Pascal, one day, remarked that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter the whole face of the world would probably have been changed. The same idea may be applied to the unforeseen advantages produced by accidents, some of which have occasionally had not a little to do with determining the future position in life of many eminent men. Prevented from pursuing the sphere in this world they had intended, compulsory leisure compelled them to adopt some hobby as a recreation, in which, unconsciously, their real genius lay.
Thus David Allan, popularly known as the "Scottish Hogarth," owed his fame and success in life to an accident. When a boy, having burnt his foot, he amused the monotony of his leisure hours by drawing on the floor with a piece ofchalk—a mode of passing his time which soon obtained an extraordinary fascination for him. On returning to school, he drew a caricature of his schoolmaster punishing a pupil, which caused him to be summarily expelled. But, despite this punishment, his success as an artist was decided, the caricature being considered so clever that he was sent to Glasgow to study art, where he was apprenticed in 1755 to Robert Foulis, a famous painter, who with his brother Andrew had secretly established an academy of arts in that city. Their kindness to him he was afterwards able to return when their fortunes were reversed.
If Sir Walter Scott had not sprained his foot in running round the room when a child, the world would probably have had none of those works which have made his name immortal. When his son intimated a desire to enter the army, Sir Walter Scott wrote to Southey, "I have no title to combat a choice which would have been my own, had not my lameness prevented." In the same way, the effects of a fall when about a year old rendered Talleyrand lame for life, and being, on this account, unfit for a military career, he was obliged to renounce his birthright in favour of his second brother. But what seemed an obstacle to his future success was the very reverse, for, turning his attention to politics and books, he eventually became one of the leading diplomatists of his day. Again, Josiah Wedgwood was seized in his boyhoodwith an attack of smallpox, which was followed by a disease in the right knee, some years afterwards necessitating the amputation of the affected limb. But, as Mr. Gladstone, in his address on Wedgwood's life and work delivered at Burslem, Oct. 26th, 1863, remarked, the disease from which he suffered was, no doubt, the cause of his subsequent greatness, for "it prevented him from growing up to be the active, vigorous English workman, but it put upon him considering whether, as he could not be that, he might not be something else, and something greater. It drove him to meditate upon the laws and secrets of his art."
Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. Being removed from school on account of his health, it appears that a cold caught in the summer of 1660 while bathing, which produced a rheumatic affection of the joints, accompanied by other ailments. He became unable to walk to school, and he finally left in May, 1662. His self-training now began, and Sacroborco's "De Sphæra" was lent to him, with the perusal of which he was so pleased that he forthwith commenced a course of astronomic studies. Accordingly, he constructed a rude quadrant and calculated a table of the sun's altitudes, pursuing his studies, as he said himself, "under the discouragement of friends, the want of health, and all other instructors, except his better genius."[54]
Alluding to accidents as sometimes developing greatness, Mr. Smiles remarks that Pope's satire was in a measure the outcome of his deformity; and Lord Byron's club foot, he adds, "had probably not a little to do with determining his destiny as a poet. Had not his mind been embittered, and made morbid by his deformity, he might never have written a line. But his misshapen foot stimulated his mind, roused his ardour, threw him upon his own resources, and we know with what result."
Again, in numerous other ways, it has been remarked, accidents have taken a lucky turn, and, if not being the road to fortune, have had equally important results. The story is told of a young officer in the army of General Wolfe who was supposed to be dying of an abscess in the lungs. He was absent from his regiment on sick leave, but resolved to join it when a battle was expected, "for," said he, "since I am given over I had better be doing my duty, and my life's being shortened a few days matters not." He received a shot which pierced the abscess and made an opening for the discharge, the result being that he recovered and lived to eighty years of age.
Brunel, the celebrated engineer, had a curious accident, which might have forfeited his life. While one day playing with his children and astonishing them by passing a half sovereign through his mouth out at his ear, he unfortunately swallowed the coin, which dropped into hiswindpipe. Brunel regarded the mischief caused by the accident as purely mechanical; a foreign body had got into his breathing apparatus, and must be removed, if at all, by some mechanical expedient. But he was equal to the emergency, and had an apparatus constructed which had the effect of relieving him of the coin. In after days he used to tell how, when his body was inverted, and he heard the gold piece strike against his upper front teeth, was, perhaps, the most exquisite moment in his whole life, the half sovereign having been in his windpipe for not less than six weeks.
In the year 1784, William Pitt almost fell the victim to the folly of a festive meeting, for he was nearly accidentally shot as a highwayman. Returning late at night on horseback from Wimbledon to Addiscombe, together with Lord Thurlow, he found the turnpike gate between Tooting and Streatham thrown open. Both passed through it, regardless of the threats of the turnpike man, who, taking the two for highwaymen, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at their backs; but, happily, no injury was done, and Pitt had the good fortune to escape from what might have been a very serious, if not fatal, accident. Foote, too, met with a bad accident on horseback, which, at the time, seemed a lasting obstacle to his career as an actor. Whilst riding with the Duke of York and some other noblemen, he was thrown from his horse and hisleg broken, so that an amputation became necessary. In consequence of this accident, the Duke of York obtained for him the patent of the Haymarket Theatre for his life; but he continued to perform his former characters with no less agility and spirit than he had done before to the most crowded houses. Similarly, on one occasion—a very important one—Charles James Matthews was nearly prevented making his first appearance on the stage through being thrown from his horse, but, to quote his own words, "the excitement of the evening dominated all other feelings, and I walked for the time as well as ever."
Some men, again, have owed their success to the accidents of others. A notable instance was that of Baron Ward, the well-known minister of the Duke of Parma. After working some time as a stable-boy in Howden, he went to London, where he had the good luck to come to the Duke of Parma's assistance after a fall from his horse in Rotten Row. The Duke took him back to Lucca as his groom, and ere long Ward made the ducal stud the envy of Italy. He soon rose to a higher position, and became the minister and confidential friend of the Duke of Parma, with whom he escaped in the year 1848 to Dresden, and for whom he succeeded in recovering Parma and Placenza. Indeed, Lord Palmerston once remarked, "Baron Ward was one of the most remarkable men I ever met with."
It was through witnessing an accident that Sir Astley Cooper made up his final decision to take up surgery as his profession. A young man, having been run over by a cart, was in danger of dying from loss of blood, when young Cooper lost no time in tying his handkerchief about the wounded limb so as to stop the hemorrhage. It was this incident which assured him of his taste for surgery. In the same way, the story is quoted of the eminent French surgeon, Ambrose Paré. It is stated that he was acting as stable-boy to an abbé at Laval when a surgical operation was about to be performed on one of the brethren of the monastery. On being called in to assist, Ambrose Paré not only proved so useful, but was so fascinated with the operation that he made up his mind to devote his life to the study and practice of surgery. Instances of this kind might be enumerated, being of frequent occurrence in biographical literature, and showing to what unforeseen circumstances men have occasionally owed their greatness.
A romance which, had it lacked corroborative evidence, would have seemed highly improbable, is told of the two Countesses of Kellie. In the latter half of the last century, Mr Gordon, the proprietor of Ardoch Castle—situated upon a high rock, overlooking the sea—was one evening aroused by the firing of a gun evidently from a vessel in distress near the shore. Hastening down to the beach, with the servants of the Castle, it wasevident that the distressed vessel had gone down, as the floating spars but too clearly indicated. After looking out in vain for some time, in the hope of recovering some of the passengers—either dead or alive—he found a sort of crib, which had been washed ashore, containing a live infant. The little creature proved to be a female child, but beyond the fact that its wrappings pointed to its being the offspring of persons in no mean condition, there was no trace as to who these were.
The little foundling was brought up with Mr. Gordon's own daughters, and when she had attained to womanhood, by an inexplicable coincidence, a storm similar to that just mentioned occurred. An alarm-gun was fired, and this time Mr. Gordon had the satisfaction of receiving a shipwrecked party, whom he at once made his guests at the Castle. Amongst them was one gentleman passenger, who after a comfortable night spent in the Castle, was surprised at breakfast by the entrance of a troop of blooming girls, the daughters of his host, as he understood, but one of whom specially attracted his attention.
"Is this young lady your daughter, too?" he inquired of Mr. Gordon.
"No," replied his host, "but she is as dear to me as if she were."
He then related her history, to which the stranger listened with eager interest, and at its close he not a little surprised Mr. Gordon by remarking that he"had reason to believe that the young lady was his own niece." He then gave a detailed account of his sister's return from India, corresponding to the time of the shipwreck, and added, "she is now an orphan, but if I am not mistaken in my supposition, she is entitled to a handsome provision which her father bequeathed to her in the hope of her yet being found."
Before many days had elapsed, sufficient evidence was forthcoming to prove that by this strange, but lucky, accident of the shipwreck, the long lost niece was found. The young heiress keenly felt leaving the old castle, but to soften the wrench it was arranged that one of the Misses Gordon should accompany her to Gottenburg, where her uncle had long been settled as a merchant.
The sequel of this romance, as it is pointed out in the "Book of Days,"[55]is equally astonishing. It seems that among the Scotch merchants settled in the Swedish port, was Mr. Thomas Erskine—a younger son of a younger brother of Sir William Erskine, of Cambo, in Fife—an offshoot of the family of the Earl of Kellie—to whom Miss Anne Gordon was married in the year 1771. A younger brother, named Methven, ten years later married Joanna, a sister of Miss Gordon. It was never contemplated that these two brothers would ever come near to the peerage of their family—there being at one time seventeen persons between themand the family titles; but in the year 1797 the baronet of Cambo became Earl of Kellie, and two years later the title came to the husband of Anne Gordon. In short, "these two daughters of Mr. Gordon, of Ardoch, became in succession Countesses of Kellie in consequence of the incident of the shipwrecked foundling, whom their father's humanity had rescued from the waves."
[54]See "Dictionary of National Biography," xix., 242.
[54]See "Dictionary of National Biography," xix., 242.
[55]"The Two Countesses of Kellie," ii. 41, 42.
[55]"The Two Countesses of Kellie," ii. 41, 42.
What dreadful havoc in the human breastThe passions make, when, unconfined and mad,They burst, unguided by the mental eye,The light of reason, which, in various ways,Points them to good, or turns them back from ill!Thomson.
The annals of some of our old and respected families have occasionally been sadly stained "by hideous exhibitions of cruelty and lust," in certain instances the result of an unscrupulous disregard of moral duty and of a vindictive fierceness in avenging injury. It has been oftentimes remarked that few tragedies which the brain of the novelist has depicted have surpassed in their unnatural and horrible details those enacted in real life, for
When headstrong passion gets the reins of reason,The force of Nature, like too strong a gale,For want of ballast, oversets the vessel.
When headstrong passion gets the reins of reason,The force of Nature, like too strong a gale,For want of ballast, oversets the vessel.
Love, indeed, which has been proverbially said to lead to as much evil as any impulse that agitates the human bosom, must be held responsible for only too many of those crimes which from time to timeoutrage society, for, as the authors of "Guesses at Truth" have remarked, "jealousy is said to be the offspring of love, yet, unless the parent make haste to strangle the child, the child will not rest till it has poisoned the parent." Thus, a tragedy which made the Castle of Corstorphine the scene of a terrible crime and scandal in the year 1679, may be said to have originated in an unhallowed passion.
George, first Lord Forrester, having no male issue, made an arrangement whereby his son-in-law, James Baillie, was to succeed him as second Lord Forrester and proprietor of the estate of Corstorphine. Just four years after this compact was made, Lord Forrester died, and James Baillie, a young man of twenty-five, succeeded to the title and property. But this arrangement did not meet with the approval of Lord Forrester's daughters, who regarded it as a manifest injustice that the honours of their ancient family should devolve on an alien—a feeling of dissatisfaction which was more particularly nourished by the third daughter, Lady Hamilton, whose husband was far from wealthy.
It so happened that Lady Hamilton had a daughter, Christian, who was noted for her rare beauty and high spirit. But, unfortunately, she was a girl of strong passion, which, added to her self-will, caused her, when she had barely arrived at a marriageable age, to engage herself to one James Nimmo, the son of an Edinburgh merchant.Before many weeks had elapsed, the young couple were married, and the handsome young wife was settled in her new home in Edinburgh. Time wore on, the novelty of marriage died away, and as Mrs. Nimmo dwelt on her mercantile surroundings, she recognised more and more what an ill-assorted match she had made, and in her excitable mind, "she cursed the bond which connected her with a man whose social position she despised, and whose occupations she scorned." The report, however, of her uncommon beauty, could not fail to reach the ears of young Lord Forrester, who on the score of relationship was often attracted to Mrs. Nimmo's house. At first he was received with coldness, but, by flattering and appealing to her vanity, he gradually "accomplished the ruin of this unhappy young woman," and made her the victim of his licentious and unprincipled designs.
But no long time had elapsed when this shameful intrigue became the subject of common talk, and public indignation took the side of the injured woman, when Lord Forrester, after getting tired of her, "was so cruel and base as to speak of her openly in the most opprobrious manner," even alluding to her criminal connection with him. In so doing, however, he had not taken into consideration the violent character of the woman he had wronged, nor thought he of her jealousy, wounded pride, and despair. In his haste, also, to rid himself of the woman who no longer fascinatedhim, he paid no heed to the passion that was lurking in her inflamed bosom, nor counted on herspretæ injuria formæ.
On the other hand, whilst he was forgetting the past in his orgies, Mrs. Nimmo—whose love for him was turned to the bitterest hate—was hourly reproaching him, and at last the fatal moment arrived when she felt bound to proceed to Corstorphine Castle, and confront her evil-doer. At the time, Lord Forrester was drinking at the village tavern, and, when the infuriated woman demanded to see him, he was flushed with claret, and himself in no amiable mood. The altercation, naturally, "soon became violent, bitter reproaches were uttered on the one side, and contemptuous sneers on the other." Goaded to frenzy, the unhappy woman stabbed her paramour to the heart, killing him instantly.
When taken before the sheriff of Edinburgh, she confessed her crime, and, although she told the court in the most pathetic manner how basely she had been wronged by one who should have supported rather than ruined her, sentence of death was passed upon her. She managed, writes Sir Bernard Burke,[56]to postpone the execution of her sentence by declaring that she was with child by her seducer, and during her imprisonment succeeded in escaping in the disguise of a young man. But she was captured, and on the 12th November,1679, paid the penalty of her rash act, appearing at her execution attired in deep mourning, covered with a large veil.
Radcliffe to this day possesses the tradition of a terrible tragedy of which there are several versions. It appears that one Sir William de Radclyffe had a very beautiful daughter whose mother died in giving her birth. After a time he married again, and the step-mother, actuated by feeling of jealousy, conceived a violent hatred to the girl, which ere long prompted her to be guilty of the most insane cruelty. One day, runs the story, when Sir William was out hunting, she sent the unsuspecting girl into the kitchen with a message to the cook that he was to dress the white doe. But the cook professing ignorance of the particular white doe he was to dress, asserted, to the young lady's intense horror, that he had received orders to kill her, which there and then he did, afterwards making her into a pie.
On Sir William's return from hunting, he made inquiries for his daughter, but his wife informed him that she had taken the opportunity in his absence of going into a nunnery. Suspicious, however, of the truth of her story—for her jealous hatred of his daughter had not escaped his notice—he flew into a passion, and demanded in the most peremptory manner where his daughter was, whereupon the scullion boy denounced the step-mother, and warned Sir William against eating the pie.
The whole truth was soon revealed, and the diabolic wickedness of Lady William did not pass unpunished, for she was burnt, and the cook was condemned to stand in boiling lead. A ballad in the Pepys' collection, entitled, "The Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or the Step-mother's Cruelty," records this horrible barbarity; and in a Lancashire ballad, called "Fair Ellen of Radcliffe", it is thus graphically told:—
She straighte into the kitchen went,Her message for to tell;And then she spied the master cook,Who did with malice swell."Nowe, master cooke, it must be soe,Do that which I thee tell;You needs must dress the milk-white doe,You which do knowe full well."Then straight his cruel, bloody hands,He on the ladye laid,Who, quivering and ghastly, standsWhile thus to her he sayd:"Thou art the doe that I must dress;See here! behold, my knife!For it is pointed, presentliTo rid thee of thy life."O then, cryed out the scullion boye,As loud as loud might be,"O save her life, good master cook,And make your pyes of me."
She straighte into the kitchen went,Her message for to tell;And then she spied the master cook,Who did with malice swell.
"Nowe, master cooke, it must be soe,Do that which I thee tell;You needs must dress the milk-white doe,You which do knowe full well."
Then straight his cruel, bloody hands,He on the ladye laid,Who, quivering and ghastly, standsWhile thus to her he sayd:
"Thou art the doe that I must dress;See here! behold, my knife!For it is pointed, presentliTo rid thee of thy life."
O then, cryed out the scullion boye,As loud as loud might be,"O save her life, good master cook,And make your pyes of me."
The tradition adds that Sir William was not unmindful of the scullion boy's heroic conduct, for he made him heir to his possessions.
Another cruel case of woman's jealousy, which, happily, was not so disastrous in its result as the former, relates to Maria, daughter of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, second son of Kenneth, Earl of Seaforth, who was Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline. Report goes that between this young lady, who was one of the greatest beauties about the Court, and a Mr. Price, an admired man about town, there subsisted a strong attachment. Unfortunately for Miss Mackenzie, Mr. Price was an especial favourite of the celebrated Countess of Deloraine, who, to get rid of her rival in beauty, poisoned her.
But this crime was discovered in time, antidotes were administered with success, and the girl's life was saved; although her lovely complexion is said to have been ruined, ever after continuing of a lemon tint. Queen Caroline, desirous of shielding the Countess of Deloraine from the consequences of her act, persuaded "the poisoned beauty" to appear, as soon as she was sufficiently recovered, at a supper, given either by the Countess of Deloraine or where she was to be present. Accordingly, on the night arranged, some excitement was caused by the arrival of Miss Mackenzie, for as she entered the room, someone exclaimed, "How entirely changed!"
But Mr. Price, who was seated by Lady Deloraine remarked, "In my eyes she is more beautiful than ever," and it only remains to add that they were married next morning.
Like jealousy, thwarted love has often been cause of the most unnatural crimes, and a tragic story is told of the untimely death of Mr Blandy, of Henley, in Oxfordshire, who, by practice as an attorney, had accumulated a large fortune. He had an only child, Mary, who was regarded as an heiress, and consequently had suitors many. On one occasion, it happened that William Cranstoun, brother of Lord Cranstoun, being upon a recruiting party in Oxfordshire, and hearing of Miss Blandy's "great expectations," found an opportunity of introducing himself to the family.
The Captain's attentions, however, to Miss Blandy met with the strong disapproval of her father, for he had ascertained that this suitor for his daughter's hand had been privately married in Scotland. But against this objection Captain Cranstoun replied that he hoped to get this marriage speedily set aside by a decree of the Supreme Court of Session. And when the Court refused to annul the marriage, Mr. Blandy absolutely refused to allow his daughter to have any further communications with so dishonourable a man; a resolution to which he remained inexorable.
Intrigue between the two was the result, for it seems that Miss Blandy's affection for this profligate man—almost double her age—was violent. As might be expected, Captain Cranstoun not only worked upon her feelings, but imposed on her credulity. He sent her from Scotland a pretendedlove powder, which he enjoined her to administer to her father, in order to gain his affection and procure his consent. This injunction she did not carry out, on account of a frightful dream, in which she saw her father fall from a precipice into the ocean. Thereupon the Captain wrote a second time, and told her in words somewhat enigmatical, but easily understood by her, his design.
Horrible to relate, the wicked girl was so elated with the idea of removing her father, that she was heard to exclaim before the servants, "who would not send an old fellow to hell for thirty thousand pounds?"
The fatal die was cast. The deadly powder was mixed and given to him in a cup of tea, after drinking which he soon began to swell enormously.
"What have you given me, Mary?" asked the unhappy dying man. "You have murdered me; of this I was warned, but, alas! I thought it was a false alarm. O, fly; take care of the Captain!"
Thus Mr. Blandy died of poison, but his daughter was captured whilst attempting to escape, and was conveyed to Oxford Castle, where she was imprisoned till the assizes, when she was tried for parricide, was found guilty, and executed. Captain Cranstoun managed to effect his escape, and went abroad, where he died soon afterwards in a deplorable state of mind, brought about by remorse for the evil and misery he had caused.
Almost equally tragic was the fatal passion of Sir William Kyte, forming another strange domestic drama in real life. Possessed of considerable fortune, and of ancient family, Sir William was deemed a very desirable match, and when he offered his hand to a young lady of noble rank, and of great beauty, he was at once accepted. The marriage for the first few years turned out happily, but the crisis came when Sir William was nominated, at a contested election, to represent the borough of Warwick, in which county lay the bulk of his estate. After the election was over, Lady Kyte, by way of recompensing a zealous partisan of her husband, took an innkeeper's daughter, Molly Jones, for her maid; "a tall, genteel girl, with a fine complexion, and seemingly very modest and innocent." But before many months had elapsed, Sir William was attracted by the girl, and, eventually, became so infatuated by her charms, that, casting aside all restraints of shame or fear, he agreed to a separation between his wife and himself. Accordingly, Sir William left Lady Kyte, with the two younger children, in possession of the mansion-house in Warwickshire, and retired with his mistress and his two eldest sons to a farmhouse on the Cotswold hills. Charmed with the situation, he was soon tempted to build a handsome house here, to which were added two large side-fronts, for no better reason than that Molly Jones, one day, happened to say, "What is a Kite withoutwings." But the expense of completing this establishment, amounting to at least £10,000, soon involved Sir William in financial difficulties, which caused him to drown his worries in drink.
At this juncture, Molly Jones, forgetting her own past, was injudicious enough to engage a fresh coloured country girl—who was scarcely twenty—as dairymaid, for whom Sir William quickly conceived an amorous regard. Actuated by jealousy or disgust, Molly Jones threatened to leave Sir William, a resolution which she soon carried out, retiring to Cambden, a neighbouring market town, where she was reduced to keep a small sewing school as a means of livelihood. Although left to carry on his intrigue undisturbed, Sir William soon became a victim to gloomy reflections, feeling at times that he had not only cruelly wronged a good wife, but had been deserted by the very woman for whose sake he had brought this trouble and disgrace upon his family. Tormented by these conflicting passions, he occasionally worked himself up into such a state of frenzy that even his new favourite was terrified, and had run away. It was when almost maddened with the thought of his evil past that he formed that fatal resolve which was a hideous ending to "the dreadful consequence of a licentious passion not checked in its infancy." One October evening, as a housemaid was on the stairs, suddenly "the lobby was all in a cloud of smoke." She gave the alarm, and on the doorbeing forced open whence the smoke proceeded, it was discovered that Sir William had set fire to a large heap of fine linen, piled up in the middle of the room. From an adjoining room, where Sir William had made his escape, the flames burst out with such fury that all were glad to make their escape out of the house, the greater part of which was in a few hours burnt to the ground—no other remains of its master being found next morning but the hip-bone, and bones of the back.
A case which, at the time, created considerable sensation was the murder of Thynne of Longleat by a jealous antagonist. The eleventh Duke of Northumberland left an only daughter, whose career, it has been said, "might match that of the most erratic or adventurous of her race." Before she was sixteen years old, she had been twice a widow, and three times a wife. At the age of thirteen, she was married to the only son of the Duke of Newcastle, a lad of her own age, who died in a few months. Her second husband was Thynne of Longleat, "Tom of Ten Thousand," but the tie was abruptly severed by the bullet of an assassin, set on by the notorious Count Konigsmark, who had been a suitor for her hand, and was desirous of another chance. After his death, the young widow, who was surrounded by a host of admirers, married the Duke of Somerset, and she seems to have made him a fitting mate, for when his second wife, a Finch, tapped him familiarly on the shoulder, or,according to another version, seated herself on his knee, he exclaimed indignantly:
"My first wife was a Percy, and she never thought of taking such a liberty."
It may be added that one of the most remarkable incidents in this celebrated beauty's life was when by dint of tears and supplications she prevented Queen Anne from making Swift a bishop, out of revenge for the "Windsor prophecy," in which she was ridiculed for the redness of her hair, and upbraided as having been privy to the brutal murder of her second husband. "It was doubted," says Scott, "which imputation she accounted the more cruel insult, especially since the first charge was undoubted, and the second arose only from the malice of the poet."
Another tragedy of a similar kind was the murder of William Mountford, the player. Captain Richard Hill had conceived a violent passion for Mrs. Bracegirdle, the beautiful actress, and is said to have offered her his hand, and to have been refused. At last his passion became ungovernable, and he determined to carry her off by force. To carry out his purpose, he induced his friend Lord Mohun to assist him in the attempt. According to one account, "he dodged the fair actress for a whole day at the theatre, stationed a coach near the Horseshoe Tavern, in Drury Lane, to carry her off in, and hired six soldiers to force her into it. As the beautiful actress came down Drury Lane, at teno'clock at night, accompanied by her mother and brother, and escorted by her friend Mr. Page, one of the soldiers seized her in his arms, and endeavoured to force her into the coach. But the lady's scream attracted a crowd, and Captain Hill, finding his endeavours ineffectual, bid the soldiers let her go. Disappointed in their object, Lord Mohun and Captain Hill vowed vengeance; and Mrs. Bracegirdle on reaching home sent her servant to Mr. Mountford's house to take care of himself, warning him against Lord Mohun and Captain Hill, "who she feared, had no good intention toward him, and did wait for him in the street." It appears that Mountford had already heard of the attempt to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle, and hearing that Lord Mohun and Captain Hill were in the street, did not shrink from approaching them."
The account says that he addressed Lord Mohun, and told him how sorry he was to find him in the company of such a pitiful fellow as Captain Hill, whereupon, it is said, "the captain came forth and said he would justify himself, and went towards the middle of the street, and Mr. Mountford followed him and drew." The end of the quarrel was that Mountford fell with a terrible wound, of which he died on the following day, declaring in his last moments that Captain Hill ran him through the body before he could draw his sword. Captain Hill, it seems, owed Mountford a deadly grudge, having attributed his rejection by Mrs. Bracegirdleto her love for him—an unlikely passion, it is thought, as Mountford was a married man, with a good-looking wife of his own, afterwards Mrs. Verbruggen, and a celebrated actress.
Oulton House, Suffolk, long known as the "Haunted House," acquired its ill-omened name from a tragic occurrence traditionally said to have happened many years ago, and the peasantry in the neighbourhood affirm that at midnight a wild huntsman, with his hounds, accompanied by a lady carrying a poisoned cup, is occasionally seen. The story is that, in the reign of George II., a squire, returning unexpectedly home from the chase, discovered his wife with an officer, one of his guests, in too familiar a friendship. High words followed, and the indignant husband, provoked by the cool manner in which the officer treated the matter, struck him, whereupon the guilty lover drew his sword and drove it through the squire's heart, the faithless wife and her paramour afterwards making their escape.
Some years afterwards, runs the tale, the Squire's daughter, who had been left behind in the hasty departure, having grown to womanhood, was affianced to a youthful farmer of the neighbourhood. But on their bridal eve, as they were sitting together talking over the new life they were about to enter, "a carriage, black and sombre as a hearse, with closely drawn curtains, and attended by servants clad in sable liveries, drew up to thedoor." The young girl was seized by masked men, carried off in the carriage to her unnatural mother, while her betrothed was stabbed as he vainly endeavoured to rescue her. A grave is pointed out in the cemetery at Namur, as that in which was laid the body of the unhappy girl, poisoned, it is alleged, by her unscrupulous and wicked mother. It is not surprising, we are told, that the locality was supposed to be haunted by the wretched woman—both as wife and mother equally criminal.
Family romance, once more, has many a dark page recording how despairing love has ended in self-destruction. At the beginning of the present century, a sad catastrophe befell the Shuckburghs of Shuckburgh Hall. It appears the Bedfordshire Militia were stationed near Upper Shuckburgh, and the officers were in the habit of visiting the Hall, whose hospitable owner, Sir Stewkley Shuckburgh, received them with every mark of cordiality. His daughter, then about twenty years of age, was a young lady of no ordinary attractions, and her fascinations soon produced their natural effect on one of the officers, Lieutenant Sharp, who became deeply attached to her. But as soon as Sir Stewkley became aware of this love affair, he gave it his decided disapproval. Lieutenant Sharp was forbidden the house, and Miss Shuckburgh resolved to smother her love in deference to her father's wishes. It was accordingly decided between theyoung people that their intimacy should cease, and that the letters which had passed between them should be returned. An arrangement was, therefore, made that the lady should leave the packet for Lieutenant Sharp in the summer-house in the garden on a specified evening, and that on the following morning she should find the packet intended for her in the same place. The sad engagement was kept, and having left her packet in the evening, Miss Shuckburgh set out on the following morning to find her own. A servant, it is said, who saw her in the garden, was curious to know what could have brought her out at so early an hour. He followed her unobserved, and on drawing near to the summer-house, "he heard the voices of the lieutenant and of the lady in earnest dispute. The officer was loud and impassioned, the lady firm but unconsenting. Immediately was heard the report of a pistol, and the fall of a body—another report and fall. Guessing the tragic truth, the servant raised an alarm, and the two lovers were found lying dead in their own blood." It is generally supposed that this terrible act of self-destruction was the result of mutual agreement—the outcome of passion and despair.
"Since that hour," writes Howitt, "every object, about the place which could suggest to the memory this fatal event, has been changed or removed. The summer-house has been razed to the ground; the disposition of the garden itself altered; but,"he adds, "such tragic passages in human life become part and parcel of the scene where they occur—they become the topic of the winter fireside. They last while passions and affections, youth and beauty last. They fix themselves into the soil, and the very rock on which it lies, and though the house was razed from the spot, and its park and pleasaunces turned into ploughed fields, it would still be said for ages: Here stood Shuckburgh Hall, and here fell the young and lovely Miss Shuckburgh by the hand of her despairing lover."
And to conclude with a romance in brief, some forty or fifty years ago, in the far north of England a girl was on the eve of being married. Her wedding dress was ordered, the guests were bidden. But, it is said that at the eleventh hour, in a fit of passion and paltry jealousy, she resented some fancied want of devotion in her lover.
He was single-minded, loyal, and altogether of finer stuff than herself; but she was a wretched slave to such old stock phrases as delicacy, family pride, and the like, and so he was allowed to go, for she came of people who looked upon unforgiveness as a virtue.
Accordingly the discarded lover exchanged into a regiment under orders for Afghanistan. At the time, our troops were engaged there in hot fighting. The lad fell, and hidden on his breast was found a locket which his sweetheart had once given him. It came back to her through a brother officer, whohad known something of his sad story, with a stain on it—a stain of his blood. When that painful relic silently told her of the devotion which she had so unjustly and basely wronged, there came, in the familiar lines:
A mist and a weeping rain,And life was never the same again.
A mist and a weeping rain,And life was never the same again.
That stain marked every day of a lonely life throughout forty years or more.
[56]"Vicissitudes of Families," 1863, III. Ser., 202-203.
[56]"Vicissitudes of Families," 1863, III. Ser., 202-203.