I did my lessons in my mother's room upstairs, which, as she always
brought with her a picture of the four Hare brothers, and certain books
from home in familiar covers, suggested a salutary reminiscence of Uncle
Julius. Spelling and geography were always trials, the latter
because the geography book was so dreadfully uninteresting: it told us
how many inhabitants there were in the States of Lucca and Modena. I
never had any playthings at Stoke: my amusement was to draw on all the
bits of paper I could get hold of; but I only drew two subjects, over
and over again--the Day of Judgment, and Adam and Eve being turned out
of Paradise: these were of inexhaustible interest. Sometimes I was
allowed to have the little volumes of "Voyages and Travels" to look at
(I have them now), with the enchanting woodcuts of the adventures of
Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro: and there were certain little books of
Natural History, almost equally delightful, which lived on the same
shelf of the great bookcase in the drawing-room, and were got down by a
little flight of red steps.
I scarcely ever remember Grannie as going out, except sometimes to
church. She was generally in one extreme or other of inflammation or
cold; but it never went beyond a certain point, and when she was thought
to be most ill, she suddenly got well. Grandpapa used to walk with my
mother in the high "rope-walk" at the top of the field, and I used to
frisk away from them and find amusement in the names which my mother
and her companions had cut on the beech-trees in their youth: in the
queer dark corners of rock-work and shrubbery: in the deliciously high
sweet box hedge at the bottom of the kitchen-garden; and most of all in
the pretty little river Clarence, which flowed to join the Terne under a
wooden bridge in a further garden which also belonged to the Rectory.
But, if Grandpapa was not with us, we used to go to the islands in the
Terne, reached by straight paths along the edge of wide ditches in the
meadows. Two wooden bridges in succession led to the principal island,
which was covered with fine old willow-trees, beneath which perfect
masses of snowdrops came up in spring. At the end was a little
bathing-house, painted white inside, and surrounded with cupboards,
where I used to conceal various treasures, and find them again the
following year. I also buried a bird near the bathing-house, and used to
dig it up every year to see how the skeleton was getting on. My mother
had always delightful stories to tell of this island in her own
childhood, and of her having twice tumbled into the river: I was never
tired of hearing them.
Another great enjoyment was to find skeleton-leaves, chiefly
lime-leaves. There was a damp meadow which we called "the
skeleton-ground" from the number we found there. I have never seen any
since my childhood, but I learnt a way then of filling up the fibres
with gum, after which one could paint upon them. Our man-servant, John
Gidman, used to make beautiful arrows for me with the reeds which grew
in the marshy meadows or by "Jackson's Pool" (a delightful place near
which snowdrops grew wild), and I used to "go out shooting" with a bow.
Also, in one of the lumber-rooms I found an old spinning-wheel, upon
which I used to spin all the wool I could pick off the hedges: and there
was a little churn in which it was enchanting to make butter, but this
was only allowed as a great treat.
[Illustration: PETSEY.]
I always found the Shropshire lanes infinitely more amusing than those
at Hurstmonceaux. Beyond the dirty village where we used to go to visit
"Molly Latham and Hannah Berry" was a picturesque old water-mill, of
which Grandpapa had many sketches. Then out of the hedge came two
streamlets through pipes, which to me had all the beauty of waterfalls.
Close to the Terne stood a beautiful old black and white farmhouse
called Petsey. The Hodnet Lane (delightfully productive of wool), which
ran in front of it, led also to Cotton, a farmhouse on a hill, whither
my mother often went to visit "Anne Beacoll," and which was infinitely
amusing to me. At the corner of the farmyard was a gigantic stone, of
which I wonder to this day how it got there, which Grandpapa always told
me to put in my pocket. But I liked best of all to beguile my mother in
another direction through a muddy lane, in which we were half swamped,
to Helshore, for there, on a promontory above the little river, where
she remembered an old house in her childhood, the crocuses and
polyanthuses of the deserted garden were still to be found in spring
under the moss-grown apple-trees.
My grandparents and my mother dined at six. The dining-room had two
pillars, and I was allowed to remain in the room and play behind them
noiselessly: generally acting knights and heroes out of my ballad-books.
At Hurstmonceaux I should have been punished at once if I ever made a
noise, but at Stoke, if I was betrayed into doing so, which was not very
often, Grannie would say, "Never mind the child, Maria, it is only
innocent play." I can hear her tone now. Sometimes when "Uncle Ned" (the
Bishop of Norwich) came, he used to tell me the story of Mrs. Yellowly,
cutting an orange like an old lady's face, and "how Mrs. Yellowly went
to sea," with results quite shocking--which may be better imagined than
described. In the dining-room were two framed prints of the death of
Lord Chatham (from Copley's picture) and of Lord Nelson, in which the
multitude of figures always left something to be discovered. At the end
of the room was a "horse"--a sort of stilted chair on high springs, for
exercise on wet days.
In the evenings my mother used to read aloud to her old parents. Miss
Strickland's "Queens of England" came out then, and were all read aloud
in turn. If I found the book beyond my comprehension, I was allowed,
till about six years old, to amuse myself with some ivory fish, which I
believe were intended for card-markers. Occasionally Margaret, the
housemaid, read aloud, and very well too. She also sang beautifully,
having been thoroughly well trained by Mrs. Leycester, and I never hear
the Collect "Lord of all power and might" without thinking of her.
Grannie was herself celebrated for reading aloud, having been taught by
Mrs. Siddons, with whom her family were very intimate, and she gave me
the lessons she had received, making me repeat the single line, "The
quality of Mercy is not strained," fifty or sixty times over, till I had
exactly the right amount of intonation on each syllable, her delicate
ear detecting the slightest fault. Afterwards I was allowed to read--to
devour--an old brown copy of "Percy's Reliques," and much have I learnt
from those noble old ballads. How cordially I agree with Professor
Shairp, who said that if any one made serious study of only two
books--Percy's "Reliques" and Scott's "Minstrelsy"--he would "give
himself the finest, freshest, most inspiring poetic education that is
possible in our age."
My mother's "religion" made her think reading any novel, or any kind of
work of fiction, absolutely wicked at this time, but Grannie took in
"Pickwick," which was coming out in numbers. She read it by her
dressing-room fire with closed doors, and her old maid, Cowbourne, well
on the watch against intruders--"elle prenait la peine de s'en divertir
avec tout le respect du monde;" and I used to pick the fragments out of
the waste-paper basket, piece them together, and read them too.
Sundays were far less horrid at Stoke than at home, for Grannie
generally found something for me to do. Most primitive were the church
services, very different indeed from the ritualism which has reigned at
Stoke since, and which is sufficient to bring the old grandparents out
of their graves. In our day the Rectory-pew bore a carved inscription--
God prosper y^{e} Kynge long in thys lande
And grant that Papystrie never have y^{e} vper hande,
but the present Rector has removed it.
[Illustration: STOKE CHURCH.]
I can see the congregation still in imagination, the old women in their
red cloaks and large black bonnets; the old men with their glistening
brass buttons, and each with his bunch of southern-wood--"old man"--to
snuff at. In my childhood the tunes of the hymns were always given with
a pitch-pipe. "Dame Dutton's School" used to be ranged round the altar,
and the grand old alabaster tomb of Sir Reginald Corbet, and if any of
the children behaved ill during the service, they were turned up and
soundly whipped then and there, their outcries mingling oddly with the
responses of the congregation. But in those days, now considered so
benighted, there was sometimes real devotion. People sometimes said real
prayers even in church, before the times since which the poor in village
churches are so frequently compelled to say their prayers to music. The
curates always came to luncheon at the Rectory on Sundays. They were
always compelled to come in ignominiously at the back door, lest they
should dirty the entrance: only Mr. Egerton was allowed to come in at
the front door, because he was "a gentleman born." How Grannie used to
bully the curates! They were expected not to talk at luncheon, if they
did they were soon put down. "Tea-table theology" was unknown in those
days. As soon as the curates had swallowed a proper amount of cold veal,
they were called upon to "give an account to Mrs. Leycester" of all that
they had done in the week in the four quarters of the parish--Eton,
Ollerton, Wistanswick, and Stoke--and soundly were they rated if their
actions did not correspond with her intentions. After the curates, came
the school-girls to practise their singing, and my mother was set down
to strum the piano by the hour together as an accompaniment, while
Grannie occupied herself in seeing that they opened their mouths wide
enough, dragging the mouths open by force, and, if they would not sing
properly, putting her fingers so far down their throats that she made
them sick. One day, when she was doing this, Margaret Beeston bit her
violently. Mr. Egerton was desired to talk to her afterwards about the
wickedness of her conduct. "How could you be such a naughty girl,
Margaret, as to bite Mrs. Leycester?"--"What'n her put her fingers down
my throat for? oi'll boite she harder next time," replied the impenitent
Margaret.
Grannie used to talk of chaney (china), laylocks (lilacs), and gould
(gold): of the Prooshians and the Rooshians: of things being "plaguey
dear" or "plaguey bad." In my childhood, however, half my elders used
such expressions, which now seem to be almost extinct. "Obleege me by
passing the cowcumber," Uncle Julius always used to say.
There were always three especial sources of turmoil at Stoke--the
curates, the butlers, and the gardeners. Grannie was very severe to all
her dependants, but to no one more than to three young lady _protégées_
who lived with her in turn--Eliza Lathom, Emma Hunt, and Charlotte
Atkinson--whom she fed on skim-milk and dry bread, and treated so
harshly that the most adventurous and youngest of them, Charlotte
Atkinson,[25] ran away altogether, joined a party of strolling players,
and eventually married an actor (Mr. Tweedie). I remember Grannie going
down into the kitchen one day and scolding the cook till she could bear
it no longer, when she seized the dinner-bell from the shelf and rang it
in her ears till she ran out of the kitchen. When there was "a wash" at
Stoke, which was about every third week, it was a rule with Grannie
that, summer or winter, it must always begin at one A.M. At that hour
old Hannah Berry used to arrive from the village, the coppers were
heated and the maids at work. The ladies-maids, who were expected to do
all the fine muslins, &c., themselves, had also always to be at the
washtubs at three A.M.--by candlelight. If any one was late, the
housekeeper reported to Mrs. Leycester, who was soon down upon them
pretty sharply. Generally, however, her real practical kindness and
generosity prevented any one minding Mrs. Leycester's severity: it was
looked upon as only "her way;" for people were not so tender in those
days as they are now, and certainly no servant would have thought of
giving up a place which was essentially a good one because they were a
little roughly handled by their mistress. In those days servants were as
liable to personal chastisement as the children of the house, and would
as little have thought of resenting it. "You don't suppose I'm going to
hurt _my_ fingers in boxing _your_ ears," said Grannie, when about to
chastise the school children she was teaching, and she would take up a
book from the table and use it soundly, and then say, "Now, we mustn't
let the other ear be jealous," and turn the child round and lay on again
on the other side. Grannie constantly boxed her housemaids' ears, and
alas! when he grew very old, she used to box dear Grandpapa's, though
she loved him dearly, the great source of offence being that he would
sometimes slyly give the servant's elbow a tip when his daily
table-spoonful of brandy was being poured out.
[Illustration: STOKE RECTORY--THE GARDEN SIDE.]
As I have said, Grannie was quite devoted to Grandpapa, yet as she was
twenty years younger, his great age could not but accustom her to the
thought of his death, and she constantly talked before him, to his great
amusement, of what she should do as a widow. Judge Leycester ("Uncle
Hugh"), my grandfather's brother, had left her a house in New Street,
Spring Gardens, and whenever Mary Stanley went to Stoke, she used to
make her write down the different stages and distances to London to be
ready for her removal. Frequently the family used to be startled by a
tremendous "rat-a-tat-tat-tat," on the dining-room door. Grannie had
ordered Richard, the young footman, up, and was teaching him how to
give "a London knock"--it was well he should be prepared. One day the
party sitting in the drawing-room were astonished to see the family
carriage drive up to the door, with Spragg the butler on the box. "I was
only seeing how Spragg will look as coachman when your Grandpapa is
dead," said Grannie, and Grandpapa looked on at the arrangements and
enjoyed them heartily.
As for dear Grandpapa himself, he was always happy. He would amuse
himself for hours in touching up in grey or brown his own (very feeble)
sketches in Switzerland or France. Being a great classical scholar, he
also read a great deal of Italian and Latin poetry, and addressed a
Latin ode to his daughter-in-law Lady Charlotte Penrhyn when he was in
his ninety-second year! This kind aunt of my childhood--"Aunt Nin," as I
always called her--was a very simple person, utterly without pretension,
but because she was Lord Derby's daughter, Grannie always treated her as
the great person of the family. When we went to Stoke, no difference
whatever was made in the house, the stair-carpets were not laid down,
and though the drawing-room was constantly lived in, its furniture was
all swathed in brown holland after the fashion of an uninhabited London
house. When the Stanleys or Leycesters of Toft came to Stoke, the
stair-carpet was put down and the _covers-covers_ were taken off; but on
the rare occasions when Aunt Penrhyn came to Stoke--oh sublime
moment!--the _covers_ themselves were taken off.
From our constant winter walk--"the Rope Walk"--my mother and I could
see Hodnet Tower, of which Grandpapa had at one time been Rector as well
as of Stoke. Bishop Heber had been Rector before him, and in his time my
mother had found much of her chief happiness at Hodnet, from sources
which I did not understand, when I used so often to walk up and down
with her on Sundays, listening to the beautiful Hodnet bells. In my
childhood, Mrs. Cholmondeley was living at Hodnet Hall, having been Mary
Heber, the Bishop's sister. She was very kind to me, writing for my
instruction in English history a "Chapter of Kings," of which I can only
remember the two last lines, which were rather irreverent:
"William the Fourth was a long time sick,
And then was succeeded by little Queen Vick."
It was a great event at Stoke when my mother was allowed to have the
carriage, though what John Minshull the coachman generally did no one
could ever find out. If we drove, it was generally to Buntingsdale, a
fine old brick house of the last century standing at the end of a
terraced garden, with lime avenues above the Terne, near Market Drayton.
Here Mr. and Mrs. Tayleur lived with their four daughters--Mary,
Harriet, Lucy, and Emma, who were very severely brought up, though their
father was immensely rich. The old fashion was kept up at Buntingsdale
of all the daughters being expected to spend the whole morning with
their mother in the morning-room at work round a round table, and
formality in everything was the rule. Yet many of my childish pleasures
came from Buntingsdale, and I was always glad when we turned out of the
road and across some turnip-fields, which were then the odd approach to
the lime avenue on the steep bank above the shining Terne, and to see
the brilliant border of crocuses under the old garden wall as we drove
up to the house. The eldest daughter, Mary, who looked then like a
delicate china figure and always smelt of lavender and rose-leaves, used
to show me her shell cabinet and her butterflies, and teach me to
collect snail-shells! The bright energetic second daughter, Harriet,
drew capitally and encouraged my early interest in art. The other two
daughters, Lucy and Emma, died young, almost at the same time: my chief
recollection is of their bending over their eternal worsted-work, very
pale and fragile, and their passing away is one of my earliest
impressions of death.
The other neighbours whom we saw most of were the Hills of Hawkestone,
then a very numerous family. Five of the brothers--Sir Rowland
(afterwards Lord Hill), Sir Robert, Sir Francis, Sir Noel, and Colonel
Clement Hill, were in the battle of Waterloo, and my mother has often
described to me the sickening suspense in watching for the postman after
the first news of the engagement had come, with the almost certainty
that at least some of the brothers must be killed. Miss Emma was deputed
to receive the news, as the sister of strongest nerve, but when she
heard that all her brothers were safe (only Sir Robert being slightly
wounded), she fainted away. Lord Hill used to ride to see my Grandfather
upon the charger he rode at Waterloo, which horse had such a reputation,
that people would come from great distances more even to see the horse
than Lord Hill himself. In earlier days, the family at Hawkestone used
to be likened to that of the Osbaldistons in "Rob Roy"--and had all the
same elements--the chaplain, the soldiers, the sportsmen, the
fox-hunter, the fisherman, and in Rachel (daughter of the Colonel Hill
who was killed by a fall from his horse) a very handsome Diana Vernon,
with frank natural manners: people called her "the Rose of Hawkestone."
My mother often used to recall how remarkable it was that though, when
gathered at home, the family seemed to have no other purpose than to
pursue the amusements of a country life, when called on by their country
to go forth in her service, none of her sons were so brave, none more
self-devoted, than the Hill brothers.
When all the family were at Hawkestone, they dined early and had a hot
supper at nine o'clock. As the family interests were confined to
sporting, the conversation was not very lively, and was relieved by the
uncles endeavouring to provoke each other and the young ones--to yawn!
no very difficult task, seeing they had nothing to do. The eldest Miss
Hill (Maria) was a very primitive-looking person, with hair cut short,
and always insisted upon sitting alone at a side-table that no one might
see her eat; but I cannot remember whether she was alive in my time, or
whether I have only heard of her. Even in the days of a comparative
inattention to those niceties of feminine attire now universally
attended to, the extraordinary head-gear worn by the Misses Hill, their
tight gowns, and homely appearance, were matter for general remark. But
if they lacked in these points, they vied with their brothers in the
possession of brave hearts and loving sympathies--"Every eye blessed
them: every tongue gave witness" to their active benevolence.
In true patriarchal style, the six children of the eldest of the Hill
brothers were brought up with the uncles and aunts at Hawkestone Hall,
nor was any change made when the father's sudden death left a young
widow to be tended with all the kindness of real brethren in the old
family home. At length the grandfather died, and Sir Rowland, then about
eighteen, succeeded. But when his affairs were inquired into, it was
found, that in consequence of very serious losses in a county bankruptcy
and from mismanagement of the estate, there was a heavy debt upon the
property, which, at best, it would take years to liquidate. A plan of
rescue presented itself to Mrs. Hill, the young baronet's mother, who
was a clever and kind-hearted woman, but lacked the simplicity of her
sisters-in-law. A rich merchant, a Mr. Clegg from Manchester, had
bought the estate adjoining Hawkestone. His only grand-daughter was then
scarcely more than a child; but it was as great an object of desire to
old Mr. Clegg to ally his child with an ancient and respected family and
to procure for her the rank and station which his gold could not obtain,
as it was to Mrs. Hill to replenish her son's empty treasury, and enable
him to keep up the family place. A compact for the future was soon
settled. In a few years, however, the fatal illness of Mr. Clegg obliged
Mrs. Hill to hurry matters, and over her grandfather's deathbed Sir
Rowland was married to the girl of fifteen. Immediately after the
ceremony Mr. Clegg died. Mrs. Hill then took the girl-bride home, and
educated her with her own niece, no one suspecting her secret. Sir
Rowland went abroad. When two years had elapsed, Mrs. Hill also went
abroad with "Miss Clegg"--who returned as the wife of Sir Rowland,
received with great festivities. The marriage was a most happy one. The
unassuming gentleness of the lady was as great as if she had been born
in the station to which she was called: and in the charities of social
and domestic life and the exercise of the widest-hearted benevolence to
all around her, she long reigned at Hawkestone.[26] Her son Rowland was
only a year older than myself, and was the nearest approach to a
boy-acquaintance that I had quite as a child.
Hawkestone was and is one of the most enchanting places in England.
There, the commonplace hedges and fields of Shropshire are broken by a
ridge of high red sandstone cliffs most picturesque in form and colour,
and overgrown by old trees with a deep valley between them, where great
herds of deer feed in the shadow. On one side is a grotto, and a
marvellous cavern--"the Druid's Cave"--in which I used to think a live
Druid, a guide dressed up in white with a wreath, appearing through the
yellow light, most bewildering and mysterious. On the other side of the
valley rise some castellated ruins called "the Red Castle." There was a
book at Stoke Rectory about the history of this castle in the reign of
King Arthur, which made it the most interesting place in the world to
me, and I should no more have thought of questioning the fight of Sir
Ewaine and Sir Hue in the valley, and the reception of the former by
"the Lady of the Rock," and the rescue of Sir Gawaine from the gigantic
Carados by Sir Lancelot, than I should have thought of attacking--well,
the divine legation of Moses. But even if the earlier stories of the Red
Castle are contradicted, the associations with Lord Audley and the
battle of Blore Heath would always give it a historic interest.
Over one of the deep ravines which ran through the cliff near the Red
Castle was "the Swiss Bridge"--Aunt Kitty painted it in oils. Beneath
it, in a conical summer-house--"the Temple of Health"--an old woman used
to sit and sell packets of ginger-bread--"Drayton ginger-bread"--of
which I have often bought a packet since for association's sake.
But the most charming expedition of all from Stoke was when, once every
year, I was sent to pay a visit to the Goldstone Farm, where the mother
of my dear nurse Mary Lea lived. It was an old-fashioned farmhouse of
the better class, black and white, with a large house-place and a cool
parlour beyond it, with old pictures and furniture. In front, on the
green, under an old cherry-tree, stood a grotto of shells, and beyond
the green an open common on the hillside covered with heath and gorse,
and where cranberries were abundant in their season. Behind, was a large
garden, with grass walks and abundance of common flowers and fruit.
Dear old Mrs. Lea was charming, and full of quaint proverbs and sayings,
all, as far as I remember them, of a very ennobling nature. With her
lived her married daughter, Hannah Challinor, a very fat good-natured
farmeress. Words cannot describe the fuss these good people made over
me, or my own dear Lea's pride in helping to do the honours of her home,
or the excellent tea, with cream and cakes and jam, which was provided.
After Mrs. Lea's death, poor Mrs. Challinor fell into impoverished
circumstances, and was obliged to leave Goldstone, though the pain of
doing so almost cost her her life. I was then able for many years to
return in a measure the kindness shown me so long before.
Long after the railway was made which passed by Whitmore (within a long
drive of Stoke), we continued to go in our own carriage, posting, to
Shropshire. Gradually my mother consented to go in her own carriage, on
a truck, by rail as far as Birmingham; farther she could not endure it.
Later still, nearly the whole journey was effected by rail, but in our
own chariot. At last we came to use the ordinary railway carriages, but
then, for a long time, we used to have post-horses to meet us at some
station near London: my mother would not be known to enter London in a
railway carriage--"it was so excessively improper" (the sitting opposite
strangers in the same carriage); so we entered the metropolis "by land,"
as it was called in those early days of railway travelling.
On returning to Lime in the spring of 1841, I was sent to Mr. Green's
school, a commercial school at Windmill Hill, about a mile off. I used
to ride to the school on my little pony "Gentle," much to the envy of
the schoolboys; and in every way a most invidious distinction was made
between me and them, which I daresay would have been thoroughly avenged
upon me had I remained with them during play-hours; but I was only there
from nine to twelve, doing my lessons at one of the great oak desks in
the old-fashioned schoolroom. I chiefly remember of the school the
abominable cases of favouritism that there were, and that if one of the
ushers took a dislike to a boy, he was liable to be most unmercifully
caned for faults for which another boy was scarcely reproved. In the
autumn, when we went to Rockend, I was sent to another school at
Torquay, a Mr. Walker's, where I was much more roughly handled, the
master being a regular tartar. I remember a pleasant, handsome boy
called Ray, who sat by me in school and helped me out of many a scrape,
but Mr. Walker was very violent, and as he was not allowed to beat me as
much as he did the other boys, he soon declined teaching me at all.
The railway from London to Brighton was now just opened, and we took
advantage of it. As we reached Merstham (by the first morning train) the
train stopped, and we were all made to get out, for the embankment had
fallen in in front of us. It was pouring in torrents of rain, and the
line muddy and slippery to a degree. We all had to climb the slippery
bank through the yellow mud. I was separated from my mother and Lea and
Uncle Julius, who was with us, but found them again in a desolate house,
totally unfurnished, where all the passengers by the train were
permitted to take refuge. It was the place whither I have gone in later
days to visit Lord Hylton. Here we sat on the boarded floor, with very
little food, in a great room looking upon some dripping
portugal-laurels, all through the long weary day till four in the
afternoon, when omnibuses arrived to take us to another station beyond
the broken line. We did not reach Brighton till nine P.M., and when we
arrived at the station and inquired after our carriages, which were to
have met us at mid-day and taken us home, we heard that a bad accident
had taken place; one of the horses had run away, one of the carriages
been overturned down a steep bank, and one of the servants had his arm
broken. We remained at Brighton in some anxiety till Monday, when we
found that it was my uncle's horse "Steady" which had run away, and his
faithful old servant Collins who was injured.
When my uncle was driving himself, these accidents were so frequent that
we scarcely thought anything of them, as he drove so carelessly and
talked vehemently or composed his sermons or charges all the way. But if
the family had an accident on their way to church, they always returned
thanks for their preservation, which made quite a little excitement in
the service. I remember one occasion on which my mother and aunt did not
appear as usual, when a note was handed to Uncle Julius as he came out
of the vestry, upon which thanks were returned for the "merciful
preservation of Lucy and Maria Hare and Staunton Collins" (the
coachman)--and all the Rectory servants and all the Lime servants
immediately walked out of church to look after the wounded or--because
they were too excited to stay! The horse had taken fright at a gipsy
encampment in the marsh lane and the family had been precipitated into
the ditch.
At this time Uncle Julius had been made one of the Poor Law Guardians
and had to visit at the workhouse, and there was the most ceaseless
ferment and outcry against him. All sorts of stories were got up. One
was that he was going to put all the children into a boat and take them
out to sink them in Pevensey Bay! One day old Betty Lusted went up to
the Rectory and asked to see the Archdeacon. He went out to her: "Well,
Betty, and what do you want?"--"I want to know, zur, if you do know the
Scripture."--"Well, Betty, I hope I do, but why do you ask?"--"Because
if you _do_ know the Scripture, how coomes it that you doona zee--'them
whom God hath joined together let na man put asunder'?" (apropos of the
separation of husbands and wives in the workhouse); and though she was a
poor half-witted body, she brought the tears into his eyes. I remember
his asking her daughter Polly once what she prayed for every night and
morning. "Well, zur, I do pray for a new pair of shoes," replied Polly,
without the slightest hesitation.
Uncle Julius would have given the world to have been able to talk easily
and sympathetically to his people, but he could not get the words out.
Sick people in the parish used to say, "The Archdeacon he do come to us,
and he do sit by the bed and hold our hands, and he do growl a little,
but he do zay nowt."
One day he heard that a family named Woodhams were in great affliction.
It was just after poor Haydon had committed suicide, and he took down
Wordsworth's sonnet on Haydon, and read it to them by way of comfort. Of
course they had never heard of Haydon, and had not an idea what it was
all about.[27]
It was on our way from Norwich to Stoke in the autumn of 1841 that I
made my first sketch from nature. We slept at Bedford, to meet Charles
Stanley there, and I drew Bedford Bridge out of the window--a view made
by candlelight of a bridge seen by moonlight--but it was thought
promising and I was encouraged to proceed. My mother, who drew admirably
herself, gave me capital simple lessons, and in every way fostered my
love of the picturesque. Indeed Hurstmonceaux itself did this, with its
weird views across the levels to the faint blue downs, and its noble
ruined castle. Of the stories connected with this castle I could never
hear enough, and Uncle Julius told them delightfully. But the one I
cared for most was of our remote ancestress Sybil Filiol, who lived at
Old Court Manor in the reign of Edward II., I think. Uncle Julius used
to describe how, after her marriage in Wartling Church, she went to take
leave of her dead father's garden (before riding away upon a pillion
behind her husband), and, whilst there, was carried off by gipsies. Her
husband and other members of her family pursued them, but in those days
locomotion was difficult, escape in the Cheviot Hills easy, and she was
never heard of again.[28] How well I remember the pictorial description
of a strange funeral seen approaching over the hills--"the gipsies of
the north" bringing back the body of Sybil Filiol to be buried with her
ancestors at Wartling, and the story of how her husband devoted her
dowry to making "Sybil Filiol's Way," a sort of stone causeway to
Hurstmonceaux Church, of which I delighted to trace the old grey stones
near Boreham Street and in the Church Lane.
Our cousin Anna Maria Shipley, who had been cruelly married by her
father against her will to the savage paralytic Mr. Dashwood, and who
had been very many years a widow, had, in 1838, made a second marriage
with an old neighbour, Mr. Jones, who, however, lived only a year. In
1840, she married as her third husband the Rev. George Chetwode, and
died herself in the year following. Up to the time of her death, it was
believed and generally understood that the heirs of her large fortune
were the children of her cousin Francis,[29] but it was then discovered
that two days before she expired, she had made a will in pencil in
favour of Mr. Chetwode, leaving all she possessed in his power. This
news was an additional shock to my father, who had never recovered the
will of Mrs. Louisa Shipley, and he passed the winter of 1841 at Palermo
in the utmost melancholy. When he first arrived, he gave a few dinners,
but after that, says Victoire, he seemed to have a presentiment of his
end, though the doctors declared that he was not dangerously ill. For
several nights in February Félix sate up with him. Mr. Hare wished to
send him to bed, "mais Félix repondit, 'Rappelez-vous, monsieur, que je
suis ancien militaire, et que quand j'ai une consigne, je ne la quitte
jamais;'" and then he opposed Félix no longer. "One morning at five
o'clock A.M.," said Madame Victoire, "he asked Félix what o'clock it
was. Félix told him. Then he said, 'Dans une demi-heure j'aurais mon
lait d'ânesse,' parceque l'ânesse venait à six heures.... Puis il
commence à faire jour, et Félix se met à arranger un peu la chambre. Se
trouvant à la fenêtre, il entend M. Hare faire un mouvement dans le lit:
Félix regarde de près, il écoute, il touche: M. Hare venait de finir."
My father was buried in the English Cemetery at Palermo, where there is
a plain sarcophagus over his grave. The English Consul sent the
following certificate to Mrs. Hare:--
"On Saturday, the 15th January, 1842, the remains of the late
Francis George Hare, Esquire, were interred in the Protestant
Burial Ground at the Lazzaret of Palermo, in the presence of a
large concourse of Sicilian noblemen, and of the British, French,
and American residents. The service of the church was read by the
Rev. W. F. Holt, and the pall was supported by the Principino of
Lardoria, the Prince of Radali, the American Consul, and Mr. J. F.
Turner. As a token of respect to the memory of the deceased, the
flags of the British, French, and American vessels were hoisted
half-mast high during the forenoon."
The summer was spent by the Marcus Hares at the Rectory--one of those
intensely hot summers which I never remember since my childhood, when we
gasped through the day, and lay at night under bowers of ash-boughs to
keep off the torment of gnats, which used then to be as bad at
Hurstmonceaux as I have since known mosquitoes in Italy. Of my cousins I
preferred Theodore, who was a very engaging little child. I remember
Uncle Julius coming out with tears streaming down his cheeks, and an
open letter in his hand, one day when all the family were sitting under
the trees. It was the news of the death of Dr. Arnold of Rugby.
In the autumn Mrs. Hare came with her children to spend some time at
Hurstmonceaux Rectory. It was then arranged that I should call her
"Italima" (being a corruption of "Italian Mama"), and by that name I
will henceforth speak of her in these memoirs, but this must not be
taken to imply any greater intimacy, as she never treated me familiarly
or with affection. I remember the party arriving in their black
dress--Italima, Francis, William, Esmeralda, Mr. Gaebler--the admirable
tutor, Félix, Victoire, and Clémence--my sister's maid. My sister, as a
little child, was always called "the Tigress," but as she grew older,
her cousin Lord Normanby remonstrated at this. "Then give her another
name," said Italima. "Esmeralda,"--and Esmeralda she was now always
called.
Italima must have found it intensely dull at the Rectory. She used to
walk daily to Gardner Street, where the sight of "_somebody_" and the
village shops was a consolation to her. She used to make my sister
practise on the pianoforte for hours, and if she did not play well she
shut her up for the rest of the day in a dressing-room, and I used to go
and push fairy-stories to her under the door. Though she was so severe
to my sister, she resented exceedingly any scoldings which Uncle Julius
gave to Francis, who richly deserved them, and was terribly spoilt. He
was, however, as beautiful as a boy as my sister was as a girl, and a
wonderfully graceful pair they made when they danced the tarantella
together in the evenings. Altogether my own brothers and sister being as
children infinitely more attractive than the Marcus Hares', I was much
happier with them, which was terribly resented in the family, and any
sign I gave of real enjoyment was always followed by some privation, for
fear I should be over-excited by it. Mr. Gaebler was a most pleasant and
skilful tutor, and I found it delightful to do lessons with him, and
made immense progress in a few weeks: but _because_ his teaching was
pleasant, it was supposed that the "discipline" of lessons was wanting,
and I was not long allowed to go on learning from him. In the afternoons
we were all made to go to the school and practise ridiculous Hullah
singing, which we loathed.
The Bunsens were now living at Hurstmonceaux Place. Bunsen had been
Minister for Prussia at Rome at the time of my birth and the death of my
uncle Augustus Hare, and had then become very intimate with my mother,
as he had previously been with my uncle. Therefore, when he became
Minister in London and wanted a country-house, Hurstmonceaux Place,
which was then to let, seemed wonderfully suited to his requirements.
The great distance from London, however (the railway then coming no
nearer than Brighton, twenty-four miles off) prevented the Bunsens from
remaining more than two years at Hurstmonceaux; but during this time
they added much to our happiness, and, child as I was, I was conscious
of the vivifying influence which their refinement, their liberal views,
and hightoned conversation brought into the narrow circle at
Hurstmonceaux, which being so much and so often cut off from outer
influences, was becoming more and more of a Mutual Admiration Society.
In the many loving daughters of the house, my mother found willing
helpers in all her work amongst the poor, while the cheerful wisdom and
unfailing spirit of Madame Bunsen made her the most delightful of
companions. For several months I went every morning to Hurstmonceaux
Place, and did all my lessons with Theodore Bunsen, who was almost my
own age, under the care of his German tutor, Herr Deimling.
It must have been in 1841, I think, that Bunsen inoculated my uncle and
mother with the most enthusiastic interest in the foundation of the
Bishopric of Jerusalem, being himself perfectly convinced that it would
be the Church thus founded which would meet the Saviour at his second
coming. Esther Maurice, by a subscription amongst the ladies of Reading,
provided the robes of the new Bishop.
In the spring of 1843 I was dreadfully ill with the whooping-cough,
which I caught (as I had done the chicken-pox before) from my mother's
numerous parochial godchildren, when they came to Lime for their
lessons. When I was better we went for three days in our own carriage to
the Mount Ephraim Hotel at Tunbridge Wells. It was my first "tour," and
it was with rapture that I saw Mayfield Palace, Bayham Abbey, and the
High Rocks, on our way to which Lea and I were run away with by our
donkeys.
When the Marcus Hares were not at the Rectory, Uncle Julius in these
years had a wonderfully varied society there, of whom we always saw more
or less--German philosophers, American philologists, English
astronomers, politicians, poets. Amongst those I particularly disliked
were Whewell and Thirlwall--so icily cold were their manners. Bunsen,
Star, Archdeacon Moore, Prentiss the American, Darley, Hull, I liked;
but Professor Sedgwick I was quite devoted to.[30] He "threw a mantle of
love over every one;"[31] and nothing could be more charming than his
stories, more attractive and interesting than his conversation,
especially with children, with whom he took pains to "be agreeable." I
saw so many people of this kind, that I used to think that what I heard
called "society" was all like these specimens: I was very much mistaken.
A visit from the gentle and amiable Copley Fielding early encouraged my
love of art. He greatly admired the peculiar scenery of
Hurstmonceaux--the views from the churchyard, so like the descent upon
the marshes of Ostia; the burnt uplands of the old deer-park; the long
flat reaches of blue-green level; and the hazy distant downs, which were
especially after his own heart. There was one view of the castle towers
seen from behind, and embossed against the delicate hues of the level,
which he used to make a frequent study of, and which my mother and
uncle ever after called "Copley Fielding's view."
[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX.]
Amongst other visitors of this year, I must mention our cousin Penelope,
Mrs. Warren (eldest daughter of Dean Shipley and sister of Mrs. Dashwood
and Mrs. Heber), who spent some days at the Rectory with her daughters,
because under her protection I had my only sight of the upper part of
Hurstmonceaux Castle. One of the staircases remained then, and the
timbers of many of the upper rooms were left, though the floors were
gone. One day we were with my mother and uncle in the ruins, and they
were saying how no one would ever see the upper floor again, when, to
their horror, Mrs. Warren seized me in her arms and darted up the
staircase. "Look, child, look!" she said, "for no one will ever see this
again," and she leapt with me from beam to beam. I recollect the old
chimney-pieces, the falling look of everything. It was wonderful that we
came down safe; the staircase was removed immediately after, that no one
might follow in our footsteps.
I remember Carlyle coming to stay at the Rectory, where they did not
like him much. He came in a high hat--every one wore high hats then. The
day he arrived, the wind blew his hat off into a ditch as he was
getting over a stile: and he went off at once into one of his unbounded
furies against "the most absurd outrageous head-covering in the world,
which the vanity of the Prince Regent had caused people to adopt."
Aunt Lucy and the Maurices had long urged my mother to send me to
school, and perhaps in many ways my terrible fits of naughtiness made it
desirable, though they chiefly arose from nervousness, caused by the
incessant "nagging" I received at home from every one except my mother
and Lea. But the choice of the school to which I was sent at nine years
old was very unfortunate. When illness had obliged my Uncle Augustus
Hare to leave his beloved little parish of Alton Barnes for Italy, a
Rev. Robert Kilvert came thither as his temporary curate--a very
religious man, deeply learned in ultra "evangelical" divinity, but
strangely unpractical and with no knowledge whatever of the world--still
less of the boyish part of it. As Dr. John Brown once said--"The grace
of God can do muckle, but it canna gie a man common-sense." Mr. Kilvert
was a good scholar, but in the dryest, hardest sense; of literature he
knew nothing, and he was entirely without originality or cleverness, so
that his knowledge was of the most untempting description. Still his
letters to my mother in her early widowhood had been a great comfort to
her, and there was no doubt of his having been a thoroughly good
parish-priest. He had lately married a Miss Coleman, who derived the
strange name of Thermuthis from the daughter of Pharaoh who saved Moses
out of the bulrushes, and he had opened a small school at his tiny
Rectory of Hardenhuish, or, as it was generally called, Harnish, the
estate of the Clutterbucks, near Chippenham in Wiltshire; so my mother,
thinking it of far more importance to select "a good man" than "a good
master," determined to send me there. How often since have I seen the
terrible mistake of parents in "packing off" children to a distant
school, to be entirely in the hands of masters of whose practical
influence and social competence for their duties they know nothing
whatever!
My own experience of Harnish is one of the many instances I have known
of how little the character of the head of an establishment affects the
members of it, unless his spirituality is backed up by a thorough
knowledge of the world. The greater portion of Mr. Kilvert's
scholars--his "little flock of lambs in Christ's fold"--were a set of
little monsters. All infantine immoralities were highly popular, and--in
such close quarters--it would have been difficult for the most pure and
high-minded boy to escape from them. The first evening I was there, at
nine years old, I was compelled to eat Eve's apple quite up--indeed, the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was stripped absolutely bare:
there was no fruit left to gather.
I wonder if children often go through the intense agony of anguish which
I went through when I was separated from my mother. Perhaps not, as few
children are brought up so entirely by and with their parents in such
close companionship. It was leaving my mother that I minded, not the
going to school, to which my misery was put down: though, as I had never
had any companions, the idea of being left suddenly amongst a horde of
young savages was anything but comforting. But my nervous temperament
was tortured with the idea that my mother would die before I saw her
again (I had read a story of this kind), that our life was over, that my
aunts would persuade her to cease to care for me,--indeed, the anguish
was so great and so little understood, that though it is more than fifty
years ago, as I write this, I can scarcely bear to think of it.