Of our waste lives, we reach out to the Cross,
And by its fulness measure all our loss.”
--WHITTIER.
In the middle of October I went North for a short time.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Thoresby, Oct. 20, 1887._--A visit here has been charming--its inmates
all so filled with kindness and goodness of every description, and Lady
Manvers so very agreeable--‘une conversation si nourrie.” Nothing could
exceed the dying splendour of the autumnal tints in the forest, of which
we saw a great deal, as we sat out through the whole of each morning
drawing amongst the tall golden bracken, over which the great antlers
of a stag were now and then uplifted. My companions were Lady Mary
Pierrepont, very pretty and charming, and Mrs. Trebeck, daughter and
sister of a Bishop Wordsworth, who is here with her husband, Canon
Trebeck of Southwell, a very singular and admirable muscular Christian.
They have asked me to visit them. The first day of my visit I was
delighted to meet Lord and Lady Montagu, unusually pleasant people, with
a very nice daughter.”
* * * * *
“_Southwell, Oct. 21._--Lord Manvers--kindest of hosts--sent me here,
fourteen miles. It is a tiny town clustered around its--chiefly
Norman--minster. The beautiful chapter-house has a wreathed door, before
which Ruskin stood for an hour when he was here, motionless in rapt
contemplation. On one of the old Norman pillars on the right of the nave
are remains of a fresco of the Annunciation, evidently painted over an
altar of the Virgin: on the other side are traces of a very early organ.
In the graveyard is the tomb of Robert Lowe, Lord Sherbrooke’s father.
The Sub-dean and his wife are the centre around which the whole little
place revolves with its society and charities. The Bishop, who lives in
the country, seems rather to despise Southwell and to wish his cathedral
had been at Nottingham.
“We went from Thoresby to Rufford,[469] a curious old low-lying house
containing much fine tapestry, but where the old furniture is greatly
made up. The house has an obstreperous ghost, that especially haunted
the room which Augustus Lumley chose as his own, and frightened his
pug-dog out of its wits; for beyond that room is a little chamber in
which a girl was once shut up and starved to death; but since some bones
have been found under one of the passages and received christian burial,
the ghost has been laid. There is a portrait of a boy who was taken as a
baby from gipsies and brought up in the house, but who disappeared after
he grew up and never was heard of again: it was supposed that the
impulse was too strong, and that he rejoined the tribe he came from.”
* * * * *
“_Raby Castle, Oct. 25._--The Duchess of Cleveland has been describing
Lord Crawford’s interview with a famous clairvoyant. Lord Crawford saw
the medium go and hold his head in the fire: the flames played round him
and he was quite unhurt. Then the medium said he could make Lord
Crawford impervious to fire: ‘Would he like it?’ He said ‘yes,’ and the
medium took a large live coal from the fire and put it on the palm of
one of his hands, which was entirely unhurt, though the coal was left
upon it, and Lord Crawford was told to light his cigar at it, which he
did. The clairvoyant then said, ‘Your other hand is not impervious:
touch the coal with it,’ and he touched the coal which lay in the palm
of his left hand, and one of the fingers of his right hand bears the
marks of it still.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 26._--It has been a great pleasure during this visit that the
Duke[470] has come in each morning for talk, generally more or less
narrative--in which he rises suddenly from his chair, walks rapidly
backwards and forwards to the fire, and then sits down again, always
with his sharp fiery restless look; but all he says most interesting.
To-day he told of his father’s early life,--sent to Oxford with a tutor,
Mr. Lipscombe, then abroad for three years, spent chiefly at Orleans
learning French with John, Duke of Bedford (the father of Lord Russell).
The Duke of Dorset was ambassador then, and took the two young men to
Versailles, where they played billiards with Marie Antoinette. The
French aristocracy were quite unconscious then of the coming danger, and
would not believe in the serious state of politics. The Duc de Bouillon
was the great person, and they stayed with him in the country. They went
on to Rome, where Cardinal York was then living. They went to his weekly
receptions, where he was always treated as royalty. ‘The Duchesse
d’Albanie gave my father a ring,’ said the Duke, ‘but after my father’s
death it was stolen from the Duchess Elisabeth by her maid. All young
men stayed abroad their three years at that time, and so did my father,
then as soon as he came home he was married to my mother, who was the
Duke of Bolton’s daughter.
“‘For myself, I went to Paris at eighteen in diplomacy, and was there
for many years. I spoke French better than English, and lived entirely
in French society. Thiers I knew intimately in all the different phases
of his life. He was said to have had an intrigue with Madame Dombes. I
don’t know how that may have been, but he married her daughter, and she
made him a very good wife. He always began his writing at six, when he
had a cup of coffee, and he wrote on--no one being allowed to disturb
him--till 12 A.M., which was the hour of _déjeûner_, and it was this
which enabled him to write his histories; when he was in office he had
not time. He and Guizot were always rivals.
“‘I was in Paris in Louis Philippe’s time, but not under the
Restoration. Many of the Dames de la Cour of the older time, however,
were still in Paris, and had _salons_--Madame de Noailles, &c. I used to
see much of Princess Charlotte de Rohan, who had been privately married
to the Duc d’Enghien, and whose excitement was great when Louis Philippe
was appointed. I was at Marienbad when the news of that revolution came,
and posted back to Paris at once: we expected great difficulty on the
way, but there was none. I saw the barricades, however, in the early
_émeute_ of Louis Philippe’s time, and the people with their passions
roused, and the _gamins_ who used to come under the windows of the
Palais Royal and call for the king till he came out and made them a bow:
it was the regular thing that was done.
“‘I was at Paris when the Duc de Bourbon hung himself. Cuvier and
another great naturalist were sent down to examine into it, and they
both said he must have done it himself; but the Legitimists declared it
was an arrangement between the Orleanists and Madame de Feuchères, who
shared his property between them.
“‘I was at Coppet with Auguste de Staël a few years after Madame de
Staël died: he asked Sismondi to meet me there and several others. Old
Madame Necker--Madame de Staël’s mother--had a very remarkable _salon_
in Paris: her daughter was Duchesse de Broglie and her grand-daughter
married the Comte d’Haussonville, whom I knew very well: but, oh! it is
more than half a century ago now that I was at Coppet.’
* * * * *
“_Oct. 27._--Mrs. Forester, wife of the Duke’s nephew, who is here, has
told me much that is curious.
“‘An old Mrs. Sauchiehall, unfortunately dead now, told Lady Vane that
when she was a girl at Doncaster, at a famous school of that time, she
made a very intimate friendship with two other girls, and when they
parted, they made each other a solemn vow that if either of the three
were in any real trouble in after life, the others would do all they
could to help her.
“They parted, and Mrs. Sauchiehall married in Cumberland--married twice,
and became a second time a widow. Life had seemed constantly to drift
her away from her old friends. At last, at Marienbad, she met one of
them, then Mrs. A., and spent some weeks there with her, renewing all
their old intimacy.
“Mrs. A. told her that she had always continued to be on terms of the
most extreme intimacy with their third friend--Lady B. Her own story had
been a very sad one. She had been left a widow with several children,
and almost in a state of destitution. In all her troubles, she had
continued to confide in Lady B., who never lost sight of her. At one
time especially, Lady B. was perplexed as to how she could help her, and
spoke of it to her husband, who said, ‘Well, there is at least one thing
I could do for her: there is that old place of ours in Dorsetshire,
where nobody lives. It is all being kept up for nothing, so if Mrs. A.
likes to go and inhabit it, she is quite welcome; only, you know, she
ought to be told that it is said to be haunted.’
“Lady B. made the proposal to Mrs. A., who was enchanted, and she moved
at once with her children to the house in Dorsetshire, where she seemed
to find a refuge from her troubles and every comfort. She asked the
servants whom she found in the house about the ghosts, and they said,
‘Oh yes, the great hall and the rooms beyond it are said to be haunted,
but we never go there, and the ghosts never come to our part of the
house, so we are never troubled by them in the least.’ For several years
Mrs. A. lived most happily in the old house, and nothing happened.
“At last, on one of her children’s birthdays, she invited some children
from the neighbourhood to come and play with her own children, who
begged that, after tea, they might all go and play hide-and-seek in the
great disused hall. The children had finished their games, and Mrs. A.
was alone in the hall setting things to rights afterwards, about 8 P.M.
in the evening, with an unlighted candle in her hand, when she heard
some one call out loudly, ‘Bring me a light! bring me a light!’ Then,
almost immediately, the door from the inner passage leading to the
farther rooms opened, and a lady rushed in, beautifully dressed in
white, but with all her dress in flames. She ran across the hall
screaming ‘She’s done it! she’s done it!’ and vanished through a door on
the other side. Mrs. A. instantly lighted her candle, and ran with it up
the passage from which the lady had emerged, but she found all the
doors locked. The next night, at exactly the same hour, she came again
to the hall, and exactly the same thing happened. She then wrote to Lady
B. that she should be obliged to leave the place, unless Lord B. could
explain the mystery.
“Lord B. then said that an ancestress of his--a widowed Lady B.--had an
only son, who fell in love with the charming daughter of a neighbouring
clergyman. The young lady was lovely, fascinating, and very well
educated, but the mother regarded it as a mésalliance and would not hear
of it. The young man, who was a very dutiful son, consented to gratify
his mother by waiting, and went abroad for two years. After that time,
as their attachment was unbroken, and he was of age, he married the
young lady.
“It was with joyful surprise that the young married pair received a very
kind letter from the mother, saying that as all was now settled, she
should make a point of welcoming the bride as her daughter, and always
living happily with her afterwards. They went home to the mother at the
old house which Lord B. had lent to Mrs. A., and were most kindly
received. All seemed perfectly smooth. At last a day came on which the
mother had invited an immense party to be introduced to and do honour to
the bride. The evening arrived, and the young lady was already dressed,
when her mother-in-law came into the room, kissed her affectionately,
and then said to her son, ‘Now that she is indeed my daughter, I am
going to fetch the family diamonds, that I may have the pleasure of
decorating her with them myself.’ The diamonds spoken of were really
the property of the son, but he had never liked to irritate his mother
by claiming them, and rejoiced that his wife should accept them from
her.
“The mother then went to fetch the diamonds, the son lighting her. As
they were coming back, they heard the voice of the young lady calling to
her husband to bring her a light. ‘Oh, I will take it to her,’ cried the
mother suddenly, and snatched the candle out of his hand. In another
instant the girl rushed by with her white dress enveloped in flames,
screaming ‘She’s done it! she’s done it!’ The mother confessed that her
hate and jealousy had been too much for her.
“Now the house is pulled down, and a railway passes over its site.
“Another curious story, told by Mrs. Sauchiehall to Lady Vane, was that
of a young lady, a great Cumberland heiress, who was engaged to be
married, but who pined away from some mysterious and causeless illness.
As there was no definite reason for her being ill, so nothing seemed to
do her any good, but she wasted constantly, and at last she died. After
her death, her old nurse, who had been her devoted attendant, rather
surprised those who knew her by insisting upon leaving the place and
moving to the south of England. A cousin succeeded to the property, but
did not prosper. His wife died, then his children, one after another. A
ghostly appearance also frequently took place, and was especially seen
by a little boy, the son of the house. At last the whole family became
extinct, and quite passed away out of Cumberland memory.
“Many, many years afterwards, Mrs. Sauchiehall was herself at Richmond
in Surrey, when she heard that a very old woman, a native of Cumberland,
was dying in the workhouse--dying, apparently, with some secret upon her
mind, which she could not bring herself to confess, but which never
allowed her to rest. ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Sauchiehall to her informant, ‘I
am a Cumberland woman myself; I will see what I can do.’ She went to the
workhouse, and soon found that the old woman had been the nurse of the
young heiress who had died so long before, and heard her confess that
she had accepted a large bribe from the cousin who succeeded, to poison
her by slow degrees. The bribe had done her no good. She had married,
all her children had died, her husband had gambled away her money, and
she herself had come to die in the workhouse.
“Mrs. Forester told me of a girl who had gone to a famous school at
Brighton. She was allowed to study after hours to fit her for the place
of a pupil-teacher, which she wanted to get. After some time, she looked
so pale and thin, that the mistress thought she was over-worked and
called in a doctor. He asked her many questions, and at last ‘if she
ever saw any strange visions.’ This she could conscientiously say she
did not. On learning this, the doctor said that being the case, it could
do her no harm to continue her studies, but that if she ever fancied she
saw anything unusual, it would be a sign that her brain was overworked,
and she must give up her studies at once.
“It was very soon after this that one night she distinctly heard the
door of her room, which was behind a screen at the foot of her bed,
open and shut again. She got up and went to the door, but it was closed,
and when she opened it, there was no one there. This happened several
times. At last she locked the door. Still it happened again. That night,
however, she assured herself that the delusion came from being
over-tired, and by sheer force of will she went to sleep.
“The next night, however, the same thing happened, and she again locked
the door. Happening to look up soon after, she saw something hanging
over the screen in front of her. It was a hand--an attenuated human
hand. It remained there some time, then it disappeared.
“The girl then felt that she must lessen her studies, but, for fear they
should be stopped altogether, she said nothing, whilst at the school, of
what she had seen. Soon after this, however, she went home to the old
aunt who had brought her up, and who was in very poor circumstances. She
was almost surprised at the extreme and anxious tenderness with which
she was received. After tea she said, ‘Auntie, I have a curious little
story I want to tell you,’ and she told her what she had seen. The aunt
said, ‘My love, you have unconsciously made easier for me the task of
telling you some very sad news; I did not know how to break it to you,
but Edward’ (the young man to whom the girl was engaged) ‘is dead; he
died the night you saw the hand.’
“Mrs. Forester told this story to Lord Rayleigh, who said, ‘That is a
very simple and explicable story: it is a case of telepathy.’
“The Duchess of Cleveland says that when the Sultan was at Buckingham
Palace, one of his servants offended him, and he condemned him to death.
The Sultan was informed that he could not execute him in this country;
then he said he should do it on board his own ship. One of his wives
also is said to have been executed whilst he was here, ‘because, poor
thing, she had been so dreadfully sea-sick, that it was quite
disgusting,’ and she is said to be buried in the palace garden.
“‘Mr. Lowell asserted to me,’ said the Duchess, ‘that there were no
really old families in England. “Surely the Nevilles?” I protested. The
next morning Lowell said, “I’ve been thinking that I am descended myself
from the Nevilles, but I never thought it worth while before to inquire
about it.”’
“‘Some one went,’ said the Duchess, ‘to inquire after the health of
Madame Brunnow. “Oh,” said the servant, “she will never be any better.”
The inquirer was admitted afterwards to see Baron Brunnow, to whom he
said, “I am so grieved to hear from your servant that Madame Brunnow is
never likely to be any better.” “Did he really say that?” said Baron
Brunnow. “Oh, the faithfulness of these English servants! The fact is,
Madame Brunnow really died three days ago; but the servant knows that it
was not at all convenient that she should die before the reception of
the Duke of Edinburgh is over, so--for inquirers--she is still only very
ill.”’”
* * * * *
_“Raby Castle, Oct. 28._--A pleasant Mr. and Mrs.
Wilkinson--neighbours--came to stay yesterday. He told me a very
remarkable story.
“One day last year, Mr. Gurdon, an excellent Catholic priest belonging
to a mission in the East End of London, had come in from his labours
dreadfully wet and tired, and rejoicing in the prospect of a quiet
evening, when the bell rung, and he was told that a lady wanted to see
him on most urgent business. He said to a friend who was with him, how
sincerely he dreaded being called out again into the wet that night, and
how he hoped that the visit meant nothing of the kind; but he admitted
the lady. She was a remarkably sweet, gentle-looking person, who told
him that there was a case in most urgent need of his immediate
ministrations at No. 24 in a street near, and she implored him to come
at once, saying that she would wait to point out the house to him. So he
only stayed to change his wet things, and then prepared to follow the
lady. He took with him the Host, which he wore against his breast,
holding, as is the custom, his hand over it. It is not considered right
for a priest carrying the Host to engage in conversation, so Mr. Gurdon
did not speak to the lady on the way to the house, but she walked a
little way in front of him. At last she stopped, pointed to a house, and
said, ‘This, Father, is No. 24.’ Then she passed on and left him.
“Mr. Gurdon rang the bell, and when the servant came, asked who it was
who was seriously ill in the house. The servant looked much surprised
and said there was no illness there at all. Much astonished, Mr. Gurdon
said he thought the servant must be mistaken, that he had been summoned
to the house to a case in most urgent need. The servant insisted that
there was no illness; but Mr. Gurdon would not go away without seeing
the owner of the house, and was shown up to a sitting-room, where he
found the master of the house, a pleasant-looking young man of about
five-and-twenty. To him Mr. Gurdon told how he had been brought there,
and the young man assured him that there must be some mistake--there was
certainly no illness in the house; and to satisfy Mr. Gurdon, he sent
down to his servants, and ascertained that they were all perfectly well.
“A tea-supper was upon the table, and very cordially and kindly the
young man asked Mr. Gurdon to sit down to it with him. He pressed it, so
they had tea together and much pleasant conversation. Eventually the
young man said, ‘I also am a Catholic,’ adding, in an ingenuous way,
‘but I fear you would think a very bad one;’ and he explained that the
sacraments and confession had long been practically unknown to him. ‘As
long as my dear mother lived,’ he said, ‘it was different: but she died
three years ago, and since her death I have paid no attention to
religion.’ And he described the careless life he had been leading.
“Very earnestly and openly Mr. Gurdon talked with him, urging him to
amend his ways, to go back to his old serious life. At first he urged it
for his mother’s sake, then from higher motives. He seemed to make an
impression, and the young man was touched by what he said, and said no
one had spoken to him thus since his mother died. At last Mr. Gurdon
said, ‘Why should you not begin a new life now? I might hear your
confession, and then be able to give you absolution this very evening.
But I should not wish you to decide this hurriedly: let me leave you for
an hour--let me leave you perfectly alone for that time--you will then
be able to think over your confession, and decide what you ought to tell
me.’ The young man consented, but urged Mr. Gurdon not to leave the
house again in the rain: there were a fire and lights in the library,
would not Mr. Gurdon wait there?
“Mr. Gurdon willingly went to spend the time in the library, where two
candles were lighted on the chimney-piece. Between these he placed the
Host. Then he occupied himself by examining the pictures in the room.
There were many fine engravings, and there was also the crayon portrait
of a lady which struck him very much. He seemed to remember the original
quite well, and yet he could not recall where he had seen her. On going
back to the other room, he told the young man how very much he had been
struck by the picture. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘that is the portrait of my dear
mother, and it is indeed the greatest comfort I have, it is so very like
her.’ At that moment Mr. Gurdon suddenly recollected where he had seen
the lady: she it was who had come to fetch him to the house.
“Mr. Gurdon heard the young man’s confession and gave him absolution; he
seemed to be in the most serious and earnest frame of mind. He could not
receive the sacrament, because it must be taken fasting, so the evening
meal they had had made it impossible. But it was arranged that he should
come to the chapel at eight o’clock the next morning, and that he
should receive it then. Mr. Gurdon went home most deeply interested in
the case, and truly thankful for having been led to it; but when morning
came, and the service took place in the chapel, to his bitter
disappointment the young man was not there. He feared that he had
relapsed altogether, but he could not leave him thus, and as soon as the
service was over he hastened to his house. When he reached it, the
blinds were all down. The old female servant who opened the door was in
floods of tears: her master had died in his sleep.
“On the last evening of his life his mother had brought Father Gurdon to
him.”
* * * * *
“_Muncaster Castle, Oct. 30._--What a gloriously beautiful place this
is!--an ascent from the station, and then a descent through massy woods,
till the castle appears--infinitely picturesque in outline and in its
red and grey colouring--on the edge of a gorge, wooded on both sides,
and which now has every tint, from the dark blue-green of the hollies
and the russet of dead fern, through crimson, scarlet, orange, to the
faintest primrose colour of the fading chestnut leaves. Then behind are
the finest of Cumbrian mountains, and in front terraced gardens, and the
not far distant sea. The interior has almost an equal charm, in the
thick velvet-pile carpets of the long passages hung with portraits, the
fine collection of books in the (too dark) octagonal library, and the
low hall, which has an organ, flowers, and books, and is the common
sitting-room. I sleep in ‘the ghost-room,’ and in a red silk bed used by
Henry VI. when he was here, and when he gave ‘the luck of Muncaster’ to
the family--an old Venetian glass bowl, from which every child of the
house has been christened since. Once it was thrown from an upper
window: the owners never had the courage to hunt for and examine it, and
it remained buried in the earth for some years: then it was dug up quite
uninjured.