"_6 Grosvenor Crescent, Jan. 21._--The mother had fever again in
the night, and told Lea in the morning that she had been in the
Revelations, and she seemed indeed to have seen all that is there
described. She has talked much since of the Holy City and the
golden palace as of something she had looked upon. 'What a comfort
it is,' she said, 'that my visions do not take me to Hurstmonceaux:
I do not know how I could bear that.' It is indeed a comfort. She
seems always only to see things most beautiful, and more of heaven
than of earth.
"'After you left me last night,' she said, 'I heard on one side of
my bed the most beautiful music. Oh, it was most beautiful! most
grand!--a sort of military march it seemed--ebbing and rising and
then dying softly and gently away. Then, on the other side of my
bed, I saw an open cloister, and presently I saw that it was lined
with charity-school children. By-and-by Charlotte came out amongst
them. Now, I thought, I can see, by watching her, whether this is a
picture or whether it is a reality: but, as my eyes followed her,
she took out her handkerchief and did everything so exactly as
Charlotte really does, that I felt sure it was a reality.'
"This morning, as I have been sitting by my mother, I have
listened. As she lay dozing, she spoke in pauses--'I see the
sea--It is a very misty morning, a _very_ misty morning--There is a
white boat tossing in the distance--It is getting black, it is so
very misty--There is something coming--It is a great ship--They
have put up a sail--It is very misty--Now I can scarcely see
anything--Now it is all black.'"
"_Jan. 23, 1855._--Before I was up, John came and said he thought
there was a worse account from Hurstmonceaux. Soon Lea came, and I
asked eagerly what it was. 'It is over. He is gone. The Archdeacon
is dead!' One had always fancied one expected this, but the reality
is a different thing--that he who had always in one way or another
influenced daily thoughts and occupations had utterly passed out of
one's life--would never influence it again.
"My mother was very calm. She had taken it quite quietly and laid
down again to rest. When I went down, she cried, and also when
Charlotte came, but she was calm beyond our hopes. It was a long
painful day, in which it seemed almost sacrilegious to go about the
ordinary work of life. Personally, however, I have only the regret
for Uncle Julius which one feels for a familiar and honoured figure
passing out of life. It is only 'a grief without a pang.'"[102]
"_Jan. 29._--We reached home by midday. Mrs. Alexander came in the
afternoon, and described his last words as 'Upwards--upwards.' In
the evening Arthur Stanley and George Bunsen arrived."
"_Jan. 30._--I went to the Rectory with Arthur at eleven.... In the
midst of the library, amongst Uncle Julius's own books and papers,
all that was mortal of him was once more present. It lay in a black
coffin inscribed--'Julius Charles Hare. Born at Bologna. Died at
Hurstmonceaux.' But his spirit?--how I wondered if it was present
and saw us as we stood there.
"Through the open door of the drawing-room I saw all the bearers
come in, in their white smock-frocks and crape bands, and go out
again, carrying him for the last time over his own threshold. On,
on they passed, into the snowy drive, with the full sunshine
falling upon the pall, while the wind caught its white edges and
waved them to and fro. Then some one called us, and I followed with
Uncle Gustavus Hare immediately behind the coffin, six clergy who
had been especially valued by Uncle Julius carrying the pall, and
Arthur Stanley, Orby Shipley,[103] the Bishop of St. David's, and
a number of other friends following, and then a long
procession--clergy, schools, parishioners.
"On, down the shrubbery, with the snow still glittering on the
evergreen leaves, to the gate, where many more people fell into the
ranks behind. The wind was shrill and piercing, and, fresh from a
sick-room, I felt numbed with the cold and fatigue. At Gardner
Street all the shutters were shut, and the inmates of every house
stood at their doors ready to join the procession. Amongst those
waiting in front of the blacksmith's was old Edward Burchett.
Strange to think that he should have known my great-grandfather,
and lived in Hurstmonceaux Castle (where he was 'clock-winder') in
its palmy days, and that he should be living still to see the last
Hare 'of Hurstmonceaux' carried to his grave.
"More crowds of people joined from Windmill Hill and Lime Cross; it
was as if by simultaneous movement the whole parish came forward to
do honour to one who had certainly been as its father for
twenty-two years. As the procession halted to change bearers at the
bend of the road, I knew that my mother was looking out and could
see it from her window. An immense body of clergy joined us at
Hurstmonceaux Place, and many very old and familiar people--old
Judith Coleman led by a little girl, old Pinnock on his crutches,
and others. At the foot of the church hill three black-veiled
figures--Aunt Esther and her sisters--were waiting.
"The effect was beautiful of passing through the churchyard with a
pure covering of untrodden snow into the church lighted by full
sunshine, and looking back and seeing the hill and the winding
road filled with people as far as the eye could reach.
"The coffin was laid before the altar; the clergy and people
thronged the church. I seemed to hear nothing but the voice of
Arthur Stanley repeating the responses at my side.
[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CHURCH.]
"Then we went out to the grave. There, around the foot of the
yew-tree, by the cross over the grave of Uncle Marcus, were grouped
all the oldest people in the parish. Mr. Simpkinson read, the
clergy standing around the open grave responded; and, as with one
voice, all repeated the Lord's Prayer, which, broken as it was by
sobs, had a peculiar solemnity, the words 'Thy will be done'
bringing their own especial significance to many hearts."
The weeks which succeeded my uncle's funeral were occupied by hard work
at the Rectory for his widow, chiefly making a catalogue of the fourteen
thousand volumes in the library, which she gave for the most part to
Trinity College. Uncle Julius had intended them as a provision for her,
to whom he had very little money to bequeath; but she chose thus to
dispose of them, and it was useless to contend with her. In the same way
she decided upon giving away all the familiar pictures and sculptures,
the former to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. My mother felt
parting as I did with all these beautiful inanimate witnesses of our
past lives--the first works of art I had known, the only ones which I
then knew intimately. They have not been much valued at Cambridge, where
the authorship of most of the pictures has been questioned; but whoever
they were by, to us, who lived with them so much, they were always
delightful.