, who explained the distinction by saying, "Madam, orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is any other person's doxy."

As we returned through Rome we stayed at the Palazzo Parisani, and much enjoyed the luxury of the large cool rooms, where we lived chiefly on riccotta and lettices. One day as we came in, the porter gave us a black-edged letter. It was the news that poor "Italima" was released from all her sorrows. For my sister, to whom Madame de Trafford had written exactly foretelling what was going to happen, one could only give thanks (though she truly mourned her mother); but it was strangely solemnising receiving the news in "Italima's" own rooms, where we had seen her in her utmost prosperity. It was a fortnight before Esmeralda could send us any details.

"_34 Bryanston Street, May 9, 1864._--Your long-expected letter came this morning. I had been waiting for it every day, every hour. The illness was so short, and the sense of desolation so terrible afterwards, it seems strange to have lived. On the Thursday the nuns of the Precious Blood came to dinner, and were alarmed by seeing a change in Mama. She talked cheerfully to them, but when I left the room, she said to the Superior, 'I am really ill,' but this was not told me till afterwards. I sent for Dr. Bell. He said at once, 'It is bronchitis, but there is no danger, nothing to be feared.' On Friday, Mama was up as early as usual. Father Galway came to see her, also Lady Lothian. Mama was cheerful, and they saw no cause for anxiety. Every hour made me more anxious. Mama kept saying, 'Esmeralda, you cannot keep quiet, what is the matter with you? I am not ill.' On Saturday I thought Mama worse, and more so on Sunday, though she got up and came downstairs. Lady Lothian came at two o'clock, then Father Galway. Mama talked to Father Galway about her past life, and seemed quite cheerful. She sat up till nine o'clock. When Mama was in bed, she said, 'I am better, I think; go to bed, you are so tired, and do not get up again.' I went to my room and wrote a letter to Father Galway, as I dreaded that a change might take place in the night, and wished that the letter might be ready to send. I went to Mama several times.... It was at two o'clock that she laid her hand upon my head and said, with a great effort, 'Esmeralda, I am going from you.' ... In a few minutes she began to say the Gloria. I repeated the Belief, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary.... Soon after five o'clock Father Galway was here, and then Lady Lothian came with a nun of the Misericorde as a nurse. Mama was then better, and seemed surprised to see Father Galway. I remained praying in the next room with the nun and Lady Lothian. At seven, I went in to Mama. She did not then believe she was dying, but said she was ready to make her last confession. The nuns of the Precious Blood had brought the relic of the True Cross. At a quarter past eight o'clock Father Galway had heard Mama's confession; he then said she must be raised before she could receive the Last Sacraments. We all went into the room. Lady Lothian made every effort to raise Mama. She _stood_ on the bed, and tried to raise her; it was no use; we all tried in turn. The nun of the Misericorde suggested raising Mama on sheets. It must have been dreadful agony. There were a few deep moans, but at last the nuns and Lady Lothian did raise Mama. Then she received Extreme Unction; the nuns, Lady Lothian, and I kneeling around. Father Galway approached the bed, and said to Mama that she was going to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord--'Could she swallow still?' She said 'Yes' audibly. She fixed her eyes on Father Galway; her face was for the instant lighted up with intensity of love and faith. There was a pause. Her breathing had in that moment become more difficult. Father Galway said a second time the same words, and again, with a great effort, Mama said 'Yes.' She then received the Holy Viaticum, and in that solemn moment her eyes opened wide, and a beautiful calm peaceful look came over her countenance,--and this calm look never left her through all the long hours till half-past three o'clock, when she breathed her last. When she was asked anything, she always answered, 'Pray, pray.' Once she opened her eyes wide, and with a long parting look said, 'Do not worry,'--she passed her hand over my head: she liked to see me kneeling by her side.

"Francis did not arrive till Mama had received the Last Sacraments. I met him on the stairs, and said, 'Francis, you are too late.' He staggered against the wall, and with a cry of agony exclaimed, 'It is impossible.' Father Galway was then saying the prayers of the agonising, the responses being taken up by the nuns and Lady Lothian. Lady Williamson and Lady Georgina Fullerton had also arrived, but I do not think Mama knew them. At two o'clock Mama asked for Lady Lothian, for she always missed her when she left the room and asked for her back again, asked her to pray, and tried hard to say something to her about me. I led Francis into the room, and Lady Lothian said to Mama, 'Francis, you remember Francis,' and Mama said 'Yes,' and then she blessed him. Francis buried his head in his hands, his whole frame quivering with sobbing. Mama fixed her eyes on him with a kind parting look, and then closed them again. Lady Lothian then said, 'William' (for he and Edith had come), and Mama said 'Yes,' and she opened her eyes again and blessed William. Father Galway at intervals took up the prayers for the dying,--and then, at last, while Francis, William, Auntie, and Lady Lothian were kneeling at the foot of the bed, and the nuns supporting Mama, the words were heard--'Go forth.' There was a slight, hardly audible, rattle in Mama's throat. Father Galway turned round to me, and said, 'Now you can help her more than you did before,' and began the prayers for the dead--the five joyful mysteries of the Rosary. The overpowering awe of that solemn moment prevented any outburst of grief; a soul had in that instant been judged. For long I had prayed that Mama might make a good death, and this prayer was answered. All Father Galway's devotion before and afterwards to each and all of us,--all Lady Lothian's untiring kindness, I can never tell you, it was so beautiful. Then came long days of watching by the body. The nuns of the Precious Blood sent their large crucifix and their high silver candlesticks; the room was hung in black and white. Auntie is sadly altered, but always patient and self-sacrificing. I was with Lady Lothian a week; how that week went by I cannot tell, and now there are lawyers. I long for rest. There is such a blank, such a loneliness. I like to be alone with our Blessed Lord, and to shut out the world."

"_May 18._--Probably I have told you everything up to the time of the death, three weeks last Monday, and still I can hardly realise it. Those last hours are so vivid. My thoughts are going back. Was there anything that could have been done that was not done to save Mama's life? was there anything she wished for that was not done? because her breathing was so difficult she could only articulate the shortest words. There was one sentence she tried to say to Lady Lothian, and over and over again she began it with such an anxious look that Lady Lothian should understand it, but it was impossible. It began with _Es ... da_, and ended with _her_, but the intermediate words were lost.

"After all was over, Lady Lothian took me by the hand and led me gently to the sofa in the other room. After some time the nun of the Miséricorde fetched me into the room of death, and we began to light torches round the bed, and watch those dear remains, and there we watched and prayed for the dead for long, long hours. I ordered a person to watch from eleven at night until the morning, when the nun of the Miséricorde went in. She had been resting in my bedroom next door, and we had been taking up alternately, in the stillness of the night, the prayers for dear Mama. Then began the watching through the day. The Abbé de Tourzel, Father Galway, William, Edith, Lady Lothian, and Lady G. Fullerton came in turn to watch, and so the day passed, and the night, and Tuesday. On Tuesday evening Francis came up. The whole room had been transformed. When he entered the door, he stopped and looked around, then he went round the bed, stooped over Mama, and said, 'Oh sister, Mama does not look _dead_,' then he sat down, buried his head in his hands, and there he remained for an hour and a half without moving. And then he left, and others came and joined in the Rosary and Litany for the dead, and then came the second night, and on Wednesday there were watchers through the day. On Wednesday I first felt the great fatigue, but that day also passed praying and watching. The next day Lady G. Fullerton came and took me to her house while those dear remains were laid in the coffin. In the evening the nun who was watching would not let me see Mama again, but I got up early the following morning and went into the room, and I cannot tell you what the agony of that moment was:--I became senseless and was carried out. The coffin was closed and stood in the middle of the room, which looked like a chapel. The crucifix stood at the head of the coffin, huge silver candlesticks near and around,--the room draped in black and white, and a bouquet of fresh flowers at the head of the coffin. Watchers succeeded each other, Miss Turville several times, Mrs. Galton, and so through Thursday and Friday. On Friday evening Lady Lothian took me away.

"The body was carried to the church at Farm Street at half-past eight on Friday evening, as it was my wish that it should remain before the Blessed Sacrament throughout the night. Low Masses commenced at seven o'clock, at which time persons began to assemble. At ten o'clock were the Requiem and High Mass. The coffin was placed on a catafalque in front of the high altar, surrounded by burning tapers. Francis was on the right, William on the left, the four nuns at the foot, Lady Williamson, Lady Hardwicke, Sir Hedworth, Lord Normanby, Col. Augustus Liddell, Victor Williamson, and many others, stood near them. The chapel was full, the wailing chant very impressive. There was one person, an old man tottering with grief, whom every one saw, and every one inquired who he was. At eleven o'clock six bearers came up the centre of the church, and slowly the coffin was carried out. The family followed. Lady Lothian came out of one of the seats and implored me not to follow to the cemetery. The crowd closed in behind the coffin. Lady Lothian and I remained in the church; after a time we returned to her house. Everything appeared indistinct from that time. Now William will tell the rest.

(_Continued by William._)--"The four carriages started along the road; by the side ran the weather-beaten white-haired gentleman, and every one still inquired who he was. We reached Kensal Green at half-past one. The coffin was carried into the chapel, and laid upon another catafalque, where it was asperged. After a very impressive oration by Father Galway, the procession left the chapel headed by the four nuns. Then came the priests, then all the others following the coffin, and last of all the white-haired unknown. As the coffin was lowered, the responses were chanted by the nuns, and at the same time a gleam of sunshine burst forth, being the only one that appeared, throwing a strong light over everything.

"That day the nuns and Father Galway went to see my sister, who was terribly exhausted. On Monday morning the white-haired unknown came to Bryanston Street and asked for Miss Hare. He was sent on to Lady Lothian. Sister was alone (now she dictates the rest).--The door opened, and as I looked, I saw a white-haired old man, who seemed almost as if he had not strength to come forward. I went up to him. Tears were streaming down his face; he clasped my hands in his, and exclaimed, 'Ah! Mademoiselle!' and his sobs choked him and prevented him from saying any more, and I, in my turn, exclaimed, 'Oh! Lamarre, c'est vous!' It was indeed Lamarre, our old cook from Palazzo Parisani! His was the most touching sorrow I ever saw. 'Celle que j'ai servi, celle que j'ai véneré pendant tant d'années, j'ai voulu lui rendre ce dernier homage de mon devoir. J'ai respecté votre douleur dans l'église, et j'ai suivi le cortège à pied jusqu'au cimetière. J'ai desiré voir la fin.' As Lamarre leaned over me, he was trembling from head to foot. I made him sit down by the fireside, and then we talked more calmly. Only when he spoke of Victoire and her terrible grief, all his sorrow burst out again, and large tears trickled down his cheeks. It was such a sad parting when he went. But I was comforted in feeling how Mama had been loved, how much she had been esteemed in her life, how many there were who were deeply attached to her, who felt the sorrow as I felt it. Then came the days of long letters of condolence from France, from Italy, from Pisa, from Victoire, whose heart seemed breaking, and where the funeral mass was said with great pomp, sixty of the Pisan clergy attending, who sent me a list of their names. At Rome the Duchess Sora will have a funeral mass said at San Claudio, and all the clergy and friends who knew Mama well will be present to offer up their prayers."

According to Roman custom, the death was announced to acquaintances by a deep mourning paper inscribed:--

"_Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends_."--JOB xix. 21.

Of your charity pray for the soul of

MRS. ANN FRANCES HARE,

(Widow of Francis George Hare, Esq., brother of the late Archdeacon Hare of Lewes, Sussex), who departed this life, after a short illness, on the 25th of April 1864, aged sixty-three years, fortified with all the rites of Holy Church. On whose soul sweet Jesus have mercy.

* * *

_Requiescat in pace. Amen._

* * *

"Afflicted in few things, in many shall they be well rewarded, because God has tried them."--_Wisdom_, iii. 5.[238]

It was Mr. Trafford who responded to the announcement of the death which had been sent to Madame de Trafford:--

"_Château le Beaujour, par Onzain, Cher et Loire, ce 1 Mai 1864._--Croyez, ma chère Demoiselle, que nous partageons bien votre douleur, mais femme propose, et Dieu dispose. Vous savez que Madame de Trafford avait prévu ce qui est arrivé.... Madame de Trafford vous dira encore 'Espérance et Confiance.'

"E. W. TRAFFORD."

TO MY SISTER.

"_Florence, May 22, 1864._--This morning we have received your most touching account of the last hours, of which we had so longed to know something. You may imagine with what breathless interest we have followed every detail.

" ... I have seen poor Mr. Landor several times. He has a small lodging in the Via della Chiesa, where he 'sits out the grey remainder of his evening,' as Coleridge would describe it. He is terribly altered, has lost the use of his hearing and almost of his speech, and cannot move from his chair to his bed. I think he had a very indistinct recollection who I was, but he remembered the family, and liked to say over the old names--'Francis, Augustus, Julius, I miei tre imperatori. I have never known any family I loved so much as yours. I loved Francis most, then Julius, then Augustus, but I loved them all. Francis was the dearest friend I ever had.' He also spoke of the Buller catastrophe. 'It was a great, great grief to me.' I did not tell him what has happened lately; it was no use, he can live so short a time.[239]

"When he last left the Villa Landore, it was because Mrs. Landor turned him out by main force. It was a burning day, a torrid summer sun. He walked on dazed down the dusty road, the sun beating on his head. His life probably was saved by his meeting Mr. Browning, who took him home. After some time, Browning asked to take him to the Storys' villa at Siena, and he stayed with them a long time. Mrs. Story says that nothing ever more completely realised King Lear than his appearance when he arrived, with his long flowing white locks and his wild far-away expression. But after a day of rest he seemed to revive. He would get up very early and sit for hours at a little table in the great hall of the villa writing verses--often Latin verses.

"One day he wrote, and thundered out, an epigram on his wife:--

'From the first Paradise an angel once drove Adam; From mine a fiend expelled me: Thank you, madam.'

"Then he would tell the Storys interesting things out of his long-ago, describing Count D'Orsay and Lady Blessington, with Disraeli sitting silently watching their conversation, as if it were a display of fireworks. He was always courteous and kind--a polished gentleman of the old school. At last Browning arranged for him to go to a lodging of his own, but he went to spend their little girl's birthday with the Storys. He walked to their villa along the dusty road in his old coat, but when he came in, he unbuttoned it, and with one of his old volleys of laughter showed a flowered waistcoat, very grand, which 'D'Orsay and he had ordered together,' and which he had put on in honour of the occasion.

"After he was living in Florence, Mrs. Browning told him one day that she had just got Lord Lytton's new book 'Lucile.'--'Oh, God bless my soul!' he said, 'do lend it to me.' In an hour he sent it back. 'Who could ever read a poem which began with _But_?' However, he was afterwards persuaded to read it, and shouted, as he generally did over what pleased him, 'Why, God bless my soul, it's the finest thing I ever read in my life.'

"Mrs. Browning did not think he was properly looked after at Florence, and sent her excellent maid, Wilson, to care for him. But it did not answer. Wilson cooked him a most excellent little dinner, and when he saw it on the table, he threw it all out of the window; it was too English, he said."

In returning north from Italy, we made an excursion to Courmayeur, driving in a tiny carriage from Ivrea along the lovely Val d'Aosta, and lingering to sketch at all the beautiful points. In France we had an especially happy day at Tonnerre, a thoroughly charming old town, where the people were employed in gathering the delicious lime-flowers which lined the boulevards, for drying to make tisanes.

There was a subject of painful interest to us during this summer, which it is difficult to explain in a few words. My sister's letter mentions how, when Italima was dying, there was one thing which she tried over and over again to say to the Dowager Lady Lothian, who was with her, and which Lady Lothian and the other bystanders vainly endeavoured to understand. It began with "Esmeralda" and ended with "her," but the intermediate words were lost. We naturally explained it to mean "Esmeralda will be very desolate when I am gone; you will look after her."

After Italima's death, Esmeralda had moved from Bryanston Street to a house in Duke Street, Manchester Square, which was kept by Mrs. Thorpe, the faithful and devoted maid of Italima's old friend Mrs. Chambers. Here my sister had every comfort, and might have had rest, but one day her brother William came to visit her, and broke a blood-vessel while he was in the house. His wife was sent for, and for several weeks he hovered between life and death; indeed, he never really recovered from this attack, though he was able to be moved in a month and lived for more than three years. The fatigue of her brother's illness entirely prostrated Esmeralda, who was already terribly shaken in health by the fatigue of the strange watchings, enjoined by Catholicism, which followed her mother's death.

It was about August that I received a letter from my Aunt Eleanor Paul begging me to come to London immediately, for something most extraordinary and trying had happened. When I went, I found my sister looking terribly ill, and my aunt greatly agitated. My aunt said that two days before Mrs. Beckwith had been to visit my sister; that, supposing she was come to talk of Catholic matters, she had not paid any especial attention to what they were saying, and, owing to her deafness, she consequently heard nothing. That she was suddenly startled by a scream from my sister, and looking up, saw her standing greatly excited, and Mrs. Beckwith trying to soothe her; that she still supposed it was some Catholic news which had agitated my sister, and that consequently she made no inquiries.

The next day, Esmeralda went out to drive with Mrs. Beckwith, and when she came back she looked dreadfully harassed and altered, so much so that at last my aunt said, "Now, Esmeralda, I am quite sure something has happened. I stand in the place of a mother to you now, and I insist upon knowing what it is."

Then my sister said that Mrs. Beckwith had startled her the day before by saying that, as she had been walking down Brook Street, Madame de Trafford had suddenly appeared before her, and, looking back upon all the events connected with the past appearances of Madame de Trafford, the news was naturally a shock to her. After driving with Mrs. Beckwith, she had returned with her to her hotel, and while she was there the door suddenly opened, and Madame de Trafford came in.

The malady from which Esmeralda had been suffering was an extraordinary feeling, a sensation of burning in her fingers. The doctor whom she had consulted, when this sensation became so acute as to prevent her sleeping, said it arose from an overwrought state of nerves, possibly combined with some strain she might have received while helping to move furniture to turn the room into a chapel, after her mother's death. When Madame de Trafford came into the room at the hotel, my sister instantly, as usual, jumped up to embrace her, but Madame de Trafford put out her hands and warded her off with a gesture of horror, exclaiming, "Ne me touchez pas, ma chère, je vous en supplie ne me touchez pas: c'est vos doigts qui sont en feu. Ah! ne me touchez pas." And then she became terribly transfigured--the voice of prophecy came upon her, and she said, "When your mother was dying, there was something she tried to say to Lady Lothian, which you none of you were able to hear or understand. I, in my château of Beaujour in Touraine, I heard it. It echoed through and through me. It echoes through me still. For three months I have struggled day and night not to be forced to tell you what it was, but I can struggle no longer; I am compelled to come here; I am forced away from Beaujour; I am forced to England against my will. When your mother was dying she saw the future, and said, 'Esmeralda will soon follow me: I shall not long be separated from her.' And you _will_ follow her," shrieked Madame de Trafford, her eyes flaming, and every nerve quivering with passion. "You _will_ follow her very soon. Only one thing could save you: if you were to go to Rome before the winter, that might save your life; but if not, you must--die!" And then Madame de Trafford, sinking down suddenly into an ordinary uninspired old woman, began to cry; she cried and sobbed as if her heart would break.

When my aunt heard what Madame de Trafford had said, she felt the injury it might do to my sister's impressible nature, and she was very angry. She felt that, whatever her impulse might have been, Madame de Trafford ought to have conquered it, and she determined to see her and to tell her so herself. Very early the next morning she went to the hotel where Madame de Trafford was and asked to see her. She was refused admittance, but she insisted upon waiting, and she did wait, till at last she was let in. Madame de Trafford was then quite composed and calm, very courteous, very kind, very like other people, and my aunt said that in entering upon her subject, it was like accusing a sane person of being perfectly mad. But suddenly, whilst they were talking, Madame de Trafford glided round the table, and standing in front of the fireplace, seemed to rise out of herself, and in her terrible voice, every syllable of which was distinctly audible to my deaf aunt on the other side of the room, exclaimed these words--"Votre nièce est malade; elle sera encore plus malade, et puis elle mourira," and having said this, she went out--she went entirely away--she went straight back to France. She had fulfilled the mission for which she came to England, and the next day she wrote from Beaujour in Touraine to pay her bill at the hotel.

Aunt Eleanor said that to her dying day that awful voice and manner of Madame de Trafford would be present to her mind.

Looking back upon the past, could Esmeralda and her aunt disbelieve in the prediction of Madame de Trafford? Had not my sister in her desk a warning letter which had told the day and hour of her mother's death? and how true it had been! Yet at this time her going to Rome seemed quite impossible; she could not go away whilst all her law affairs were unwound up, indeed even then in the most critical state: besides that, she had no funds. But in November, three suits in Chancery were suddenly decided in her favour. By two of these my sister recovered £8000 of her mother's fortune; by the third she secured £3000 from the trustees who had signed away her mother's marriage settlement. So she and her aunt immediately started for Rome, accompanied by Clémence Boissy, the old maid of her childhood, whom she had summoned to return to her immediately on her recovering an income. I will give a few extracts from Esmeralda's letters after this:--

"_Paris, Nov._--At last we did start. But what a packing! what a confusion!... Yesterday I saw Madame Davidoff,[241] as enthusiastic as ever, but she was so rushed upon from all quarters, that I could not get a quiet talk. I also saw the Père de Poulevey, the great friend of the Père de Ravignan, who wrote his life.... And now you will say this is a very cheerful letter, and on the contrary I feel very sad, and very sad I felt at the Sacré Cœur and at S. Roch this morning. Everything I see brings back the past."

"_Dec. 8, 1864, Maçon._--How astonished you will be to see the date of this place. 'Why are you not in Rome by this time?' you will exclaim. Because I was so exhausted when we arrived here that Auntie agreed that the only thing to do was to take a long rest, give up the Mont Cenis, and proceed slowly by Nice and Genoa.

"Villefranche, which is about an hour's drive from Ars, is on our way to Lyons. If the road is not a heavy one, Auntie and I shall spend the Feast of the Immaculate Conception there next Thursday, and then proceed on our journey. The mistress of the hotel here has been backwards and forwards to Ars for upwards of twenty-five years, and constantly talked to the Curé d'Ars and heard him preach. 'Vous ne pouvez pas vous imaginer,' she says, 'ce que c'était que d'entendre le Curé d'Ars en chair; on fondait en larmes, on croyait entendre les paroles de notre Seigneur quand il enseignait le peuple. C'était peu de paroles, mais cela remuait jusqu'à fond de l'âme. "Oh, mes enfants," disait le Curé, "_si_ vous pouviez voir le bon Dieu comme je le vois, combien peu de chose seraient à vos yeux les choses de cette terre. Ah! si vous connaissiez l'amour de Dieu!" Et puis les larmes coulaient le long de ses joues. Il pleurait toujours quand il parlait de l'amour de Dieu. Ce n'était pas un grand orateur que l'on écoutait. Oh! non, Mademoiselle, c'étaient seulement quelques paroles qui allaient droit au cœur. Vous deviez l'entendre quand il faisait son catéchisme à midi, à chaque jour un sujet nouveau. L'église était toujours pleine. Il y'a vingt-cinq ans, il y a même trente ans, l'on parlait du Curé d'Ars et on allait à Ars. Le Curé restait dans son confessional jusqu'à minuit, quelquefois jusqu'à une heure de matin. Alors il sortait de l'église pour prendre deux heures de repos. Quatre femmes de la campagne se mettaient aux quatre coins pour empêcher le monde de passer, car, au moindre bruit, M. le Curé se levait et sortait de suite: ces femmes de la campagne étaient bien dévouées.

"'Un jour que j'étais dans l'église d'Ars, le Curé s'écriait, "Laissez passer cette dame," designant du doigt une dame au chapeau verte--"laissez la passer." Un jour une autrefois il me vit; il dit à la foule qui se pressait autour de lui, "Laissez passer cette dame, car elle n'est pas d'ici, il faut qu'elle parte,"--et ainsi j'ai pu m'approcher et lui parler. J'allais voir le Curé d'Ars bien malade d'une maladie des nerfs à la suite de la maladie de ma fille. "Vous êtes bien souffrante," dit le Curé, "vous ne voulez pas encore mourir; c'est pour vos enfants que vous desirez vivre: c'est bien," dit il, "c'est bien; vous serez encore malade aussi longtemps que vous l'avez été, et puis vous serez bien." En effet, il y'avait huit mois que je souffrais, et huit mois après je fus guérie--tel que M. le Curé d'Ars m'avait dit.'

"'Le Vicaire-Général,' said the mistress,'m'a raconté ceci lui-même, avec des larmes aux yeux. Il a logé ici une nuit: c'est alors qu'il me l'a raconté. "Madame," dit il, "je ne pouvais croire à tout ce que j'entendis d'Ars. Je croyais que ces paysans étaient exaltés. Je voulus donc voir en personne: je me rendis à Ars. J'arrivai donc à Ars. Il y'avait beaucoup de monde. J'y suis resté deux jours. Voici ce qui est arrivé. Je quittais l'église avec M. le Curé. J'allais avec lui vers sa petite maison. En arrivant, la vieille cuisinière ou bonne du Curé vient à notre rencontre. 'Ah! M. le Curé,' dit elle, 'nous n'avons plus rien, nous ne pouvons plus donner.'--'Donnez,' répondit M. le Curé, 'donnez toujours.'--'Mais nous ne pouvons pas,' dit encore la vieille femme, 'il n'y a rien, _rien_,' répetait elle. M. le Curé était vif. Combien il lui a couté pour pouvoir se modérer--'Donnez, donnez toujours par poignées,' dit il encore. 'Comment,' répondit la vieille, 'comment voulez-vous que je donne: il n'y a rien?' "C'est alors," dit M. le Vicaire-Général, "que j'ai dit au Curé, 'Je ferai un rapport à Monseigneur l'Evêque, je suis sûr qu'il vous enverra pour vos pauvres.' Le Curé ne répondit pas; il fit comme un mouvement d'impatience. 'Montez au grénier,' dit il à la vieille cuisinière, 'et donnez, donnez toujours aux pauvres.' Cette fois elle obéit. Elle court, elle ouvre la porte du grénier. Elle descende aussi vite; le grénier était tout plein. 'Ah, M. le Curé, si c'est ainsi,' dit elle, 'nous pouvons toujours donner.' Ce fait," dit M. le Vicaire, "je l'ai vu de mes yeux, et les larmes remplissaient ses yeux en me le racontant."'

"Miraculous cures are still constantly occurring. Clémence is going to-morrow to find out for me a boy whose limbs were distorted and who was made whole. I wish to hear from his own lips about the wonderful cure; but here people are accustomed to all this, and any particular miraculous cure does not strike them as extraordinary. The facts in this case are that the boy was the son of a baker, eight years old, who, with limbs all distorted and suffering acutely, was carried by his parents to Ars. The Vicar-General and several of the clergy were at the church-door when the carriage drove up with this poor cripple in it. His mother carried him to the altar-rail and endeavoured to place him on his knees, but the boy could hardly keep himself in a kneeling posture owing to his distorted limbs, and seemed to swing first to the right and then to the left. When mass was ended he said, 'I am better,' and was led, being supported, to the hotel, where he was laid upon a bed. His mother, remaining in the room, after a while saw him looking upwards intently, and for a long time he continued as if gazing at something above him. She called her husband and said, 'Come and see our child looking upwards; what is he looking at?' Suddenly the boy turned towards his mother and said, 'Lift me off the bed; I think that I am well and that I can walk,'--and so it was: she lifted him on to the floor, and the boy was cured, and has been well from that hour, and lives opposite this hotel at the baker's shop.

"The mistress told me--'Un jour le Curé d'Ars alla voir un curé de Lyon qu'on dit être saint. "Vous prendrez ma place," dit il. "Vous ferez encore plus de conversions."' I am going to Lyons to try to find out this curé. At Maçon also there is a certain 'Curé de S. Pierre,' who is greatly beloved, and of whom many beautiful stories are told.

"I think of you at different times in the day, and try to picture you, sometimes in the study, sometimes reading to Aunt Augustus, sometimes late in the evening sitting on the large sofa, with all your manuscripts on the table, and good Lea coming in to put up the curtains. When I think of all the late family troubles, I try to remember that God never allows anything to happen, however painful, unless it is for our good. It depends on ourselves to make use of every trial, so I trust that you may be able to forgive and forget--the last is the more difficult.

" ... You expect too much good from---- Do not expect too much. We must leave those to flutter like sparrows who cannot soar like eagles. It is S. Ambrose who says so."

My sister next wrote from Avignon:--

"_Dec. 11, 1864._--Not further than Avignon! I was ill at Lyons and could not go on. There I had a most agreeable visitor, a M. Gabet, very zealous in the œuvres de la Propagation de la Foi. He spent two evenings with us, and told us much that was very interesting. He told me that he had lately received a donation from Dahomey, and he corresponds with missionaries in every part of the world. Auntie went up to the convent to fetch two friends of mine who were staying there, and I have been given a small medal of the Curé d'Ars blessed by himself."

My sister did not reach Rome till the second week in January.

"_Jan. 16, 1865._--We arrived late on Tuesday night, coming _voiturier_ from Leghorn, two long days, and very fatiguing. When we arrived at Leghorn a violent storm was raging, and we were obliged to give up going by sea, only sending Leonardo with the luggage. Auntie, Victoire, Clémence, and I travelled in a tolerable carriage. There are so few travellers that way, that at Orbetello, where we slept, the excitement was intense, the women wishing to examine dress and coiffure, to know the _ultima moda_. The carriage was quite mobbed, the _voiturier_ having declared it was a _gran signora_. 'La vogliamo vedere,' the people cried out, and pushed and struggled. It seemed so strange to return to a country where so little could create such an excitement. I was carried upstairs, so terribly tired with the incessant shaking. We slept also at Civita Vecchia, whence Victoire and Clémence went on to Rome by an early train, Auntie and I following late. It was quite dark as we drove up to the Parisani, and the streets seemed perfectly silent. The porter came out saying 'Ben tornata,' and then his wife, with a scarlet handkerchief over her head, exclaiming 'Ben tornata' also, and we came upstairs without being heard by any one else. I rushed through the rooms, throwing open one door after another. In the little sitting-room Clémence and Victoire were sitting together, a look of misery on both faces. When I reached my own room I fell upon a chair: I could scarcely breathe. I heard Victoire cry out,'Mon Dieu! courage; c'est la volonté de Dieu: l'heure de votre mère a sonné, l'heure aussi du mari de Clémence a sonné.' She poured something down my throat and rubbed my hands, and brought me round by degrees. Clémence was sobbing violently for the old husband, whose death she had learnt on her arrival; Auntie was standing looking from one to the other, as if she did not realise how terrible was that evening: she had hoped that the joy of seeing Rome again would make me forget what was sad. Poor Victoire had made one great effort, and then she could scarcely speak for hours. I never saw such devotion to the memory of a relation or friend as her devotion to the memory of dear Mama; and then there was so much to remind her also of the good Félix, gone to his rest since our Roman home was broken up. I had dreaded this arrival for months, and had been glad to put it off from week to week, till I could put it off no longer. Now it is a pleasure to Victoire to unpack Mama's things and bring them to me, one after another, her eyes often filled with tears, and then she says, trying to compose herself, 'Que la volonté de Dieu soit faite.' And yet I cannot wish dear Mama back again. What I had lived for was that deathbed--that it should have God's blessing and that her soul should be saved. I used to think _how_ glorified that soul might be, after so much suffering, if only at death resigned. But now I am going back to past thoughts, instead of telling my Augustus about the present.

"The old beggar-woman at San Claudio rushed towards me. 'L'ho saputo,' she said,'quella benedetta anima!' and she cried also, and then the sacristan of San Claudio, and he told me how Mama had died on one of the great days of San Claudio--the feast of Notre Dame de Bon Conseil--our Lady's altar under that title being the altar where Mama had knelt for so many years: all have been struck by this."

"_Feb. 9._--It is, as you say, a gathering up of the fragments that remain. I am beginning to feel the sense of loneliness in these desolate rooms less, though I still feel it very much. I do not wish that anything should be different from what God has willed it I used to tell Mama when we were so poor how strange it was that I never _felt_ poor. She used to say that was the great difference between herself and me, that she felt poor and I did not; why not she could never understand. I feel quite certain that Mama would never have liked Rome again; probably she never would have returned here, and perhaps it was necessary that through suffering she should be prepared for death by being detached from the things of life.

"Most of the Romans have called, some paying long visits--Duchess Sora, Princess Viano, Prince Doria, Dukes Fiano and Sora. In fact, a day never passes without two or three visitors. I have made three devoted friends--the Princess Galitzin; the Padre Pastacaldi, a venerable ecclesiastic of Pisa, who is anxious to further my views in establishing a particular association for raising funds for the Church; and lastly, Don Giovanni Merlini, the friend of 'the Venerable'[243] for thirty years, who has already paid me four visits. These visits are quite delightful: I always feel I am in the presence of a saint. His language is most beautiful. Yesterday he gave me his blessing in the most solemn, earnest manner, laying his hand on my head. I have heard from him so much of the Venerable del Bufalo.... A great storm has swept over the nuns of the Precious Blood: it nearly swept them out of England, but instead of that they are to move to the Italian Church of S. Pietro in Bloomsbury. I have had a great deal of correspondence about them."

"_March 4._--The friend of the Venerable[244] came to-day, and we planned together work for the nuns in London,--a great work I have wished to see established since early in 1858. Again he gave me his solemn blessing. He spoke of poverty--voluntary poverty, but said that all were not called to that '_spogliamento_.' Then I told him that I had also been poor, and he looked around at the decorations of the room and said simply 'Iddio ci ha rimediato.' His is certainly a beautiful face from its expression; there is so much light about it, and such simplicity and humility. Pierina[245] certainly ought to be saint-like, since she has been trained to a religious life by such a man."

"_March 9._--During my mother's illness I often thought of the 80,000 who die daily, and who have to appear before the judgment-seat and who are found wanting. Sometimes, when I am alone, I think how in every moment which I am idling away a soul has been judged, and perhaps a prayer could have saved that soul. Oh! in your watchings beside the sick-bed, ask forgiveness for the souls that are then passing away from the earth, that they may be counted amongst the blessed for eternity.... It is strange what mental agony one can live through. A sort of supernatural strength is given when it is required, and is it not another proof of the watchful tenderness of our Blessed Lord? It is so true, that when a soul is ready for the change, death is only an entering on the perfected life.... I believe that God has still blessings left for my brother: His blessings can never be exhausted."

"_May 3._--How you will envy me when you hear that the saint of Acuto, the Rev. Mother-General of the Precious Blood, is coming to Rome at the end of the week and is coming to see me. The Father-General came to give me this welcome news, when I was wondering and planning how I could get to Acuto with my weak back. I have begged for two visits at least.... I have constant letters from the Rev. Mother of the Precious Blood in London about the new work of her nuns. I have been thinking of writing the life of the Venerable del Bufalo. Don Giovanni Merlini, the Father-General, promises help and materials, and the Italian life is very poor. The Taigi and Bufalo lives would come out so well together, as they lived at the same time, and died, I believe, in the same year, though quite independent of each other; but I have not the gift of writing--_there_ is the difficulty.

"On the 25th there was an anniversary High Mass and a very beautiful choir for dearest Mama, Monseigneur Level attending, and many friends. Mrs. Monteith sat next to me, and felt it so much, she cried nearly the whole time. It is so beautiful this love for the dead in the Catholic Church.

"I have had a letter from Mrs. Wagner, who says just that which struck me in one of Father Galway's sermons, when he spoke of parents' sorrow at the loss of their children, that they are to look upon them as gifts _lent_ for a time. She says, 'We do not repine, but render back with thankfulness the gift lent us for a season.'

"To-day I had a beautiful simple note from the Father-General of the Precious Blood. I wrote to thank him for several things he had sent me. His answer was, 'Do not thank me; it suffices me that you love our Lord Jesus Christ. I bless you from my heart. Pray for me miserable.' I thought how my Augustus would have liked this note."

My sister during the whole of this winter very seldom left the house, and never went into society. Political differences, however, rendered Roman society at this time less pleasant than before. Esmeralda wrote--"The usual conversation goes on, but all parties are divided and contradictory: the Pope (Pius IX.) alone is perfectly calm, and trusts in Providence whilst the world is raging and storming and plotting." If Esmeralda went out, it was generally to the Villa Ludovisi, where the Duke and Duchess Sora were living in a sort of honourable banishment, the Duke's parents, the Prince and Princess Piombino, having been exiled to Tuscany. The Duchess Sora used to talk to my sister of the patriarchal life in her great "villa," where there were so many small farmhouses and cottages within the grounds, that it gave her occupation enough to visit their inmates and learn their characters. She said that she brought up her children amongst the people within the walls of the villa, that they might thus early learn to know thoroughly those who would depend on them afterwards. She let them call one man after another to work in their little gardens, that they might thus make individual acquaintance with each. On Good Friday, when the chaplain called in all the work-people to prayer, there were seventy in the chapel, including the Duke and herself, and all, as it were, one great family.[246]

One of the people who most rejoiced over Esmeralda's return to Rome was Giacinta Facchini, commonly known as "the Saint of St. Peter's." This extraordinary woman lived for forty years in St. Peter's without ever leaving it, devoting herself to incessant prayer and sleeping in a cell in one of the pillars. When people had any particular object in view, they used to go down to St. Peter's and ask her to pray for it. Esmeralda used constantly, during her prosperity, to go to visit her in St. Peter's, and she would remain with her for hours. At length one day the confessor of the saint came to her and said that now, though she had lived in St. Peter's for forty years, she would be showing a far more real devotion to God and a more lowly spirit if she were to break through the life which was beginning to make her celebrated, and return to the humble service of God in the world. Giacinta Facchini obeyed, and after that she often used to go to see my sister at the Palazzo Parisani. But she still spent the greater part of her time in St. Peter's, where I have often seen her quaint figure, in a half nun's dress, bowed in prayer before one of the altars, or perfectly prostrate on the pavement in silent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Here are a few extracts from Esmeralda's private meditations at this time:--

"Let me offer myself continually with all I have for the greater glory of God, remembering the words of St. Ignatius, that 'having received everything from God, we ought to be ever ready to render back all that He has given us.' The propensity most opposed to the reign of Jesus in our souls is the want of resolution in all matters connected with spiritual advancement. Kneeling at the foot of the cross, let me make war against all my evil propensities; that I may be purified and strengthened in God's love, let me seek to detach myself from everything, exterior and interior, that separates me from God.'

"Self-love must be overcome by mortification of self, by asking of God to give us His love, to fill us with His love, for if the love of God _fills_ our hearts, self-love must be rooted out. Let me ask of our Lord that I may have the same resolution in spiritual matters, and in the carrying out and _on_ of a spiritual life, which I have where a temporal matter is concerned. Oh! with what zeal and earnestness can I pursue a temporal object, with the same zeal and earnestness may I carry out my resolutions for a spiritual life."

"_Jan. 14, 1865._--Unless we can build up a solitude in our hearts, completely detaching ourselves from the love of everything in this world, we can never hope to attain to that spiritual joy which is a preparation for the life of Jesus in our souls, a preparation for the resurrection to eternal life."

"_March 4._--Where there is such a strong attachment to this life, my will cannot be perfectly united to the Divine. Oh! _how_ many steps there are in the ladder of a spiritual life! Detachment from this life must gradually lead to the union of my will with the Divine and to the entire _indwèlling_ of the love of Jesus in my soul."

"_March 17._--By the light of the wounds of Jesus Christ, may I search the innermost folds of my heart, and cast out all that is contrary to charity and humility. 'We must study in the book of Charity more than in any other: that book teaches us all things;' these are the words of S. Dominic."

"_March 30._--May filial love of God take the place of servile fear in our hearts; then will our Lord draw nigh to us and replenish us with His grace. When filial love has closed the door against all earthly thoughts, then shall we return into that inward solitude in which our Lord loves that we should dwell, to seek Him and commune with Him."

"_April 1._--I ask for the grace of a pure love of God. The more we can leave off thinking of ourselves, the nearer we shall attain to that union with our Lord which the saints speak of--loving Him only and entirely, because He first loved us. In proportion as our confidence in God increases, and we can lay aside all confidence in ourselves, we shall attain purity of intention in all our thoughts, words, and actions. Let us seek that purity of intention which can only follow confidence in God, and can only exist in those souls which unite themselves entirely to God."

"_April 22._--Day by day I leave at the foot of the cross something more of myself. I cannot live again the time that is no longer mine. We are constantly journeying on to our last end, so let us strive in our spiritual life truly to lay at the foot of the cross something of that which binds our wills to ourselves and to creatures, and thus free our will from all that hinders its perfect union with the will of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I have been making a long digression from my personal story, but Esmeralda, in her gentle patience and ardent search after all things high and holy, had become so greatly endeared to us in the last few years, that her life was almost ours. And indeed all those things are ever a part of life which are a constant part of thoughts and conversation.

* * * * *

In the summer of 1864 we had a delightful visit at Holmhurst from Dean Alford and his family. He read Tennyson's "Guinevere" aloud to us in the garden, and was at his very best, full of anecdote and fun. I remember his description of a trial for murder which resulted in a verdict of manslaughter owing to the very effective evidence of a Somersetshire peasant. "He'd a stick and he'd a stick, and he hit he and he hit he, and if he'd ha hit he when he hit he, he'd ha killed he and not he he."

In the autumn, while I was staying with Mr. Stephen Lawley at Escrick near York, I had much conversation with his charming old mother, Lady Wenlock.[247] Here are some notes of what she told me:--

"I once saw Lord Nelson. It was when I was quite a little child. The maids took me to church at St. George's, and there I saw the wonderful little man, covered with orders and with one arm. They told me it was Lord Nelson, and I knew it was, for his figure and prints were in all the shop-windows.

"I remember well the battle of Trafalgar. It was the _Euryalus_, Captain Blackwood, that brought the news, and, oh dear! the sensation. I was seven years old then, but I knew the names of all the ships and captains. My sister was then the mistress of my father's house, and I was sent for down to her. She was not up, and the newspaper was lying on the bed. 'Oh, my dear,' she said, 'my father has sent me up the newspaper, and we have taken twenty ships of the line, but--Nelson is dead!' Child as I was, I burst into tears; one had been taught to think that nothing could go on without him.

"I cannot quite forgive Dean Trench his book.[248] Nelson was the one hero of his time, and it was a pity to bring up the bad vulgar side again and not to let it sleep.... The Lady Carysfort the book mentions was my aunt. My cousins were quite devoted to Mrs. Trench, and have often told me how enchanted they felt when she came back to England."

* * *

"King George III. used to be very fond of driving about in Berkshire with the Queen and visiting the families in the neighbourhood of Windsor--those whom they used to honour with their notice. He often came to my grandfather,[249] who was gouty with the gout of that day, which prevented people from rising, so that he was not able to get up when the King came in. The King and Queen always came quite simply in a carriage and four with the prickers riding before in crimson liveries. There was a particular point in the avenue at which the prickers were visible from the windows, and when they were seen, my grandfather used to ring the bell and ask if there was a round of beef in the house. He was generally answered in the affirmative, and then it was all right, for none of the royal party took luncheon, only the Queen used to have a particular kind of chocolate brought to her: my father generally offered it on a tray, after they had been about half-an-hour in the house. They used to take an interest in everything, and if any one ventured to rehang their pictures, they would say, 'Mr. So-and-so, why have you rehung your pictures?' I remember the King one day asking my grandfather if he had read the memoirs which every one was talking about at that time. They were those of the Duc de St. Simon, La Grande Mademoiselle, &c., and my father said no, he had not seen them. The King came again within the fortnight, and my grandfather did not see him coming down the avenue, nor did he know the King was in the house, till there was a kind of fumbling outside the door, and the King, who would not let any one come to help him, opened the door, with a great pile of volumes reaching from his waist to his chin, saying, 'Here, Mr. Grenville, I have brought you the books we were talking about.' But as the King came through the door, the books slipped and fell all about on the floor: my grandfather could not move, and the King began to pick them up, till some one came to help him and put them on the table for him.

"The scene on the terrace at Windsor on Sundays was the prettiest thing. It was considered proper that every one in the neighbourhood who could should go; those who were in a position of life to be presented at court stood in the foremost rank. The presence of the King was announced by the coming of 'Lavender,' a kind of policeman-guard, who used to clear the way and always preceded the royal family; he was the only kind of guard they had. The Queen wore evening dress, a sort of cap with a string of diamonds, and a loose flowing kind of gown; there was no such thing then as demi-toilette. After her came the princesses, or any of the princes who happened to have come down from London, or, on fine days, some of the Cabinet Ministers. The royal family stopped perpetually and talked to every one. I remember the King coming up to me when I was a very little girl, and dreadfully frightened I was. 'Well, now,' said the King, 'and here is _this_ little girl. Come, my dear, take off your bonnet,' he said (for I wore a poke), and then he added, 'I wanted to see if you were like your mother, my dear.'

"It was Miss Burney who gave the impression of Queen Charlotte as being so formidable. Nothing could be more false; she was the kindest person that ever lived, and so simple and unostentatious. The fact was that Miss Burney had been spoilt by having been made a sort of queen in Dr. Johnson's court. The day 'Evelina' came out Dr. Johnson said to her, 'Miss Burney, _die_ to-night,' meaning that she had reached the highest point of fame which it was possible to attain. Queen Charlotte made her one of her readers, for she was passionately fond of being read to while she worked. But Miss Burney was one of those people afflicted with _mauvaise honte_. She could not read a bit, and the Queen could not hear a word she said. 'Mama the Queen,' said the Duchess of Gloucester to me, 'never could bear Miss Burney, poor thing!' So the Queen invented some other place in her extreme kindness to Miss Burney, to prevent having to send her away, and in that place Miss Burney was obliged to stand.

"An instance of Queen Charlotte's extreme kindness was shown when she made Lady Elizabeth Montagu one of her ladies-in-waiting, out of her great love to Lady Cornwallis. When Lady Elizabeth arrived at court, the Queen sent for her and said, 'My dear, you have no mother here, so I must beg that you will consider me as your mother, and if you have any trouble or difficulty, that you will come to me at once.' When Lady Elizabeth went to her room, she found the bed covered with new things--new dresses, a quantity of black velvet to make the trains which were worn then, and a great many ornaments. 'My dear,' said the Queen, 'you will want these things, and it will be a year before your salary is due; I thought it might not be convenient to you to buy them just now, so you must accept them from me.'

"Another day, when Lady Elizabeth had been ill in the evening and unable to go with the Queen to a concert, early in the morning she heard a knock at her door while she was in bed, and the Queen came in in her dressing-gown, with what we called a combing-cloth (which they used because of the powder) over her shoulders, and all her hair down. 'May I come in, Lady Elizabeth?' she said. 'I heard you were ill, and there is nothing stirring to-day, so I came to beg that you will not think of getting up, and that you will send for everything you can wish for. Pray think of everything that it is right for you to have.'"

* * * * *

"Mrs. Fry came to Escrick once, and was pleased to see our gardens and the few little things we had to show her. 'Friend Caroline, I like thy pig-styes,' she said."

During this and the following summer I was often with my sister in London, and saw much of her friends, persons who have been entirely lost to me, never seen again, since the link which I had to them in her has been broken. Thus at Esmeralda's house I often saw the gentle sisters of the Precious Blood and their sweet-looking Mother, Pierina Roleston. She was utterly ignorant of worldly matters, and entirely governed by her priests, but her own character was of a simplicity much like that of the Curé d'Ars. She once described to me Maria de Matthias, and the story of the foundation of her Order.

"Oh, I wish you could see the Mother-General: she is so simple, such a primitive person. When she wants anything, she just goes away and talks to our Blessed Lord, and He gives it to her. Sometimes the nuns come and say to her, 'What can we do, Mother? we have no flour, we cannot bake;' and she answers, 'Why should you be troubled? Are not the granaries of our Master always full? We will knock at them, and He will give us something.'

"One day there was nothing at all left at Acuto: there was no bread, and there was no money to buy any. But Mother-General had just that simple faith that she was not at all troubled by it, and she even brought in five additional persons, five workmen who were to make some repairs which were necessary for the convent. When they came, she made the nuns come into the chapel, and she said, 'Now, my children, you know that we have nothing left, and we must pray to our Master that He will send us something;' and she herself, going up to the altar, began to talk to Our Blessed Lord and to tell Him all her needs. 'Dear Lord,' she said, 'we have nothing to eat, and I am just come to tell you all about it, and to ask you to send us something; and I am in debt too, dear Lord. I owe twenty-five scudi for your work; will you send it to me?' and so she continued to talk to Our Blessed Lord, just telling Him all she wanted.

"At that moment there was a knock at the door, and a young man put a paper into the portress's hand, only saying these words--'Pray for the benefactor.' The portress brought the paper to the Mother-General in the chapel, and she opened it and said,'My children, give thanks; the Master has sent us what we asked for.' It was the twenty-five scudi. Mother-General was not surprised. She _knew_ that our Blessed Lord heard her, and she felt sure He would answer her. Soon after the convent bell rang for the dinner-hour. The nuns were coming downstairs, but there was nothing for them to eat. The Mother-General said, however, that the Master would send them something, and indeed, as they reached the foot of the stairs, the door-bell rang, and a large basket of food was left at the door, sent by some ladies in the neighbourhood. 'See how our Lord has sent dinner to us,' said the Mother-General.

"The Mother-General is an educated person, really indeed quite learned, considering that in the time of her youth it was not thought well to teach girls much, for fear they should learn anything that is evil.

"When the Mother-General was a young person, as Maria de Matthias in Vallecorso, she was very worldly and gay. But she heard 'the Venerable' (Gaspare del Bufalo) preach in Vallecorso, and, as he preached, his eye fixed upon her, he seemed to pierce her to the very soul. When she went home, she cut off all her hair except the curls in front, and turned her gown inside out, and wore her oldest bonnet. She thought to please our Lord in this way, and she remained for seven years shut up in her father's house, but all that time she was not satisfied, and at last she went to 'the Venerable' and asked him what she was to do, for she wished to do something for our Blessed Lord. And the Venerable said to her, 'You must go to Acuto, and there you will be told what you must do.' She had never heard of Acuto, but she went to a friend of hers, also named Maria, and inquired where Acuto was, for she was ordered to go there. The friend said she would go with her, and ordered out her horse, but the horse was a wild horse,[250] and she did not know how to ride it. Maria de Matthias, however, went up to the horse and patted it, saying, 'You must not be wild, you must become calm, because it is necessary that we should go to Acuto: you and I have to go in obedience, and I cannot walk, for it is twelve hours' journey.' When the Mother had thus spoken to the horse, it became quite mild, and, hanging down its head, went quite gently, step by step, and the Mother rode upon it. When they had gone half-way, she wished that the other Maria should ride, and the Mother got off, and Maria climbed upon a wall to mount the horse, but with her the horse would not move an inch, and then Maria felt it was not our Lord's will that she should mount the horse, and the Mother continued to ride to Acuto. When they arrived, and the Mother got off the horse, it became again immediately quite wild, and when Maria attempted to touch it, it was in such a fury that it kicked and stamped till the fire came out of the ground.

"The priest of Acuto was waiting to receive the Mother, and she remained there teaching a school. She believed at first that this only was her mission, but in a short time the children began to call her 'Mother,' and to ask her to give them a habit. The first nun who received the habit was a little child of eight years old, who is now Mother Caroline, Superior of the Convent at Civita Vecchia.

"The Mother-General often preaches, and she preaches so powerfully that even the priests crowd to hear her. When the people see her come forward to the edge of the altar-steps and begin to speak, they say 'Hark! the great Mother is going to talk to us,' and there is fixed silence and attention. She generally begins by addressing them as 'Brothers and Sisters,' and then she teaches them.

"The Mother-General cannot write. When she is obliged to write a letter, she kneels down and kisses the feet of the Crucifix and asks Our Lord to help her, and letters of hers which she has written in this way, in the most beautiful hand, are preserved. When there are no flowers for the altar she says, 'Our Master's flowers are always blooming; He will send us some;' and that day flowers come.

"After her death Sister Caterina appeared three times to Sister Filomena, and begged her to tell the Mother not to be troubled, for that the Sisters would suffer yet for four months longer, and then that they would have all that they needed. That day four months Lady Londonderry gave us a house.

"'The Venerable' left a prophecy that an English subject should come to join his Order in Italy, and then go back to found the female Order in England. When I took the veil, it was remembered that the Venerable had said this.

"Don Giovanni Merlini used to accompany 'the Venerable' on his missions. 'The Venerable' used to say, 'Take care of Don Giovanni, for he is a saint.' Don Giovanni is still living at the little church of the Crociferi near the Fountain of Trevi."

At this time my sister went frequently to see and consult Dr. Grant, the Bishop of Southwark. She believed him to be quite a saint, and fancied that he had the gift of healing, and she delighted to work for others under his direction. But Esmeralda was always willing to believe in or to find out saints of the nineteenth century. It was by Dr. Grant's advice, I believe, that she went to visit a nun of saintly attributes who lived near him, the Sœur Marie Anne. Of this visit she wrote: "Sœur Marie Anne was quite full of canonizations and of all that was going on about the Venerable Labre, because she said that, when she was a child, she had once seen him as a venerable pilgrim, going through a village, when the boys stoned him. She had been so struck, so _saisie_ by his appearance, that she went up to him and said, 'Forgive me, but I hope that you will not refuse to tell your name.'--'Labre,' he said, and the name Labre had stuck by her to that day. She implored me to get up a special veneration for the Venerable Labre, but I said that I really could not, for he was _too_ dirty."

In 1863, under the direction of her priests, and with the assistance of many Catholic friends, Esmeralda had published a "Manual of the Dolours of Our Lady," which she caused to be translated into almost every language of Europe and to be disseminated among all its nations; this she did through the medium of foreign converts. In her "retreats" and in her religious life Esmeralda had for some years been brought nearer to many of her former friends with the same interests, but especially to Lady Lothian, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, and to a Miss Bradley, a recent pervert to the Church of Rome. By them she had been induced to join the society of "Les Enfants de Marie;" a society of persons united together by special acts of devotion to the Virgin, and works of charity conducted in her honour. In sorrow, faithfully borne, the beauty and power of holiness had become hourly more apparent to Esmeralda. But she could never join in the exaggeration which led many of these ladies to invest the Virgin with all the attributes of our Lord Himself, as well as with the perfection of human sympathies. I remember as rather touching that when the Dowager Lady Lothian was writing to Esmeralda about her son as being so "fearfully Protestant," she said, "It is very trying to know that one cannot share one's thoughts with any one. I try to make our dear Mother more my companion, but I am tempted sometimes to remember how Our Lady, in all her sorrows, never can have had that of anxiety about her son's _soul_. I know that she has it in and for us, her adopted children, but she never can have felt it about Our Lord."

From the devotion which Esmeralda felt to the Blessed Virgin followed her especial interest in the Order of the Servites, who had lately been established in London, and who always wore black in sympathy with the sorrows of Mary. The very name had an interest for Esmeralda, derived as it was from the special love shown to the Madonna by seven noble Florentines, the founders of the Order, which induced the children to point at them in the streets, saying, "Guardati i servi di Maria." For the Servites Esmeralda never ceased to obtain contributions.

Another confraternity in which my sister had entered herself as an associate, together with Lady Lothian and most of her friends, was that of "The Holy Hour"--first instituted by the beatified nun, Margaret Mary Alacoque of Paray le Monial, a convent near Monceaux les Mines,[251] for which her admirers, and my sister amongst them, had worked a splendid carpet, to cover the space in front of her altar. The rules of this society set forth that it "is established as a special manner of sharing the agony of our Divine Lord, and of uniting in associated prayer for reparation of insults offered Him by sin. The associates of this devotion thus form a band of faithful disciples, who in spirit accompany our Saviour every Thursday night to the scene of His agony, and share more particularly that watch which Our Blessed Lady and the Apostles kept on the eve of the Passion. With this end in view, the associates spend one hour of Thursday evening in mental or vocal prayer upon the Agony in the Garden, or other mysteries of the Passion." Thus every Thursday night my sister repeated:--

"O Lord Jesus Christ, kneeling before Thee I unite myself to Thy Sacred Heart and offer myself again to Thy service. In this hour when Thou wert about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, I, a poor sinner, dare to come before Thee and say, 'Yes, Lord, I too many times have betrayed and denied Thee, but Thou, who knowest all things, knowest that I desire to love Thee, that I desire to comfort Thee insulted by sin, that I desire to watch with Thee one hour, and to cry before Thy throne, 'O Lord, remember me when Thou comest into thy kingdom!' And therefore, with my whole heart, I now promise before thee--

"When the mysteries of Thy life and Passion are denied: the more firmly will I believe in them and defend them with my life.

"When the spirit of unbelief, coming in like a flood, seeks to quench our hope: I will hope in Thee and take refuge in Thy Sacred Heart.

"When blinded men obstinately shut their hearts to Thy love: I will love Thee who hast shown me an everlasting love.

"When the Majesty and power of Thy Divinity are denied: I will say to Thee--day by day--'My Lord and my God!'

"When Thy law is broken and Thy sacraments profaned: I will keep Thy words in my heart and draw near to thy holy altar with joy.

"When all men forsake Thee and flee from Thy ways: I will follow Thee, my Jesus, up the way of sorrow, striving to bear Thy cross.

"When the evil one, like a roaring lion, shall seek everywhere the souls of men: I will raise Thy standard against them and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.

"When the Cross shall be despised for the love of pleasure and the praise of men: I will renew my baptismal vows, and again renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh.

"When men speak lightly of Thy Blessed Mother and mock at the power of Thy Church: I will renew my love to the Mother of God, hailing her as 'Our life, our sweetness, and our hope,' and will again give thanks for the Church that is founded upon the rock."

At my sister's house, I now, at least on one occasion, met each of my brothers, but we never made the slightest degree of real acquaintance; indeed, I doubt if I should have recognised either of them if I had met him in the street. When my eldest brother, Francis, came of age, he had inherited the old Shipley property of Gresford in Flintshire, quantities of old family plate, &c., and a clear £3000 a year. He was handsome and clever, a good linguist and a tolerable artist. But he had a love of gambling, which was his ruin, and before he was seven-and-twenty (October 1857) he was in the Queen's Bench, without a penny in the world, with Gresford sold--Hurstmonceaux sold--his library, pictures, and plate sold, and £53,000 of debts. After Francis was released in 1860, he went to join Garibaldi in his Italian campaign, and being a brave soldier, and, with all his faults, devoted to military adventure and impervious to hardships, he was soon appointed by the Dictator as his aide-de-camp. He fought bravely in the siege of Capua. His especial duty, however, was to watch and follow the extraordinary Contessa della Torre, who rode with the troops, and by her example incited the Italians to prodigies of valour. Of this lady Francis said--

"The Contessa della Torre was exceedingly handsome. She wore a hat and plume, trousers, boots, and a long jacket. She was foolhardy brave. When a shell exploded by her, instead of falling on the ground like the soldiers, she would stand looking at it, and making a cigarette all the time. The hospital was a building surrounding a large courtyard, and in the centre of the court was a table where the amputations took place. By the side of the surgeon who operated stood the Contessa della Torre, who held the arms and legs while they were being cut off, and when they were severed, chucked them away to join others on a heap close by. There were so many, that she had a heap of arms on one side of her and a heap of legs on the other. The soldiers, animated by her example, often sang the Garibaldian hymn while their limbs were being taken off, though they fainted away afterwards.

"When the war was over, the Contessa della Torre retired to Milan. Her first husband, the Count della Torre, she soon abandoned; her second husband, Signor Martino, a rich banker, soon abandoned _her_. Lately she has founded a Society for the Conversion of the Negroes of Central Africa, of which she appointed herself patroness, secretary, and treasurer; and, obtaining an English Clergy List, wrote in all directions for subscriptions. Of course many clergy took no notice of the appeal, but a certain proportion responded and sent donations, which it is needless to say were _not_ applied to Central Africa."

After the siege of Capua, Francis was very ill with a violent fever at Naples, and then remained there for a long time because he was too poor to go away. It was during his stay at Naples that he formed his friendship with the K.'s, about which my sister has left some curious notes.

"When Francis first went to Naples, he had his pay, was well to do, and stayed at the Hotel Victoria. Amongst the people who were staying in the house and whom he regularly met at the _table-d'hôte_, were an old Mr. K. and his daughter. Old Mr. K. was a very handsome old gentleman and exceedingly pleasant and agreeable; Miss K. was also handsome, and of very pleasing manners: both were apparently exceedingly well off. After some time, the K.'s went to Rome, where they passed some time very pleasantly. When they returned, the siege of Capua was taking place, and it was a source of great surprise to the Garibaldian officers to see the father and daughter constantly walking about arm in arm with the most perfect _sang-froid_ in the very teeth of the firing, shells bursting all around them. The Garibaldians remonstrated in vain: the K.'s remained unhurt in the heat of every battlefield, and appeared to bear charmed lives.

"Some time after, it transpired that the K.'s had no money to pay their bills at the Victoria. They were much respected there, having been there often before, but they could not be allowed to remain without payment, so the landlord told them they must leave. They went to another hotel, where the same thing happened. Then they went to a lodging.

"One day Francis met them coming down under the arch in the Chiaja. He turned round and went with them to the Villa Reale. As they went, Miss K. spoke of the great distress which was then prevalent in Naples, and said that a _gentleman_ had just begged of them in the street, and that they had nothing to give him. 'Before I would be reduced to that,' she said, 'I would drown myself.'--'Yes, and I too would drown myself,' said Mr. K.; but what they said did not strike Francis till afterwards. When they reached the Villa Reale, they walked up and down together under the avenue. Miss K. was more than usually lively and agreeable, and they did not separate till nightfall, when the gates of the Villa were going to be shut.

"At two o'clock the next morning, Francis was awakened by the most dreadful and vivid dream. He dreamt that he stood on the little promontory in the Villa Reale, and that he saw two corpses bobbing up and down a short distance off. The dream so took possession of him, that he jumped up, dressed himself, and rushed down to the Villa, but the gates were shut when he got there, and he had to wait till they were opened at four o'clock in the morning. He then ran down the avenue to the promontory, and thence, exactly as he had seen in his dream, he saw two corpses bobbing up and down on the waves a short distance off. He called to some fishermen, who waded in and brought them to land, and he then at once recognised Mr. and Miss K. They must have concealed themselves in the Villa till the gates were closed, and must then have deliberately climbed over the railing of the promontory, and then tied each other's ankles and wrists, and, after filling their pockets with heavy stones, leapt off into the sea.

"Capua they had vainly hoped would destroy them.

"Some time after Francis found that Mr. K. had once been exceedingly rich, but had been ruined: that his wife, who had a large settlement, had then left him, making him a handsome allowance. A few days before the catastrophe this allowance had been suddenly withdrawn, and Mr. K. with the daughter, who devoted herself to him, preferred death to beggary."

It may seem odd that I have never mentioned my second brother, William, in these memoirs, but the fact is, that after he grew up, I never saw him for more than a few minutes. It is one of the things I regret most in life that I never made acquaintance with William. I believe now that he was misrepresented to us and that he had many good qualities; and I often feel, had he lived till I had the means of doing so, how glad I should have been to have helped him, and how fond I might have become of him. At Eton he was an excessively good-looking boy, very clever, very mischievous, and intensely popular with his companions. He never had any fortune, so that it was most foolish of his guardian (Uncle Julius) to spend £2000 which had been bequeathed to him by "the Bath aunts," in buying him a commission in the Blues. I only once saw him whilst he was in the army, and only remember him as a great dandy, but I must say that he had the excuse that everything he wore became him. After he left the army he was buffeted about from pillar to post, and lived no one knows where or how. Our cousin Lord Ravensworth was very kind to him, and so was old Lady Paul; but to Hurstmonceaux or Holmhurst he was never invited, and he would never have been allowed to come. I have often thought since how very odd it was that when he died, neither my mother nor I wore the slightest mourning for him; but he was so entirely outside our life and thoughts, that somehow it would never have occurred to us. He had, however, none of the cold self-contained manner which characterised Francis, but was warm-hearted, cordial, affectionate, and could be most entertaining. After his mother's great misfortunes he went to Spain on some temporary appointment, and at Barcelona nearly died of a fever, through which he was nursed by a lady, who had taken an extraordinary fancy to him; but on his return, when it was feared he would marry her, he took every one by surprise in espousing the very pretty portionless daughter of a physician at Clifton.

During the year 1864 I constantly saw my Lefevre cousins and found an increasing friendship for them. Sir John always showed me the greatest kindness, being full of interest in all my concerns. I consulted him on many subjects, feeling that he was the only person I had ever known, except my mother, willing to take the trouble of _thinking_ how to give the best advice and perfectly disinterested in giving it: consequently I always took _his_ advice and his only. His knowledge was extraordinary, and was only equalled by his humility and self-forgetfulness. Many were the interesting reminiscences of other days which he delighted to call up--many the remarkable parallels he drew between present events and those he remembered--many the charming stories he told me. One of these, which has always struck me as very grand and dramatic, I have so often repeated that I will make a note of it here:--

"Within the memory of those still living there resided in Madrid a family called Benalta. It consisted of Colonel Benalta, a man of choleric and sharp disposition; of his wife, Madame Benalta; of his young daughter; of his little son Carlos, a boy ten years old; and of the mother of Madame Benalta, who was a woman of large property and of considerable importance in the society at Madrid. On the whole, they were quoted as an example of a happy and harmonious family. It is true that there were, however, certain drawbacks to their being completely happy, entirely harmonious, and the chief of these was that Colonel Benalta, when his temper was not at its best, would frequently, much more often than was agreeable, say to his wife, 'My dear, you know nothing: my dear, you know nothing at all: you know nothing whatever.' This was very disagreeable to Madame Benalta, but it was far more unpleasant to the mother of Madame Benalta, who considered her daughter to be a very distinguished and gifted woman, and who did not at all like to have it said, especially in public, that she knew--nothing!

"However, as I have said, on the whole, as Madrid society went, the Benaltas were quoted as an example of a happy and harmonious family.

"One day Colonel Benalta was absent on military duty, but the rest of the family were assembled in the drawing-room at Madrid. In the centre of the room, at a round table, sat Madame Benalta and her daughter working. At a bureau on one side of the room sat the mother of Madame Benalta, counting out the money which she had just received for the rents of her estates in Andalusia, arranging the louis-d'ors in piles of tens before her, and eventually putting them away in a strong box at her side. At another table on the other side of the room sat little Carlos Benalta writing a copy.

"Now I do not know the exact words of the Spanish proverb which formed the copy that Carlos Benalta wrote, but it was something to the effect of 'Work while it is to-day, for thou knowest not what may happen to-morrow.' And the child wrote it again and again till the page was full, and then he signed it, 'Carlos Benalta, Sept. 22nd,' and he took the copy to his mother.

"Now the boy had signed his copy 'Carlos Benalta, Sept. 22nd,' but it really was Sept. 21. And Madame Benalta was a very superstitious woman; and when she saw that in his copy Carlos had anticipated the morrow--the to-morrow on which 'thou knowest not what may happen'--it struck her as an evil omen, and she was very much annoyed with Carlos, and spoke sharply, saying that he had been very careless, and that he must take the copy back and write it all over again. And Carlos, greatly crestfallen, took the copy and went back to his seat. But the mother of Madame Benalta, who always indulged and petted Carlos, looked up from her counting and said, 'Bring the copy to me.' And when she saw it she said to her daughter, 'I think you are rather hard upon Carlos, my dear; he has evidently taken pains with his copy and written it very well; and as for the little mistake at the end, it really does not signify; so I hope you will forgive him, and not expect him to write it again.' Upon which Madame Benalta, but with a very bad grace, said, 'Oh, of course, if his grandmother says he is not to write it again, I do not expect him to do it; but I consider, all the same, that he ought to have been obliged to do it for his carelessness.' Then the grandmother took ten louis-d'ors from the piles before her, and she tore the copy out of the book and rolled them up in it, and sealed the parcel, and she wrote upon the outside, 'For my dear grandson, Carlos Benalta; to be given to him when I am dead!' And she showed it to her daughter and her grand-daughter, and said, 'Some day when I am passed away, this will be a little memorial to Carlos of his old grandmother, who loved him and liked to save him from a punishment.' And she put the packet away in the strong box with the rest of the money.

"The next morning the news of a most dreadful tragedy startled the people of Madrid. The mother of Madame Benalta, who inhabited an apartment in the same house above that of her daughter and son-in-law, was found murdered in her room under the most dreadful circumstances. She had evidently fought hard for her life. The whole floor was in pools of blood. She had been dragged from one piece of furniture to another, and eventually she had been butchered lying across the bed. There were the marks of a bloody hand all down the staircase, and the strong box was missing. Everything was done that could be done to discover the murderer, but unfortunately he had chosen the one day in the year when such a crime was difficult to trace. As Mademoiselle Benalta was not yet 'out,' and as the family liked a quiet domestic life, they never went out in the evening, and the street door was known to be regularly fastened. Therefore, on this one day in the year, when the servants went on their annual picnic to the Escurial, it was supposed to be quite safe to leave the street door on the latch, that they might let themselves in when they returned very late. The murderer must have known this and taken advantage of it; therefore, though Colonel Benalta offered a very large reward, and though the Spanish Government--so great was the public horror--offered, for them, a very large reward, no clue whatever was ever obtained to the murderer.

"A terrible shadow naturally hung over the house in Madrid, and the Benalta family could not bear to remain in a scene which to them was filled with such associations of horror. By the death of the poor lady, Madame Benalta's mother, they had inherited her estates in Andalusia, and they removed to Cordova. There they lived very quietly. From so great a shock Madame Benalta could not entirely rally, and she shrank more than ever from strangers. Besides, her home life was less pleasant than it had been, for Colonel Benalta's temper was sharper and sourer than ever, and even more frequently than before he said to her, 'My dear, you know nothing: you really know nothing at all.'

"Eleven years passed away, melancholy years enough to the mother, but her children grew up strong and happy, and naturally on them the terrible event of their childhood seemed now quite in the far-away past. One day Colonel Benalta was again absent on military duty. Madame Benalta was sitting in her usual chair in her drawing-room at Cordova, and Carlos, then a young man of one-and-twenty, was standing by her, when the door opened and Mademoiselle Benalta came in. 'Oh, mother,' she said, 'I've been taking advantage of our father's absence to arrange his room, and in one of his drawers I have found a little relic of our childhood, which I think perhaps may be interesting to you: it seems to be a copy which Carlos must have written when he was a little boy.' Madame Benalta took the paper out of her daughter's hand and saw, 'Work while it is to-day, for thou knowest not what may happen to-morrow,' and at the bottom the signature 'Carlos Benalta, September 22nd,' and she turned it round, and there, at the back, in the well-known trembling hand, was written, 'For my dear grandson Carlos Benalta, to be given to him when I am dead.' Madame Benalta had just presence of mind to crumple up the paper and throw it into the back of the fire, and then she fell down upon the floor in a fit.

"From that time Madame Benalta never had any health. She was unable to take any part in the affairs of the house, and scarcely seemed able to show any interest in anything. Her husband had less patience than ever with her, and more frequently abused her and said, 'My dear, you know nothing;' but it hardly seemed to affect her now; her life seemed ebbing away together with its animation and power, and she failed daily. That day-year Madame Benalta lay on her death-bed, and all her family were collected in her room to witness her last moments. She had received the last sacraments, and the supreme moment of life had arrived, when she beckoned her husband to her. As he leant over her, in a calm solemn voice, distinctly audible to all present, she said, 'My dear, you have always said that I knew nothing: now I have known two things: I have known how to be silent in life, and how to pardon in death,' and so saying, she died.

"It is unnecessary to explain what Madame Benalta knew."

In later years, in Spain, I have read a little book by Fernan Caballero, "El Silencio en la Vita, e el Perdono en la Muerte," but even in the hands of the great writer the story wants the simple power which it had when told by Sir John.

* * * * *

The winter of 1864-65 was a terribly anxious one at Holmhurst. My mother failed daily as the cold weather came on, and was in a state of constant and helpless suffering. I never could bear to be away from her for a moment, and passed the whole day by the side of her bed or chair, feeding her, supporting her, chafing her inanimate limbs, trying by an energy of love to animate her through the weary hours of sickness, giddiness, and pain. We were seldom able to leave one room, the central one in the house, and had to keep it as warm as was possible. My recollection lingers on the months of entire absence from all external life spent in that close room, sitting in an armchair, pretending to read while I was ceaselessly watching. My mother was so much worse than she had ever been before, that I was never very hopeful, but strove never to look beyond the present into the desolate future, and, while devoting my whole thoughts and energies to activity for her, was always able to be cheerful. Still I remember how, in that damp and misty Christmas, I happened to light upon the lines in "In Memoriam"--

"With trembling fingers did we weave The holly round our Christmas hearth; A rainy cloud possess'd the earth, And sadly fell our Christmas Eve."

And how wonderfully applicable they seemed to our case.

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Holmhurst, Dec. 17, 1864._--How we envy you the warmth of Italy! Had we known how severe a winter this was likely to be, we also should have started for Italy at all risks, and I feel that I have been _very_ wrong ever to have consented to the mother's staying in England, though she seemed so weary of travelling and so much better in health, that I could not believe the effect would be so bad. The cold is most intense. After a month of wet, we have had two days of snow with black east wind, and now it is pouring again, but the rain freezes as it falls.

"The dear mother is perfectly prostrated by the cold, and looks at least twenty years older than in the summer. She has great and constant pain, and trembles so greatly as to be quite unable to feed herself, and she can do nothing whatever all day, so that she is very miserable. Of course I am dreadfully and constantly anxious about her, and the dread of paralysis haunts me night and day. I need not say how sweet, and gentle, and uncomplaining my poor darling is, but one can see she suffers greatly, and 'the pleasures of an English winter,' which some of the family have always been urging her to enjoy, consist in an almost total non-existence on her part, and constant watching on mine."

Gradually the consciousness came to all around her that the only chance of my mother's recovery would be from taking her abroad. How I longed to follow the advice given in "Kotzebue's Travels" when he urges us to take pattern by our ancestors, who were content to sit still and read the injunction in their Bibles, "Let not your flight be in the winter." Yet this year even poor Lea, generally so averse to leaving home, urged us to set off. Then came the difficulty of how to go, and where. We decided to turn towards Pau and Biarritz, because easier of access than Cannes, and because the journeys were shorter: and then there was the constant driving down to look at the sea, and the discovery that, when it was calm enough, my mother was too ill to move, and when she was better, the sea was too rough. At last, on the 20th of January, we left home in the evening.

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Bordeaux, Jan. 28, 1865._--I cannot say what a comfort it is, amid much else that is sad and trying, to think of you safe at Palazzo Parisani, in the home of many years, with the devoted auntie and the two old domestic friends to share your interests and sorrows and joys--so much left of the good of life, so much to gild the memory of the past. I know how you would feel the return to Rome at first--the desolate room, the empty chair, the unused writing-table; and then how you would turn to 'gather up the fragments that remain,' and to see that even the darkest cloud has its silver lining.... No, you cannot wish your mother back. In thinking of her, you will remember that if she were with you now, it would not be in the enjoyment of Rome, of Victoire, and Parisani, but in cheerless London rooms, with their many trials of spirits and temper. _Now_ all those are forgotten by her, for

'Who will count the billows past, If the shore be won at last'?

"And for yourself, you are conscious that you are in the place where she would have you be, and that if she can still be with you invisibly, her life and your life may still be running on side by side, and yours now giving to her unclouded eyes the pleasure it never could have given when earthly mists obscured them.

"I often think of Christian Andersen's story of the mother who was breaking her heart with grief for the loss of her only child, when Death bade her look into his mirror, and on one side she saw the life of her child as it would have been had it remained on earth, in all the misery of sorrow and sickness and sin; and on the other, the glorified life to which it was taken; and then the mother humbly gave thanks to the All-Wise, who chose for her, and could only beg forgiveness because she had wished to choose for herself.

"Do you know, my Esmeralda, that great sorrow has been very near me too? My sweetest mother has been very, very ill, and even now she is so little really better, that I am full of anxiety about her. From the New Year she was so ill at Holmhurst from the cold and snow, that it was decided that we must take the first available moment for going abroad. But we were packed up and waiting for more than a fortnight before her health and the tempests allowed us to start.

"Her passage on the 21st was most unfortunate, for a thick fog came on, which long prevented the steamer from finding the narrow entrance of Calais harbour, and the boat remained for two hours swaying about outside and firing guns of distress every ten minutes. These were answered by steamers in port, and the great alarm-bell of Calais tolled incessantly. At last another steamer was sent out burning red lights, and guided the wanderer in. My poor mother was quite unable to stand from the cold and fatigue when she was landed, and the journey to Paris, across the plains deep in snow, was a most anxious one. During the three days we spent at Paris, she was so ill that I had almost given up all hope of moving her, when a warm change in the weather allowed of our reaching Tours, where we stayed two more days.

"Tours is a fine old town, and is the place where our grandfather died. I saw his house, quite a palace, now the museum. We slept again at Angoulême, a very striking place, the old town rising out of the new, a rocky citadel surrounded with the most beautiful public walks I ever saw out of Rome, and a curious cathedral. This Bordeaux is a second Paris, only with a river like an arm of the sea, and immense quays, full of bustle and hubbub, like the Carminella at Naples."

"_Hotel Victoria, Pau, Feb. 2._--On Monday we made the easiest move possible from Bordeaux to Arcachon, a most quaint little watering-place. The hotel was a one-storied wooden house, with an immensely broad West-Indian-like balcony, in which three or four people could walk abreast, descending on one side to the strip of silver sand which alone separated it from the wave-less bay of the sea called the Bassin d'Arcachon;[253] the other opening into the forest--sixty or seventy miles of low sandhills covered with arbutus, holly, and pine. Near the village, quantities of lodging-houses, built like Swiss châlets, are rising up everywhere in the wood, without walls, hedges, or gardens, just like a fairy story, and in the forest itself it is always warm, no winds or frosts penetrating the vast living walls of green. If the mother had been better, I should have liked to linger at Arcachon a few days, but we could not venture to remain so far from a doctor. Here at Pau we live in a deluge: it pours like a ceaseless waterspout; yet, so dry is the soil, that the rain never seems to make any impression. Pau is dreadfully full and enormously expensive. I see no beauty in the place, the town is modern with a modernised castle, the surrounding country flat, with long white roads between stagnant ditches, the '_coteaux_' low hills in the middle distance covered with brushwood, the distant view scarcely ever visible. We are surrounded by cousins. Mrs. Taylor[254] is most kind--really as good-natured as she is ugly, and, having lived here twenty years, she knows everything about the place. Dr. Taylor is a very skilful physician. Edwin and Bertha Dashwood are also here with their five children, and Amelia Story with her father and step-mother.[255]

"Alas! my sweetest mother is terribly weak, and has hitherto only seemed to lose strength from day to day. She cannot now even walk across the room, nor can she move from one chair to another without great help. We are a little cheered, however, to-day by Dr. Taylor."

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Pau, Feb. 12._--For the last two days my dearest mother's suffering has been most sad, without intermission.... This evening Dr. Taylor has told me how very grave he thinks her state, and that, except for the knowledge of her having so often rallied before, there is no hope of her precious life being restored to us. God has given her back before from the brink of the grave, and it might be His will to do so again; this is all we have to cling to. Her weakness increases daily. She cannot now help herself at all.... Her sweetness, her patience, the lovely expression of her countenance, her angelic smile, her thankfulness for God's blessings even when her suffering is greatest, who can describe? These are the comfort and support which are given us.

"I do not gather that the danger is quite immediate; the dread is a stupor, which may creep on gradually.... I am always able to be cheerful in watching over her, though I feel as if the sunshine was hourly fading out of my life."

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Pau, Feb. 14._--My last account will have prepared you for the news I have to give. My sweetest mother is fast fading away.... Lea and I have been up with her all the last two nights, and every minute of the day has been filled with an intensity of anxious watching. The frail earthly tabernacle is perishing, but a mere look at my dearest one assures us that her spirit, glorious and sanctified, has almost already entered upon its perfected life. Her lovely smile, the heavenly light in her eyes, are quite undescribable.

"All through last night, as I sat in the red firelight, watching every movement, it seemed to me as if the end was close at hand. Her hymn rang in my ears--so awfully solemn and real:--

'It may be when the midnight Is heavy upon the land, And the black waves lying dumbly Along the sand; When the moonless night draws close, And the lights are out in the house; When the fires burn low and red, And the watch is ticking loudly Beside the bed: Though you sleep, tired out, on your couch, Still your heart must wake and watch In the dark room, For it may be that at midnight I will come.'

When the Master does come, she will be always found waiting. Has not my darling kept her lamp burning all her life long? Surely when the Bridegroom cometh, she will enter into the kingdom.

"I cannot tell how soon it will be. I have no hope now of her being given back to me. It is a solemn waiting. Oh! my Esmeralda, when you hear that the hour _has_ come, pity, pray for her unutterably desolate son."

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Feb. 17._--There has been an unexpected rally. Two days ago, when I was quite hopeless and she lay motionless, unconscious of earth, Dr. Taylor said, '_Wait_, you can do nothing: if this trance is to end fatally, you can do nothing to arrest it; but it may still prove to be an extraordinary effort of Nature to recruit itself.' And truly, at eight o'clock yesterday morning, after sixty hours of trance, she suddenly opened her eyes, smiled and spoke naturally. I had just left the room, when Lea called me back--'She is talking to me.' I could scarcely believe it; yet, when I went in, there my darling sat in her bed, with a sweet look of restored consciousness and returning power.

"It was like a miracle.

"She remembers nothing now of her illness. She does not think she has suffered. During the last night she says she was constantly saying the seventy-first Psalm. Almost the first thing she said after rallying was, 'I have not been alone: your Uncle Penrhyn and your Aunt Kitty[257] have been here, supporting me all through the night.'

"Our nice simple little landlady had just been to the church to pray for her, and, coming back to find her restored, believes it is in answer to her prayers.

"I did not know what the agony of the last three days was till they were over. While they lasted, I thought of nothing but to be bright for _her_, that she might _only_ see smiles, to prevent Lea from giving way, and to glean up every glance and word and movement; but to-day I feel much exhausted."

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_Pau, Feb. 21._--My darling has been mercifully restored to me for a little while--a few days' breathing space; and yet I could not count upon this even while it lasted; I could not dwell upon hope, I could not look forward--the frail frame is so _very_ frail. I cannot think she is given to me for long: I only attempt to store up the blessings of each day now against the long desolate future.

"Last Sunday week she fell into her trance. It lasted between sixty and seventy hours. During this time she was almost unconscious. She knew me, she even said 'Dear' to me once or twice, and smiled most sweetly as she did so, but otherwise she was totally unconscious of all around her, of day and night, of the sorrow or anxiety of the watchers, of pain or trouble. A serene peace overshadowed her, a heavenly sweetness filled her expression, and never varied except to dimple into smiles of angelic beauty, as if she were already in the company of angels.

"But for the last sixteen hours the trance was like death. Then the doctor said, 'If the pulse does not sink and if she wakes naturally, she may rally.' This happened. At eight the next morning, my darling gently awoke and was given back into life. This was Thursday, and there were three days' respite. But yesterday she was evidently failing again, and this morning, while Dr. Taylor was in the room, the trance came on again. For ten minutes her pulse ceased to beat altogether.... Since then she has lain as before--scarcely here, yet not gone--quite happy--_between_ heaven and earth.

"I believe now that if my darling is taken I can give thanks for the exceeding blessedness of this end.

"Meantime it is again a silent watching, and, as I watch, the solemn music of the hymns that my darling loves comes back to me, and I repeat them to myself. Now these verses are in my mind:--

'Have we not caught the smiling On some beloved face, As if a heavenly sound were wiling The soul from our earthly place?-- The distant sound and sweet Of the Master's coming feet.

We may clasp the loved one faster, And plead for a little while, But who can resist the Master? And we read by that brightening smile That the tread we may not fear Is drawing surely near.'

And then, in the long watches of the night, all the golden past comes back to me--how as a little child I played round my darling in Lime Wood--how the flowers were our friends and companions--how we lived in and for one another in the bright Lime garden: of her patient endurance of much injustice--of her sweet forgiveness of all injuries--of her loving gratitude for all blessings--of her ever sure upward-seeking of the will and glory of God: and my eye wanders to the beloved face, lined and worn but glowing with the glory of another world, and while giving thanks for thirty years of past blessing, shall I not also give thanks that thus--not through the dark valley, but through the sunshine of God--my mother is entering upon her rest?

"God will give me strength: I feel quite calm. I can think only how to soothe, how to cheer, how to do everything for her."

"_Feb. 26._--It is still the same; we are still watching. In the hundred and twelfth hour of her second trance, during which she had taken no nourishment whatever, my mother spoke again, but it was only for a time. You will imagine what the long watchings of this death-like slumber have been, what the strange visions of the past which have risen to my mind in the long, silent nights, as, with locked doors (for the French would insist that all was over), I have hovered over the pillow on which she lies as if bound by enchantment. Now comes before me the death-bed scene of S. Vincent de Paul, when, to the watchers lamenting together over his perpetual stupor, his voice suddenly said, 'It is but the brother that goes before the sister.' Then, as the shadows lighten into dawn, Norman Macleod's story of how he was watching by the death-bed of his beloved one in an old German city, and grief was sinking into despair, when, loud and solemn, at three in the morning, echoed forth the voice of the old German watchman giving the hours in the patriarchal way--'Put your trust in the _Divine Three_, for after the darkest night cometh the break of day.'

"Last night the trance seemed over. All was changed. My sweetest one was haunted by strange visions; to her excited mind and renewed speech, every fold of the curtains was a spirit, every sound an alarm. For hours I sat with her trembling hands in mine, soothing her with the old hymns that she loves. To a certain extent, however, there is more hope, more of returning power. Is it a superstition to think that she began to revive when in the churches at Holmhurst, Hastings, Hurstmonceaux, Alton, and Pau prayers (and in many cases how earnest) were being offered up for her restoration?

"_Two_ P.M.--My darling has been sitting up in bed listening to sweet voices, which have been singing to her; but they were no earthly voices which she heard.

"_Ten_ P.M.--She has just declared that she sees Ruth Harmer (a good, sweet girl she used to visit, who died at Hurstmonceaux) standing by her bedside. 'It is Ruth Harmer--look at Ruth Harmer,' she said. But it was not a voice of terror; it was rather like the apostolic question, 'Who are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence come they?' There has also been a time when she has spoken of 'dear Holmhurst, _dear_ beautiful Holmhurst,' in the most touching way."

"_Feb. 27._--She has fallen into a third stupor, deeper than the others; there is no sign of breath, the heart does not beat, the pulse does not beat, the features have sunk. I _alone_ now declare with certain conviction that she lives. The shadows are closing around us, yet I feel that we are in the immediate presence of the Unseen, and that the good Ruth Harmer is only one of the many angels watching over my sweetest one. Years ago she told me that when dying she wished her favourite hymn--

'How bright those glorious spirits shine,--'

to be sung by her bedside; was it these words which she heard the angels sing to her? Oh! my Esmeralda, are you praying that I may endure while it is necessary to do everything for her, only so long? How strange that the scene which I have so often imagined should be in a country hitherto unknown, the only relations near having been strangers before; yet the simple French people here are very sad for us, and there is much sympathy."

"_March 10._--It has been many days since I have ventured to write: it has been so difficult to say anything definite, with the constant dread of another relapse, which we have thought must come every day: yet I think I may now venture to write in thanksgiving that my mother is restored to me from the brink of the grave. It seemed _quite_ impossible that she could come back, as if she _must_ enter the world on the portals of which she had been so long resting. Doctor and nurse gave up all hope; and at last the nurse went out, saying all must be over when she returned in three hours' time. In those three hours the remedies began to take effect, the dead limbs to revive, the locked mouth to open, the closed eyes to see, the hands to feel. It had been a death-like trance of a hundred and ninety-six hours altogether--ten days and nine nights. She remembers nothing of it now, and nothing of the illness which came before, but a gradual revival and awakening of all her powers is going on. It has been less painful to her throughout than to any one, and it is so still.

"Dr. Taylor is made Sir Alexander. He and Lady Taylor have been most kind to us--could not have been more so. It has been interesting to see so much of her, the last survivor of our father's generation in the family, and one who, living constantly at Hurstmonceaux, was present through all the old family crises and conflicts, which she narrates with much of sound sense and observation. I shall hope to write down much of her recollections, and shall begin in good earnest to collect the memorials of that earlier family period, quite as curious in its way as many later ones."[259]

"_Pau, March 27._--My sweet mother continues slightly better certainly, but in a most fragile and harassing state of health. I never feel happy in leaving her, even for half-an-hour. On some days she is better and almost able to enjoy reading a few words, or being read to a little: on others, as to-day, the trembling increases to such a degree as to prevent her occupying herself in any way. I need not say how beautiful are her faith and love, how increasing the beatitude of her inner, her heavenly life. 'Oh, how long it is since I have been at church,' she said last night. 'But you are always at church in your soul, darling,' I said. 'Yes,' she answered, 'that is the greater part of my day--meditation and prayer, and in the night I say my hymns and texts.' On my birthday she gave me a solemn blessing. Each day I watch her every look and movement. Truly I feel as if the pulse of her life beat into mine. She does not see many people, but our sweet little cousin Lady Dashwood, Lady Taylor, and Lady Charles Clinton come occasionally.

"Pau is the most unattractive place I ever was in, and it pours or snows almost incessantly. The 'society' is small, good, and uninteresting, and snubs the immense remainder of the Anglo-Pau world with hearty goodwill.

"For some days we have been very sad about dear Emma Leycester, who has been terribly ill: at least I have been, for I think the mother has scarcely taken in the great cause for alarm."

I think the name of this most dear cousin, Emma Leycester (Charlotte's much younger sister) has scarcely been mentioned in these memoirs, and yet there was scarcely any one who had a tenderer place in our home life and thoughts, or to whom we were more devoted. Perhaps the very fact of omitting her shows how entirely she must have kept aloof from all family squabbles and disorders, whilst rejoicing in all our pleasures and sorrowing in all our griefs. She was never strong, and I always recollect her as a semi-invalid, yet more animated and cheerful than most people in strong health, and able, from the very fact of weakness removing her from the general turmoil of all that was going on around her, to give her full attention and sympathy to the things she could participate in. Small in person, she was of a most sweet countenance, with grey hair, a most delicate complexion, and bright eyes, full of expression and humour--

"Her angel's face As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place."[260]

As a child, in her visits to Stoke and Lime, I was quite devoted to her, and in the persecutions of my boyhood was comforted by her unfailing sympathy. When at Southgate, the greatest pleasure of my London excursions was that they sometimes ended at "Charlotte and Emma's house" in Wilton Crescent, and that I often went to have tea with the dear Emma, who was already gone to rest upon the sofa in her own little sitting-room. When I was at Oxford she came to visit me there; and latterly the loss of her own brother and sister had drawn this sister-like cousin nearer to my mother as well as to myself.

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Pau, April 6, 1865_, 8 P.M.--I must write one little line of love this evening: the sad news reached us two hours ago, and you will know _how_ we are mourning with you. I had just a hope, and can hardly feel yet that dearest Emma's sweet presence, her loving tender sympathy and interest, are taken from us in this world: but may we not feel that she is perhaps still near us in her perfected state, and to you and to my darling mother even the visible separation may be a very short one, it _can_ only be a few years--long here, but like a moment to her, till the meeting again.

"I am glad to think of you at Toft, and of her resting there, where we can visit the grave. I feel so _deeply_ not being able to be with you, or to do anything for you, as dearest Emma so often said I should do for her, if you were taken from her.

"The news came at tea-time. It was impossible to conceal it. The mother had had a suffering day, and was utterly crushed. We put her to bed at once, and very soon she literally 'fell asleep for sorrow,' and I, watching beside her, heard her lips murmur, 'O blessed are they who die in Thee, O Lord, for they rest from their labours.'"

"_L'Estelle, April 8._--My mother continued so seriously ill up to yesterday morning, that I was certain if she were not moved at once, I must not hope she ever would be. Dr. Taylor declined to take the responsibility, but I felt some one _must_ act; so I sent for a large carriage, and had her carried down into it like a baby, and brought off here, only two hours' easy drive from Pau. Before we had gone six miles she began to revive, was carried to her room without exhaustion, and to-day opens her eyes on a lovely view of the snow mountains above the chestnut woods, with a rushing river and the old convent of Bétharram in the gorge, which is a wonderful refreshment after having lived in a narrow street, and seen nothing but a white-washed wall opposite for eleven weeks. Already she is better."

_To_ MY SISTER.

"_L'Estelle, April 9._--You will have heard of our great sorrow.... A week ago dearest Emma's fever passed and took the form of prayer, which, as Charlotte says, 'flowed like a river.' Once she said, 'I have been fed with angels' food; I did not _ask_ for it, I could not, but I have _had_ it.' Her last resting-place is at Toft. Charlotte was able to be present.... I feel that, though we have many still to love, no one can ever fill the _same_ place in our hearts."

During my mother's long illness at Pau, I naturally thought of nothing, and saw scarcely any one, but her. In the last three weeks, however, after her rally, and before the last alarm, I saw a few people, amongst them very frequently Lady Vere Cameron, whose husband, Cameron of Lochiel, had been known to my mother from girlhood. Through Lady Vere, I was introduced to a remarkable circle then at Pau, which formed a society entirely occupied with spiritualism. Most extraordinary were the experiences they had to narrate. I have kept some notes of my acquaintance with them:--

"_Pau, March 1865._--When I was at Lady Vere Cameron's, the subject of table-turning was brought forward, and I then said that I had been told that I was a medium, meaning merely with reference to tables. We sat down to a table and it turned. Soon it began to rap violently, and a scratching noise was heard underneath. This I believe to have been owing to some ventriloquism on the part of Ferdinand Russell, who was present, but it excited Lady Vere very much.

"Some days after I had a note from Lady Vere to desire that I would come to be introduced to her 'particular friend,' Mrs. Gregory, at a party in her own house. As I knew that Mrs. Gregory was a great spiritualist and much occupied with the subject, I naturally supposed that this desire to make my acquaintance was due to the table-turning at Lady Vere's, and I went expecting to find a séance.

"But it was a large party, a great number of people whom I had never seen before. Mrs. Gregory had the odd expression of always looking for something behind her. She spoke at once of my being a medium, and then said in an excited manner, 'But are you far advanced? are you like me? when a friend is going to die, do you see it written before you in letters of light _there_?'--pointing into vacancy. 'No,' I said, 'certainly not: that never happens to me.' Speaking of this afterwards to a Mr. Hamilton, he bade me beware, for very unpleasant things often happened at Mrs. Gregory's séances, or, if they did not happen, every one present believed that they did--that hands appeared, &c.: that his cousin, Mrs. H. of S., had received messages from her child who was dead: that others also had received messages from their dead relations. The meetings were always solemnly opened with prayer.

"At Mrs. White Hedges' I saw Mrs. H. She said that she also was certain that I was a medium, and asked whether I did not frequently have messages from the other world. I said 'No,' and that I did not wish to have any. 'What,' she said, with a look of great surprise, 'you do not wish, then, for the regeneration of the world; for if you did you would feel that it can only be brought about through the instrumentality of spirits.'"

"_April 4._--At Lady Robinson's[262] I again met Mrs. Gregory, who asked me to come on the 6th to help her to turn a table, and see if I should receive any messages. I agreed to do so, understanding that nothing more was intended than she said. Afterwards I sat by Miss N. L., who said, 'I see that terrible woman has been getting hold of you. Pray don't go. You don't know what you will see. Every one who goes is beguiled by small pretexts till they see the most appalling things. It can only be through the devil.'

"Persuaded by Miss N. L., I went to Mrs. Gregory and said, 'Mrs. Gregory, do tell me exactly what you expect to happen on Thursday, because I do not wish to _see_ anything.'

"'Oh, you are a coward, are you?' said both Mrs. Gregory and Mrs. Alexander, who was sitting near her.

"'Yes, certainly I am a coward about trifling with the supernatural. It is not because I do not believe that spirits can return from the dead, but because I do believe it that I would rather not come, if you expect to see anything.'

"'Well, I can only say that both seeing and receiving messages are the greatest possible comfort to me: it is only that which keeps me in my right mind,' said Mrs. Gregory.

"I answered that I should dislike being upset for the ordinary and practical duties of life by being led to dwell constantly upon the supernatural.

"'That is precisely what strikes me as the greatest advantage,' said Mrs. Gregory; 'surely one cannot think too much of the other world. To feel that spirits are constantly watching you, and grieving or rejoicing over you, must surely tend to keep you from a great deal of evil. I have known many infidels entirely converted to a new and Christian life by what they have seen with me--Mr. Ruskin, for instance. I asked Mr. Ruskin one day what he believed, and he answered "Simply nothing." He afterwards came to my house several times when I had séances, and then he took my hands, and with tears in his eyes said, "Mrs. Gregory, I cannot thank you enough for what you have shown me: it will change my whole life, for because I have seen I believe." Mr. Pickersgill the artist was another instance. Certainly hands often appear to me, but I like to see them. If you had lost any one who was a part of your life, would you not like to know that you were receiving a message from those you loved? You need not be afraid of the messages I receive. Just before I came here I received this message--"Keep close to God in prayer." There was nothing dreadful in that, was there? Was not that a beautiful message to receive. But sometimes the spirits are conflicting. There are good and bad spirits. If the messages are not such as we should wish, then we know the bad spirits are there. All this is in the Bible, "Ye shall try the spirits, whether they be good or evil." This is one of the means of grace which God gives us: surely we ought not to turn aside from it.'

"Afterwards I asked Lady Robinson her experience. She said that she had been at one of the séances, but nothing appeared and 'the Indicator' gave nothing decided. She said it was conducted most seriously, with all religious feeling. She described Mrs. Gregory as not only praying at the time, but living in a state of prayer, and she believed that the messages were granted in answer to real faith. She said quantities of people had seen the hands appear. Mrs. Gregory had a very large séance at Sir William Gomm's in London, and Lady Gomm asked for an outward sign before she would believe. A bodiless hand then appeared, and, taking up a vase with a plant in it from a china dish upon the table, set it on the floor, and then breaking a flower from the plant, came and laid it in Lady Gomm's lap: all the company saw it.

"I told the Taylors what I had heard. Sir Alexander said that he thought the chief good of such a clever physician as Mrs. Gregory's husband (Dr. Gregory of the powders) appearing would be to write a prescription for the living."

While we were at Pau, my sister wrote much to me upon the death of Cardinal Wiseman, to whom she was greatly devoted, and whom I have always believed to be a most sagacious and large-hearted man. His burly figure upon the sands at Eastbourne used to be very familiar to me in my boyhood. I heard Monsignor Capel, who afterwards attained some celebrity, preach his funeral sermon at Pau.

"Thirty years ago," he said, "there were only six Catholic churches in London; now there are forty-six. Then there were six Catholic schools in London; now there are at least three in each of these parishes--one for boys, one for girls, and one for infants. Then there were only 30,000 Catholics in all England; now there are two millions, one-ninth of the whole population of the country. Then there were no religious Orders except the Jesuit Fathers, who had lingered on from the Reformation, flying from one Catholic house to another, and administering the sacraments in fear and trembling; now there are in London the followers of St. Francis and St. Dominic, the Passionist Fathers, the Redemptorists, and at least twelve nunneries of English ladies. All this change is in a great measure due to Cardinal Wiseman, the founder of the English hierarchy. He entered on his labours in troublous times: with the enthusiasm and love of splendid ritual which he imbibed as a Spanish boy, with the ecclesiastical learning of Italy, with the dogmatic perseverance and liberality which he drank in with his English education. He chose as the title of his bishopric the see of the last martyred English bishop, and he also thirsted for martyrdom."

These notes are curious as showing how the rapid growth of Catholicism in England, which we Protestants are so unwilling to recognise, had advanced under Cardinal Wiseman's leadership.

At L'Estelle my mother daily revived, and was soon able to sit out on the sunny balcony, for the valleys of the Pyrenees were already quite hot, though the trees were leafless and the mountains covered with snow. It was long, however, before I ventured to leave her to go beyond the old convent of Bétharram, with its booths of relics and its calvary on a hill. When she was stronger, we moved to Argelès, a beautiful upland valley, whence excursions are very easy to Cauterets and Luz. Afterwards we visited Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes; but though the snow was too deep to allow of mountain rambles, the heat was already too intense for enjoyment of the valleys. We had left Pau without a sign of vegetation, and when we came back three weeks later, it was in all the deadest, heaviest green of summer. So it was a great refreshment to move at once to Biarritz, with its breezy uplands, covered with pink daphne, and its rolling, sparkling, ever-changing sea, so splendid in colour. To my mother, Biarritz was a complete restorative, and she was able there to take up her drawing again, to enjoy seeing friends, and to enter into the interests and peculiarities of the curious Basque country.

We visited many of the Basque churches, which are always encircled within by three galleries, except over the altar. These galleries are of black oak. The men sit in the galleries, and the women below, and they enter at different doors. In the churchyards the graves have all little crosses or Basque head-stones with round tops, and they are all planted with flowers. The houses all have wide overhanging roofs and external wooden galleries. Bidart and Cambo are good specimens of Basque villages. Bidart is a beautiful place on the road to S. Jean de Luz, and has a church with the characteristic overhanging belfry and high simple buttresses. A wide entry under the organ-loft is the only entrance to the church. In the hollow below is a broken bridge reflected in a pool, which is golden at sunset, and which, with the distant sea and sands, and the old houses with their wooden balconies scattered over the hillside, forms a lovely picture. Here I stayed one evening to draw with Miss Elizabeth Blommart, an acquaintance we made at Biarritz (afterwards our friend for many years), while my mother and Lea walked on, and descended from the opposite hill upon the sands. We had often been told of the treacherous waves of Bidart, but could not have believed in danger--so distant, beyond the long reaches of sand, seemed the calm Atlantic, glistening in the last rays of sunlight. To our horror, when we had nearly finished our drawing, we looked up, and saw my mother and Lea coming towards us pouring with salt water from cloaks, bonnets, everything. They had been walking unsuspiciously on the sands three-quarters of a mile from the sea, when suddenly, without any warning, a great wave surrounded them. My mother was at once swept off her feet, but Lea, with her usual presence of mind, caught her cloak and rolled it round her arm, and plunging herself deep into the sand, resisted the water and held her mistress till the wave receded, when they made their escape. A few days afterwards an Englishman with his little dog was walking in the Bay of Bidart; the man escaped, but the dog was swept out to sea.

Cambo is two hours' drive from Biarritz--a most pleasant watering-place on a high terrace above the Nive, with pergolas of vines and planes, a churchyard which is a perfect blaze of lilies and roses, and an inn-garden which is full of lovely flowers. Close by is the opening to the Pas de Roland, a grand little gorge where the Nive rushes through the mountains--a finer Dovedale. A rocky path ascends by the side of the stream and climbs a succession of steeps to _la roche percée_, through which it passes to a little hamlet and old bridge. Eighteen miles farther is S. Jean de Port, whence one can ride to Roncesvalles.

The whole of this Basque country is full of memorials of the Peninsular War, the events of which in this district are wonderfully well described in the novel of "The Subaltern." There are deep woods and glens which ran down with blood; green lanes (as at Irogne) which were scenes of desperate combats; tombs of English officers, as in the churchyard at Bidart and in the picturesque mayor's garden between Bidart and Biarritz, where a flat stone commemorating three English officers is to be seen under the old apple-trees, overlooking a wide expanse of country. The most dreadful slaughter was near the Negressa Station, where the two armies, having occupied the ridges on either side the lake, suffered frightful carnage. It might have been spared, but in both armies it was then unknown that Napoleon had abdicated, and that peace was proclaimed. Between S. Jean de Luz and the Behobia is a picturesque old château, which was taken by the English after an easy siege, the inhabitants having been forced to fly with such precipitation that everything was abandoned, even the mail-bags which they had just seized being left behind and the contents scattered about on the floor. The first letter the English officer in command picked up was directed to himself and from his own father! He took nothing from the house but a Spanish dictionary from the library, but returning that way three weeks afterwards, found it completely pillaged by the Spanish camp-followers.

The peasantry of the Basque country are most interesting to talk to, and it is strange that more should not have been said and written about them, as their conversation is more full of ancient proverbs and folk-lore than that of the inhabitants of any other part of France. I remember an old Basque woman saying that her language was not only the best, but far the oldest in the world--in fact, it was that which Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise!

Twice, while we were at Biarritz, I made excursions into Spain, crossing the Bidassoa close to the Isle of Pheasants with intense interest. In all the Spain I have seen since, there is nothing more utterly Spanish than the tiny walled town of Fontarabia, with its wooden balconies piled one above another, and its lookout over a blue estuary. Most striking also is Passages--a land-locked bay of the sea with a very narrow opening, which is passed on the way to S. Sebastian.

Our return journey to England in the late spring was very delightful. My mother, in entire enjoyment of her marvellously restored health, and delighting to drink in the full beauties of nature and antiquity, was in no hurry to return to the turmoil of English life. We lingered everywhere, making short half-day journeys, and spending quiet afternoons sketching in the grass-grown streets of half-deserted cities, or driving out in little carriages to grand old châteaux. Thus we first saw S. Emilion, that marvellous place, where the buildings are so mingled with the living rock, that you scarcely can tell where the work of man begins, and where each sculptured cornice glows in late spring with a glory of crimson valerian. In one of the quietest streets of Poitiers, before a cottage door, we bought an old inlaid table, which is one of the pleasantest memorials of our journey. At Amboise we stayed several days in a most primitive but charming hotel, the vision of my dear mother in which often comes back to me, sitting with her psalm-book in a low room with white-washed walls and brick floor, and with a latticed window looking out over the great river glistening in the sunset. My mother liked and admired Amboise[266] more than almost any of our thousand resting-places, and she delighted in the excursions to moated Chenonceaux and to Chambord, where we and Lea had tea and bilberry jam at a delightful little inn which then existed on the outskirts of the forest.

On the 27th of May we reached Holmhurst. One of those curious incidents which are inexplicable had occurred during our absence, and was narrated to us, on our return, by our servants, neighbours, and by Mrs. Hale, the wife of our Hastings doctor. During my mother's illness at Pau, two of our maids, Alice and Jane Lathom, slept, according to their custom, in one of the spare rooms to the front of the house. In the middle of the night they were both aroused by three piercing terrible screams in the room close to the bed. Petrified with horror, they hid under the bed-clothes, and lay thus more dead than alive till morning. With the first streak of dawn they crept down the passage to John Gidman's room, roused him, and told him what had happened. He felt it was certainly an omen that the death they expected had occurred; took the carriage and drove down at once to St. Leonards to Mrs. Hale. Dr. and Mrs. Hale were at breakfast when John Gidman arrived and sent in word that his mistress was dead. When they went out, they found he had received no letter, but had only an inward conviction of the event from what had happened.

It was the same hour at which my mother, waking from her second trance in her room at Pau, had uttered three long piercing screams in her wandering, and said, "Oh, I shall never, never see my dear Holmhurst again!"

There is no explanation to offer.

* * * * *

We had much enjoyment of our little Holmhurst this summer and a constant succession of guests. Amongst those who now came annually were Arthur Stanley and his wife Lady Augusta. To my mother, Augusta Stanley was always a very tender and dutiful niece, and to me a most kind cousin. She rejoiced to aid my mother in acting as a drag to Arthur's ever-increasing impression that the creed of progress and the creed of Christianity were identical. Many people thought that such an intense, almost universal warmth of manner as hers must be insincere, but with her it was perfectly natural. She took the sunshine of court favour, in which they both lived, quite simply, accepting it quietly, very glad that the Royal Family valued her, but never bringing it forward. She was indeed well worthy of the confidence which her royal mistress reposed in her, for though the Queen wrote to her daily, and though she generally came in to breakfast with several sheets in the large well-known handwriting, not one word from them ever transpired to her nearest relation or dearest friend.

What Lord Beaconsfield called "Arthur Stanley's picturesque sensibility" made him care more than Augusta about having royal (_i.e._ historic) friendships, though he had less personal feeling than she had for the illustrious persons who made them. He was, however, quite devoted to the Queen, to her own personality, and would certainly have been so had she been in any other position of life. The interests of Westminster made him very happy, and he rejoiced in the duty which fell upon him of preserving the Abbey as he received it, furious when it was suggested that some of the inferior and ugly monuments might be removed, or that the peculiar character of the choir (like a Spanish _coro_) might be altered. Always more a lover of moral than of doctrinal, or even spiritual Christianity, at this time he was beginning to be the victim of a passion for heretics which went on increasing afterwards. The Scotch were delighted with him: they thought he had an enthusiastic admiration for their Church. But he almost equally admired all schismatics from the Church to which he officially belonged, and was almost equally interested in them, and if he could get any one with ever so slight a taint of heresy to preach in the Abbey, it was a great delight to him: he thought it was setting an example of Christian liberality.

* * * * *

My sister left Rome with her aunt at the end of May (1865). At Pisa she took leave of her beloved Victoire, who remained at her own house. When she reached France, weakness prevented her intended visit to Paray le Monial, whence the nuns sent her the following rules for the employment of "The Holy Hour" in acts of reparation for insults offered to our Lord by the sins of men:--

{ Short acts.--"Lord, I believe, help 1. Unbelief { thou mine unbelief." { Faith.--"Lord, increase our faith," &c. 2. Ridicule, mockery. Secret prayers for the scoffers. 3. Irreverence.--Special reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament. 4. Rash judgments.--Acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart. 5. Unlawful opinion.--Silence upon things settled by authority. 6. Careless life.--Act of offering morning and night against frivolous and immoderate words and actions. 7. Love of ease and pleasure.--Simple acts of mortification and self-denial in the course of the day.

Esmeralda was detained for some time by serious illness at Dijon, with the strange symptoms which, three years later, attended her final illness, and which were then inexplicable to all around her. On her recovery, Madame de Trafford met her at Paris, and insisted that she should follow her to her château in Touraine. Hence Esmeralda wrote:--

"_Château de Beaujour, June 1865._--You will have heard from Auntie of our arrival in this fairy château.... I have heard much that is wonderful, but what is most striking is to watch the perfect simplicity of a life so gifted as Madame de Trafford's--the three virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, that faith which can move mountains, and with it great humility. Madame de Trafford is deeply interested in any details I give her of the last six years: she was really attached to Mama. Here, in her château, she saw that Mama was dying. She turned suddenly round to Mr. Trafford, who was here, and said, 'Ah! elle va mourir--sortons.' She could not bear it, and felt that she must go out into the open air.

"We shall be in London some time next week, with endless affairs to settle. I quite dread the lawyers' deeds, days and weeks of worry, never ending and still beginning.

"I think of you once more in your study, as if a new life were given you, and dear Aunt Augustus in her arm-chair, and everything bright and beautiful around you."

Of this, her first visit to Beaujour, Esmeralda has left a few remarkable notes.

"_July 1865._--Madame de Trafford came off to receive us at Paris as soon as she heard we were on our way. Then, when she heard I was so ill at Dijon, she often telegraphed there four times a day to Auntie, to the master of the hotel, to every one, so that they thought at Dijon that I was quite 'une grande personage.' At last, when I was better, we went to Beaujour. Madame de Trafford sent to meet us at Blois, but not her own horses, because they were _trop vifs_. It was a long drive, though we went at a great pace, for Madame de Trafford had told the coachman he was to drive as fast as possible. At last, in the avenue of poplars, the ruts were so deep that I thought we should have been overturned. Beaujour is a large square house with wings to it. Madame de Trafford herself opened the door, with a handkerchief over her head. 'Ah! vous voilà,' she said, 'c'est bien; il y'a longtemps que je vous attends.'

"The lower part of the château is unfurnished and vast. This Madame de Trafford considers to represent chaos, the chaos of nations. On the upper floor, each room represents a nation. Where she considers there is something wanting to the nation, there is some piece of furniture wanting to the room. When she considers that a nation has too much, the room is over-crowded. Thus in England, Canada, Gibraltar, and Malta are _de trop_, but India she allows for.

"For us she had a whole suite of rooms newly furnished. I had a bedroom, boudoir, dressing-room, and bath-room, and Auntie had the same. They contained every possible luxury. My bed was the most delicious I ever slept in. Madame de Trafford's power of second-sight had enabled her to see exactly what I liked best.

"All morning we sat in Madame de Trafford's bedroom or mine, and in the evening in the sitting-rooms. All day she talked of the future of Europe. 'Je plane sur l'Europe,' she used to say; and, when she was about to see anything--'Mon second être s'en va.'

"Madame de Trafford is frequently in conflict with the devil. At such moments she is perfectly awful--quite sublime in her grandeur. She will repeat _sotto voce_ what he says to her, suggestions of pride, &c.,--and then, raising herself to her full height, in a voice of thunder will bid defiance to the evil spirit. She spoke of the many things in connection with herself which made people say she was mad, and said she did not feel it safe to have people to stay with her in consequence. I told her that this would be quite impossible, for that even in the week which I had spent with her, I had seen much which others never ought to have the opportunity of seeing and misjudging. She often spoke most severely of my faults, and said that I lived too much for myself. 'Prenez garde,' she said, 'que vous ne passiez pas par cette petite porte, que j'ai vue une fois.' This was the gate of hell. She saw it in a most awful vision--the judged souls, 'qu'ils baissent leurs têtes et passent par cette petite porte.'

"One day the Curé sent up word that the village procession was coming to the gates of the château. On such an occasion an altar is always expected to be prepared. There was a dreadful fuss and hurry, but it had to be done. A foundation of barrels was covered with coloured cloths, on this rose a higher platform, and on that the altar. Workmen were immediately employed to dig up trees and plant them around it, and Clémence was sent to the garden to dig up all the lilies she could find. When the procession arrived, all was ready and the people were delighted."

During this and succeeding visits at Beaujour, Madame de Trafford dictated many remarkable passages in her life to my sister. This she did walking up and down the room, often with her eyes flaming and her arms extended, as in a state of possession. At such times she would often break off her narration and suddenly begin addressing the spirit within her, which answered her in the strange voice, not her own, which sometimes came from her lips. Some of the stories she narrated at these times are of the wildest description, and are probably mere hallucinations, but a vein of truth runs through them all; and her complete biography, as I still preserve it, is a most curious document. Almost all her stories are tinged by her enthusiasm for the Bonaparte family, with whom she had some mysterious connection. They are mingled with strange visions and prophecies, many of which have undoubtedly come true, and her second-sight caused her to foresee, and in one case to prevent, an attack on the life of Napoleon III. She was constantly occupied in works of benevolence--in fact, her whole life was a contest between good and evil. "On joue sur moi," she said, "ce sont les bons et les mauvais esprits." Sometimes, when Esmeralda happened to go suddenly into the room, she would find Madame de Trafford, with livid face and glaring eyes, in horrible personal conflict with an evil spirit--"Prince de cette terre, adore donc ton Créateur et ton Dieu." In a late Life of Jeanne Darc, whose early existence amongst spiritual influences is much like that of Madame de Trafford, Catherine de l'Armagnac, the great friend of Jeanne, is described as resembling her, and the observation is made that this extraordinary power remains in the Armagnac family still. Madame de Trafford was _née_ Martine Larmignac (de l'Armagnac). But it was not only in Jeanne Darc that there was a similarity to the visions, the voices, the inspirations of Madame de Trafford: exactly the same appears in the histories of St. Bridget, St. Catherine of Siena, and Savonarola. The child-prophet Samuel also heard such voices calling to him.

In her "Life," Madame de Trafford says that she was brought up at Saumur, where spirits surrounded and talked to her in her childhood. When she was hungry, she believed that they brought her food. She was starved and ill-treated by her nominal mother, but her nominal father was kind to her. She always loved the poor, and they loved her. She once stole a loaf to give to a poor family. She was dressed in the richest child's frocks and lace till she was seven years old, then they were taken away and poor clothes were given to her. In her solitary life at Saumur she fancied that every one else like herself talked to spirits....

To escape from a marriage with a French Count, and, as she believed, in obedience to the spirits, Martine Larmignac went with the family of Sharpe as governess to England. Here she eventually became the second wife of Mr. Trafford of Wroxham Hall in Norfolk, but even then she never expected happiness in her life. She said that a spirit announced to her before her marriage, "Ton nom pour toi, ta fortune pour les autres, et _tu_ ne seras jamais heureuse." She had two children by Mr. Trafford. She foresaw the deaths of both by her second-sight, and had the agony of watching the fatal hour approaching even when they were well and strong.

During the Crimean war, Madame de Trafford went out to Constantinople with some Irish Sisters of Charity. She was with them during the earthquake which overwhelmed Broussa. At the moment when the Emperor Nicholas is supposed to have died, she alarmed those who were with her by starting up and in her fearful voice of prophecy exclaiming, "Nicholas! arrête toi! tu n'est pas mort: tu as disparu." She always maintained that the Emperor did not die at the time at which his death was announced as having taken place.

One day Madame de Trafford was sitting in her room at Paris, when the spirit told her she was to go--not where she was to go, or why, but simply that she was to set off. She caught up her bonnet and shawl and bade her maid Annette (for she had servants then) to follow her. She went out: she walked: she walked on till she arrived at the railway-station for going to Lyons (Chemin de Fer de Lyon). She still felt she was to go on, but she did not know whither, so she said to the guard that she must pay for her ticket when she left the train, for she could not tell where she should get out. She went on till the railway came to an end, and the railway in those days came to an end at Toulon. Then she got out and went to a hotel and ordered rooms for herself and her maid Annette, and dinner--for they were famished after the long journey. But still she felt restless: she was still convinced that she was not in the right place.

"J'avais arrêté un appartement pour une semaine, mais une voix me dit, 'Pars,' et je savais qu'il y'avait du danger. Je fis appeler la maîtresse de l'hôtel. Je lui dis, 'Je vous payerai tout ce que vous voulez, mais je dois partir. Faites attendre dix minutes la malle-poste pour Marseilles.' J'arrive à Marseilles fatiguée. Je me repose sur un lit. Il faisait déjà nuit. J'appelais ma femme de chambre et je lui dis, 'Je veux sortir.' Je sors. J'avance. Je retourne. Ah, mon Dieu! qu'est ce que c'est? J'ai peur: je tremble: je ne sais pourquoi. 'Annette, suivez-moi,' je dis. J'avance encore. Je monte les rues étroites de Marseilles. J'arrête. Oh, mon Dieu! qu'est que c'est que je vois--une _rue_! Je ne puis plus avancer, mais qu'est que c'est cette rue? Je tourne: je monte la rue en frémissant. 'Annette, suivez-moi.' J'arrête. Je vois une maison--une fenêtre. La maison est fermée. C'est ici. Je mésure la distance de cette maison à la maison vis-à-vis. Une, deux, trois, quatre. La police me suivait. Ils soupçonnaient quelque chose, mais je disais, 'Qu'est que c'est que cela--une maison, une fenêtre?' La police entre dans la maison, dans cette fenêtre elle y trouva une machine infernale. Napoleon était sauvé: il devait y passer le lendemain."

From her extraordinary powers of second-sight, supernatural gifts were attributed by ignorant persons, and to her own great distress, to Madame de Trafford. The poor around her, both in Touraine and at Paris, often implored her to heal their sick, insisting that she could do so if she would, for she had the power.

"J'allais à la Madeleine un dimanche pour la messe. La fille de mon cocher avait ête bien malade depuis longtemps. Je demandais à mon cocher en descendant à l'église comment se portait sa fille. 'Elle a demandé Madame de Trafford,' disait-il en pleurant, 'jusqu'à son dernier moment.'--'Comment, Florimond,' lui dis-je, 'que voulez vous dire?'--'Elle est morte,' disait il en sanglotant: 'elle est morte hier à minuit.'--'Ah,' disais-je, et je descendais de la voiture. 'Florimond, pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas fait appeler?' J'entrais à l'église, mais je ne pouvais rester tranquille. Je sentais que je ne pouvais rester pour la messe, et je sortis. Je remonte en voiture. 'Florimond, au grand trot,' lui dis-je, 'chez vous.'--'Chez moi, Madame,' dit-il; 'ah, il est trop tard; ah, si vous étiez venue plutôt, Madame, mais le pauvre enfant a déjà changé,' et le pauvre homme pleurait; ah! combien il aimait cet enfant. Nous arrivons. Je descends vite. Je monte. J'entre. J'ouvre la porte. Déjà on avait placé un linceul sur le corps de la jeune fille: on se preparait à l'ensevelir. La mère et la garde-malade étaient dans la chambre. Je fis sortir la garde. J'approche le lit. Je jette par terre chapeau et mantelle. Je lève le linceul. Ah! je n'avais jamais vu un mort: je ne puis vous dire l'effêt que cela me fit. Déjà depuis si peu d'heures! Il avait treize heures qu'elle était morte, et les levres étaient serrées: tout le contour de la bouche était décoloré. Je m'approchais. 'Seigneur,' dis-je, 'je ne vous ai rien demandé jusqu'à ce jour: je vous demande aujourd'hui la vie de cet enfant. Oh, Seigneur, c'est la fille unique, rendez donc, je vous en supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Alors une voix d'un mauvais esprit me dit, 'Tu peux rendre la vie: tu as le pouvoir.' Mais je répondis, 'Moi, je ne puis rien, je ne suis rien; mais, Seigneur, vous avez le pouvoir, vous seul pouvez tout; rendez donc, je vous supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Je passais la main sur la figure de l'enfant: je le prends par la main. 'Lève-toi,' lui dis-je, et la jeune fille se levait en sursaut! mais ses yeux étaient encore fermés, et tout doucement elle dit ces paroles, 'Madame T.. r.. a.. fford.. je.. vais.. dormir.' Les couleurs revenaient tout doucement dans ses joues. Je me retournais à la mère: 'Votre fille dormait,' dis-je. Je quittais la maison. Je commandais qu'on lui donnait à manger. 'Florimond,' dis-je à mon cocher, 'vous pouvez monter: votre fille n'est pas morte--elle dort.' Je quittais Paris sur-le-champ."[267]

The generosity of Madame de Trafford knew no bounds. Once she went to Bourges. She arrived at the hotel and ordered dinner. The waiter said dinner could not be ready for an hour. She asked what she could do to occupy the hour. The man suggested that she could visit the cathedral. She said she had often seen the cathedral of Bourges: "what else?" The man suggested the convent of Ursuline nuns on the other side of the street. "Yes," she said, she was much interested in education, she was much interested in Ursuline nuns--she would go to them.

A nun showed her everything, and she expressed herself much pleased; but the nun looked very sad and melancholy, and at last Madame de Trafford asked her what made her look so miserable. "Oh," said the nun, "it is from a very peculiar circumstance, which you, as a stranger, could not enter into."--"Never mind," said Madame de Trafford, "tell me what it is?"--"Well," said the nun, "since you insist upon knowing, many convents were founded in the Middle Ages by persons who had very peculiar ideas about the end of the world. They believed that the world could not possibly endure beyond a certain number of years, and they founded their institutions with endowments to last for a time which they believed to be far beyond the possible age of the world. Now our convent was founded on that principle, and the time till which our convent was founded comes to an end to-morrow. To-morrow there are no Ursuline nuns of Bourges: to-morrow we have no convent--we cease to exist."--"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "but is there no other house you could have, where you could be re-established?"--"Oh, yes," said the nun, "there is another house to be had, a house on the other side of the street, which would do very well for a convent, but to establish us there would cost £3000. We are under vows of poverty, we have no money, so it is no use thinking about it."--"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "if you can have the house, it is a very fortunate circumstance that Mr. Trafford sent me a bill for £3000 this morning: there it is. You can have your convent." This story my sister had from the nuns of Bourges: it was her second-sight of the trouble overhanging them which had taken Madame de Trafford to Bourges.

Amongst the most extraordinary of the dictations of Madame de Trafford are those which state that she was really the person (accidentally walking and botanising on those mountains) who appeared out of a dense fog to the two children of La Salette, and whom they took for a vision of the Virgin.

People who have heard our histories of Madame de Trafford have often asked if I have ever seen her myself. I never did. The way in which I have been brought nearest to her was this. One day I had gone to visit Italima and Esmeralda at their little lodging in Chester Terrace, in the most terrible time of their great poverty. I was standing with my sister in the window, when she said, "Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew _what_ it would be to me now. Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it." Esmeralda thought no one was listening, but Italima, who was sitting on the other side of the room, and who was then in the depths of her terrible despair, caught what she was saying, and exclaimed, "Oh, Esmeralda, that is all over; no one will ever give you five pounds again as long as you live."

Three days after I went to see them again. While I was there, the postman's knock was heard at the door, and an odd-looking envelope was brought up, with a torn piece of paper inside it, such as Madame de Trafford wrote upon. On it were these words: "As I was sitting in my window in Beaujour this morning, I heard your voice, and your voice said, 'Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew what it would be to me now! Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it.' So I just slipped this five-pound note into an envelope, and here it is." And in the envelope was a five-pound note.

"J'étais là; telle chose m'advint." I was present on both these occasions. I was there when my sister spoke the words, and I was there when the letter came from Madame de Trafford sending the five-pound note, and repeating not only my sister's words, but the peculiar form of reduplication which she so constantly used, and which is so common in Italy when it is desired to make a thing emphatic.

Esmeralda spent the greater part of the summer at Mrs. Thorpe's, where I frequently visited her. She was soon deep in affairs of every kind, far too much for her feeble frame, as she added incessant religious work to her necessary legal worries. She would go anywhere or bear anything in order to bring over any one to the Roman Catholic Church, and was extraordinarily successful in winning converts. Her brother William had already, I think, been "received," and her little sister-in-law, Mrs. William Hare, was "received" about this time. Esmeralda's most notable success, however, had been in the case of Mr. and Mrs. T. G. When she was living in Sloane Street, she heard accidentally that Mrs. G. was wavering in her religious opinions. Esmeralda did not know her, but she drove immediately to her house at ten o'clock in the morning, and by four o'clock that afternoon not only Mrs. G., but her husband, had been received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Still, Esmeralda never believed that all those who were without the pale of her own Church would be lost. She felt certain of the salvation of every soul that had died in union with God by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.

Amongst the persons whom I frequently saw when staying with my sister were the singular figures, in quaint dress with silver ornaments, with long hair, and ever booted and spurred as cavaliers, who were known as the Sobieski Stuarts. Their real names were John Hay Allan and Charles Stuart Allan, but my sister recognised them by the names they gave themselves--John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart. I believe that they had themselves an unfailing belief in their royal blood. Their father was said to be the son of Charles Edward Stuart and Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, born at Leghorn in 1773. Fear of "the King of Hanover" was described as the reason for intrusting him as a baby to Admiral Allan, whose frigate was off the coast. Allan brought up the boy as his own, and he lived to marry an English lady and leave the two sons I have mentioned. The elder brother died in 1872, and the younger on board a steamer off Bordeaux on Christmas Eve, 1880.

Upon her return to England, Esmeralda found in completion the beautiful monument which she had caused to be erected to her mother in the Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Green. It represents "Our Lady of Sorrows"--a figure of life-size, seated under a tall marble cross, from which the crown of thorns is hanging.

From Esmeralda's private meditations of this summer I extract:--

"_July 15, 1865._--Ask for the gift to sorrow only for our Blessed Lord's sake, that truly we may share the divine sorrow of His Blessed Mother, and mingle our tears with hers on Calvary at the foot of the cross."

"_August 20, 1865._--Ask for the grace of filial love. Strive to overcome all evil inclinations that are an impediment to filial love, amongst which one of the chief is self-conceit. Make acts of reparation for all the selfconceit of past life. When thoughts of self-conceit enter, let us shut the gates of our hearts against them, and make an act of profound humility and sorrow, seeing our own nothingness and baseness. We must seek for filial love by laying aside all confidence in self, and placing all our confidence in God alone; for all that proceeds from ourselves is corrupt, and our best actions have no merit unless performed solely for God's greater glory, without regard to ourselves."

"_August 27, 1865._--Lay at the foot of the cross all secret doubts of God's guidance. It is this secret instinct which is one of the great hindrances to the reign of Jesus in our souls. Let us make an act of the will--'Lord, I believe that Thou lovest to make the souls of men Thy tabernacle; help Thou mine unbelief. I believe that Thou lovest me, in spite of my unworthiness and infidelity. I am blind and poor and naked; I have nothing of myself to offer Thee but what is corrupt and evil, but Thou hast given me by inheritance all the poverty and humility of Thy Blessed Mother, all her sorrows,--and these I offer Thee--Thy gift I give back to Thee. O my Lord, let me learn to know Thee more and more.'"

END OF VOL. II.

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

_Edinburgh and London_

THE STORY OF MY LIFE

VOL. III

From a portrait by Swinton.]

THE STORY OF

MY LIFE

BY

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

AUTHOR OF "MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE,"

"THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES,"

ETC. ETC.