Ellis that if I would wait at Rome till Saturday the 18th, they would
set off with me in search of the lost monastery of Farfa, which was, of
all places, the one I wanted most to see, and from which fear of
brigands had previously caused all my companions to fail at the last
moment. If you have read any old histories of Italy, you will remember
how all-important Farfa was in the Middle Ages, and will wonder that no
one, not even the best Roman antiquarians, knew anything about its
present state, or even where it is. We could only judge by old maps and
chronicles. However, the excursion completely answered, and, after
divers little adventures, which ‘Days near Rome’ will narrate, we not
only arrived at Farfa, but found the Father-General of the Benedictines
accidentally there to receive us. Greatly astonished he was at our
arrival, but said that one enterprising stranger had reached the place
three years before--I need hardly add, an English lady. Really Farfa is
one of the most radiant spots in Italy, and the sheets of wild-flowers,
and the songs of nightingales and cuckoos enhanced its charms. My
companions were so delighted that they consented, if I would stay till
Wednesday, to set off again on a long, wild, and very rough tourette to
the monasteries of the Hernican mountains. So on the 22nd we went by
rail to Frosinone, and thence drove to Casamari, going on by a grand
mountain road to sleep at Alatri. The next day we rode up a jagged rock
path for many hours to the Carthusian Trisulti, a huge monastery in a
mountain forest, amid Alpine flowers and close under the snows. Then we
saw the famous Grottoes of Collepardo--a sort of underground Staffa,
very grand indeed, and returned at night to Frosinone, and next day to
Rome.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_May 4, Florence._--General von Raasloff is here, and says that a
friend of his going to China received endless commissions for things he
was to bring home, but that only one of the people who gave them sent
money for the things they wanted. On his return, this commission was the
only one he had fulfilled. His disappointed friends upbraided him, and
he said, ‘You see it was very unfortunate, but when we were nearing
China, I spread out all my different commissions on the deck that I
might examine them, and I put the money for each on the paper to which
it belonged: and--it was very unfortunate, but my attention was called
away for an instant, and behold a great gust of wind had come, and all
those commissions which were not weighted by money had been blown far
out to sea, and I never saw them again.’
“Mademoiselle von Raasloff told me that--
“Count Piper, an ancestor of the present Count Piper, was a very
determined gambler. Being once at one of his desolate country estates,
he was in perfect despair for some one to play with him, but he was
alone. At last, in a fit of desperation, he said, ‘If the devil himself
were to come to play with me, I should be grateful.’ Soon a tremendous
storm began to rage, during which a servant came in and said that a
gentleman overtaken by night was travelling past, and implored shelter.
Count Piper was quite enchanted, and a very gentlemanlike man was shown
in. Supper was served, and then Count Piper proposed a game of cards, in
which the stranger at once acquiesced. Count Piper won so enormously,
that he felt quite ashamed, and at last he proposed their retiring. As
they were leaving the room, the stranger said, ‘I am very much concerned
that I have not sufficient money with me to pay all my debt now;
however, I shall beg you to take my ring as a guarantee, which is really
of greater value than the money, and which has very peculiar properties,
one of which is that as long as you wear it, all you possess is safe
from fire.’ The Count took the ring, and escorting the stranger to his
room, wished him good-night. The next morning he sent to inquire after
him: he was not there, his bed had not been slept in, and he never was
heard of again. Count Piper wore the ring, but after some time, as it
was very heavy and old-fashioned, he took it off and put it away. The
next morning came the news that one of his finest farm-houses had been
burnt down. And so it always is in that family. The descendants of Count
Piper always have to wear the ring, and if ever they leave it off for a
single day, one of their houses on one of their great estates is burnt.”
* * * * *
“_Florence, May 10._--Ten days here in the radiant spring-tide have been
very delightful. I have seen a great deal of Mrs. Ross, Lady Duff
Gordon’s beautiful daughter, who is now writing the story of her
mother’s life. She has a noble head, which is almost more full of
expression than that of any one I know, and I am sure that her character
is noble too, with all the smallnesses of life, which make a thoroughly
anglicised character ignoble, washed out, and its higher qualities
remaining to be mingled with the Italian frankness and kindly simplicity
which _English_-English do not possess, and consequently cannot
understand. Her singing to a guitar is capital--chiefly of Italian
_stornelli_, rendered with all the _verve_ which a _contadina_ herself
could give them. It is no wonder that Italians adore her. Each summer
she and her husband spend at Castagnuolo with the Marchese Lotteria
della Stufa, the great friend of her father, who died in his arms. This
is ‘Il Marchese’ _par excellence_ with the Florentines, to whom he is
public property. When a child accidentally shot him with a pistol
through the crown of his hat, thousands of people thronged the street
before his house to inquire, and in all the villages round his native
valley of Signa the price of wax went up for a fortnight, so many
candles were burnt to the Madonna as thank-offerings for his escape. The
next day, as he was crossing one of the bridges, he met Giacomo, a
flyman he knew, driving a carriage full of very respectable old Scotch
ladies. Giacomo flung his reins on the box, and rushing up to the
Marchese, threw himself sobbing on his breast.
[Illustration: LA BADIA DI SETTIMO.][91]
“I have been out with Mrs. Ross to the Stufa villa of Castagnuolo, seven
miles off, near the Badia di’ Settimo, in a tiny _baroccino_, drawn by
Tocco, the smallest of spirited ponies, and with Picco, the weest
terrier ever seen, upon our knees. As we turned up from the highroad to
the villa on the hills through the rich luxuriant vineyards, the warmest
welcome met us from all the peasants, and Mrs. Ross received them with
‘Ah, caro Maso, e come va la moglie,’--‘Addio, caro Guido mio.’ In a
house in the grounds--a ‘_podere_’--the whole family of inmates thronged
round her with ‘Vi pigliero un consiglio, Signora,’ about a sick child.
We wandered up the woods, gathering lovely wild orchids, and then went
to the farm, where the creatures, like the people, seemed to regard Mrs.
Ross as one of themselves: the cows came and licked her, the sheep came
and rubbed against her, the pigeons perched, and even the wild boars
were gentleness itself. She was first able to make her way at
Castagnuolo by nursing day and night an old _contadino_ who died in her
arms. She described comically, though pathetically, the frantic grief
which ensued: how the son, Antonio, tried to drown himself, and was
pulled out of the water by his breeches: how the whole family insisted
upon being bled: how a married daughter, a niece, and a cousin came and
had strong convulsions; and how, when she ventured to leave them for a
little to go to her dinner, the _fattore_ rushed after her with--‘Ma
Signora, _tutte_ le donne son svenute;’[92] how eventually she locked up
each separately for the night with a basin of soup, having made them a
little speech, &c. Whenever any of the _contadini_ have burns, they are
cured by poultices of arum-leaves.
“All is simple, graceful goodness at Castagnuolo.”
* * * * *
“_Venice, May._--I feel that I am now learning much about masters I
never knew before. One is introduced to them at one place and continues
the acquaintance at another, till one becomes really intimate. Marco
Basaiti is the best of these new friends, with his sad shadowy figures
always painted against an afterglow. One learns how, as Savonarola says,
‘every painter paints himself. However varied his subjects, his works
bear the sign-manual of his thought.’[93]
“At Milan, on the Eve of S. Ambrogio, an American next me at the
_table-d’hôte_ said to his neighbour opposite, ‘I have been, Marm, to
see St. Ambrose; and I say, Marm, do you know that to-morrow they are
going to tootle the old gentleman all round the town?’”
[Illustration: AT MILAN.][94]
[Illustration: PARAY LE MONIAL.][95]
* * * * *
In returning from Italy this year I made the excursion to the curious
shrine of Paray le Monial which I have described in an article in
_Evening Hours_. All the time I had been abroad, as during my tour in
Spain, I had sent monthly articles to _Good Words_, for which I was paid
at the rate of five guineas a page--a sum, I believe, given besides only
to Dean Alford and Arthur Stanley. But those were the palmy days of the
magazine. I was paid much less afterwards, till it came down to a fifth
of that sum. I spent the rest of the summer in London. It was during
this year that I became a member of the Athenæum Club--an incalculable
advantage. Twelve years before, old Dr. Hawtrey, the Provost of Eton,
had said to me, “You ought to be a member of the Athenæum,” and I had
answered “Then I wish you would propose me.” But I had quite forgotten
about this, and had never known that the kind old man, long since dead,
had really done it; so the news that my name was just coming up for
ballot was a joyful surprise. I have since spent every London morning in
steady work at the Athenæum, less disturbed there than even at
Holmhurst. The difficulties which the club rules throw in the way of
receiving visitors are a great advantage to students, and my life at the
Athenæum has been as regular as clockwork. At breakfast I have always
occupied the same table,--behind the door leading to the kitchen, the
one which, I believe, was always formerly used by Wilberforce. In the
afternoons, when all the old gentlemen arrive, to poke up huge fires in
winter and close all the windows in summer, I have never returned to the
club.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
_“London, June (in the Park)._--_Fine Lady._--‘How strange it is to see
all these smart carriages driving about and nobody in them.’
“_My simple self._--‘Nobody in them! why, they are quite full of
people.’
“_Fine Lady._--‘Ah, ye-es--_people_, but nobody all the same. _We_ never
drive in the Park now. It was only to show you this mob that I came. We
are obliged to retreat, though, before their advancing battalions. They
pursue us everywhere. There is no humiliation and suffering they won’t
undergo in the chase. They drove us out of the Row long ago, and this
year we took a row of chairs on Sunday afternoons on a little rising
ground between Albert Gate and Stanhope Gate;[96] but the enemy pursued
us, and as they always get the better of us, we shall be obliged to
yield that position too. There is never any safety from them but in
flight, for they are certainly our superiors in--numbers.’”
* * * * *
“_June 22._--Went to see Madame du Quaire,[97] whom I found in her low
French-looking room in Wilton Street, perfectly covered with pictures
and _oggetti_. She talked of spiritualism--how she had been to a meeting
at Mrs. Gregory’s--‘a truthful woman, who would not stand imposture if
she knew it.’ She ‘cottoned’ up the medium, ‘parcequ’il faut mieux
s’adresser à Dieu qu’à ses saints.’ They sat in the dark, which was
depressing. Soon after she felt a shock ‘like a torpedo,’ and something
like the leg of a chair came and scratched her head. A voice called her
and said, ‘I am John King, and I want you, Madame du Quaire; I have got
something for you.’ ‘Then,’ said Madame du Q., ‘he gave me a sort of
chain of sharks’ teeth; the kind of thing of which, when it was given to
some one at Honolulu, the recipient inquired, “C’est un collier?”--“Mais
pardon,” said the donor, “c’est une robe.”’
* * * * *
“_June 24._--I dined with Lord Ravensworth at Percy’s Cross, and he told
me--
“When I was a young man, I was staying at Balnagowan with Lady Mary
Ross. She had a son and daughter. The daughter was a very handsome,
charming girl. One day I was walking with her, and she told me that when
her brother was ill of the measles, at their other place, Bonnington,
where the Falls of the Clyde are, an old nurse who lived at the lodge
some way off used to come up and sit by him in the day, returning home
at night. One morning when she arrived, she was most dreadfully
depressed, and being questioned as to the cause, said, ‘I am na lang for
this warld; and not only me, but a greater than I is na lang for this
warld--and that is the head o’ this hoose.’ And she said that as she was
walking home, two lights came out of the larches and flitted before her:
one was a feeble light, close to the ground; the other a large bright
light higher up. They passed before her to the park gates and then
disappeared. ‘And,’ she said, ‘I know that the feeble light is myself,
and the greater light is the head o’ this hoose.’
“A few days afterwards the old woman took a cold and died, and within a
fortnight Sir C. Ross died too,[98] while the little boy recovered and
is alive still.”
* * * * *
Captain Fisher, who is engaged to be married to Victoria Liddell, told
me that--
* * * * *
‘When Mr. Macpherson of Glen Truim was dying, his wife had gone to rest
in a room looking out over the park, and sat near the window. Suddenly
she saw lights as of a carriage coming in at the distant lodge-gate, and
calling to one of the servants, said, ‘Do go down; some one is coming
who does not know of all this grief.’ But the servant remained near her
at the window, and as the carriage came near the house, they saw it was
a hearse drawn by four horses and covered with figures. As it stopped at
the porch door, the figures looked up at her, and their eyes glared with
light; then they scrambled down and seemed to disappear into the house.
Soon they reappeared and seemed to lift some heavy weight into the
hearse, which then drove off at full speed, causing all the stones and
gravel to fly up at the windows. Mrs. Macpherson and the butler had not
rallied from their horror and astonishment, when the nurse watching in
the next room came in to tell her that the Colonel was dead.
* * * * *
“I was surprised to hear that Mrs. Hungerford was in London, and asked
why she had left Ireland so unexpectedly. I was told she had had a great
fright--then I heard what it was.
“She was in her room in the evening in her beautiful house, which looks
out upon a lake, beyond which rise hills wooded with fir-trees.
Suddenly, on the opposite side of the lake, she saw a form which
seemed--with sweeping garments--to move forward upon the water. It was
gigantic. Mrs. Hungerford screamed, and her sister, Miss Cropper (who
afterwards married Mr. Jerome), and the nurse came to her from the inner
nursery. The three remained at the window for some time, but retreated
as the figure advanced, and at length--being then so tall that it
reached to the second floor--looked in at the window, and disclosed the
most awful face of a hideous old woman.
“It was a Banshee, and one of the family died immediately afterwards.”
* * * * *
Captain Fisher also told us this really extraordinary story connected
with his own family:--
* * * * *
“Fisher may sound a very plebeian name, but this family is of very
ancient lineage, and for many hundreds of years they have possessed a
very curious old place in Cumberland, which bears the weird name of
Croglin Grange. The great characteristic of the house is that never at
any period of its very long existence has it been more than one story
high, but it has a terrace from which large grounds sweep away towards
the church in the hollow, and a fine distant view.
“When, in lapse of years, the Fishers outgrew Croglin Grange in family
and fortune, they were wise enough not to destroy the long-standing
characteristic of the place by adding another story to the house, but
they went away to the south, to reside at Thorncombe near Guildford, and
they let Croglin Grange.
“They were extremely fortunate in their tenants, two brothers and a
sister. They heard their praises from all quarters. To their poorer
neighbours they were all that is most kind and beneficent, and their
neighbours of a higher class spoke of them as a most welcome addition to
the little society of the neighbourhood. On their part the tenants were
greatly delighted with their new residence. The arrangement of the
house, which would have been a trial to many, was not so to them. In
every respect Croglin Grange was exactly suited to them.
“The winter was spent most happily by the new inmates of Croglin Grange,
who shared in all the little social pleasures of the district, and made
themselves very popular. In the following summer, there was one day
which was dreadfully, annihilatingly hot. The brothers lay under the
trees with their books, for it was too hot for any active occupation.
The sister sat in the verandah and worked, or tried to work, for, in the
intense sultriness of that summer day, work was next to impossible. They
dined early, and after dinner they still sat out in the verandah,
enjoying the cool air which came with evening, and they watched the sun
set, and the moon rise over the belt of trees which separated the
grounds from the churchyard, seeing it mount the heavens till the whole
lawn was bathed in silver light, across which the long shadows from the
shrubbery fell as if embossed, so vivid and distinct were they.
“When they separated for the night, all retiring to their rooms on the
ground-floor (for, as I said, there was no upstairs in that house), the
sister felt that the heat was still so great that she could not sleep,
and having fastened her window, she did not close the shutters--in that
very quiet place it was not necessary--and, propped against the pillows,
she still watched the wonderful, the marvellous beauty of that summer
night. Gradually she became aware of two lights, two lights which
flickered in and out in the belt of trees which separated the lawn from
the churchyard, and as her gaze became fixed upon them, she saw them
emerge, fixed in a dark substance, a definite ghastly _something_, which
seemed every moment to become nearer, increasing in size and substance
as it approached. Every now and then it was lost for a moment in the
long shadows which stretched across the lawn from the trees, and then it
emerged larger than ever, and still coming on--on. As she watched it,
the most uncontrollable horror seized her. She longed to get away, but
the door was close to the window and the door was locked on the inside,
and while she was unlocking it, she must be for an instant nearer to
_it_. She longed to scream, but her voice seemed paralysed, her tongue
glued to the roof of her mouth.
“Suddenly, she never could explain why afterwards, the terrible object
seemed to turn to one side, seemed to be going round the house, not to
be coming to her at all, and immediately she jumped out of bed and
rushed to the door, but as she was unlocking it, she heard scratch,
scratch, scratch upon the window, and saw a hideous brown face with
flaming eyes glaring in at her. She rushed back to the bed, but the
creature continued to scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window. She
felt a sort of mental comfort in the knowledge that the window was
securely fastened on the inside. Suddenly the scratching sound ceased,
and a kind of pecking sound took its place. Then, in her agony, she
became aware that the creature was unpicking the lead! The noise
continued, and a diamond pane of glass fell into the room. Then a long
bony finger of the creature came in and turned the handle of the window,
and the window opened, and the creature came in; and it came across the
room, and her terror was so great that she could not scream, and it came
up to the bed, and it twisted its long, bony fingers into her hair, and
it dragged her head over the side of the bed, and--it bit her violently
in the throat.
“As it bit her, her voice was released, and she screamed with all her
might and main. Her brothers rushed out of their rooms, but the door was
locked on the inside. A moment was lost while they got a poker and broke
it open. Then the creature had already escaped through the window, and
the sister, bleeding violently from a wound in the throat, was lying
unconscious over the side of the bed. One brother pursued the creature,
which fled before him through the moonlight with gigantic strides, and
eventually seemed to disappear over the wall into the churchyard. Then
he rejoined his brother by the sister’s bedside. She was dreadfully hurt
and her wound was a very definite one, but she was of strong
disposition, not given either to romance or superstition, and when she
came to herself she said, ‘What has happened is most extraordinary and I
am very much hurt. It seems inexplicable, but of course there is an
explanation, and we must wait for it. It will turn out that a lunatic
has escaped from some asylum and found his way here.’ The wound healed
and she appeared to get well, but the doctor who was sent for to her
would not believe that she could bear so terrible a shock so easily, and
insisted that she must have change, mental and physical; so her
brothers took her to Switzerland.
“Being a sensible girl, when she went abroad, she threw herself at once
into the interests of the country she was in. She dried plants, she made
sketches, she went up mountains, and, as autumn came on, she was the
person who urged that they should return to Croglin Grange. ‘We have
taken it,’ she said, ‘for seven years, and we have only been there one;
and we shall always find it difficult to let a house which is only one
story high, so we had better return there; lunatics do not escape every
day.’ As she urged it, her brothers wished nothing better, and the
family returned to Cumberland. From there being no upstairs in the
house, it was impossible to make any great change in their arrangements.
The sister occupied the same room, but it is unnecessary to say she
always closed her shutters, which, however, as in many old houses,
always left one top pane of the window uncovered. The brothers moved,
and occupied a room together exactly opposite that of their sister, and
they always kept loaded pistols in their room.
“The winter passed most peacefully and happily. In the following March
the sister was suddenly awakened by a sound she remembered only too
well--scratch, scratch, scratch upon the window, and looking up, she
saw, climbed up to the topmost pane of the window, the same hideous
brown shrivelled face, with glaring eyes, looking in at her. This time
she screamed as loud as she could. Her brothers rushed out of their room
with pistols, and out of the front door. The creature was already
scudding away across the lawn. One of the brothers fired and hit it in
the leg, but still with the other leg it continued to make way,
scrambled over the wall into the churchyard, and seemed to disappear
into a vault which belonged to a family long extinct.
“The next day the brothers summoned all the tenants of Croglin Grange,
and in their presence the vault was opened. A horrible scene revealed
itself. The vault was full of coffins; they had been broken open, and
their contents, horribly mangled and distorted, were scattered over the
floor. One coffin alone remained intact. Of that the lid had been
lifted, but still lay loose upon the coffin. They raised it, and there,
brown, withered, shrivelled, mummified, but quite entire, was the same
hideous figure which had looked in at the windows of Croglin Grange,
with the marks of a recent pistol-shot in the leg; and they did--the
only thing that can lay a vampire--they burnt it.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Highcliffe, June 30, 1874._--It is delightful to be here again. I came
on Friday with Everard Primrose,[99] a friend who always especially
interests me, in spite of the intense melancholy which always makes him
say that he longs for an early death.
“This place, so spiritually near the gates of heaven, is a great
rest--quite a halt in life--after London, which, though I thought it
filled with all great and beautiful things, packs in too much, so that
one loses breath mentally. Here all is still, and the touching past and
earnestly hopeful future lend a wonderful charm to the quiet life of the
present. ‘Les beaux jours sont là; on ne les voit pas, on les
sent.’[100]
“The dear lady of the castle is not looking well. I believe it is owing
to her conversion to Lady Jane Ellice’s teetotalism; but she says it is
not that. Lady Jane herself is a perpetual sunshine, which radiates on
all around her and is quite enchanting. Miss Lindsay is the only other
guest. In the evening Lady Jane sings and Miss Lindsay recites--most
wonderfully--out of Shakspeare, with great power and pathos.
“It has not been fine weather, but we have had delightful walks on the
sand, by the still sad-looking sea, with the Isle of Wight and its
Needles rising in the faint distance, or in the thick woods of
wind-blown ilex and arbutus. One day we went to ‘the Haven House,’ which
is a place that often comes back to my recollection--picturesquely,
gauntly standing on a tongue of land at the meeting of river and bay, at
the end of a weird pine-wood, where the gnarled roots of the trees all
writhe seawards out of the sand. Here groups of children were at play on
the little jetties of sea-weedy stones and timber, while a row of herons
were catching fish--solitarily--at great intervals, in the bay.