"_Lime, Easter Sunday, April 12, 1857._--I have been spending a
happy fortnight at home. The burst of spring has been
beautiful--such a golden carpet of primroses on the bank,
interspersed with tufts of still more golden daffodils, hazels
putting forth their fresh green, and birds singing. My sweet mother
is more than usually patient under the trial of failure of
sight--glad to be read to for hours, but contented to be left
alone, only saying sometimes--'Now, darling, come and talk to me a
little.' On going to church this morning, we found that poor
Margaret Coleman, the carpenter's wife, had, as always on this day,
covered Uncle Julius's grave with flowers. He is wonderfully missed
by the people, though they seldom saw him except in church; for, as
Mrs. Jasper Harmer said to me the other day, 'We didn't often see
him, but then we knew he was always _studying_ us--now wasn't he?'"
A subject of intense interest after my return to Oxford was hearing
Thackeray deliver his lectures on the Georges. That which spoke of the
blindness of George III., with his glorious intonation, was
indescribably pathetic. It was a great delight to have George Sheffield
back and to resume our excursions, one of which was to see the May Cross
of Charlton-on-Ottmoor, on which I published a very feeble story in a
magazine; and another to Abingdon, where we had luncheon with the
Head-master of the Grammar School, who, as soon as it was over,
apologised for leaving us because he had got "to wallop so many boys."
All our visits to Abingdon ended in visits to the extraordinary old
brothers Smith, cobblers, who always sat cross-legged on a counter, and
always lived upon raw meat. We had heard of their possession of an
extraordinary old house which no one had entered, and we used to try to
persuade them to take us there; but when we asked one he said, "I would,
but my brother Tom is so eccentric, it would be as much as my life is
worth--I really couldn't;" and when we asked the other he said, "I
would, but you've no idea what an extraordinary man my brother John is;
he would never consent." However, one day we captured both the old men
together and over-persuaded them (no one ever could resist George), and
we went to the old house, a dismal tumble-down building, with shuttered
windows, outside the town. Inside it was a place of past ages--old
chairs and cupboards of the sixteenth century, old tapestries, and old
china, but all deep, deep in dust and dirt, which was never cleaned
away. It was like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty after the hundred
years' sleep. I have several pieces of china out of that old house
now--"Gris de Flandres ware."
In June I made a little tour, partly of visits, and from Mrs. Vaughan's
house at Leicester had an enchanting expedition to Bradgate, the ruined
home of Lady Jane Grey, in a glen full of oaks and beeches of immense
age.
In my final (History and Law) Schools I had passed with great ease, and
had for some time been residing at Oxford as a Bachelor, having taken my
degree. But as one friend after another departed, the interest of Oxford
had faded. I left it on the 13th of June 1857, and without regret.