And his nurse Lucia Cecinelli.]

Soon afterwards, my godmother returned to England, with her faithful

maid Mary Lea, accompanied by the Marcus Hares. She had already decided

to fix her future home in the parish of Julius, who, more than any

other, was a fellow-mourner with her. As regarded me, nothing more

than the tie of a godmother had to that time been thought of; but in the

quiet hours of her long return journey to England, while sadly looking

forward to the solitary future before her, it occurred to Augustus

Hare's widow as just possible that my parents might be induced to give

me up to her altogether, to live with her as her own child. In July she

wrote her petition, and was almost surprised at the glad acceptance it

met with. Mrs. Hare's answer was very brief--"My dear Maria, how very

kind of you! Yes, certainly, the baby shall be sent as soon as it is

weaned; and, if any one else would like one, would you kindly recollect

that we have others."

Yet my adopting mother had stipulated that I was to be altogether hers;

that my own relations were henceforward to have no claim over me

whatever; that her parents were to be regarded as my grandparents, her

brother and sister as my uncle and aunt.

Meantime my father took his family for the hot summer months to one of

the lovely villas on the high spurs of volcanic hill, which surround

picturesque romantic Siena. They had none of the English society to

which they had been accustomed at Lucca Baths and at Castellamare, but

the Siennese are celebrated for their hospitality, and my father's

talents, famous then throughout Italy, ensured him a cordial welcome

amongst the really cultivated circle which met every evening in the old

mediæval palaces of the native nobility. Of English, they had the

society of Mr. and Mrs. Bulwer, who were introduced by Landor, while

constant intercourse with Landor himself was one of the chief pleasures

which the family enjoyed during this and many succeeding years. With

Francis Hare he laid the plan of many of his writings, and in his

judgment and criticism he had the greatest confidence. To this he

alludes in his little poem of "Sermonis Propriora:"--

"Little do they who glibly talk of vrese

Know what they talk about, and what is worse,

Think they are judges if they dare to pass

Sentence on higher heads.

The mule and ass

Know who have made them what they are, and heed

Far from the neighing of the generous steed.

Gell, Drummond, Hare, and wise and witty Ward

Knew at first sight and sound the genuine bard,

But the street hackneys, fed on nosebag bran,

Assail the poet, and defame the man."

After another winter at Rome, the family went to Lausanne, and thence

my father, with my beautiful Albanese nurse, Lucia Cecinelli, took me to

meet Mrs. Gayford, the English nurse sent out to fetch me by my adopted

mother from Mannheim on the Rhine. There the formal exchange took place

which gave me a happy and loving home. I saw my father afterwards, but

he seldom noticed me. Many years afterwards I knew Mrs. Hare well and

had much to do with her; but I have never at any time spoken to her or

of her as a "mother," and I have never in any way regarded her as such.

She gave me up wholly and entirely. She renounced every claim upon me,

either of affection or interest. I was sent over to England with a

little green carpet-bag containing two little white night-shirts and a

red coral necklace--my whole trousseau and patrimony. At the same time

it was indicated that if the Marcus Hares should also wish to adopt a

child, my parents had another to dispose of: my second brother William

had never at any time any share in their affections.

On reaching England I was sent first to my cousin the Dowager Countess

of Strathmore, and from her house was taken (in the coach) by Mrs.

Gayford to my mother--my real only mother from henceforth--at

Hurstmonceaux Rectory, which at that time was as much a palace of art,

from its fine collection of pictures and books, as a country rectory

could be.

My adopted mother always used to say that the story of Hannah reminded

her of the way in which I was given to her. She believed it was in

answer to a prayer of my uncle Augustus in the cathedral at Chalons,

when he dropped some money into a box "pour les femmes enceintes,"

because he knew how much she wished to have a child. His eldest

brother's wife was then _enceinte_, and I was born soon afterwards.

[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX RECTORY.]

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"On Tuesday, August 26, 1835, my little Augustus came to me. It was

about four o'clock when I heard a cry from upstairs and ran up.

There was the dear child seated on Mary's (Mary Lea's) knee,

without a frock. He smiled most sweetly and with a peculiar

archness of expression as I went up to him, and there was no

shyness. When dressed, I brought him down into the drawing-room: he

looked with great delight at the pictures, the busts, and

especially the bronze wolf--pointed at them, then looked round at

Jule and me. When set down, he strutted along the passage, went

into every room, surveyed all things in it with an air of

admiration and importance, and nothing seemed to escape

observation. The novelty of all around and the amusement he found

at first seemed to make him forget our being strangers. The next

day he was a little less at home. His features are much formed and

an uncommon intelligence of countenance gives him an older look

than his age: his dark eyes and eyelashes, well-formed nose and

expressive mouth make his face a very pretty one; but he has at

present but little hair and that very straight and light. His limbs

are small and he is very thin and light, but holds himself very

erect. He can run about very readily, and within a week after

coming could get upstairs by himself. In talking, he seems to be

backward, and except a few words and noises of animals, nothing is

intelligible. Number seems to be a great charm to him--a great many

apples, and acorns to be put in and out of a basket. He has great

delight in flowers, but is good in only smelling at those in the

garden, gathers all he can pick up in the fields, and generally has

his hands full of sticks or weeds when he is out. He wants to be

taught obedience, and if his way is thwarted or he cannot

immediately have what he wants, he goes into a violent fit of

passion. Sometimes it is soon over and he laughs again directly,

but if it goes on he will roll and scream on the floor for

half-an-hour together. In these cases we leave him without

speaking, as everything adds to the irritation, and he must find

out it is useless. But if by _prevention_ such a fit may be avoided

it is better, and Mary Lea is very ingenious in her preventing."

"_Oct. 3._--Augustus improves in obedience already. His great

delight is in throwing his playthings into a jug or tub of water.

Having been told not to do so in my room, he will walk round the

tub when full, look at Mary, then at me, and then at the tub with a

most comical expression, but if called away before too long will

resist the temptation. He is very impatient, but sooner quiet than

at first: and a tear in one eye and a smile in the other is usually

to be seen. His great delight lately has been picking up mushrooms

in the fields and filling his basket."

It was in October that my mother moved from the Rectory to Lime--our

own dear home for the next five-and-twenty years. Those who visit

Hurstmonceaux now can hardly imagine Lime as it then was, all is so

changed. The old white gabled house, with clustered chimneys and roofs

rich in colour, rose in a brilliant flower-garden sheltered on every

side by trees, and separated in each direction by several fields from

the highroad or the lanes. On the side towards the Rectory, a drive

between close walls of laurel led to the old-fashioned porch which

opened into a small low double hall. The double drawing-room and the

dining-room, admirably proportioned, though small, looked across the

lawn, and one of the great glistening pools which belonged to an old

monastery (once on the site of the house), and which lay at the foot of

a very steep bank carpeted with primroses in spring. Beyond the pool was

our high field, over which the stumpy spire of the church could be seen,

at about a mile and a half distant, cutting the silver line of the sea.

The castle was in a hollow farther still and not visible. On the right

of the lawn a grass walk behind a shrubbery looked out upon the wide

expanse of Pevensey Level with its ever-varying lights and shadows, and

was sheltered by the immensely tall abele trees, known as "the Five

Sisters of Lime," which tossed their weird arms, gleaming silver-white,

far into the sky, and were a feature in all distant views of

Hurstmonceaux. On the left were the offices, and a sort of enclosed

court, where the dogs and cats used to play and some silver pheasants

were kept, and where my dear nurse Mary Lea used to receive the endless

poor applicants for charity and help, bringing in their many complaints

to my mother with inimitable patience, though they were too exclusively

self-contained to be ever the least grateful to her, always regarding

and speaking of her and John Gidman, the butler, as "furriners, folk

from the shires."

[Illustration: LIME.]

No description can give an idea of the complete seclusion of the life at

Lime, of the silence which was only broken by the cackling of the

poultry or the distant threshing in the barn, for the flail, as well as

the sickle and scythe, were then in constant use at Hurstmonceaux, where

oxen--for all agricultural purposes--occupied the position which horses

hold now. No sound from the "world," in its usually accepted sense,

would ever have penetrated, if it had not been for the variety of

literary guests who frequented the Rectory, and one or other of whom

constantly accompanied my uncle Julius when he came down, as he did

every day of his life, to his sister-in-law's quiet six-o'clock dinner,

returning at about eight. Of guests in our house itself there were very

few, and always the same--the Norwich Stanleys; Miss Clinton, a dear

friend of my mother; after a time the Maurices, and Mr. and Mrs.

Pile--an Alton farmer of the better class, and his excellent wife: but

there was never any variety. Yet in my boyhood I never thought it dull,

and loved Lime with passionate devotion. Even in earliest childhood my

dearest mother treated me completely as her companion, creating

interests and amusements for me in all the natural things around, and

making me so far a sharer in her own spiritual thoughts, that I have

always felt a peculiar truthfulness in Wordsworth's line--

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy."

If my mother was occupied, there was always my dear "Lea" at hand, with

plenty of farmhouse interests to supply, and endless homely stories of

country life.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, Oct. 23, 1835._--My little Augustus was much astonished by

the change of house, and clung to me at first as if afraid of

moving away. The first evening he kissed me over and over again, as

if to comfort and assure me of his affection."

"_Nov. 21._--Augustus has grown much more obedient, and is ready to

give his food or playthings to others. Some time ago he was much

delighted with the sight of the moon, and called out 'moon, moon,'

quite as if he could not help it. Next day he ran to the window to

look for it, and has ever since talked of it repeatedly. At

Brighton he called the lamps in the streets 'moon,' and the

reflection of the candles or fire on the window he does the same.

He is always merriest and most amiable when without playthings: his

mind is then free to act for itself and finds its own amusement;

and in proportion as his playthings are artificial and leave him

nothing to do, he quarrels or gets tired of them. He takes great

notice of anything of art--the flowers on the china and plates, and

all kinds of pictures."

"_Stoke Rectory, Jan. 7, 1836._--During our stay with the Penrhyns

at Sheen, Baby was so much amused by the variety of persons and

things to attract attention, that he grew very impatient and

fretful if contradicted. Since we have been at Stoke he has been

much more gentle and obedient, scarcely ever cries and amuses

himself on the floor. He is greatly amused by his Grandpapa's

playful motions and comical faces, and tries to imitate them. When

the school children are singing below, he puts up his forefinger

when listening and begins singing with his little voice, which is

very sweet. He will sit on the bed and talk in his own way for a

long time, telling about what he has seen if he has been out: his

little mind seems to be working without any visible thing before

it, on what is absent."

"_Alderley, March 13._--My dear boy's birthday, two years old. He

has soon become acquainted with his Alderley relations,[13] and

learnt to call them by name. He has grown very fond of 'Aunt

Titty,' and the instant she goes to her room follows her and asks

for the brush to brush the rocking-horse and corn to feed it. His

fits of passion are as violent, but not so long in duration, as

ever. When he was roaring and kicking with all his might and I

could scarcely hold him, I said--'It makes Mama very sorry to see

Baby so naughty.' He instantly stopped, threw his arms round my

neck, and sobbed out--'Baby lub Mama--good.' When I have once had a

struggle with him to do a thing, he always recollects, and does it

next time."

"_Lime, June 13._--On the journey from Stoke to London, Baby was

very much delighted with the primroses in the hedgerows, and his

delight in the fields when we got home was excessive. He knows the

name of every flower both in garden and field, and never forgets

any he has once seen.... When he sees me hold my hand to my head,

he says, 'Mama tired--head bad--Baby play self.'"

"_July 9._--Baby can now find his way all over the house, goes up

and down stairs alone and about the lawn and garden quite

independently, and enjoys the liberty of going in and out of the

windows: runs after butterflies or to catch his own shadow: picks

up flowers or leaves, and is the picture of enjoyment and

happiness. Tumbling out of the window yesterday, when the fright

was over, he looked up--'Down comes Baby and cradle and all.' He

tells the kitten 'not touch this or that,' and me 'not make noise,

Pussy's head bad.'"

"_Sept. 28._--The sea-bathing at Eastbourne always frightened Baby

before he went in. He would cling to Mary and be very nervous till

the women had dipped him, and then, in the midst of his sobs from

the shock, would sing 'Little Bo Peep,' to their great amusement.

He was very happy throwing stones in the water and picking up

shells; but above all he enjoyed himself on Beachy Head, the fresh

air and turf seemed to exhilarate him as much as any one, and the

picking purple thistles and other down flowers was a great

delight.... His pleasure in returning home and seeing the flowers

he had left was very great. He talks of them as if they were his

playmates, realising Keble's--'In childhood's sports, _companions_

gay.'"

"_Oct. 17._--After dinner to-day, on being told to thank God for

his good dinner, he would not do it, though usually he does it the

first thing on having finished. I would not let him get out of his

chair, which enraged him, and he burst into a violent passion.

Twice, when this abated, I went to him and tried, partly by

encouragement, partly by positively insisting on it, to bring him

to obedience. Each time I took him up from the floor, he writhed on

the floor again with passion, screaming as loud as he could. After

a while, when I had left him and gone into the drawing-room, he

came along the walk and went back again two or three times as if

not having courage to come in, then at last came and hid his face

in my lap. I carried him back to the dining-room and put him in his

chair and talked to him about his dinner, did not he love God for

giving him so many good things, and I knelt by him and prayed God

to forgive him for being so naughty and to take away the naughty

spirit. All the time he was struggling within himself,

half-sobbing, half-smiling with effort--'I can't say it'--and then,

after a time, 'Mama thanks God for Baby's good dinner.' 'No,' I

said, 'Baby must do it for himself.' Still he resisted. At length

on getting down from the chair he said, 'Kneel down under

table'--and there at last he said, 'Thank God for Baby's good

dinner,' and in a minute all the clouds were gone and sunshine

returned to his face. The whole struggle lasted I suppose

half-an-hour. In a few minutes after he was calling me 'Mama dear'

and as merry as ever."

"_Stoke Rectory, Nov. 26._--Baby asks 'Who made the dirt? Jesus

Christ?' It is evident that he has not the slightest notion of any

difference between the nature of God and any man, or between Heaven

and London or any name of a place. Perhaps in this simplicity and

literality of belief he comes nearer the truth than we in the

sophistications and subtilties of our reasonings on such things:

but the great difficulty is to impress awe and reverence for a holy

and powerful Being, and to give the dread and serious sense of

being under His eye, without a slavish fear and distance.

"He always asks when he sees my Bible--'Mama reading about Adam and

Eve and Jesus Christ?'--a union of the two grand subjects, very

unconsciously coming to the truth."

"_Jan. 16, 1837._--Time is as yet a very indistinct impression on

Baby's mind. Going round the field, he gathered some buttercups. I

said, 'Leave the rest till to-morrow.' When we returned the same

way, he asked, 'Is it to-morrow now?' ... After a violent passion

the other day he looked up--'Will Jesus Christ be shocked?' He

comes often and says--'Will 'ou pray God to make little Augustus

good?' and asks to 'pray with Mama.'

"The other day he said--'My eyes are pretty.' 'Oh yes,' I said,

'they are, and so are Mama's and Na's.'--'And Grandpapa's and

Grannie's too?'--'Yes, they are all pretty, nothing so pretty as

eyes.' And I have heard no more of it.

"'Look, Mama,' he says, 'there is a bird flying up to God.'--'Where

have you been to, Baby?'--'To a great many wheres.' He visits all

the flowers in Grannie's garden, quite as anxiously as if they were

living beings, and that quite without any hope of possessing them,

as he is never allowed to gather any. He puts the different flowers

together--and invents names for them--Hep--poly--primrose, &c. He

also talks to animals and flowers as if they were conscious, and in

this way creates constant amusement for himself: but the illusion

is so strong he hardly seems to separate it from fact, and it

becomes increasingly necessary to guard against the confusion of

truth and error."

Children are said seldom to remember things which happen when they are

three years old; but I have a distinct recollection of being at my

mother's early home of Toft in Cheshire during this spring of 1837, and

of the charm, of which children are so conscious, of the Mrs. Leycester

("Toft Grannie"--my mother's first cousin) who lived there. I also

recollect the great dog at Alderley, and being whipped by "Uncle Ned"

(Edward Stanley) at the gate of the Dutch garden for breaking off a

branch of mezereon when I was told not to touch it. Indeed I am not sure

whether these recollections are not of a year before, in which I

distinctly remember a terrible storm at Lime, when Kate Stanley was with

us, seeing a great acacia-tree torn up by the roots and hurled against

the drawing-room window, smashing all before it, and the general panic

and flight that ensued. Otherwise my earliest impressions of

Hurstmonceaux are all of the primroses on the Lime bank--the sheets of

golden stars everywhere, and the tufts of pure white primroses which

grew in one particular spot, where the bank was broken away under an old

apple-tree. Then of my intense delight in being taken in a punt to the

three islets on the pond--Mimulus Island, Tiny and Wee; and of the

excessive severity of Uncle Julius, who had the very sharpest possible

way of speaking to children, even when he meant to be kind to them.

Every evening, like clockwork, he appeared at six to dine with my

mother, and walked home after coffee at eight. How many of their

conversations, which I was supposed neither to hear or understand, have

come back to me since like echoes: strange things for a child to

remember--about the Fathers, and Tract XC., and a great deal about hymns

and hymn-tunes--"Martyrdom," "Irish," "Abridge," &c.; for an organ was

now put into the church, in place of the band, in which the violin never

could keep time with the other instruments. Sir George Dasent has told

me how he was at Hurstmonceaux then, staying with the Simpkinsons.

Arthur Stanley was at the Rectory as a pupil, and he asked Arthur how he

liked this new organ. "Well," he said, "it is not so bad as most organs,

for it does not make so much sound." Uncle Julius preached about it,

altering a text into "What went ye out for to hear."

A child who lives much with its elders is almost certain to find out

what it is most intended to conceal from it. If possible it had better

be confided in. I knew exactly what whispers referred to a certain dark

passage in the history of the Rectory before Uncle Julius's time--"il y

avait un crime"--and I never rested till I found it out. It was about

this time that I remember Uncle Julius going into one of his violently

demonstrative furies over what he considered the folly of "Montgomery's

Poems," and his flinging the book to the other end of the room in his

rage with it, and my wondering what would be done to me if I ever dared

to be "as naughty as Uncle Jule."

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, June 20, 1837._--Augustus was very ill in coming through

London.... Seeing Punch one day from the window, he was greatly

amused by it, and laughed heartily. Next day I told him I had seen

Punch and Judy again. 'No, Mama, you can't have seen Judy, for she

was killed yesterday.' On getting home he was much pleased, and

remembered every place perfectly. Great is his delight over every

new flower as it comes out, and his face was crimsoned over as he

called to me to see 'little Cistus come out.' At night, in his

prayers he said--'Bless daisies, bluebells,' &c.... I have found

speaking of the power exercised by Jesus Christ in calming the wind

a means of leading him to view Christ as God, which I felt the want

of in telling him of Christ's childhood and human

kindness,--showing how miraculous demonstration is adapted to

childhood."

I have a vivid recollection of my long illness in Park Street, and of

the miserable confinement in London. It was just at that time that my

Uncle Edward Stanley was offered the Bishopric of Norwich. His family

were all "in a terrible taking," as they used to call that sort of

emotion, as to whether it should be accepted or not, and when the matter

was settled they were almost worse--not my aunt, nothing ever agitated

her, but the rest of them. Mary and Kate came, with floods of tears, to

tell my mother they were to leave Alderley. My Uncle Penrhyn met Mary

Stanley coming down our staircase, quite convulsed with weeping, and

thought that I was dead.

When I was better, in the spring, we went to my Uncle Penrhyn's at East

Sheen. One day I went into Mortlake with my nurse Mary Lea. In

returning, a somewhat shabby carriage passed us, with one or two

outriders, and an old gentleman inside. When we reached the house, Lea

asked old Mills, the butler, who it was. "Only 'Silly Billy,'" he said.

It was King William IV., who died in the following June. He had

succeeded to the sobriquet which had been applied to his cousin and

brother-in-law, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who died in 1834.

John Sterling had been living at Hurstmonceaux for several years as my

uncle's curate, and was constantly at Lime or the Rectory. I vividly

recollect how pleasant (and handsome) he was. My mother used to talk to

him for hours together and he was very fond of her. With Mrs. Sterling

lived her sister Annie Barton, whom I remember as a very sweet and

winning person. During this summer, Frederick Maurice, a Cambridge pupil

of my uncle's, came to visit him, and confessed his attachment to her.

There were many obstacles to their marriage, of which I am ignorant; but

my mother was always in favour of it, and did much to bring it about. I

recollect Annie Barton as often sitting on a stool at my mother's feet.

On our way to Stoke in the preceding autumn, we had diverged to visit

Frederick Maurice at his tiny curacy of Bubnell near Leamington. With

him lived his sister Priscilla, for whom my mother formed a great

friendship, which, beginning chiefly on religious grounds, was often a

great trial to her, as Priscilla Maurice, with many fine qualities and

great cleverness, was one of the most exacting persons I have ever

known. I am conscious of course now of what fretted me unconsciously

then, the entire difference of class, and consequent difference in the

measurement of people and things, between the Maurices and those my

mother had been accustomed to associate with, and of their injurious

effect upon my mother herself, in inducing her to adopt their peculiar

phraseology, especially with regard to religious things. They persuaded

her to join in their tireless search after the motes in their brother's

eyes, and urged a more intensified life of contemplative rather than

active piety, which abstracted her more than ever from earthly

interests, and really marred for a time her influence and usefulness.

The Maurice sisters were the first of the many so-called "religious"

people I have known, who did not seem to realise that Christianity is

rather action than thought; not a system, but a life.

It must have been soon after this that Frederick Maurice moved to

London, and our visits to London were henceforth for several years

generally paid to his stuffy chaplain's house at Guy's, where, as I

could not then appreciate my host, I was always intensely miserable,

and, though a truly good man, Frederick Maurice was not, as I thought,

an attractive one. What books have since called "the noble and pathetic

monotone"[14] of his life, which was "like the burden of a Gregorian

chaunt," describes him exactly, but was extremely depressing. He

maundered over his own humility in a way which--even to a child--did not

seem humble, and he was constantly lost mentally in the labyrinth of

religious mysticisms which he was ever creating for himself. In all he

said, as in all he wrote, there was a nebulous vagueness. "I sometimes

fancy," "I almost incline to believe," "I seem to think," were the

phrases most frequently on his lips. When he preached before the

University of Cambridge to a church crowded with dons and

undergraduates, they asked one another as they came out, "What was it

all about?" He may have sown ideas, but, if they bore any fruits, other

people reaped them.[15] Still his innate goodness brought him great

devotion from his friends. Amongst those whom I recollect constantly

seeing at Guy's, a man in whose society my mother found much pleasure,

was John Alexander Scott, whom Mrs. Kemble describes as being mentally

one of the most influential persons she had ever known.

Priscilla Maurice henceforward generally came to Lime soon after our

annual return from Shropshire, and usually spent several months there,

arriving armed with plans for the "reformation of the parish," and a

number of blank books, some ruled in columns for parochial visitation,

and others in which the names of all communicants were entered and

preserved, so as to make the reprobation of absentees more easy at

Hurstmonceaux.

As she established her footing, she frequently brought one of her many

sisters with her: amongst them Esther Maurice, who at that time kept a

ladies' school at Reading. Priscilla, I believe, afterwards regretted

the introduction of Esther, who was much more attractive than herself,

and in course of time entirely displaced her in my mother's affections.

"Priscilla is like silver, but Esther is like gold," I remember my

mother saying to Uncle Julius. Of the two, I personally preferred

Priscilla, but both were a fearful scourge to my childhood, and so

completely poisoned my life at Hurstmonceaux, that I looked to the

winters spent at Stoke for everything that was not aggressively

unpleasant.

Little child as I was, my feeling about the Maurices was a great bond

between me and my aunt Lucy Hare, who, I am now certain, most cordially

shared my opinion at this time, though it was unexpressed by either.

Otherwise my Aunt Lucy was also already a frequent trial to my

child-life, as she was jealous for her little Marcus (born in 1836) of

any attention shown to me or any kindness I received. I felt in those

early days, and on looking back from middle life I know that I felt

justly, that my mother would often pretend to care for me less than she

did, and punish me far more frequently for very slight offences, in

order not to offend Aunt Lucy, and this caused me many bitter moments,

and outbursts of passionate weeping, little understood at the time. In

very early childhood, however, one pleasurable idea was connected with

my Aunt Lucy. In her letters she would desire that "Baby" might be

allowed to gather three flowers in the garden, any three he liked: the

extreme felicity of which permission that Baby recollects still--and the

anxious questionings with himself as to which the flowers should be.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, July 24, 1837._--Augustus continually asks 'Why,' 'What is

the reason.' If it be in reference to something he has been told to

do, I never at the _time_ give him any other reason than simply

that it is my will that he should do it. If it refers to something

unconnected with practical obedience, it is right to satisfy his

desire of knowledge as far as he can understand. Implicit faith and

consequent obedience is the first duty to instil, and it behoves a

parent to take care that a child may find full satisfaction for its

instinctive moral sense of justice, in the consistency of conduct

observed towards him; in the sure performance of every promise; in

the firm but mild adherence to every command.

"He asks, 'Is God blue?'--having heard that He lived above the

sky."

"_Stoke Rectory, Jan. 1, 1838._--On Christmas Day Augustus went to

church for the first time with me. He was perfectly good and kept a

chrysanthemum in his hand the whole time, keeping his eyes fixed on

it when sitting down. Afterwards he said, 'Grandpapa looked just

like Uncle Jule: he had his shirt (surplice) on.'

"He has got on wonderfully in reading since I began to teach him

words instead of syllables, and also learns German very quickly.

"Having been much indulged by Mrs. Feilden (Mrs. Leycester's

sister), he has become lately what Mary (Lea) calls rather

'independent.' He is, however, easily knocked out of this

self-importance by a little forbearance on my part not to indulge

or amuse him, or allow him to have anything till he asks

rightly.... There is a strong spirit of expecting to know the

reason of a thing before he will obey or believe. This I am anxious

to guard against, and often am reminded in dealing with him how

analogous it is to God's dealing with us--'What thou knowest not

now, thou shalt know hereafter.' Now he is to walk by faith, not by

sight, not by _reason_."

"_Lime, May 14, 1838._--Yesterday being Good Friday, I read to

Augustus all he could understand about the Crucifixion. He was a

little naughty, and I told him of it afterwards. 'But I was good

all yesterday, won't that goodness do?' His delight over the

flowers is as excessive as ever, but it is very necessary to guard

against greediness in this."

"_August 10._--Being told that he was never alone, God and Jesus

Christ saw him, he said, 'God sees me, but Jesus Christ does

not.'--'But they are both one.'--'Then how did John the Baptist

pour water on His head, and how could He be crucified?' How

difficult to a child's simple faith is the union of the two

natures![16]

"Two days ago at prayers he asked what I read to the servants, and

being told the meaning of the Lord's Prayer, he said, 'I know what

"Amen" means. It means, "It is done."'

"_June 11._--Having knocked off a flower on a plant in the nursery,

Lea asked how he could have done such a thing--'What tempted you to

do such a thing?' He whispered--'I suppose it was Satan.'

"Yesterday he told us his dream, that a beast had come out of a

wood and eat him and Lea up; and Susan came to look for them and

could not find them; then Mama prayed to God to open the beast's

mouth, and He opened it, and they both came out safe.

"One night, after being over-tired and excited by the Sterlings, he

went to bed very naughty and screamed himself asleep. Next morning

he woke crying, and being asked why he did so, sobbed out, 'Lea put

me in bed and I could not finish last night: so I was obliged to

finish this morning.'

"Going up to London he saw the Thames. 'It can't be a river, it

must be a pond, it is so large.' He called the sun in the midst of

the London fog 'a swimming sun:' asked if the soldiers in the Park

were 'looking out for the enemy.' 'Does God look through the

keyhole?'

"Two days ago, having been told to ask God to take away the

naughtiness out of him, he said, "May I ask Jesus Christ to take

away the naughtiness out of Satan? then (colouring he said it, and

whispering) perhaps He will take him out of hell.'

"On my birthday he told Lea at night, 'They all drank her health

but Uncle Jule, and he loved her so much he could not say it.'"

I was now four years old, and I have a vivid recollection of all that

happened from this time--often a clearer remembrance than of things

which occurred last year. From this time I never had any playthings,

they were all banished to the loft, and, as I had no companions, I never

recollect a game of any kind or ever having played at anything. There

was a little boy of my own age called Philip Hunnisett, son of a

respectable poor woman who lived close to our gate, and whom my mother

often visited. I remember always longing to play with him, and once

trying to do so in a hayfield, to Lea's supreme indignation, and my

being punished for it, and never trying again. My mother now took me

with her every day when she went to visit the cottages, in which she was

ever a welcome guest, for it was not the lady, it was the woman who was

dear to their inmates, and, when listening to their interminable

histories and complaints, no one entered more into George Herbert's

feeling that "it is some relief to a poor body to be heard with

patience." Forty years afterwards a poor woman in Hurstmonceaux was

recalling to me the sweetness of my mother's sympathy, and told the

whole story when she said, "Yes, many other people have tried to be kind

to us; but then, you know, Mrs. Hare _loved_ us." Truly it was as if--

"Christ had took in this piece of ground,

And made a garden there for those

Who want herbs for their wound."[17]

Whilst my mother was in the cottages, I remained outside and played with

the flowers in the ditches. There were three places whither I was always

most anxious that she should go--to Mrs. Siggery, the potter's widow,

where I had the delight of seeing all the different kinds of pots, and

the wet clay of which they were made: to "old Dame Cornford of the

river," by which name a tiny stream called "the Five Bells" was

dignified: and to a poor woman at "Foul Mile," where there was a ruined

arch (the top of a drain, I believe!) which I thought most romantic. We

had scarcely any visitors ("callers"), for there were scarcely any

neighbours, but our old family home of Hurstmonceaux Place was let to

Mr. Wagner (brother of the well-known "Vicar of Brighton"), and his wife

was always very kind to me, and gave me two little china mice, to which

I was quite devoted. His daughters, Annie and Emily, were very clever,

and played beautifully on the pianoforte and harp. The eldest son,

George, whose Memoirs have since been written, was a pale ascetic youth,

with the character of a mediæval saint, who used to have long religious

conversations with my mother, and--being very really in earnest--was

much and justly beloved by her. He was afterwards a most devoted

clergyman, being one of those who really have a "vocation," and probably

accomplished more practical good in his brief life than any other five

hundred parish priests taken at random. Of him truly Chaucer might have

said--

"This noble sample to his sheep he gave,

That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught."

From the earliest age I heartily detested Hurstmonceaux Rectory, because

it took me away from Lime, to which I was devoted, and brought me into

the presence of Uncle Julius, who frightened me out of my wits; but to

all rational and unprejudiced people the Rectory was at this time a very

delightful place. It is situated on a hill in a lonely situation two

miles from the church and castle, and more than a mile from any of the

five villages which were then included in the parish of Hurstmonceaux;

but it was surrounded by large gardens with fine trees, had a wide

distant view over levels and sea, and was in all respects externally

more like the house of a squire than a clergyman. Inside it was lined

with books from top to bottom: not only the living rooms, but the

passages and every available space in the bedrooms were walled with

bookcases from floor to ceiling, containing more than 14,000 works.

Most of these were German, but there were many very beautiful books upon

art in all languages, and many which, even as a child, I thought it very

delightful to look at. The only spaces not filled by books were occupied

by the beautiful pictures which my uncle had collected in Italy,

including a most exquisite Perugino, and fine works of Giorgione, Luini,

Giovanni da Udine, &c. I was especially attached to a large and glorious

picture by Paris Bordone of the Madonna and Child throned in a sort of

court of saints. I think my first intense love of colour came from the

study of that picture, which is now in the Museum at Cambridge; but my

uncle and mother did not care for this, preferring severer art. Uncle

Julius used to say that he constantly entertained in his drawing-room

seven Virgins, almost all of them more than three hundred years old. All

the pictures were to me as intimate friends, and I studied every detail

of their backgrounds, even of the dresses of the figures they portrayed:

they were also my constant comforters in the many miserable hours I even

then spent at the Rectory, where I was always utterly ignored, whilst

taken away from all my home employments and interests.

Most unpleasant figures who held a prominent place in these childish

years were my step-grandmother, Mrs. Hare Naylor, and her daughter

Georgiana. Mrs. H. Naylor had been beautiful in her youth, and still,

with snowwhite hair, was an extremely pretty _petite_ old lady. She was

suspicious, exacting, and jealous to a degree. If she once took an

impression of any one, it was impossible to eradicate, however utterly

false it might be. She was very deaf, and only heard through a long

trumpet. She would make the most frightful tirades against people,

especially my mother and other members of the family, bring the most

unpleasant accusations against them, and the instant they attempted to

defend themselves, she took down her trumpet. Thus she retired into a

social fortress, and heard no opinion but her own. I never recollect her

taking the wisest turn--that of making the best of us all. I have been

told that her daughter Georgiana was once a very pretty lively girl. I

only remember her a sickly discontented petulant woman. When she was

young, she was very fond of dancing, and once, at Bonn, she undertook to

dance the clock round. She performed her feat, but it ruined her health,

and she had to lie on her back for a year. From this time she defied

the Italian proverb, "Let well alone," and dosed herself incessantly.

She had acquired "l'habitude d'être malade;" she liked the sympathy she

excited, and henceforth _preferred_ being ill. Once or twice every year

she was dying, the family were summoned, every one was in tears, they

knelt around her bed; it was the most delicious excitement.

Mrs. Hare Naylor had a house at St. Leonards, on Maize Hill, where there

were only three houses then. We went annually to visit her for a day,

and she and "Aunt Georgiana" generally spent several months every year

at Hurstmonceaux Rectory--employing themselves in general abuse of all

the family. I offended Aunt Georgiana (who wore her hair down her back

in two long plaits) mortally, at a very early age, by saying "Chelu (the

Rectory dog) has only one tail, but Aunt Georgie has two."[18]

On the 28th of June 1838, the Coronation of Queen Victoria took place,

when a great fête was given in the ruins of Hurstmonceaux Castle, at

which every person in the parish was provided with a dinner. It was in

this summer that my father brought his family to England to visit Sir

John Paul, who had then married his second wife, Mrs. Napier, and was

living with her at her own place, Pennard House, in Somersetshire. In

the autumn my father came alone to Hurstmonceaux Rectory. I remember him

then--tall and thin, and lying upon a sofa. Illness had made him very

restless, and he would wander perpetually about the rooms, opening and

shutting windows, and taking down one volume after another from the

bookcase, but never reading anything consecutively. It was long debated

whether his winter should be passed at Hastings or Torquay, but it was

eventually decided to spend it economically at West Woodhay House, near

Newbury, which Mr. John Sloper (nephew of our great-uncle--the husband

of Emilia Shipley) offered to lend for the purpose. At this time my

father's health was already exciting serious apprehensions. Mrs. Louisa

Shipley was especially alarmed about him, and wrote:--

"Dr. Chambers says your lungs are not _now_ in diseased state, but

it will require great care and caution for a long time to keep them

free, though with that he hopes that they may recover their

usual tone and become as stout as you represent them; so remember

that it depends on yourself and Ann's watchfulness and care of you,

whether you are to get quite well, or be sickly for the remainder

of your life, and also that the former becomes a duty, when you

think of your children."

[Illustration: Francis G. Hare.]

My father never once noticed my existence during his long stay at the

Rectory. On the last day before he left, my mother said laughingly,

"Really, Francis, I don't think you have ever found out that such a

little being as Augustus is in existence here." He was amused, and said,

"Oh no, really!" and he called me to him and patted my head, saying,

"Good little Wolf: good little Wolf!" It was the only notice he ever

took of me.

Instead of going as usual direct to Stoke, we spent part of the winter

of 1838-39 with the Marcus Hares at Torquay. Their home was a most

beautiful one--Rockend, at the point of the bay, with very large grounds

and endless delightful walks winding amongst rocks and flowers, or

terraces overhanging the natural cliffs which there stride out seawards

over the magnificent natural arch known as London Bridge. Nevertheless I

recollect this time as one of the utmost misery. My Aunt Lucy, having

heard some one say that I was more intelligent than little Marcus, had

conceived the most violent jealousy of me, and I was cowed and snubbed

by her in every possible way. Little Marcus himself was encouraged not

only to carry off my little properties--shells, fossils, &c.--but to

slap, bite, and otherwise ill-treat me as much as he liked, and when,

the first day, I ventured, boylike, to retaliate, and cuff him again, I

was shut up for two days on bread and water--"to break my spirit"--and

most utterly miserable I became, especially as my dear mother treated it

as wholesome discipline, and wondered that I was not devoted to little

Marcus, whereas, on looking back, I wonder how--even in a modified

way--I ever endured him.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Torquay, January 7, 1839._--Augustus was very good on the

journey, full of spirits and merriment. He was much delighted in

passing through the New Forest to see the place where Rufus was

shot, of which he has a picture he is fond of. At Mr. Trench's[19]

he enjoyed, more than I ever saw him, playing with the children,

and the two elder ones were good friends with him directly. They

joined together and had all kinds of games. At Exmouth the shells

were a great delight while they were embarking the carriage that we

might cross the ferry.

"It has been a trial to him on coming here to find himself quite a

secondary object of attention. At first he was so cowed by it that

he seemed to have lost all his gaiety, instead of being pleased to

play with little Marcus. In taking his playthings, little Marcus

excited a great desire to defend his own property, and though he

gives up to him in most things, he shows a feeling of trying to

keep his own things to himself, rather than any willingness to

share them. By degrees they have learnt to play together more

freely, and on the whole agree well. But I see strongly brought out

the self-seeking of my dear child, the desire of being first,

together with a want of true hearty love for his little companion,

and endeavour to please him."

"_Stoke, February 26._--All the time of our stay at Rockend,

Augustus was under an unnatural constraint, and though he played

for the most part good-humouredly with little Marcus, it was

evident he had no great pleasure in him, and instead of being

willing to give him anything, he seemed to _shut up_ all his

generous feelings, and to begin to think only of how he might

secure his own property from invasion: in short, all the

selfishness of his nature seemed thus to be drawn out. For the most

part he was good and obedient, but the influence of reward and

dread of punishment seemed to cause it. He has gained much greater

self-command, and will stop his screams on being threatened with

the loss of any pleasure immediately, and I fear the greater part

of his kindness to little Marcus arose from fear of his Aunt Lucy

if he failed to show it. Only once did he return a blow, and knock

little Marcus down. He was two days kept upstairs for it, and

afterwards bore patiently all the scratches he received; but it

worked inwardly and gave a dislike to his feeling towards his

cousin.... He seemed relieved when we left Torquay."

"_March 13, 1839._--My little Augustus is now five years old.

Strong personal identity, reference of everything to himself,

greediness of pleasures and possessions, are I fear prominent

features in his disposition. May I be taught how best to correct

these his sinful propensities with judgment, and to draw him out of

self to live for others."

On leaving Torquay we went to Exeter to visit Lady Campbell, the eldest

daughter of Sir John Malcolm, who had been a great friend of my Uncle

Julius. She had became a Plymouth sister, the chief result of which was

that all her servants sate with her at meals. She had given up all the

luxuries, almost all the comforts, of life, and lived just as her

servants did, except that one silver fork and spoon were kept for Lady

Campbell. Thence we proceeded to Bath, to the house of "the Bath

Aunts," Caroline and Marianne Hare, daughters of that Henrietta Henckel

who pulled down Hurstmonceaux Castle. The aunts were very rich. Mrs.

Henckel Hare had a sister, Mrs. Pollen, who left £60,000 to Marianne,

who was her god-daughter, so that Caroline was the principal heiress of

her mother. After they left Hurstmonceaux, they rented a place in the

west of Sussex, but in 1820 took a place called Millard's Hill near

Frome, belonging to Lord Cork, and very near Marston, where he lived. I

was there many years after, on a visit to our distant cousin Lady Boyle,

who lived there after the Bath Aunts left it, and then found the

recollection still fresh in the neighbourhood of the Miss Hares, their

fine horses, their smart dress, their splendid jewels, and their

quarrelsome tempers. Their disputes had reference chiefly to my Uncle

Marcus, to whom they were both perfectly devoted, and furious if he paid

more attention to one than the other. Neither of them could ever praise

him enough. Caroline, who always wrote of him as her "treasure," was

positively in love with him. Whenever he returned from sea, to which he

had been sent as soon as he was old enough, the aunts grudged every day

which he did not spend with them. But their affection for him was

finally rivetted in 1826, when he was accidentally on a visit to them at

the time of their mother's sudden death, and was a great help and

comfort. Mrs. Henckel Hare had been failing for many years, and even in

1820 letters describe her as asking for salt when she meant bread, and

water when she meant wine; but her daughters, who had never left her,

mourned her loss bitterly. Augustus wrote to Lady Jones in 1827, that

the most difficult task his aunts had ever imposed upon him was that of

writing an epitaph for their mother, there was "so remarkably little to

say." However, with Julius's assistance, he did accomplish an

inscription, which, though perfectly truthful, is strikingly beautiful.

Besides her country house, Mrs. Henckel Hare had a large house in the

Crescent at Bath, where her old mother, Mrs. Henckel, lived with her to

an immense age. Old Mrs. Hare was of a very sharp disposition. Her

niece, Lady Taylor, has told me how she went to visit her at Eastbourne

as a child, and one day left her work upon the table when she went out.

When she came in, she missed it, and Mrs. Hare quietly observed, "You

left your work about, my dear, so I've thrown it all out of the window;"

and sure enough, on the beach her thimble, scissors, &c., were all

still lying, no one having picked them up!

In their youth "the Bath Aunts" had been a great deal abroad with their

mother, and had been very intimate with the First Consul. It is always

said that he proposed to Marianne before his marriage with Josephine,

and that she refused him, and bitterly regretted it afterwards.

Certainly he showed her and her sister the most extraordinary attentions

when they afterwards visited Milan while he was there in his power.

The Bath Aunts had two brothers (our great-uncles) who lived to grow up.

The eldest of these was Henry (born 1778). He was sent abroad, and was

said to be drowned, but the fact was never well established. Lady Taylor

remembered that, in their later life, a beggar once came to the door of

the aunts at Bath, and declared he was their brother Henry. The aunts

came down and looked at him, but not recognising any likeness to their

brother, they sent him away with a few shillings. The next brother,

George (born 1781), grew up, and went to India, whence he wrote

constantly, and most prosperously, to his family. After some years, they

heard that he was dead. He had always been supposed to be very rich, but

when he died nothing was forthcoming, and it was asserted by those on

the spot, that he had left no money behind him; yet this is very

doubtful, and it is possible that a fortune left by George Hare may

still transpire. Some people have thought that the account of George

Hare's death itself was fictitious; but at that time India was

considered perfectly inaccessible; there was no member of the family who

was able to go and look after him or his fortunes, and the subject

gradually dropped.

[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE.]

Before leaving George Hare, perhaps it is worth while to introduce here

a story of later days, one of the many strange things that have happened

to us. It was some time after our great family misfortunes in 1859,

which will be described by-and-by, that I chanced to pass through

London, where I saw my eldest brother, Francis, who asked me if we had

any ancestor or relation who had gone to India and had died there. I

said "No," for at that time I had never heard of George Hare or of the

Bishop's youngest son, Francis, who likewise died in India. But my

brother insisted that we must have had an Indian relation who died

there; and on my inquiring "why," he told me the following story. He

assured me, that being resolved once more to visit the old family home,

he had gone down to Hurstmonceaux, and had determined to pass the night

in the castle. That in the high tower by the gateway he had fallen

asleep, and that in a vision he had seen an extraordinary figure

approaching him, a figure attired in the dress of the end of the last

century and with a pig-tail, who assured him that he was a near relation

of his, and was come to tell him that though he was supposed to have

died in India and insolvent, he had really died very rich, and that if

his relations chose to make inquiries, they might inherit his fortune!

At the time I declared that the story could not be true, as we never had

any relation who had anything to do with India, but Francis persisted

steadfastly in affirming what he had seen and heard, and some time

afterwards I was told of the existence of George Hare.

At the time we were at Bath, Aunt Caroline was no longer living there;

she had become so furiously jealous of Mrs. Marcus Hare, that she had to

be kept under restraint, and though not actually mad, she lived alone

with an attendant in a cottage at Burnet near Corsham. There she died

some years after, very unhappy, poor thing, to the last. Her companion

was a Mrs. Barbara, with whom Aunt Caroline was most furious at times.

She had a large pension after her death. It used to be said that the

reason why Mrs. Barbara had only one arm and part of another was that

Aunt Caroline had eaten the rest.[20]

It was when we were staying with Aunt Marianne in 1839 that I first saw

my real mother. "On est mère, ou on ne l'est pas," says the Madame

Cardinal of Ludovic Halévy. In my case "on ne l'était pas." I watched

Mrs. Hare's arrival, and, through the banisters of the staircase, saw

her cross the hall, and was on the tiptoe of expectation; but she

displayed no interest about seeing me, and did not ask for me at all

till late in the evening, when all enthusiasm had died away. "I hope the

Wolf answered your expectations, or still better surpassed them," wrote

my father to his wife from West Woodhay. He was in the habit of calling

all his children by the names of beasts. "Bring some cold-cream for the

Tigress" (my sister), he wrote at the same time, and "the Owl (Eleanor

Paul) and the Beast (William) are going to dine out." Francis he

generally called "Ping," and his wife "Mrs. Pook."

Aunt Marianne, wishing to flatter Uncle Julius's love of learning,

proudly announced to him that she had given me a book--a present I was

perfectly enchanted with--when, to my intense dismay, he insisted upon

exchanging it for a skipping-rope! which I could never be persuaded to

use.

In the autumn of 1839 my father again returned with his family to Pisa,

to the bitter grief of old Mrs. Louisa Shipley, who refused altogether

to take leave of Mrs. Hare, though she afterwards wrote (Oct. 16), "I

hope Anne has forgiven my rudeness her last day. I was too sorry to part

with you to admit any third person." She was already rapidly failing,

but she still wrote, "Your letters always give me pleasure, when I can

read them, but to be sure they take a long time in deciphering." In the

course of the following winter Mrs. Louisa Shipley died, without seeing

her favourite nephew again. It was found then that she had never

forgiven the last emigration to Italy against her wishes. Except a

legacy to my Uncle Marcus, she left all she possessed to her next

neighbour and cousin, Mrs. Townshend (daughter of Lady

Milner--half-sister of Mrs. Shipley)--a will which caused terrible

heartburnings amongst her more immediate relations, especially as many

precious relics of Lady Jones and of Mrs. Hare Naylor were included in

the property thus bequeathed. At the same time the estate of Gresford in

Flintshire, which Bishop Shipley had left to each of his daughters in

turn, now, on the death of the last of them, descended to my father, as

the eldest son of the eldest daughter who had left children.

Victoire remembered the arrival of the letter, sealed with black, which

announced the death of Mrs. Shipley, whilst the Hare family were at

Florence. Félix was with his master when he opened the letter, and came

in afterwards to his wife, exclaiming, "Oh mon pauvre M. Hare a eu bien

de malheur." Francis Hare had thrown up his hands and said, "Félix, nous

sommes perdus." All that day he would not dress, and he walked up and

down the room in his dressing-gown, quite pale. He never was the same

person again. Up to that time he had always been "si gai"--he was always

smiling. He was "si recherché." "Avec les grands il était si franc, si

charmant, mais avec les personnes de basse condition il était encore

plus aimable que avec les grands personnages. Oh! comme il était

aimé.... Jusque là il était invité partout, et il donnait toujours à

diner et ses fêtes, et son introduction était comme un passeport

partout. Mais depuis là il ne faisait pas le même--et c'était juste: il

faudrait penser à ses enfants."[21]

But I am digressing from my own story, and must return to the intensely

happy time of escaping from Rockend and going to Stoke. It was during

this journey that I first saw any ruin of importance beyond

Hurstmonceaux and Pevensey. This was Glastonbury Abbey, and it made a

great impression upon me. I also saw the famous Christmas-blooming

thorn, which is said to have grown from St. Joseph of Arimathea's staff,

in the abbot's garden, bright with hepaticas. I remember at Stoke this

year having for the first time a sense of how much the pleasantness of

religious things depends upon the person who expresses them. During the

winter my mother saw much of the voluminous author Mr. Charles Tayler,

who was then acting as curate at Hodnet. He was very frank and sincere,

and his "religious talking" I did not mind at all; whereas when the

Maurices "talked," I thought it quite loathsome. In the following summer

I used often to listen to conversations between Mr. Manning (afterwards

Archdeacon, then Cardinal) and my mother, as he then first fell into the

habit of coming constantly to Hurstmonceaux and being very intimate with

my mother and uncle. He was very lovable and one of the most perfectly

gentle _gentle_-men I have ever known; my real mother used to call him

"l'harmonie de la poésie religieuse." My mother was very unhappy when he

became a Roman Catholic in 1851.

How many happy recollections I have of hot summer days in the unbroken

tranquillity of these summers at Lime. My mother was then the object of

my uncle's exclusive devotion. He consulted her on every subject, and he

thought every day a blank in which they had no meeting. We constantly

drove up to the Rectory in the afternoon, when he had always some new

plant to show her and to talk about. I well remember his enchantment

over some of the new flowers which were being "invented"

then--especially _Salpiglossis_ (so exceedingly admired at first, but

now forgotten), _Salvia patens_ and _Fuchsia fulgens_, of which we

brought back from Wood's Nursery a little plant, which was looked upon

as a perfect marvel of nature.

Often when awake in the night now, I recall, out of the multiplicity of

pretty, even valuable things, with which my house of Holmhurst is

filled, how few of them belonged to our dear simple home in these early

days. The small double hall had nothing in it, I think, except a few

chairs, and some cloaks hanging on pegs against the wall, and the simple

furniture of the double drawing-room consisted chiefly of the gifts made

to my mother by her family when she went to Alton. One wall--the

longest--was, however, occupied by a great bookcase, filled with

handsomely bound books, chiefly divinity, many of them German. On the

other walls hung a very few valuable engravings, mostly from Raffaelle,

and all framed according to Uncle Julius's fancy, which would have

driven print-collectors frantic, for he cut off all margins, even of

proofs before letters. The only point of colour in the room, not given

by flowers, came from a large panel picture presented by Landor--a

Madonna and Child by Raffaellino da Colle, in a fine old Italian frame.

The few china ornaments on the chimney-piece beneath were many of them

broken, but they were infinitely precious to us. In the dining-room were

only a few prints of Reginald Heber, my Uncle Norwich, my grandfather

Leycester, and others. Simpler still were the bedrooms, where the

curtains of the windows and beds were of white dimity. In my mother's

room, however, were some beautiful sketches of the older family by

Flaxman. The "pantry," which was Lea's especial sitting-room, where the

walls were covered with pictures and the mantel-piece laden with china,

had more the look of rooms of the present time. I believe, however, that

the almost spiritualised aspect of my mother's rooms at Lime were as

characteristic of her at this time, as the more mundane rooms of my

after home of Holmhurst are characteristic of myself!

[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM AT LIME.]

My mother and I breakfasted every morning at eight (as far as I can

remember, I _never_ had any meal in the so-called nursery) in the

dining-room, which, as well as the drawing-room, had wide glass doors

always open to the little terrace of the garden, from which the smell of

new-mown grass or dewy pinks and syringa was wafted into the room. If it

was very hot too, our breakfast took place _on_ the terrace, in the deep

shadow of the house, outside the little drawing-room window. After

breakfast I began my lessons, which, though my mother and uncle always

considered me a dunce, I now think to have been rather advanced for a

child of five years old, as besides English reading, writing and

spelling, history, arithmetic and geography, I had to do German reading

and _writing_, and a little Latin. Botany and drawing I was also taught,

but they were an intense delight. Through plans, maps, and raised

models, I was made perfectly familiar with the topography of Jerusalem

and the architecture of the Temple, though utterly ignorant of the

topography of Rome or London and of the architecture of St. Peter's or

St. Paul's. But indeed I never recollect the moment of (indoor)

childhood in which I was not undergoing education of some kind, and

generally of an unwelcome kind. There was often a good deal of screaming

and crying over the writing and arithmetic, and I never got on

satisfactorily with the former till my Aunt Kitty (Mrs. Stanley) or my

grandmother (Mrs. Leycester) took it in hand, sitting over me with a

ruler, and by a succession of hearty bangs on the knuckles, forced my

fingers to go the right way. At twelve o'clock I went out with my

mother, sometimes to Lime Cross (village) and to the fields behind it,

where I used to make nosegays of "robin's-eye and ground-ivy,"--my love

of flowers being always encouraged by mother, whose interest in Nature

had a freshness like the poetry of Burns, observing everything as it

came out--

"The rustling corn, the freited thorn,

And every happy creature."

Generally, however, we went to the girls' school at "Flowers Green,"

about half a mile off on the way to the church, where Mrs. Piper was the

mistress, a dear old woman who recollected the destruction of the

castle, and had known all my uncles in their childhood at Hurstmonceaux

Place. At the school was a courtyard, overhung with laburnums, where I

remember my mother in her lilac muslin dress sitting and teaching the

children under a bower of golden rain.

I wonder what would be thought of dear old Mrs. Piper, in these days of

board-schools and examinations for certificates. "Now, Mr. Simpikins,"

she said one day to Mr. Simpkinson the curate, whose name she never

could master--"Now Mr. Simpikins, do tell me, was that Joseph who they

sold into Egypt the same as that Joseph who was married to the Virgin

Mary?"--"Oh no, they were hundreds of years apart."--"Well, they both

went down into Egypt anyway." Yet Mrs. Piper was admirably suited to her

position, and the girls of her tuition were taught to sew and keep house

and "mind their manners and morals," and there were many good women at

Hurstmonceaux till her pupils became extinct. The universal respect with

which the devil is still spoken of at Hurstmonceaux is probably due to

Mrs. Piper's peculiar teaching.

But, to return to our own life, at one we had dinner--almost always

roast-mutton and rice-pudding--and then I read aloud--Josephus at a

_very_ early age, and then Froissart's Chronicles. At three we went out

in the carriage to distant cottages, often ending at the Rectory. At

five I was allowed to "amuse myself," which generally meant nursing the

cat for half-an-hour and "hearing it its lessons." All the day I had

been with my mother, and now generally went to my dear nurse Lea for

half-an-hour, when I had tea in the cool "servants' hall" (where,

however, the servants never sat--preferring the kitchen), after which I

returned to find Uncle Julius arrived, who stayed till my bedtime.

As Uncle Julius was never captivating to children, it is a great pity

that he was turned into an additional bugbear, by being always sent for

to whip me when I was naughty! These executions generally took place

with a riding-whip, and looking back dispassionately through the

distance of years, I am conscious that, for a delicate child, they were

a great deal too severe. I always screamed dreadfully in the

anticipation of them, but bore them without a sound or a tear. I

remember one very hot summer's day, when I had been very naughty over my

lessons, Froissart's Chronicles having been particularly uninteresting,

and having produced the very effect which Ahasuerus desired to obtain

from the reading of the book of the records of the chronicles, that

Uncle Julius was summoned. He arrived, and I was sent upstairs to

"prepare." Then, as I knew I was going to be whipped anyway, I thought I

might as well do something horrible to be whipped _for_, and, as soon as

I reached the head of the stairs, gave three of the most awful,

appalling and eldrich shrieks that ever were heard in Hurstmonceaux.

Then I fled for my life. Through the nursery was a small bedroom, in

which Lea slept, and here I knew that a large black travelling

"imperial" was kept under the bed. Under the bed I crawled, and wedged

myself into the narrow space behind the imperial, between it and the

wall. I was only just in time. In an instant all the household--mother,

uncle, servants--were in motion, and a search was on foot all over the

house. I turn cold still when I remember the agony of fright with which

I heard Uncle Julius enter the nursery, and then, with which, through a

chink, I could see his large feet moving about the very room in which I

was. He _looked under the bed_, but he saw only a large black box. I

held my breath, motionless, and he turned away. Others looked under the

bed too; but my concealment was effectual.

I lay under the bed for an hour--stifling--agonised. Then all sounds

died away, and I knew that the search in the house was over, and that

they were searching the garden. At last my curiosity would no longer

allow me to be still, and I crept from under the bed and crawled to the

window of my mother's bedroom, whence I could overlook the garden

without being seen. Every dark shrub, every odd corner was being

ransacked. The whole household and the gardeners were engaged in the

pursuit. At last I could see by their actions--for I could not hear

words--that a dreadful idea had presented itself. In my paroxysms I had

rushed down the steep bank, and tumbled or thrown myself into the pond!

I saw my mother look very wretched and Uncle Julius try to calm her. At

last they sent for people to drag the pond. Then I could bear my dear

mother's expression no longer, and, from my high window, I gave a little

hoot. Instantly all was changed; Lea rushed upstairs to embrace me;

there was great talking and excitement, and while it was going on, Uncle

Julius was called away, and every one ... forgot that I had not been

whipped! That, however, was the only time I ever escaped.

In the most literal sense, and in every other, I was "brought up at the

point of the rod." My dearest mother was so afraid of over-indulgence

that she always went into the opposite extreme: and her constant habits

of self-examination made her detect the slightest act of especial

kindness into which she had been betrayed, and instantly determine not

to repeat it. Nevertheless, I loved her most passionately, and many

tearful fits, for which I was severely punished as fits of naughtiness,

were really caused by anguish at the thought that I had displeased her

or been a trouble to her. From never daring to express my wishes in

words, which she would have thought it a duty to meet by an immediate

refusal, I early became a coward as to concealing what I really desired.

I remember once, in my longing for childish companionship, so intensely

desiring that the little Coshams--a family of children who lived in the

parish--might come to play with me, that I entreated that they might

come to have tea in the summer-house on my Hurstmonceaux birthday (the

day of my adoption), and that the mere request was not only refused, but

so punished that I never dared to express a wish to play with any child

again. At the same time I was _expected_ to play with little Marcus,

then an indulged disagreeable child whom I could not endure, and because

I was not fond of _him_, was thought intensely selfish and self-seeking.

As an example of the severe discipline which was maintained with regard

to me, I remember that one day when we went to visit the curate, a lady

(Miss Garden) very innocently gave me a lollypop, which I ate. This

crime was discovered when we came home by the smell of peppermint, and a

large dose of rhubarb and soda was at once administered with a

forcing-spoon, though I was in robust health at the time, to teach me to

avoid such carnal indulgences as lollypops for the future. For two

years, also, I was obliged to swallow a dose of rhubarb every morning

and every evening because--according to old-fashioned ideas--it was

supposed to "strengthen the stomach!" I am sure it did me a great deal

of harm, and had much to do with accounting for my after sickliness.

Sometimes I believe the medicine itself induced fits of fretfulness; but

if I cried more than usual, it was supposed to be from want of

additional medicine, and the next morning senna-tea was added to the

rhubarb. I remember the misery of sitting on the back-stairs in the

morning and having it in a tea-cup, with milk and sugar.

At a very early age I was made to go to church--once, which very soon

grew into twice, on a Sunday. Uncle Julius's endless sermons were my

detestation. I remember some one speaking of him to an old man in the

parish, and being surprised by the statement that he was "not a good

winter parson," which was explained to mean that he kept the people so

long with his sermons, that they could not get home before dark.

With the utmost real kindness of heart, Uncle Julius had often the

sharpest and most insulting manner I have ever known in speaking to

those who disagreed with him. I remember an instance of this when Mr.

Simpkinson had lately come to Hurstmonceaux as my uncle's curate. His

sister, then a very handsome young lady, had come down from London to

visit him, and my mother took her to church in the carriage. That Sunday

happened to be Michaelmas Day. As we were driving slowly away from

church through the crowd of those who had formed the congregation, Uncle

Julius holding the reins, something was said about the day. Without a

suspicion of giving offence, Miss Simpkinson, who was sitting behind

with me, said, in a careless way, "As for me, my chief association with

Michaelmas Day is a roast goose." Then Uncle Julius turned round, and,

in a voice of _thunder_, audible to every one on the road, exclaimed,

"Ignorant and presumptuous young woman!" He had never seen her till that

day. As she said to me years after, when she was a wife and mother,

"That the Archdeacon should call me ignorant and presumptuous was

trying, still I could bear that very well; but that he should dare to

call me a _young woman_ was not to be endured." However, her only

alternative was to bear the affront and be driven two miles home, or to

insist upon getting out of the carriage and walking home through the

mud, and she chose the former course, and afterwards my uncle, when he

knew her good qualities, both admired and liked her.

It must have been about this time that Uncle Julius delivered his

sermons on "the Mission of the Comforter" at Cambridge, and many of his

friends used to amuse my mother by describing them. The church was

crowded, but the congregation was prepared for sermons of ordinary

length. The Halls then "went in" at three, and when that hour came, and

there was no sign of a conclusion, great was the shuffling of feet. This

was especially the case during the sermon on "The Church the Light of

the World," but Uncle Julius did not care a bit, and went on till 3.20

quite composedly.

At this time it used to be said that Uncle Julius had five

popes--Wordsworth, Niebuhr, Bunsen, Frederick Maurice, and Manning.[22]

They were very different certainly, but he was equally up in arms if any

of these were attacked.

I was not six years old before my mother--under the influence of the

Maurices--began to follow out a code of penance with regard to me which

was worthy of the ascetics of the desert. Hitherto I had never been

allowed anything but roast-mutton and rice-pudding for dinner. Now all

was changed. The most delicious puddings were talked of--_dilated_

on--until I became, not greedy, but exceedingly curious about them. At

length "le grand moment" arrived. They were put on the table before me,

and then, just as I was going to eat some of them, they were snatched

away, and I was told to get up and carry them off to some poor person in

the village. I remember that, though I did not really in the least care

about the dainties, I cared excessively about Lea's wrath at the fate of

her nice puddings, of which, after all, I was most innocent. We used at

this time to read a great deal about the saints, and the names of

Polycarp, Athanasius, &c., became as familiar to me as those of our own

household. Perhaps my mother, through Esther Maurice's influence, was

just a little High Church at this time, and always fasted to a certain

extent on Wednesdays and Fridays, on which days I was never allowed to

eat butter or to have any pudding. Priscilla Maurice also even persuaded

Uncle Julius to have a service in the schoolroom at (the principal

village) Gardner Street on saints' days, which was attended by one old

woman and ourselves. My mother, who always appropriated to charities all

money she received for the sale of my Uncle Augustus's sermons, also now

spent part of it in the so-called "restoration" of Hurstmonceaux Church,

when all the old pews were swept away and very hideous varnished benches

put in their place. Uncle Julius, as soon as he became Archdeacon, used

to preach a perfect crusade against pews, and often went, saw and hammer

in hand, to begin the work in the village churches with his own hands.

Our own life through these years continued to be of the most primitive

and simple kind. A new book or a new flower was its greatest event--an

event to be chronicled and which only came once or twice a year. Many

little luxuries, most common now, were not invented then, steel-pens and

wax-matches for instance, and, amongst a thousand other unobserved

deficiencies, there were no night-lights, except of a most rudimentary

kind. No one ever thought of having baths in their rooms then, even in

the most comfortable houses: a footpan or a "bidet" was the utmost

luxury attempted.

It was in the spring of 1839 that I had my first associations with

death. Often, in my earliest childish days, had I seen the sweet and

charming Lady Parry, who, as Bella Stanley, had been one of the dearest

friends of my mother's youth. While our dear cousins Charlotte and Emma

Leycester were at Lime, the news came of her death, and I remember how

they and my mother sate over the fire crying, and of gradually

understanding the cause, and of tears being renewed for several mornings

afterwards, when details were received from Sir Edward Parry and old

Lady Stanley.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, June 18, 1839._--During a week spent in London, Augustus

was part of every day with his brothers and sister. Their first

meeting was at Sheen. Augustus was much excited before they came,

and when he saw his brothers, threw himself on my neck and kissed

me passionately. They were soon intimate, and he was very much

delighted at playing with them, and was not made fretful by it.

There seemed to be a strong feeling of affection awakened towards

them, unlike anything he has shown to other children. I have begun

to teach Augustus to draw, but it is wearisome work from his

inattention.... His delight in flowers and knowledge of their names

is greater than ever, and it is equally necessary to control his

gratification in this as in other pleasures. The usual punishment

for his impatience over dressing is to have no garden flowers.

"In all the books of education I do not find what I believe is the

useful view taken of the actual labour of learning to read--that of

forcing the child's attention to a thing irksome to it and without

interest. The task is commonly spoken of as a means to an end,

necessary because the information in books cannot otherwise be

obtained, and it is to be put off till the child's interest in the

information is excited and so made a pleasure to him. Now it seems

to me to be an excellent discipline whereby daily some self-denial

and command may be acquired in overcoming the repugnance to doing

from duty that which has in itself no attraction. In the first

struggle to fix the attention and learn that which is without

interest, but which _must be done_, a habit is gained of great

importance. And in this way nothing is better suited to the purpose

than the _lesson_ of reading, even though little progress may be

made for a long time.

"I find in giving any order to a child, it is always better not to

_look_ to see if he obeys, but to take it for granted it will be

done. If one appears to doubt the obedience, there is occasion

given for the child to hesitate, 'Shall I do it or no?' If you seem

not to question the possibility of non-compliance, he feels a trust

committed to him to keep and fulfils it. It is best never to repeat

a command, never to answer the oft-asked question 'why?'

"Augustus would, I believe, always do a thing if _reasoned_ with

about it, but the necessity of obedience without reasoning is

specially necessary in such a disposition as his. The will is the

thing that needs being brought into subjection.

"The withholding a pleasure is a safe punishment for naughtiness,

more safe, I think, than giving a reward for goodness. 'If you are

naughty I must punish you,' is often a necessary threat: but it is

not good to hold out a bribe for goodness--'If you are good I will

give you such a thing.'"

In the autumn of 1839 we went for the first time to Norwich and spent

Christmas there, which was most enchanting to me. The old buildings of

Norwich gave me, even at five years old, the intense and passionate

pleasure with which I have ever since regarded them. No others are the

same. No others come back to me constantly in dreams in the same way.

[Illustration: RUIN IN THE PALACE GARDEN, NORWICH.]

How I revelled in the old Palace of that time, with its immensely long

rambling passages and carved furniture; in the great dining-room with

the pictures of the Christian Virtues, and the broad damp matted

staircase with heavy banisters which led through it towards the

cathedral, which it entered after passing the mysterious chapel-door

with its wrought-iron grille, and a quaint little court, in which a

raven and a seagull, two of the many pets of my uncle the Bishop,

usually disported themselves! Then, in the garden were the old gateway

and the beautiful ruin of the first bishop's palace, and, beyond the

ruin, broad walks in the kitchen-garden, ending in a summer-house, and a

grand old mulberry-tree in a corner. Outside the grounds of the Palace,

it was a joy to go with Lea by the old gate-house over the Ferry to

Mousehold Heath, where delightful pebbles were to be picked up, and to

the Cow Tower by the river Wensum: and sometimes Aunt Kitty took me in

the carriage to Bramerton, where my kind old uncle taught me the names

of all the different fossils, which I have never forgotten to this day.

My Aunt Kitty was deeply interesting, but also very awful to me. I could

always tell when she thought I was silly by her looks, just as if she

said it in words. I was dreadfully afraid of her, but irresistibly

attracted to her. Like my mother, I never differed from her opinion or

rebelled against her word. She was pleased with my attempts to draw, and

tried to teach me, drawing before me from very simple objects, and then

leaving me her outlines to copy, before attempting to imitate the

reality.

[Illustration: THE CHAPEL DOOR, NORWICH.]

My cousins, Mary and Kate, had two rooms filled with pictures and other

treasures, which were approached by a very steep staircase of their own.

I soon began to be especially devoted to Kate, but I thought it perfect

rapture to pay both of them visits in their rooms and "make waxworks"

with the little bits of coloured wax off the taper-candles which they

collected for me. Besides, in her room Kate kept a wonderful little live

owl. My cousin Arthur Stanley was also very attractive to me. He was

quite young at this time--had not taken his Oxford degree, I think--and

had a very charming and expressive countenance. If it had not been for

this, and his winning smile, I suppose that in manners (certainly in

dress) he would have been thought very wanting. He scarcely ever spoke

to strangers, and coloured violently when spoken to. His father he was

most piteously afraid of. I do not think he was quite comfortable and at

home with any one except his two sisters. But he noticed me a good deal

as a child, and told me stories out of the History of England, which I

liked immensely. Hugh Pearson, afterwards my dear friend, recollected

how, on overhearing him and Arthur in the chapel talking about the

inscription on the tomb of Bishop Sparrow, who wrote the "Rationale," I

exclaimed, "Oh cousin Arthur, _do_ tell me about Bishop Sparrow and the

Russian lady." I used to play with the children of Canon Wodehouse, who,

with his charming wife, Lady Jane, lived close to the Palace. With their

two youngest daughters, Emily and Alice, I was great friends, and long

kept up a childish correspondence with them, on the tiniest possible

sheets of paper. Emily had bright red hair, but it toned down, and after

she grew up she was very much admired as Mrs. Legh of Lyme. On the way

to the Ferry lived Professor Sedgwick, who was always very kind to me.

He once took me with him to a shop and presented me with a great

illustrated "Robinson Crusoe."

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Stoke, Feb. 12, 1840._--Augustus's chief delight of late has been

stories out of the History of England, and the 'Chapter of Kings'

is a continual source of interest and pleasure. His memory in

these things is very strong and his quick apprehension of times and

circumstances. I should say the historical organ was very decided

in him, and he seems to have it to the exclusion of the simple

childlike view of everything common to his age. In reading the

account of the flood yesterday he asked, 'What books did Noah take

into the Ark? he must have taken a Bible.'--'No--the people lived

after his time.'--'Then he must have had one of Adam and Eve and

Cain and Abel.'--'How dreadful it must have been for Noah to see

all the dead bodies when he came out of the Ark.'

"'How much ground there will be when we all die!'--'Why

so?'--'Because we shall all turn to dust.'

"There is a strong predominance of the intellectual over the moral

feeling in him, I fear, and it must be my endeavour always to draw

out and encourage the love of what is good and noble in character

and action. His eyes, however, always fill with tears on hearing

any trait of this kind, and he readily melts at any act of

self-denial or affection, so that his talking little of these

things must not perhaps be dwelt upon as a sure sign of not

estimating them."

"_August 5._--There is just the same greediness in Augustus now

about books that there used to be about flowers, and I have to

restrain the taste for novelty and excitement. Reading of a little

girl who was fond of her Bible, he said, 'I should not have been

so. I like my fat Yellow Book much better, but I like the Bible far

better than the Prayer-Book: I do not like that at all.'"

In this year of 1840, Uncle Julius accepted the Archdeaconry of Lewes,

which wrought a change in our quiet life from the great number of clergy

who were now constant guests at the Rectory and the greater frequency of

clerical subjects of discussion at Lime. Once a year also, we went

regularly to Hastings for a night before my uncle gave his charge to the

clergy, driving back late afterwards through the hot lanes. I always

liked this expedition and scrambling about with Lea on the mile of open

common which then intervened between St. Leonards and Hastings: but it

was dreadfully tantalising, when I was longing to go to the sea on the

second day, that I was expected to remain for hours in the hot St.

Clement's Church, while the sermon and charge were going on, and that

the charge, of which I understood nothing except that I hated it,

sometimes lasted three hours!

Mr. John Nassau Simpkinson[23] was now curate to my uncle, and lived in

"the Curatage" at Gardner Street with his sister Louisa and her friend

Miss Dixon, whom we saw constantly. They persuaded my mother to have

weekly "parish tea-parties," at which all the so-called "ladies of the

parish" came to spend the evening, drink tea, and work for the poor,

while one of them read aloud from a Missionary Report. I think it was

also at the suggestion of Miss Simpkinson that my mother _adopted_ a

little Hindoo girl (whom of course she never saw), putting her to

school, paying for her, and otherwise providing for her.

A little excitement of our quiet summer was the marriage, in our old

church, of my half-uncle Gustavus Hare, then a handsome young officer,

to a pretty penniless Miss Annie Wright. It was a most imprudent

marriage, and would probably have been broken off at the last moment, if

my mother had not been melted by their distress into settling something

(£1200 I think) upon them. I remember that it was thought a good omen

that a firefly (one had never been seen at Hurstmonceaux before)

perched, with its little lamp, upon the bride on the evening before the

marriage. Mrs. Gustavus Hare proved an admirable wife and a good mother

to her army of children. They lived for some time in Devonshire, and

then in Ireland: whence, in 1868, they went to Australia, and afterwards

passed entirely out of the family horizon, though I believe many of the

children are still living.

In the autumn, a great enjoyment was driving in our own little

carriage, with "Dull," the old horse (mother, Uncle Julius, Lea, and I),

to spend a few days with the Penrhyns at Sheen, sleeping at Godstone and

passing through Ashdown Forest. In those days, however, by starting

early and posting, the journey from Lime to London could be accomplished

in one day, but our annual journey from London to Stoke (in Shropshire)

occupied three days. My mother and I used to play at "gates and stiles,"

counting them, through the whole journey. Unluckily the swinging motion

of our great travelling chariot always made me so sick that I had a

horror of these journeys; but we had pleasant hours in the evenings at

the old posting-inns, with their civil old-fashioned servants and

comfortable sitting-rooms with the heavy mahogany furniture which one so

seldom sees now, and sometimes we arrived early enough for a walk, which

had all the interest of an expedition into an unknown territory. Well do

I remember certain fields near the comfortable old inn of Chapel House,

and the daisies which Lea and I used to pick there. After my Aunt Kitty

gave me my first taste for antiquities when showing me, at Stoke, the

picture of Old Time in the frontispiece of Grose's "Antiquities," these

journeys had a fresh interest, and greatly did I delight in the glimpse

of Brambletye House, as we passed through Ashdown Forest, and the little

tower of Stafford Castle at the top of its wooded hill. Once also we

slept at Peterborough and saw its cathedral, and on the way to Norwich

it was always an ecstasy to see and draw Thetford Abbey.

On the third day from London, when evening was drawing to a close, we

began to reach familiar scenes--the inn of "the Loggerheads," with the

sign of the two heads and the motto--

"We three

Loggerheads be."

Market-Drayton, paved with round pebbles, over which the carriage jolted

violently, the few lamps being lighted against the black and white

houses at the dark street corners: Little Drayton shabbier still, with

the gaudy sign of the Lord Hill public-house, then of "The Conquering

Hero," with the same intention: Stoke Heath, at that time a wild

pine-wood carpeted with heather: some narrow lanes between high

hedgerows: a white gate in a hollow with river-watered meadows: a drive

between steep mossy banks with beech-trees, and a glimpse of an old

church and tufted islands rising from the river in the flat meadows

beyond: then the long windows and projecting porch of a white house with

two gables. As we drove up, we could see through the windows two figures

rising hastily from their red armchairs on either side the fire--an

ancient lady in a rather smart cap, and an old gentleman with snow-white

hair and the dearest face in the world--Grannie and Grandpapa.

[Illustration: STOKE RECTORY--THE APPROACH.]

The happiest days of my childish years were all condensed in the five

months which we annually spent at Stoke (away from Uncle Julius, Aunt

Georgiana, and the Maurices). Grandpapa did not take much notice of my

existence, but when he did it was always in kindness, though I believe

he had rather resented my adoption. Grannie (who was only my mother's

stepmother but married to Grandpapa when she was quite a child) was

tremendously severe, but also very good to me: she never "kept me at a

distance," so, though she often punished me, I was never afraid of

her--"Better a little chiding than a great deal of heart-break."[24]

The quaint old house was also suited to my imaginative disposition, and

I thought the winding passage in the older part quite charming, and

never observed that my bedroom had no carpet, and that the fender, which

was the whole height of the mantel-piece, shut in all the warmth of the

fire. A dark back-staircase with a swing door and a heavy bolt, which I

thought most romantic, led hence to the offices.

In memory I can still see dear Grannie coming downstairs in the morning,

with her little fat red and white spaniel Rose (it had belonged to her

sister Rosamund) barking before her. She used to make Grandpapa read

prayers in the study, a little long room close to the offices, which

had a white bookcase along one side full of old books in white paper

covers, and on the other a number of quaint old pictures of Switzerland.

Square green baize cushions were put down in front of each of the

"quality" for them to kneel upon, and were taken away as soon as the

performance was over. I had my breakfast in the little room of Mrs.

Cowbourne, my Grannie's dear old maid, which was through the kitchen,

and deliciously warm and comfortable. I always remember the three glazed

green flower-pots which stood in the window of that room, and which held

respectively a double geranium, a trailing hop, and a very peculiar kind

of small fuchsia, which one never sees now, with very small flowers.

Sometimes I went in to see the men and maids have their breakfast at the

long table in the servants' hall: the maids had only great bowls of

bread and milk; tea and bread and butter were never thought of below the

housekeeper's room.

[Illustration: Rev. Oswald Leycester