"On awaking one morning, Mr. Rutherford of Egerton (in Roxburghshire) found his wife dreadfully agitated, and asked her what was the matter. 'Oh,' she said, 'it is something I really cannot tell you, because you could not possibly sympathise with it.'—'But I insist upon knowing,' he said. 'Well,' she answered, 'if you insist upon knowing, I am agitated because I have had a dream which has distressed me very much. I dreamt that my aunt, Lady Leslie, who brought me up, is going to be murdered; and not only that, but in my dream I have seen the person who is going to murder her:—I have seen him so distinctly, that if I met him in any town of Europe, I should know him again.'—'What bombastical nonsense!' said Mr. Rutherford; 'you really become more and more foolish every day.'—'Well, my dear,' said his wife, 'I told you that it was a thing in which you could not sympathise, and I did not wish to tell you my dream.'"Coming suddenly into her sitting-room during the morning, Mr. Rutherford found his wife still very much agitated and distressed, and being of choleric disposition, he said sharply, 'Now do let us have an end once for all of this nonsense. Go down into Fife and see your aunt, Lady Leslie, and then, when youhave found her alive and quite well, perhaps you will give up having these foolish imaginations for the future.' Mrs. Rutherford wished no better; she put a few things into a hand-bag, she went to Edinburgh, she crossed the Firth of Forth, and that afternoon at four o'clock she drove up to Lady Leslie's door. The door was opened by a strange servant. It was the man she had seen in her dream."She found Lady Leslie well, sitting with her two grown-up sons. She was exceedingly surprised to see her niece, but Mrs. Rutherford said that having that one day free, and not being able to come again for some time, she had seized the opportunity of coming for one night; and her aunt was too glad to see her to ask many questions. In the course of the evening Mrs. Rutherford said, 'Aunt, when I lived at home with you, whenever I was to have an especial treat, it was that I might sleep in your room. Now I am only here for one night; do let me have my old child's treat over again: I have a special fancy for it;' and Lady Leslie was rather pleased than otherwise. Before they went to bed, Mrs. Rutherford had an opportunity of speaking to her two cousins alone. She said, 'You will be excessively surprised at what I ask, but I shall measure your affection for me entirely by whether you grant it: it is that you will sit up to-night in the room next to your mother's, and that you will tell no one.' They promised, but they were very much surprised."As they were going to bed, Mrs. Rutherford said to Lady Leslie, 'Aunt, shall I lock the door?' and Lady Leslie laughed at her and said, 'No, my dear;I am much too old-fashioned a person for that,' and forbade it. But as soon as Mrs. Rutherford saw that Lady Leslie was asleep, she slipped out of bed and turned the lock of the door. Then, leaning against the pillow, she watched, and watched the handle of the door."The reflection of the fire scintillated on the round brass handle of the door, and, as she watched, it almost seemed to mesmerise her, but she watched still. Suddenly the speck of light seemed to appear on theotherside; some one was evidently turning the handle of the door. Mrs. Rutherford rang the bell violently, her cousins rushed out of the next room, and she herself threw the door wide open, and there, at the door, stood the strange servant, the man she had seen in her dream, with a covered coal-scuttle in his hand. The cousins demanded why he was there. He said he thought he heard Lady Leslie's bell ring. They said, 'But you do not answer Lady Leslie's bell at this time in the night,' and they insisted upon opening the coal-scuttle. In it was a large knife."Then, as by sudden impulse, the man confessed. He knew Lady Leslie had received a large sum for her rents the day before, that she kept it in her room, and that it could not be sent away till the next day. 'The devil tempted me,' he said, 'the devil walked with me down the passage, and unless God had intervened, the devil would have forced me to cut Lady Leslie's throat.'"The man was partially mad—but God had intervened."JOURNAL(The Green Book)."Holmhurst, July 27, 1862.—A gorgeous beautiful summer day at length, and it is our last here. To-morrow we go north. It has been a pleasant summer, and it will be a very bright one to look back upon. I have had the great delight of having Charlie Wood here for four days—days of endless conversations, outpourings of old griefs and joys, of little present thoughts and anxieties, of hopes and aspirations for the future, which I should not venture upon with any one else. And besides, we have had a succession of visitors, each of whom has enjoyed our home, whilst our little Holmhurst daily twines itself more and more round our own hearts. Sometimes I have a sort of inward trembling in thinking that I trace an additional or increasing degree of feebleness or age in my sweetest mother, but I do not think her ill now, and may go to the North with a confident feeling that it will be at the time which will suit her best, as she will have other friends with her with whom she would rather be alone. My sweet darling! what should I do without her? and how blank and black the whole world would seem! Yet even then I should bless God that this place, now consecrated by memories of her, would still be my home, and, in fulfilling her wishes, her designs, I should try to link the desolate present to the sunny past. I cannot be grateful enough for her power of bearing and rallying from great blows. The loss of Aunt Kitty in the spring, the impending loss of Aunt Esther, are furrows which God permits, but which He too smooths over. I have even the comfort offeeling that it would be thus in case of my own death, dreadful as that would be to her at the time."
"On awaking one morning, Mr. Rutherford of Egerton (in Roxburghshire) found his wife dreadfully agitated, and asked her what was the matter. 'Oh,' she said, 'it is something I really cannot tell you, because you could not possibly sympathise with it.'—'But I insist upon knowing,' he said. 'Well,' she answered, 'if you insist upon knowing, I am agitated because I have had a dream which has distressed me very much. I dreamt that my aunt, Lady Leslie, who brought me up, is going to be murdered; and not only that, but in my dream I have seen the person who is going to murder her:—I have seen him so distinctly, that if I met him in any town of Europe, I should know him again.'—'What bombastical nonsense!' said Mr. Rutherford; 'you really become more and more foolish every day.'—'Well, my dear,' said his wife, 'I told you that it was a thing in which you could not sympathise, and I did not wish to tell you my dream.'
"Coming suddenly into her sitting-room during the morning, Mr. Rutherford found his wife still very much agitated and distressed, and being of choleric disposition, he said sharply, 'Now do let us have an end once for all of this nonsense. Go down into Fife and see your aunt, Lady Leslie, and then, when youhave found her alive and quite well, perhaps you will give up having these foolish imaginations for the future.' Mrs. Rutherford wished no better; she put a few things into a hand-bag, she went to Edinburgh, she crossed the Firth of Forth, and that afternoon at four o'clock she drove up to Lady Leslie's door. The door was opened by a strange servant. It was the man she had seen in her dream.
"She found Lady Leslie well, sitting with her two grown-up sons. She was exceedingly surprised to see her niece, but Mrs. Rutherford said that having that one day free, and not being able to come again for some time, she had seized the opportunity of coming for one night; and her aunt was too glad to see her to ask many questions. In the course of the evening Mrs. Rutherford said, 'Aunt, when I lived at home with you, whenever I was to have an especial treat, it was that I might sleep in your room. Now I am only here for one night; do let me have my old child's treat over again: I have a special fancy for it;' and Lady Leslie was rather pleased than otherwise. Before they went to bed, Mrs. Rutherford had an opportunity of speaking to her two cousins alone. She said, 'You will be excessively surprised at what I ask, but I shall measure your affection for me entirely by whether you grant it: it is that you will sit up to-night in the room next to your mother's, and that you will tell no one.' They promised, but they were very much surprised.
"As they were going to bed, Mrs. Rutherford said to Lady Leslie, 'Aunt, shall I lock the door?' and Lady Leslie laughed at her and said, 'No, my dear;I am much too old-fashioned a person for that,' and forbade it. But as soon as Mrs. Rutherford saw that Lady Leslie was asleep, she slipped out of bed and turned the lock of the door. Then, leaning against the pillow, she watched, and watched the handle of the door.
"The reflection of the fire scintillated on the round brass handle of the door, and, as she watched, it almost seemed to mesmerise her, but she watched still. Suddenly the speck of light seemed to appear on theotherside; some one was evidently turning the handle of the door. Mrs. Rutherford rang the bell violently, her cousins rushed out of the next room, and she herself threw the door wide open, and there, at the door, stood the strange servant, the man she had seen in her dream, with a covered coal-scuttle in his hand. The cousins demanded why he was there. He said he thought he heard Lady Leslie's bell ring. They said, 'But you do not answer Lady Leslie's bell at this time in the night,' and they insisted upon opening the coal-scuttle. In it was a large knife.
"Then, as by sudden impulse, the man confessed. He knew Lady Leslie had received a large sum for her rents the day before, that she kept it in her room, and that it could not be sent away till the next day. 'The devil tempted me,' he said, 'the devil walked with me down the passage, and unless God had intervened, the devil would have forced me to cut Lady Leslie's throat.'
"The man was partially mad—but God had intervened."
JOURNAL(The Green Book).
"Holmhurst, July 27, 1862.—A gorgeous beautiful summer day at length, and it is our last here. To-morrow we go north. It has been a pleasant summer, and it will be a very bright one to look back upon. I have had the great delight of having Charlie Wood here for four days—days of endless conversations, outpourings of old griefs and joys, of little present thoughts and anxieties, of hopes and aspirations for the future, which I should not venture upon with any one else. And besides, we have had a succession of visitors, each of whom has enjoyed our home, whilst our little Holmhurst daily twines itself more and more round our own hearts. Sometimes I have a sort of inward trembling in thinking that I trace an additional or increasing degree of feebleness or age in my sweetest mother, but I do not think her ill now, and may go to the North with a confident feeling that it will be at the time which will suit her best, as she will have other friends with her with whom she would rather be alone. My sweet darling! what should I do without her? and how blank and black the whole world would seem! Yet even then I should bless God that this place, now consecrated by memories of her, would still be my home, and, in fulfilling her wishes, her designs, I should try to link the desolate present to the sunny past. I cannot be grateful enough for her power of bearing and rallying from great blows. The loss of Aunt Kitty in the spring, the impending loss of Aunt Esther, are furrows which God permits, but which He too smooths over. I have even the comfort offeeling that it would be thus in case of my own death, dreadful as that would be to her at the time."
Early in August I went with my mother for a long visit to Buntingsdale in Shropshire, the old pleasant friendly home of the Tayleurs. The master of the house, William Tayleur, had come very late into his property, after a long period of almost cruel repression during the life of his eccentric father; but, unlike most people, the late attainment of great wealth only made him full of anxiety that as many as possible should benefit by it, and he was the very soul of courtesy, hospitality, and generosity. With him lived his two delightful old sisters (already mentioned in the account of my childhood), emancipated when past fifty from a thraldom like that of the schoolroom. Of these, my mother's great friend, Harriet, was the younger—a most bright, animated, clever, and thoroughly excellent person, exceedingly popular in Shropshire society. The elder, Mary, was very delicate in health, but a very pretty, gentle old lady, who always wore an immense bonnet, ending in a long shade of the kind called "an ugly," so that people used to call her "the old lady down the telescope." Buntingsdale is one of the finesthouses in Shropshire, a large red brick mansion, with very handsome stone mouldings and pillars, and a most splendid flower-garden, bordered by a high terrace overlooking the little shining river Terne and its pretty watermeadows. I have seldom known my mother happier than during this visit. It touched her so much to find how she was considered by these faithful old friends—how, after many years' absence, all the people she wished to see were asked to meet her, yet all arranged with thoughtful care, so as to cause her the least possible amount of fatigue and emotion.
We went to Stoke to visit my grandfather's grave, and any of his old parishioners who wished to see my mother were bidden to meet her in the churchyard. There we found fourteen poor women and three old men waiting. To the changed Rectory she never looked. Then we were for some days at Hodnet, where Lady Valsamachi[212]was staying, and both at Hodnet and Hawkestone my mother was warmly welcomed by old friends. I was glad to have the opportunity of walking with her in the beautiful fields consecrated to her by recollections of her happy life long ago in intimacy with the Hebers. From Hodnet we went tospend a few days with Henry de Bunsen at Lilleshall Rectory, which had a charming garden, where all his parishioners were invited to walk on Sunday afternoons. Thence my mother returned home, and I went towards my northern work.
ToMYMOTHER."Weeping Cross, Stafford, August 21, 1862.—Miss Sarah Salt met me at the Stafford station, and drove me here—a moderate-sized house, simply furnished, but with the luxury of a cedar-wood ceiling, which smells delicious. Out of a window-seat in the low comfortable library rose the thin angular figure of Harriet Salt, speaking in the subdued powerless way of old. She had a huge cat with her, and an aunt—rather a pretty old lady. 'What is your aunt's name?' I said afterwards to Miss Sarah. 'Oh, Aunt Emma.'—'Yes, but what is her other name? what am I to call her?'—'Oh, call her Aunt Emma; she would never know herself by any other name.'—'And what do you do when your Aunt Emma Petit is here too?'-'Oh, she is only Aunt Emma, and this is the other Aunt Emma; so when Aunt Emma from Lichfield is here, and we want this one, we say, "Other Aunt Emma, will you come here?"'"After luncheon, we went out round the domain—paddocks with round plantations, and a good deal of garden. Miss Salt rode a white pony, we walked. Then the aunt mounted the pony, and she and MissSarah and I went a longer round, Miss Sarah breaking down the fences and pulling the pony through after her. 'Will not the farmers be angry?' I said. 'Oh, no; I threatened to have them up before the magistrates for stopping up a road, so we compromised; they are to have their road, and I am to break down their fences and go wherever I like, whether there is a road or not.'"At seven the clergyman and his wife came to dinner. I took in the aunt, a timid old lady, who seldom ventured a remark, and then in the most diffident manner. This was her first—'I think I may say, in fact I believe it has been often remarked, that Holland is a very flat country. I went there once, and it struck me that the observation was correct.' In the evening Miss Sarah looked at my drawings, and said, 'Well, on the whole, considering that they are totally unlike nature, I don't dislike them quite so much as I expected.'"We breakfasted this morning at half-past seven, summoned by a gong; Miss Sarah having said, 'At whatever hour of the day or night you hear that gong sound, you will know that you are expected to appearsomewhere.' She presided at the breakfast-table with a huge tabby-cat seated on her shoulder. 'Does not that cat often tear your dress?' I asked. 'No,' she replied, 'but it very often tears my face,' and went on pouring out the tea.""August 22.—Yesterday was hot and steamy, without a breath of air. Miss Sarah drove me and the clergyman's wife to Cannock Chase, a wild heathy upland, with groups of old firs and oaks, extendingunenclosed for fifteen miles, and surrounded by noblemen's houses and parks. Here we joined a picnic party of fifty people. English fashion, scarcely anybody spoke to anybody else, and the families sat together in groups. Afterwards the public played at 'Aunt Sally,' and I walked with Miss Salt and her friends Misses Anastasia and Theodosia Royd far over the moorlands. A ridiculous old gentleman went with us, who talked of 'mists, while they enhanced the merits of nature, obscuring the accuracy of vision.' He also assured us that whenever he saw a snake, he shut his eyes and cried 'Murder!' We mounted another hill for kettle-boiling and tea, and then danced country-dances to the sound of a fiddle. It was seven o'clock and the mists were rolling up from the hollows when we turned to go home. Mr. Salt was heard blowing a horn in the distance, which his daughter answered by a blast on her whistle, and so we found the carriage."
ToMYMOTHER.
"Weeping Cross, Stafford, August 21, 1862.—Miss Sarah Salt met me at the Stafford station, and drove me here—a moderate-sized house, simply furnished, but with the luxury of a cedar-wood ceiling, which smells delicious. Out of a window-seat in the low comfortable library rose the thin angular figure of Harriet Salt, speaking in the subdued powerless way of old. She had a huge cat with her, and an aunt—rather a pretty old lady. 'What is your aunt's name?' I said afterwards to Miss Sarah. 'Oh, Aunt Emma.'—'Yes, but what is her other name? what am I to call her?'—'Oh, call her Aunt Emma; she would never know herself by any other name.'—'And what do you do when your Aunt Emma Petit is here too?'-'Oh, she is only Aunt Emma, and this is the other Aunt Emma; so when Aunt Emma from Lichfield is here, and we want this one, we say, "Other Aunt Emma, will you come here?"'
"After luncheon, we went out round the domain—paddocks with round plantations, and a good deal of garden. Miss Salt rode a white pony, we walked. Then the aunt mounted the pony, and she and MissSarah and I went a longer round, Miss Sarah breaking down the fences and pulling the pony through after her. 'Will not the farmers be angry?' I said. 'Oh, no; I threatened to have them up before the magistrates for stopping up a road, so we compromised; they are to have their road, and I am to break down their fences and go wherever I like, whether there is a road or not.'
"At seven the clergyman and his wife came to dinner. I took in the aunt, a timid old lady, who seldom ventured a remark, and then in the most diffident manner. This was her first—'I think I may say, in fact I believe it has been often remarked, that Holland is a very flat country. I went there once, and it struck me that the observation was correct.' In the evening Miss Sarah looked at my drawings, and said, 'Well, on the whole, considering that they are totally unlike nature, I don't dislike them quite so much as I expected.'
"We breakfasted this morning at half-past seven, summoned by a gong; Miss Sarah having said, 'At whatever hour of the day or night you hear that gong sound, you will know that you are expected to appearsomewhere.' She presided at the breakfast-table with a huge tabby-cat seated on her shoulder. 'Does not that cat often tear your dress?' I asked. 'No,' she replied, 'but it very often tears my face,' and went on pouring out the tea."
"August 22.—Yesterday was hot and steamy, without a breath of air. Miss Sarah drove me and the clergyman's wife to Cannock Chase, a wild heathy upland, with groups of old firs and oaks, extendingunenclosed for fifteen miles, and surrounded by noblemen's houses and parks. Here we joined a picnic party of fifty people. English fashion, scarcely anybody spoke to anybody else, and the families sat together in groups. Afterwards the public played at 'Aunt Sally,' and I walked with Miss Salt and her friends Misses Anastasia and Theodosia Royd far over the moorlands. A ridiculous old gentleman went with us, who talked of 'mists, while they enhanced the merits of nature, obscuring the accuracy of vision.' He also assured us that whenever he saw a snake, he shut his eyes and cried 'Murder!' We mounted another hill for kettle-boiling and tea, and then danced country-dances to the sound of a fiddle. It was seven o'clock and the mists were rolling up from the hollows when we turned to go home. Mr. Salt was heard blowing a horn in the distance, which his daughter answered by a blast on her whistle, and so we found the carriage."
I am sorry not to find any letters recording the visit I paid after this to Mr. Petit, the ecclesiologist. He lived at Lichfield in a house built by Miss Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter. With him resided his three sisters and seven cats, who appeared at all meals as part of the family, and rejoiced in the names of "Bug, Woodlouse, Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel, Bezor, Rabshakeh, and Eva—'the mother of all the cats.'" Mr. Petit was mostextraordinary, but a very interesting companion. I had a capital sight of the cathedral with him, beautiful still, though sadly "jemmyfied" by Scott, who has added some immense statues in the choir which put everything out of proportion, and has put up a bastard-gothic metal screen. At the end of an aisle is Chantrey's monument of the two Robinson children. One of them was burnt to death in reaching to get from the chimney-piece the snowdrops represented in her hand; the other died of consumption caused by too much rowing. When I was at Lichfield their mother was still living there with her third husband.
We went up Borrow Copp, a charming mound near the town, crowned by a chapel-like summer-house. Here the three Saxon kings are supposed to be buried whose bodies are represented in the arms of Lichfield.
The Petits are Petits des Etampes, and were refugees from Caen. They had a valuable miniature of Mary Queen of Scots by Bernard Lens, from their family connection with the Guises. Far more extraordinary than any other house I have ever seen was their country place of—"Bumblekite Hall!"
ToMYMOTHER."Ripley Castle, August 28, 1862.—In coming down to dinner, I found a tall distinguished-looking lady upon the staircase, with whom I made friends at once as Charlie Wood's aunt, Lady Georgiana Grey. This afternoon I went with her and Miss Ingilby to Knaresborough, a town with stone roofs on a height above the Nid, crowned by the ruins of the castle which contains the vaulted dungeon where the murderers of Thomas à Becket were confined. Below the castle is the public-house called 'Mother Shipton,' bearing her picture and the inscription—'Near to this petrifying wellI first drew breath, as records tell.'Through the inn—kept "by one 'Almeda Burgess'—is a walk by the wooded bank of the river to the petrifying well, which is highly picturesque. The water falls from an overhanging umbrella-like cliff into a deep basin. A chain of stuffed birds is hung up for petrifaction, taking from twelve to fifteen months to turn into stone: bird's-nests take twelve months."Also in the valley of the Nid, on the east of the town, is St. Robert's Cave, excavated, as the guide told us, by St. Robert, 'a gentleman who wished to live very retired.' This was the place where the body of Clarke was discovered, which led to the execution of Eugene Aram. It is a most curious story."Eugene was the son of Peter Aram, who was head-gardener at Ripley Castle, and very respectable. But, together with two others, Housman and Clarke, Eugenearranged a curious scheme of robbery. They gave out that they were going to give a grand supper, and borrowed a quantity of plate, which they made away with, and on the night of the supposed supper Eugene and Housman murdered Clarke, that it might be supposed, when he was not forthcoming, that he alone was the robber. Afterwards Eugene went at night to Housman's house and talked over what was to be done. Before they left he said, 'If your wife is in bed upstairs, she must have heard us; we must make this secure,' and they went up intending to murder her if she was awake, but they passed the candle before her eyes, and she bore it without flinching. Then they went down again and burnt the clothes of the murdered man. Only the buttons fell uninjured amongst the cinders, and were found next morning by the wife. Afterwards, whenever she had a quarrel with her husband, she frightened him by saying, 'How about those buttons?'"Housman and Aram buried the body in St. Robert's Cave, which was then filled with earth. Brushwood and briars grew over it, and no trace was left; but the murderers had a perpetual dread that some day the Nid would rise and lay the body bare, and whenever there was a very high wind, Housman for years used to go to see that it was not uncovered."Eugene Aram went away to Norfolk, where he prospered exceedingly, and 'visited with the best families.' But fourteen years after the murder, some workmen digging in St. Robert's Cave found a skeleton. 'I shouldn't wonder if this were Clarke,' said one of them. 'No, it is not,' said one of his companions,and this led to his arrest. It was Housman. He then confessed to the murder, and said that Eugene Aram was his accomplice; but Eugene Aram was gone."It happened, however, that a Knaresborough pedlar, in his walks through Norfolk, accidentally recognised Eugene Aram in a garden. On his return home, he gave notice to the constables, who went to Norfolk and fetched him away, and he was executed. The murder took place in 1745, the execution in 1759. It is said that after the murder Eugene never gave his right hand to any one. After he was executed, the 'finger of scorn pointed at his family,' and they went to America. The mother of the old woman who showed us the cave knew Clarke's widow intimately."A letter of Eugene Aram is preserved at Ripley Castle.[213]There were many letters there from Peter Aram, his father, but they were destroyed by the late Lady Ingilby, because they were 'so wicked and blasphemous.' The chief point against Eugene Aram was that, when he was discovered, a defence was found which he had written twelve years before: this is made use of in Bulwer's novel."In the evening something was said about many ghost-stories being the result of a practical joke. Lady Georgiana Grey, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly rose—awful almost with her white face and long black velvet dress—and exclaimed, 'If any one everdaredto play a practical joke upon me,allmyfortune,allmy energies, my wholelifewould be insufficient to work my revenge.' And she swept out of the room. They say it is because of the Grey story about a head. Lady Georgiana first saw the head, when she was in bed in Hanover Square, in the autumn of 1823. She rushed for refuge to her mother's room, where she remained all night. Lady Grey desired her on no account to mention what she had seen to her father. But a fortnight later Lord Grey came into the room where Lady Georgiana was sitting with her mother and sister, much agitated, saying that he had just seen a head roll towards him.""Ripley Castle, August 30.—The old Ladies Ruthven and Belhaven came to-day. They appear to have spent their lives in an atmosphere of dukes, but are very simple great ladies, chiefly interested by art and artists, and draw well themselves. Lady Belhaven is allowed by her husband to be with her sister now because of the odd illness of the latter, an invincible sleeplessness, which makes her very peculiar, and gives her a habit of talking to herself in a low murmur, however many people are around her. Rather to my alarm, I had to take her in to dinner, and as she is very deaf, to talk to her the whole time at the pitch of my voice; but we got on very well notwithstanding, so well indeed, that before the fish had been taken away she had asked me to come to stay with her at her castle in Scotland. As soon as dinner was over she made me bring my portfolio and sit the whole evening talking to her about my drawings. However,I was very glad of it, as, when she went to bed, she said, 'I have been so very happy this evening.'"September 1.—Saturday was a dismally wet day. We sat in the oak parlour, drew, and told stories. Lady Ruthven has lived many years at Athens, and four years—winter and summer—at Rome, and in summer used to study 'Roma Adombrata,' which taught her how to walk in the shade. On Sundays she invited all the artists, who never went to church, to her house, and 'read them a sermon, poor things, for the good of their souls.'"She used when at Rome to go to 'La toilette des pieds' of Pauline Borghese. Regular invitations were issued for it. When the guests arrived, they found the Princess—supremely lovely—with her beautiful little white feet exposed upon a velvet cushion. Then two or three maids came in, and touched the feet with a sponge and dusted them with a little powder—'ç'était la toilette des pieds.' The Duke of Hamilton used to take up one of the little feet and put it inside his waistcoat 'like a little bird.' ... Lady Ruthven and all her household are still wearing mourning for Lord Ruthven, who died seven years ago."The people here are full of quaint character, especially two brothers 'Johnny and Jacky.' Said Johnny to Jacky the other day, 'I've found a saxpence.'—'That's moine,' said Jacky, 'for I've lost un.'—'Had thoine a haule in it?' said Johnny.—'Ees,' said Jacky.—'Then this ain't thoine,' said Johnny, 'for there's na haule in't.'"Mrs. Ingilby herself is perfection—so refined and agreeable. No one would believe, when they see how admirably and unaffectedly she manages the castle and £20,000 a year, that seven years ago she and her husband lived in a Lincolnshire cottage with only £300 a year of income."Lady Georgiana Grey told me a curious story of some friends of hers."Lady Pennyman and her daughters took a house at Lille. The day after they arrived they went to order some things from a warehouse in the town, and gave their address. 'What,' said the man, 'are you living there, ma'am? Did I not misunderstand you?'—'Yes,' said Lady Pennyman, 'that is where I live. Is there anything against the place?'"'Oh dear, no, ma'am,' said the warehouseman; 'only the house has been for a long time without being let, because they say it's haunted.' Going home, Lady Pennyman laughed to her daughters, and said, 'Well, we shall see if the ghost will frightenusaway.'"But the next morning Lady Pennyman's maid came to her and said, 'If you please, ma'am, Mrs. Crowder and me must change our rooms. We can't remain where we are, ma'am; it's quite impossible. The ghost, he makes such a noise over our heads, we can get no sleep at all.'—'Well, you can change your room,' said Lady Pennyman; 'but what is there over your room where you sleep? I will go and see;' and she found a very long gallery, quite empty except for a huge iron cage, in which it was evident that a human being had been confined."A few days after, a friend, a lady living in Lille, came to dine with them. She was a very strong-minded person, and when she heard of the servants' alarm, she said, 'Oh, Lady Pennyman, do let me sleep in that room; I shall not be frightened, and if I sleep there, perhaps the ghost will be laid.' So she sent away her carriage and stayed; but the next morning she came down quite pale and haggard, and said certainly she had seen the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing opposite her bed, and yet the door was locked, and there could have been no real person there. A few days afterwards, towards evening, Lady Pennyman said to her daughter, 'Bessie, just go up and fetch the shawl which I left in my room.' Bessie went, and came down saying that as she went up she saw the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing on the flight of stairs opposite to her."One more attempt at explanation was made. A sailor son, just come from sea, was put to sleep in the room. When he came down in the morning, he was quite angry, and said, 'What did you think I was going to be up to, mother, that you had me watched? Why did you send that fellow in the dressing-gown to look after me?' The next day the Pennymans left the house."Lady Georgiana also told me:—"There was once a Bishop Thomas.[214]His mother one day awoke, having dreamt that her husband had fought a duel and was killed. She was much frightenedby her dream, and, having great influence over her husband, she persuaded him not to go out that day as usual, but to stay at home with her. They lived in Spring Gardens, and having stayed in all day, towards four o'clock Mr. Thomas began to repine, and to wish to go out and walk in the Park. Mrs. Thomas assented on condition of going with him, and they walked in the Park and enjoyed it very much. While they were out, they met an old Indian friend of Mr. Thomas, whom he had not seen for years, and was delighted to meet. They talked over old times and scenes with great avidity, and at last Mr. Thomas said that he would see his old friend back to his hotel. Mrs. Thomas, being tired, begged to be left at her own house on the way."Mrs. Thomas waited long for her husband's return. At last she heard a sound of many footsteps coming down the street, and a voice asking which was Mrs. Thomas's house. She rushed down saying, 'You need not tell me; I know what has happened,' and she found her dream realised. Mr. Thomas had gone back to the hotel with his friend. According to the custom of that time, they drank a good deal together: they quarrelled over their wine, they fought, and Mr. Thomas was killed. The child that was born afterwards was Bishop Thomas.""Middleton in Teesdale, Sept. 3.—Yesterday I went with the party at Ripley to Brimham Rocks, a most curious place—the rocks clustered in groups of enormous and fantastic forms on the very top of the Yorkshire range, and with a splendid view over thecountry, even York Minster appearing in the hazy distance."I slept at Barnard Castle last night, and set out at eight this morning for the Fells. It was gloomy and dismal, with mists gathering black over the distance, and constant rain falling; but there was no alternative. The valley of Upper Teesdale is in some ways like a valley in the Alps, the glaringly white farmhouses scattered thinly over the brilliantly green meadows, the hedgerows and trees replaced by low rugged stone walls, 'the Grass of Parnassus' springing up by the side of all the clear streams. The people are all 'kin' to one another, and are singularly honest and truthful. 'They are all sincere men in these parts,' said the guide, 'and if they tell you a tale, you may know it's because they're deceived.' We met a man on a horse. 'What a long cloak that man has,' I said. 'Yes,' answered the driver, 'but he's a good man and a just, and he fears God rather than men.'"The High Force is a truly grand waterfall, where the whole river tosses over a huge precipice in the black basaltic cliff. We left the gig at a little inn at Langdon Beck, whence we set out on a weary foot-pilgrimage—a most fatiguing walk of ten miles, over broken edges of scars, along the torrent-bed, through rushes and bogs and heather, and across loose slippery shale—all this too in ceaseless rain and wind, and with the burden of a thick Scotch cloak. But Cauldron Snout is a very curious waterfall, quite out in the desolate moorlands, with the Westmorland Fells looming behind it. I was completely wet through before we got there, and came back plunging from tuft to tuftof rushes in the boggy moorlands. At one time we took refuge in a shepherd's hut, where an old shepherd, with flowing white hair and horn spectacles, was reading the Bible to his grandchildren—a group like many pictures one has seen. Here my socks were dipped in hot water and put on again, the mountaineer's remedy against cold.""Ridley Hall, Sept. 7.—Yesterday Cousin Susan sent me to Bonnyrigg, Sir Edward Blackett's place in the moors—an enchanting drive, out of the inhabited country into the purple heather-land, where the desolate blue Northumbrian lakes lie at the foot of their huge precipitous crags. Bonnyrigg itself is embosomed in woods, yet surrounded on all sides by rock and moorland, and with a delightful view of Greenlea Lough. The Scotts were staying there, and I walked with the General[215]along the Roman Wall, high on the cliffs and running from crag to crag, as perfect in its 1600th year as in its first.""Chesters, Hexham, Sept. 10.—I came here yesterday. My aged hostess, the eldest sister of the Newcastle Clayton family, is of a most tall, weird figure, and speaks in an abrupt, energetic, startling manner, but she is the most perfectladyimaginable, both in feeling and manners, and her kindness and thoughtfulness and consideration for others make her beloved far and wide. Chesters is famous for its liberal unostentatious hospitality, and Miss Clayton alwayslives here, though it is her brother's place, and he resides at Newcastle. She reads everything, and is ready to talk on any subject, but her great hobby is Roman antiquities, and she is one of the best antiquarians in the North, which is only as it should be, as Cilurnum, one of the finest of the Roman stations, is here in the garden, where there is also a museum of Roman relics. This house is about the size of Hurstmonceaux Place,[216]and most thoroughly comfortable, with wide well-lighted galleries on each storey, filled with water-colour drawings by Richardson, with Roman antiquities, and curiosities of all kinds."This morning we were called at six, breakfasted at seven, and at half-past seven in the bright cold morning Miss Clayton herself drove me down to the train at Chollerford. A delightful journey brought me to Kielder, where, under the heather-clad hills, close to the Scottish Border, is the Duke of Northumberland's favourite castle and the scene of the beautiful ballad of the 'Cout of Kielder.' I wandered through the valley:—
ToMYMOTHER.
"Ripley Castle, August 28, 1862.—In coming down to dinner, I found a tall distinguished-looking lady upon the staircase, with whom I made friends at once as Charlie Wood's aunt, Lady Georgiana Grey. This afternoon I went with her and Miss Ingilby to Knaresborough, a town with stone roofs on a height above the Nid, crowned by the ruins of the castle which contains the vaulted dungeon where the murderers of Thomas à Becket were confined. Below the castle is the public-house called 'Mother Shipton,' bearing her picture and the inscription—
'Near to this petrifying wellI first drew breath, as records tell.'
Through the inn—kept "by one 'Almeda Burgess'—is a walk by the wooded bank of the river to the petrifying well, which is highly picturesque. The water falls from an overhanging umbrella-like cliff into a deep basin. A chain of stuffed birds is hung up for petrifaction, taking from twelve to fifteen months to turn into stone: bird's-nests take twelve months.
"Also in the valley of the Nid, on the east of the town, is St. Robert's Cave, excavated, as the guide told us, by St. Robert, 'a gentleman who wished to live very retired.' This was the place where the body of Clarke was discovered, which led to the execution of Eugene Aram. It is a most curious story.
"Eugene was the son of Peter Aram, who was head-gardener at Ripley Castle, and very respectable. But, together with two others, Housman and Clarke, Eugenearranged a curious scheme of robbery. They gave out that they were going to give a grand supper, and borrowed a quantity of plate, which they made away with, and on the night of the supposed supper Eugene and Housman murdered Clarke, that it might be supposed, when he was not forthcoming, that he alone was the robber. Afterwards Eugene went at night to Housman's house and talked over what was to be done. Before they left he said, 'If your wife is in bed upstairs, she must have heard us; we must make this secure,' and they went up intending to murder her if she was awake, but they passed the candle before her eyes, and she bore it without flinching. Then they went down again and burnt the clothes of the murdered man. Only the buttons fell uninjured amongst the cinders, and were found next morning by the wife. Afterwards, whenever she had a quarrel with her husband, she frightened him by saying, 'How about those buttons?'
"Housman and Aram buried the body in St. Robert's Cave, which was then filled with earth. Brushwood and briars grew over it, and no trace was left; but the murderers had a perpetual dread that some day the Nid would rise and lay the body bare, and whenever there was a very high wind, Housman for years used to go to see that it was not uncovered.
"Eugene Aram went away to Norfolk, where he prospered exceedingly, and 'visited with the best families.' But fourteen years after the murder, some workmen digging in St. Robert's Cave found a skeleton. 'I shouldn't wonder if this were Clarke,' said one of them. 'No, it is not,' said one of his companions,and this led to his arrest. It was Housman. He then confessed to the murder, and said that Eugene Aram was his accomplice; but Eugene Aram was gone.
"It happened, however, that a Knaresborough pedlar, in his walks through Norfolk, accidentally recognised Eugene Aram in a garden. On his return home, he gave notice to the constables, who went to Norfolk and fetched him away, and he was executed. The murder took place in 1745, the execution in 1759. It is said that after the murder Eugene never gave his right hand to any one. After he was executed, the 'finger of scorn pointed at his family,' and they went to America. The mother of the old woman who showed us the cave knew Clarke's widow intimately.
"A letter of Eugene Aram is preserved at Ripley Castle.[213]There were many letters there from Peter Aram, his father, but they were destroyed by the late Lady Ingilby, because they were 'so wicked and blasphemous.' The chief point against Eugene Aram was that, when he was discovered, a defence was found which he had written twelve years before: this is made use of in Bulwer's novel.
"In the evening something was said about many ghost-stories being the result of a practical joke. Lady Georgiana Grey, who had been sitting quietly, suddenly rose—awful almost with her white face and long black velvet dress—and exclaimed, 'If any one everdaredto play a practical joke upon me,allmyfortune,allmy energies, my wholelifewould be insufficient to work my revenge.' And she swept out of the room. They say it is because of the Grey story about a head. Lady Georgiana first saw the head, when she was in bed in Hanover Square, in the autumn of 1823. She rushed for refuge to her mother's room, where she remained all night. Lady Grey desired her on no account to mention what she had seen to her father. But a fortnight later Lord Grey came into the room where Lady Georgiana was sitting with her mother and sister, much agitated, saying that he had just seen a head roll towards him."
"Ripley Castle, August 30.—The old Ladies Ruthven and Belhaven came to-day. They appear to have spent their lives in an atmosphere of dukes, but are very simple great ladies, chiefly interested by art and artists, and draw well themselves. Lady Belhaven is allowed by her husband to be with her sister now because of the odd illness of the latter, an invincible sleeplessness, which makes her very peculiar, and gives her a habit of talking to herself in a low murmur, however many people are around her. Rather to my alarm, I had to take her in to dinner, and as she is very deaf, to talk to her the whole time at the pitch of my voice; but we got on very well notwithstanding, so well indeed, that before the fish had been taken away she had asked me to come to stay with her at her castle in Scotland. As soon as dinner was over she made me bring my portfolio and sit the whole evening talking to her about my drawings. However,I was very glad of it, as, when she went to bed, she said, 'I have been so very happy this evening.'
"September 1.—Saturday was a dismally wet day. We sat in the oak parlour, drew, and told stories. Lady Ruthven has lived many years at Athens, and four years—winter and summer—at Rome, and in summer used to study 'Roma Adombrata,' which taught her how to walk in the shade. On Sundays she invited all the artists, who never went to church, to her house, and 'read them a sermon, poor things, for the good of their souls.'
"She used when at Rome to go to 'La toilette des pieds' of Pauline Borghese. Regular invitations were issued for it. When the guests arrived, they found the Princess—supremely lovely—with her beautiful little white feet exposed upon a velvet cushion. Then two or three maids came in, and touched the feet with a sponge and dusted them with a little powder—'ç'était la toilette des pieds.' The Duke of Hamilton used to take up one of the little feet and put it inside his waistcoat 'like a little bird.' ... Lady Ruthven and all her household are still wearing mourning for Lord Ruthven, who died seven years ago.
"The people here are full of quaint character, especially two brothers 'Johnny and Jacky.' Said Johnny to Jacky the other day, 'I've found a saxpence.'—'That's moine,' said Jacky, 'for I've lost un.'—'Had thoine a haule in it?' said Johnny.—'Ees,' said Jacky.—'Then this ain't thoine,' said Johnny, 'for there's na haule in't.'
"Mrs. Ingilby herself is perfection—so refined and agreeable. No one would believe, when they see how admirably and unaffectedly she manages the castle and £20,000 a year, that seven years ago she and her husband lived in a Lincolnshire cottage with only £300 a year of income.
"Lady Georgiana Grey told me a curious story of some friends of hers.
"Lady Pennyman and her daughters took a house at Lille. The day after they arrived they went to order some things from a warehouse in the town, and gave their address. 'What,' said the man, 'are you living there, ma'am? Did I not misunderstand you?'—'Yes,' said Lady Pennyman, 'that is where I live. Is there anything against the place?'
"'Oh dear, no, ma'am,' said the warehouseman; 'only the house has been for a long time without being let, because they say it's haunted.' Going home, Lady Pennyman laughed to her daughters, and said, 'Well, we shall see if the ghost will frightenusaway.'
"But the next morning Lady Pennyman's maid came to her and said, 'If you please, ma'am, Mrs. Crowder and me must change our rooms. We can't remain where we are, ma'am; it's quite impossible. The ghost, he makes such a noise over our heads, we can get no sleep at all.'—'Well, you can change your room,' said Lady Pennyman; 'but what is there over your room where you sleep? I will go and see;' and she found a very long gallery, quite empty except for a huge iron cage, in which it was evident that a human being had been confined.
"A few days after, a friend, a lady living in Lille, came to dine with them. She was a very strong-minded person, and when she heard of the servants' alarm, she said, 'Oh, Lady Pennyman, do let me sleep in that room; I shall not be frightened, and if I sleep there, perhaps the ghost will be laid.' So she sent away her carriage and stayed; but the next morning she came down quite pale and haggard, and said certainly she had seen the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing opposite her bed, and yet the door was locked, and there could have been no real person there. A few days afterwards, towards evening, Lady Pennyman said to her daughter, 'Bessie, just go up and fetch the shawl which I left in my room.' Bessie went, and came down saying that as she went up she saw the figure of a young man in a dressing-gown standing on the flight of stairs opposite to her.
"One more attempt at explanation was made. A sailor son, just come from sea, was put to sleep in the room. When he came down in the morning, he was quite angry, and said, 'What did you think I was going to be up to, mother, that you had me watched? Why did you send that fellow in the dressing-gown to look after me?' The next day the Pennymans left the house.
"Lady Georgiana also told me:—
"There was once a Bishop Thomas.[214]His mother one day awoke, having dreamt that her husband had fought a duel and was killed. She was much frightenedby her dream, and, having great influence over her husband, she persuaded him not to go out that day as usual, but to stay at home with her. They lived in Spring Gardens, and having stayed in all day, towards four o'clock Mr. Thomas began to repine, and to wish to go out and walk in the Park. Mrs. Thomas assented on condition of going with him, and they walked in the Park and enjoyed it very much. While they were out, they met an old Indian friend of Mr. Thomas, whom he had not seen for years, and was delighted to meet. They talked over old times and scenes with great avidity, and at last Mr. Thomas said that he would see his old friend back to his hotel. Mrs. Thomas, being tired, begged to be left at her own house on the way.
"Mrs. Thomas waited long for her husband's return. At last she heard a sound of many footsteps coming down the street, and a voice asking which was Mrs. Thomas's house. She rushed down saying, 'You need not tell me; I know what has happened,' and she found her dream realised. Mr. Thomas had gone back to the hotel with his friend. According to the custom of that time, they drank a good deal together: they quarrelled over their wine, they fought, and Mr. Thomas was killed. The child that was born afterwards was Bishop Thomas."
"Middleton in Teesdale, Sept. 3.—Yesterday I went with the party at Ripley to Brimham Rocks, a most curious place—the rocks clustered in groups of enormous and fantastic forms on the very top of the Yorkshire range, and with a splendid view over thecountry, even York Minster appearing in the hazy distance.
"I slept at Barnard Castle last night, and set out at eight this morning for the Fells. It was gloomy and dismal, with mists gathering black over the distance, and constant rain falling; but there was no alternative. The valley of Upper Teesdale is in some ways like a valley in the Alps, the glaringly white farmhouses scattered thinly over the brilliantly green meadows, the hedgerows and trees replaced by low rugged stone walls, 'the Grass of Parnassus' springing up by the side of all the clear streams. The people are all 'kin' to one another, and are singularly honest and truthful. 'They are all sincere men in these parts,' said the guide, 'and if they tell you a tale, you may know it's because they're deceived.' We met a man on a horse. 'What a long cloak that man has,' I said. 'Yes,' answered the driver, 'but he's a good man and a just, and he fears God rather than men.'
"The High Force is a truly grand waterfall, where the whole river tosses over a huge precipice in the black basaltic cliff. We left the gig at a little inn at Langdon Beck, whence we set out on a weary foot-pilgrimage—a most fatiguing walk of ten miles, over broken edges of scars, along the torrent-bed, through rushes and bogs and heather, and across loose slippery shale—all this too in ceaseless rain and wind, and with the burden of a thick Scotch cloak. But Cauldron Snout is a very curious waterfall, quite out in the desolate moorlands, with the Westmorland Fells looming behind it. I was completely wet through before we got there, and came back plunging from tuft to tuftof rushes in the boggy moorlands. At one time we took refuge in a shepherd's hut, where an old shepherd, with flowing white hair and horn spectacles, was reading the Bible to his grandchildren—a group like many pictures one has seen. Here my socks were dipped in hot water and put on again, the mountaineer's remedy against cold."
"Ridley Hall, Sept. 7.—Yesterday Cousin Susan sent me to Bonnyrigg, Sir Edward Blackett's place in the moors—an enchanting drive, out of the inhabited country into the purple heather-land, where the desolate blue Northumbrian lakes lie at the foot of their huge precipitous crags. Bonnyrigg itself is embosomed in woods, yet surrounded on all sides by rock and moorland, and with a delightful view of Greenlea Lough. The Scotts were staying there, and I walked with the General[215]along the Roman Wall, high on the cliffs and running from crag to crag, as perfect in its 1600th year as in its first."
"Chesters, Hexham, Sept. 10.—I came here yesterday. My aged hostess, the eldest sister of the Newcastle Clayton family, is of a most tall, weird figure, and speaks in an abrupt, energetic, startling manner, but she is the most perfectladyimaginable, both in feeling and manners, and her kindness and thoughtfulness and consideration for others make her beloved far and wide. Chesters is famous for its liberal unostentatious hospitality, and Miss Clayton alwayslives here, though it is her brother's place, and he resides at Newcastle. She reads everything, and is ready to talk on any subject, but her great hobby is Roman antiquities, and she is one of the best antiquarians in the North, which is only as it should be, as Cilurnum, one of the finest of the Roman stations, is here in the garden, where there is also a museum of Roman relics. This house is about the size of Hurstmonceaux Place,[216]and most thoroughly comfortable, with wide well-lighted galleries on each storey, filled with water-colour drawings by Richardson, with Roman antiquities, and curiosities of all kinds.
"This morning we were called at six, breakfasted at seven, and at half-past seven in the bright cold morning Miss Clayton herself drove me down to the train at Chollerford. A delightful journey brought me to Kielder, where, under the heather-clad hills, close to the Scottish Border, is the Duke of Northumberland's favourite castle and the scene of the beautiful ballad of the 'Cout of Kielder.' I wandered through the valley:—
"Up to 'the bonny brae, the green,Yet sacred to the brave;Where still, of ancient size, is seenGigantic Kielder's grave.'Where weeps the birch with branches greenWithout the holy ground,Between two old grey stones is seenThe warrior's ridgy mound.'
Coming back, I left the train at Bellingham, and walked to Hesleyside, the fine place of the Roman Catholic Charltons, where the celebrated Charlton spur is preserved, which the lady of the house, in time of Border raids, used to serve up at dinner whenever she wished to indicate that her larder needed replenishing.""Chesters, Sept. 13.—On Thursday Miss Clayton drove me in her Irish car up North Tyne to Chipchase Castle, a noble old Jacobean house on a height, with a Norman tower, and afterwards to Simonburn and Tecket Lynn—a most picturesque waterfall through fern-fringed rocks; a very artistic 'subject,' too little known. Mr. John Clayton and Dr. Bruce arrived in the evening, and Roman antiquities became the order of the next day. We set off in a hurricane of cold wind, in the Irish car, along the Roman Wall, and spent the whole day amongst Roman remains, lunching at Hotbank Farm, where the Armstrongs live—last relics of the great mosstrooping family—inspiring a sort of clannish attachment still, as, when the last farmer died in 1859, two hundred mounted Borderers escorted him across the moorland to his grave."The great Roman station of Housesteads (Borcovicus) is a perfect English Pompeii of excavated houses and streets. Hence we clambered across stone walls and bogs for several miles to Sewing Shields, where Arthur and Guinevere and all their knights lie asleep in a basaltic cavern.... The Claytons are indescribably kind, and spare no pains to amuse, interest, and instruct me, and their horses seem as untirable.""Chesters, Sept. 15.—I am becoming increasingly attached to 'Aunt Saily,' who is always finding out all the good she can in her neighbours and guests, and doing everything possible to make the world bright and pleasant to them: being really so loving and gentle herself, she influences all around her. On Saturday she took me to Houghton Castle, one of the most perfect inhabited feudal fortresses in the county; and to-day to Fallowfield, where there is a Roman inscription on a grey rock—'the Written Rock'—in the moorland.""Otterburn, Sept. 18.—I left the train at Bellingham, where I found no further means of locomotion except a huge chariot with two horses. So, after going on a vain search for a cart to all the neighbouring farmhouses, I was obliged to engage it; but then there was another difficulty, for the key of the coach-house was lost, and I had to wait an hour till a smith could be brought to break it open. At length I set off in the great lumbering vehicle across the roughest moorland road imaginable—mere blocks of stone, scarcely chipped at all, with gates at every turn, over hideous barren moorland, no heather, only dead moss and blackened rushes and fern. It was like the drive in 'Rob Roy.' At last, in the gloaming, we drove over a rude bridge and up to this gothic castle, with terraces in front sloping down to the sullen Reedwater and barren deserted Fells. My host, Mr. James, has nine sons, of whom the two youngest, Charlie and Christie, are here now, and scamper on two little ponies all over the country. The whole family are inclined to abundantrude hospitality, and delight to entice visitors into these deserts. They have taken me to Elsdon, a curious desolate village in the hills, where the Baillies are rectors, and live in a dismal old castle, built to fortify the rector in mosstrooping times. It is a place quite out of the world, so very high up, that the coming of any chance stranger is quite an event: its people live entirely by keeping sheep and rearing geese in large flocks.""Matfen, Sept. 20.—We had a very long excursion from Otterburn on Thursday. In these high moorlands, thirty-five miles is thought nothing extraordinary, and we drove in a brilliant morning all up the course of the Reedwater, through rocky valleys and relics of ancient forest, and by the Roman station of High Rochester to the Scottish border, upon the famous Reedswire. Here we carried our baskets up the hills and picnicked just inside Scotland, looking over the Lammermoor Hills and the valley of Jedburgh to Edinburgh far in the hazy distance. I long for my mother in all these moorland scenes—such feasts of beauty to mind and eye. The next morning we walked to Troughend, the grim haunted house of the Border hero Percy Reed.[217]Then I went with 'Christie' to Percy's Cross, where Percy fell in the battle of Chevy Chase, and Witherington fought upon his stumps.[218]Altogether it is an enchanting neighbourhood, full of ballads and traditions.... I much enjoy, however, thecomparative rest at Matfen, nine or ten hours being the least time I was out any day at Chesters or Otterburn. Lady Blackett has been telling me a very curious story—from her personal knowledge."Mrs. Bulman went up from Northumberland to London, taking her little child with her. The evening after she arrived at her London house, she had occasion to go downstairs, and at the foot of the stairs passed a man talking to her maid; at that time she happened to have a bank-note in her hand. Afterwards she went upstairs again, and put her child to bed. In a little while she went up to see if it was comfortable. When she went into the room, the child was in bed, but appeared to be in rather an excited state, and said, 'Mama, I feel quite sure that there is somebody under the bed.' Mrs. Bulman said, 'Nonsense, my dear; there is nothing of the kind: only you are over-tired; so go to sleep, and do not think of anything else foolish;' and she went downstairs."I don't know what the child did then, but when Mrs. Bulman went up again, there was no one under the bed, but the window was open, and the lock of the desk on the table had been tried."Many years afterwards, Mrs. Bulman had occasion to visit a London prison. When she was going away, the governor came to her and said that there was a man there who was under sentence of death, and that he could not account for it, but, having seen Mrs. Bulman pass as she went into the prison, he was exceedingly importunate to be allowed to speak to her, if it were only for a moment. 'Well,' said Mrs. Bulman, 'if it will be any comfort to the poor man, I am sure I shallbe very glad to speak to him,' and she went to his cell. She did not recollect ever having seen the man before, but he said that as he was so soon to go into another world, it could not matter to him what he confessed now, and that he thought it might be some satisfaction to her to know what a very narrow escape she had once had of her life."He said he was in the house talking to her maid, having gone in to visit one of her servants, when she came downstairs with the bank-note in her hand, and that he could not say what tempted him, but that he had seized a knife and hidden himself behind a door till she passed on her way upstairs again. Then he found his way to her room and concealed himself under her bed. There he had heard her come in and put the child to bed and leave it, and then, amazed at the strangeness of his situation, he turned round. She came back, and he heard the child tell her that there was a man under the bed, and if at that moment she had looked under, he should have sprung out and murdered her. She did not, and afterwards hearing a noise downstairs, he thought it was better to make his escape, which he did by the window, leaving it open behind him.""Wallington, Sept. 24.—On the way here I stopped to see Belsay, the finest of the Border fortresses, a grand old gothic tower, standing in a beautiful garden and amongst fine trees."Opening from the enclosed courtyard, which now forms a great frescoed hall in the centre of this house of Wallington, are endless suites of huge rooms, onlypartly carpeted and thinly furnished with ugly last-century furniture, partly covered with faded tapestry. The last of these is 'the ghost-room,' and Wallington is still a haunted house: awful noises are heard all through the night; footsteps rush up and down the untrodden passages; wings flap and beat against the windows; bodiless people unpack and put away their things all night long, and invisible beings are felt to breathe over you as you lie in bed. I think my room quite horrid, and it opens into a long suite of desolate rooms by a door which has no fastening, so I have pushed the heavy dressing-table with its weighty mirror, &c., against it to keep out all the nasty things that might try to come in. Old Lady Trevelyan was a very wicked woman and a miser: she lived here for many years, and is believed to wander here still: her son, Sir Walter, has never been known to laugh."Sir Walter is a strange-looking being, with long hair and moustache, and an odd careless dress. He also has the reputation of being a miser.[219]He is a great teetotaller, and inveighs everywhere against wine and beer: I trembled as I ran the gauntlet of public opinion yesterday in accepting a glass of sherry. Lady Trevelyan is a great artist. She is a pleasant, bright little woman, with sparkling black eyes, who paints beautifully, is intimately acquainted with all the principal artists, imports baskets from Madeira and lace from Honiton, and sells them in Northumberland, and always sits upon the rug by preference."There is another strange being in the house. It is Mr. Wooster, who came to arrange the collection of shells four years ago, and has never gone away. He looks like a church-brass incarnated, and turns up his eyes when he speaks to you, till you see nothing but the whites. He also has a long trailing moustache, and in all things imitates, but caricatures, Sir Walter. What he does here nobody seems to know; the Trevelyans say he puts the shells to rights, but the shells cannot take four years to dust.""Sept. 26.—Such a curious place this is! and such curious people! I get on better with them now, and even Sir Walter is gruffly kind and grumpily amiable. As to information, he is a perfect mine, and he knows every book and ballad that ever was written, every story of local interest that ever was told, and every flower and fossil that ever was found—besides the great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers of everybody dead or alive. His conversation is so curious that I follow him about everywhere, and take notes under his nose, which he does not seem to mind in the least, but only says something more quaint and astonishing the next minute. Lady Trevelyan is equally unusual. She is abrupt to a degree, and contradicts everything. Her little black eyes twinkle with mirth all day long, though she says she is ill and has 'the most extraordinaryfeels;' she is 'sure no one ever had such extraordinary feels as she has.' She neverappears to attend to her house a bit, which is like the great desert with one or two little oases in it, where by good management you may possibly make yourself comfortable. She paints foxgloves in fresco and makes little sketches à la Ruskin in the tiniest of books—chiefly of pollard willows, which she declares are the most beautiful things in nature. To see pollard willows in perfection she spent six weeks last spring in the flattest parts of Holland, and thought it lovely—'the willows so fine and the boat-life so healthy.' 'Well, youwillgo to the bad,' she said to me yesterday, because I did not admire a miserable little drawing of Ruskin: my own sketches she thinks quite monstrous."We went the day before yesterday to Capheaton, the home of the Swinburnes, a very curious old house, and Sir John Swinburne, a very pleasing young miser, is coming to dinner to-day. Yesterday we went through fog and rain to Camphoe, Kirk Whelpington, and Little Harle, a fine inhabited castle. Sir Walter made me wade through the Wansbeck as we came back!""Sept. 28.—The more one knows Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan, the more one finds how, through all their peculiarities, they are to be liked and respected. Everything either of them says is worth hearing, and they are so full of information of every kind, that the time here has been all too short for hearing them talk.[220]On Thursday, Miss Ogle, the authoress of that charming novel 'A Lost Love,' came. She has lived here a great deal, and says the Wallington ghost is a lady with her head under her arm, who walks about at night. She has heard all the extraordinary rappings very often, and says they cannot be accounted for in any way, but she has never seen the lady."The library here is delightful, full of old topographical books and pamphlets; and sleek Mr. Wooster, with whites of his eyes turned up to the skies, is always at hand to find for you anything you want."On Friday Sir Walter took me a long drive through the beautiful forest-land called the Trench, and by Rothley Crags to Netherwitton, where the Raleigh Trevelyans live. Mrs. Raleigh Trevelyan, a stately and beautiful old lady, is the direct descendant of the Witherington who fought upon his stumps. She has pictures of Lord Derwentwater and his brother, and one of her ancestors concealed Simon, Lord Lovat, in his house for months: the closet where he was hidden is still to be seen, and very curious. Then we went to Long Witton, to Mrs. Spencer Trevelyan, a great botanist and eccentric person, who breakfasts at six, dines at twelve, teas at four, and goes to bed at seven o'clock."Yesterday Miss Ogle and I went to Harnham, where Mrs. Catherine Babington, a famous Puritan lady who was excommunicated, is buried in the rock; to Shortflat Tower, the old peel castle of the Dents; and to the Poind and his Man, Druidical antiquities, and Shaftoe Crag, a beautiful wild cliff overgrown with heather. The country round this is singularly interesting—the view from the church (Cambo), wherewe have just been, quite beautiful over the endless waves of distant hill."WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET.WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET."Warkworth, Oct. 2.—My mother will like to think of me with the Clutterbucks in this charming sunny old house, the most perfect contrast to Wellington; but if Sir Walter saw his house papered and furnished like those of other people's, he would certainly pine away from excess of luxury. I have spent two days with the Ogles, whom we have often met abroad, with their dark handsome daughters—dark, people say,because their grandmother was a Spaniard. They are proud of their supposed Spanish blood, and when Isabel Ogle married George Clayton, all her sisters followed in longblacklace veils. Near their modern house is the old moated family castle of Ogle.""St. Michael's Vicarage, Alnwick, Oct. 4.—I have been kindly received here by the Court Granvilles: he is a fiery, impetuous little man; she (Lady Charlotte) a sister of the Duke of Athole. The Duke of Northumberland sent for me to his hot room at the castle, where he sits almost immovable, fingers and toes swollen with gout, and talked a great deal about the importance of my work, the difficulty of getting accurate information, &c.; but I do not think he heard a word that I said in reply, for when he has the gout he is almost quite deaf. Then he sent for the Duchess, who good-naturedly knotted her pocket-handkerchief round her throat, and went through all the rooms to show me the pictures. We went again to dinner—only Sir Cresswell Cresswell, the famous judge, there, and Lady Alvanley, sister of the Duke of Cleveland. Sir Cresswell was most amusing in describing how, when a lady was being conveyed in a sedan-chair to a party at Northumberland House, the bottom fell out, and, as she shouted in vain to make her bearers hear, she was obliged to run as fast as she could all the way through the mire inside the shell of the chair.""Blenkinsopp Castle, Oct. 11.—This is the castellated house of the Coulsons, in the upper part of South Tyne Valley—very large and comfortable. The owner,Colonel Coulson, is a great invalid, and his daughter-in-law, a daughter of Lord Byron, does the honours. We have made pleasant excursions to Gilsland Spa, and to Llanercost and Naworth, the latter—externally a magnificent feudal castle—the home of Belted Will Howard in mosstrooping times.""Bamborough Castle, Oct. 17.—How enchanting it is in this grand old castle looking out on the sea, with all the Farne Islands stretched out as on a map. I think even the Mediterranean is scarcely such a beautiful sea as this, the waves are so enormous and have such gorgeous colouring. I have had delightful walks with the dear old cousin on the sands, and to Spindleston, where the famous dragon lived.""Winton Castle, Tranent, Oct. 17, Evening.—As my mother will see, I have come here for holidays, and shall be glad of a day or two in which the mind is not kept in perpetual tension. I heard from Lady Ruthven that I was to meet Lord Belhaven at Prestonpans station, and had no doubt which was he—an old gentleman in a white hat with white hair and hooked nose. We drove here together, and very pleasant it was to exchange the pouring rain without for the large, low, old-fashioned drawing-room, with a splendid ceiling and sculptured chimney, thick Indian carpets, and fine old pictures and china. Soon Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven came in, calling out 'welcome' as they entered the room. The other guests are Lady Arthur Lennox and her youngest daughter, who looks, as Lady Ruthven says, 'just like a Watteau;' alsoLord Leven, cousin of our hostess, and Miss Fletcher of Saltoun."WINTON CASTLE.WINTON CASTLE."Winton Castle, Oct. 20.—When I awoke on Saturday, I was surprised to see a fine old tower opposite my windows, with high turrets and richly-carved chimneys and windows; but the castle has been miserably added to. Lady Ruthven is most original, with a wonderfully poetical mind, and is very different from her regal-looking sister, Lady Belhaven, who, still very handsome, sweeps about the long rooms, and for whom 'gracious'is the only befitting expression. All the guests are pushed together by Lady Ruthven in a way which makes it impossible that they should not be intimate. For instance, as we went in to breakfast on Saturday, she said, 'Now, Mr. Hare, you are to sit next to Lord Leven, for you will not see any more of him; so mind you devote yourselves to one another all breakfast time.'"On Saturday we all went to luncheon at Saltoun, the great place of the neighbourhood, where Mr. Fletcher lives, whose wife, Lady Charlotte, is one of Lady Ruthven's nieces. It is a large, stately, modern castle, containing a fine library and curious MSS. The tables were loaded with 'loot' from the Summer Palace in China."Yesterday we all went at twelve o'clock to the Presbyterian church at Pencaitland, one of the oldest in Scotland. The singing was beautiful, and we had an admirable sermon from the minister, Mr. Rioch, who came in the evening and made a very long 'exposition' to the servants.""Oct. 21.—The Mount-Edgecumbes and I went to-day with Lady Ruthven to Gosford—her nephew Lord Wemyss's place, near the sea. I walked for some time in the shrubberies with Lady Mount-Edgecumbe, till we were sent for into the house. There we found old Lady Wemyss with her daughter, Lady Louisa Wells, and her daughter-in-law, Lady Elcho. The last is a celebrated beauty, and has been celebrated also for fulfilling the part of 'Justice' in a famous tableau. In ordinary life she is perfectly statuesque, with a frigidmanner. She was very kind, however, and took us over the house, full of works of art, of which we had not time to see a tenth part, but there is a grand Pordenone.""North Berwick, Oct. 23.—It has been charming to be here again with dear Mrs. Dalzel.... What a quaint place it is. Formerly every one who lived in North Berwick was a Dalrymple: there were nine families of Dalrymples, and seventeen Miss Dalrymples, old maids: the only street in the town was Quality Street, and all its houses were occupied by Dalrymples. North Berwick supported itself formerly upon its herring-fishery, and it is sadly conducive to strict Sabbatarianism that the herrings have totally disappeared, and the place become poverty-stricken, since an occasion in the spring when the fishers went out on a Sunday.""Kings Meadows, Oct. 25.—This comfortable house of kind old Sir Adam Hay is close to Peebles. 'As quiet as Peebles or the grave,' is a proverb. The Baillie, however, does not think so. He went to Paris, and when he came back, all his neighbours were longing to know his impressions. 'Eh, it's just a grand place, but Peebles for pleasure,' he said. Ultra-Sabbatarianism reigns supreme. An old woman's son whistled on a Sunday. 'Eh, I could just put up wi' a wee swearing, but I canna thole whistling on the Sabbath,' she lamented. Another woman, being invited to have some more at a dinner given to some of the poor, answered, 'No, thank ye, mum, I won't have any more, mum; the sufficiency that I have had is enough for me.'""Wishaw House, Motherwell, Oct. 27.—When I came here, I found Lord and Lady Belhaven alone, but a large party arrived soon afterwards, who have since been admirably shaken together by their hostess. The place is almost in the Black Country, but is charming nevertheless. A rushing river, the Calder, dashes through the rocky glen below the castle, under a tall ivy-covered bridge, and through woods now perfectly gorgeous with the crimson and golden tints of autumn. Above, on either side, are hanging walks, and in the depth of the glen an old-fashioned garden with a stone fountain, clipped yew-trees, and long straight grass walks."We have been taken to Brainscleugh, a wonderful little place belonging to Lady Ruthven—a sort of Louis XIV. villa, overhanging the river Avon by a series of quaint terraces, with moss-grown staircases and fountains—more like something at Albano than in Scotland. Miss Melita Ponsonby, Sir Charles Cuffe, and I walked on hence to the old Hamilton Chase, full of oaks which have stood there since the Conquest, and part of the forest which once extended across Scotland from one sea to the other. It poured with rain, but we reached the place where the eighty wild milk-white cattle were feeding together. Then we pursued the rest of the party to Hamilton Palace, which is like a monster London house—Belgrave Square covered in and brought into the country. There are endless pictures, amongst them an awful representation of Daniel in an agony of prayer in the lions' den. 'It is no wonder the lions were afraid of him,' the Duchess of Hamilton overheard one of thecrowd say as they were being shown round. In the park is a huge domed edifice something like the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna. It was erected by the last Duke for himself, his son, grandson, and his nine predecessors. 'What a grand sight it will be,' he said, 'when twelve Dukes of Hamilton rise together here at the Resurrection!' He lies himself just under the dome, upon a pavement of coloured marbles and inside the sarcophagus of an Egyptian queen, withherimage painted and sculptured outside. He had this sarcophagus brought from Thebes, and used frequently to lie down in it to see how it fitted. It is made of Egyptian syenite, the hardest of all stones, and could not be altered; but when dying he was so haunted by the idea that his body might be too long to go inside the queen, that his last words were, 'Double me up! double me up!' The last drive he took had been to buy spices for his own embalming. After he was dead, no amount of doubling could get him into the mummy-case, and they had to cut off his feet to do it![221]The mausoleum is a most strange place, and as you enter mysterious voices seem to be whispering and clamouring together in the height of the dome; and when the door bangs, it is as if all the demons in the Inferno were let loose, and the shriekings and screamings around you are perfectly terrific. Beneath lie all the house of Hamilton in their crimson coffins, which you survey by the light of a single tallow candle."Yesterday I went to Dalzell, the old fortified houseof the Hamiltons, and we have also been taken to the Falls of the Clyde at Stonebyres, which were magnificent, the river tossing wildly through woods which now have all the gorgeous colouring of an Indian autumn.""Ford Cottage, Nov. 5.—This is a charming little house, nestling at the foot of the castle-hill, and it has been an amusement to Lady Waterford to fit it up temporarily with the most interesting contents of the castle. The walls are hung with beautiful pictures and the rooms furnished with ivory and ebony cabinets, quantities of old china, tall glasses piled with ferns and flowers, old-fashioned tables and deep velvet arm-chairs. She will be here for another year probably, and thoroughly enjoys the life, saying that she never knew what it was to have a garden before."Dear old Lady Stuart is here in her deep mourning, and Lady Waterford, now her only remaining child, has been more closely united to her mother than ever since Lady Canning's death.[222]"Lady Waterford is indeed perfectly delightful—brimming with originality and enthusiasm, and with the power—which so few people have—of putting all her wonderfully poetical thoughts into words, and so letting others have the benefit of them. Sometimes she will sit down to the pianoforte and sing in the most thrilling way—Handel or Beethoven, or old Spanish ballads—without having the music or words beforeher. At others she will draw, suddenly and at once, the beautiful inspirations which come to her. Last night it was a lovely child crowned and sporting with flowers, and four other sweet little maidens dancing round her with garlands; it was from the childhood of Mary Queen of Scots and her four Maries. She is never tired of hearing ofpeople; she says she sees so few and knows so little of them now—placesshe does not care to hear about.
Coming back, I left the train at Bellingham, and walked to Hesleyside, the fine place of the Roman Catholic Charltons, where the celebrated Charlton spur is preserved, which the lady of the house, in time of Border raids, used to serve up at dinner whenever she wished to indicate that her larder needed replenishing."
"Chesters, Sept. 13.—On Thursday Miss Clayton drove me in her Irish car up North Tyne to Chipchase Castle, a noble old Jacobean house on a height, with a Norman tower, and afterwards to Simonburn and Tecket Lynn—a most picturesque waterfall through fern-fringed rocks; a very artistic 'subject,' too little known. Mr. John Clayton and Dr. Bruce arrived in the evening, and Roman antiquities became the order of the next day. We set off in a hurricane of cold wind, in the Irish car, along the Roman Wall, and spent the whole day amongst Roman remains, lunching at Hotbank Farm, where the Armstrongs live—last relics of the great mosstrooping family—inspiring a sort of clannish attachment still, as, when the last farmer died in 1859, two hundred mounted Borderers escorted him across the moorland to his grave.
"The great Roman station of Housesteads (Borcovicus) is a perfect English Pompeii of excavated houses and streets. Hence we clambered across stone walls and bogs for several miles to Sewing Shields, where Arthur and Guinevere and all their knights lie asleep in a basaltic cavern.... The Claytons are indescribably kind, and spare no pains to amuse, interest, and instruct me, and their horses seem as untirable."
"Chesters, Sept. 15.—I am becoming increasingly attached to 'Aunt Saily,' who is always finding out all the good she can in her neighbours and guests, and doing everything possible to make the world bright and pleasant to them: being really so loving and gentle herself, she influences all around her. On Saturday she took me to Houghton Castle, one of the most perfect inhabited feudal fortresses in the county; and to-day to Fallowfield, where there is a Roman inscription on a grey rock—'the Written Rock'—in the moorland."
"Otterburn, Sept. 18.—I left the train at Bellingham, where I found no further means of locomotion except a huge chariot with two horses. So, after going on a vain search for a cart to all the neighbouring farmhouses, I was obliged to engage it; but then there was another difficulty, for the key of the coach-house was lost, and I had to wait an hour till a smith could be brought to break it open. At length I set off in the great lumbering vehicle across the roughest moorland road imaginable—mere blocks of stone, scarcely chipped at all, with gates at every turn, over hideous barren moorland, no heather, only dead moss and blackened rushes and fern. It was like the drive in 'Rob Roy.' At last, in the gloaming, we drove over a rude bridge and up to this gothic castle, with terraces in front sloping down to the sullen Reedwater and barren deserted Fells. My host, Mr. James, has nine sons, of whom the two youngest, Charlie and Christie, are here now, and scamper on two little ponies all over the country. The whole family are inclined to abundantrude hospitality, and delight to entice visitors into these deserts. They have taken me to Elsdon, a curious desolate village in the hills, where the Baillies are rectors, and live in a dismal old castle, built to fortify the rector in mosstrooping times. It is a place quite out of the world, so very high up, that the coming of any chance stranger is quite an event: its people live entirely by keeping sheep and rearing geese in large flocks."
"Matfen, Sept. 20.—We had a very long excursion from Otterburn on Thursday. In these high moorlands, thirty-five miles is thought nothing extraordinary, and we drove in a brilliant morning all up the course of the Reedwater, through rocky valleys and relics of ancient forest, and by the Roman station of High Rochester to the Scottish border, upon the famous Reedswire. Here we carried our baskets up the hills and picnicked just inside Scotland, looking over the Lammermoor Hills and the valley of Jedburgh to Edinburgh far in the hazy distance. I long for my mother in all these moorland scenes—such feasts of beauty to mind and eye. The next morning we walked to Troughend, the grim haunted house of the Border hero Percy Reed.[217]Then I went with 'Christie' to Percy's Cross, where Percy fell in the battle of Chevy Chase, and Witherington fought upon his stumps.[218]Altogether it is an enchanting neighbourhood, full of ballads and traditions.... I much enjoy, however, thecomparative rest at Matfen, nine or ten hours being the least time I was out any day at Chesters or Otterburn. Lady Blackett has been telling me a very curious story—from her personal knowledge.
"Mrs. Bulman went up from Northumberland to London, taking her little child with her. The evening after she arrived at her London house, she had occasion to go downstairs, and at the foot of the stairs passed a man talking to her maid; at that time she happened to have a bank-note in her hand. Afterwards she went upstairs again, and put her child to bed. In a little while she went up to see if it was comfortable. When she went into the room, the child was in bed, but appeared to be in rather an excited state, and said, 'Mama, I feel quite sure that there is somebody under the bed.' Mrs. Bulman said, 'Nonsense, my dear; there is nothing of the kind: only you are over-tired; so go to sleep, and do not think of anything else foolish;' and she went downstairs.
"I don't know what the child did then, but when Mrs. Bulman went up again, there was no one under the bed, but the window was open, and the lock of the desk on the table had been tried.
"Many years afterwards, Mrs. Bulman had occasion to visit a London prison. When she was going away, the governor came to her and said that there was a man there who was under sentence of death, and that he could not account for it, but, having seen Mrs. Bulman pass as she went into the prison, he was exceedingly importunate to be allowed to speak to her, if it were only for a moment. 'Well,' said Mrs. Bulman, 'if it will be any comfort to the poor man, I am sure I shallbe very glad to speak to him,' and she went to his cell. She did not recollect ever having seen the man before, but he said that as he was so soon to go into another world, it could not matter to him what he confessed now, and that he thought it might be some satisfaction to her to know what a very narrow escape she had once had of her life.
"He said he was in the house talking to her maid, having gone in to visit one of her servants, when she came downstairs with the bank-note in her hand, and that he could not say what tempted him, but that he had seized a knife and hidden himself behind a door till she passed on her way upstairs again. Then he found his way to her room and concealed himself under her bed. There he had heard her come in and put the child to bed and leave it, and then, amazed at the strangeness of his situation, he turned round. She came back, and he heard the child tell her that there was a man under the bed, and if at that moment she had looked under, he should have sprung out and murdered her. She did not, and afterwards hearing a noise downstairs, he thought it was better to make his escape, which he did by the window, leaving it open behind him."
"Wallington, Sept. 24.—On the way here I stopped to see Belsay, the finest of the Border fortresses, a grand old gothic tower, standing in a beautiful garden and amongst fine trees.
"Opening from the enclosed courtyard, which now forms a great frescoed hall in the centre of this house of Wallington, are endless suites of huge rooms, onlypartly carpeted and thinly furnished with ugly last-century furniture, partly covered with faded tapestry. The last of these is 'the ghost-room,' and Wallington is still a haunted house: awful noises are heard all through the night; footsteps rush up and down the untrodden passages; wings flap and beat against the windows; bodiless people unpack and put away their things all night long, and invisible beings are felt to breathe over you as you lie in bed. I think my room quite horrid, and it opens into a long suite of desolate rooms by a door which has no fastening, so I have pushed the heavy dressing-table with its weighty mirror, &c., against it to keep out all the nasty things that might try to come in. Old Lady Trevelyan was a very wicked woman and a miser: she lived here for many years, and is believed to wander here still: her son, Sir Walter, has never been known to laugh.
"Sir Walter is a strange-looking being, with long hair and moustache, and an odd careless dress. He also has the reputation of being a miser.[219]He is a great teetotaller, and inveighs everywhere against wine and beer: I trembled as I ran the gauntlet of public opinion yesterday in accepting a glass of sherry. Lady Trevelyan is a great artist. She is a pleasant, bright little woman, with sparkling black eyes, who paints beautifully, is intimately acquainted with all the principal artists, imports baskets from Madeira and lace from Honiton, and sells them in Northumberland, and always sits upon the rug by preference.
"There is another strange being in the house. It is Mr. Wooster, who came to arrange the collection of shells four years ago, and has never gone away. He looks like a church-brass incarnated, and turns up his eyes when he speaks to you, till you see nothing but the whites. He also has a long trailing moustache, and in all things imitates, but caricatures, Sir Walter. What he does here nobody seems to know; the Trevelyans say he puts the shells to rights, but the shells cannot take four years to dust."
"Sept. 26.—Such a curious place this is! and such curious people! I get on better with them now, and even Sir Walter is gruffly kind and grumpily amiable. As to information, he is a perfect mine, and he knows every book and ballad that ever was written, every story of local interest that ever was told, and every flower and fossil that ever was found—besides the great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers of everybody dead or alive. His conversation is so curious that I follow him about everywhere, and take notes under his nose, which he does not seem to mind in the least, but only says something more quaint and astonishing the next minute. Lady Trevelyan is equally unusual. She is abrupt to a degree, and contradicts everything. Her little black eyes twinkle with mirth all day long, though she says she is ill and has 'the most extraordinaryfeels;' she is 'sure no one ever had such extraordinary feels as she has.' She neverappears to attend to her house a bit, which is like the great desert with one or two little oases in it, where by good management you may possibly make yourself comfortable. She paints foxgloves in fresco and makes little sketches à la Ruskin in the tiniest of books—chiefly of pollard willows, which she declares are the most beautiful things in nature. To see pollard willows in perfection she spent six weeks last spring in the flattest parts of Holland, and thought it lovely—'the willows so fine and the boat-life so healthy.' 'Well, youwillgo to the bad,' she said to me yesterday, because I did not admire a miserable little drawing of Ruskin: my own sketches she thinks quite monstrous.
"We went the day before yesterday to Capheaton, the home of the Swinburnes, a very curious old house, and Sir John Swinburne, a very pleasing young miser, is coming to dinner to-day. Yesterday we went through fog and rain to Camphoe, Kirk Whelpington, and Little Harle, a fine inhabited castle. Sir Walter made me wade through the Wansbeck as we came back!"
"Sept. 28.—The more one knows Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan, the more one finds how, through all their peculiarities, they are to be liked and respected. Everything either of them says is worth hearing, and they are so full of information of every kind, that the time here has been all too short for hearing them talk.[220]On Thursday, Miss Ogle, the authoress of that charming novel 'A Lost Love,' came. She has lived here a great deal, and says the Wallington ghost is a lady with her head under her arm, who walks about at night. She has heard all the extraordinary rappings very often, and says they cannot be accounted for in any way, but she has never seen the lady.
"The library here is delightful, full of old topographical books and pamphlets; and sleek Mr. Wooster, with whites of his eyes turned up to the skies, is always at hand to find for you anything you want.
"On Friday Sir Walter took me a long drive through the beautiful forest-land called the Trench, and by Rothley Crags to Netherwitton, where the Raleigh Trevelyans live. Mrs. Raleigh Trevelyan, a stately and beautiful old lady, is the direct descendant of the Witherington who fought upon his stumps. She has pictures of Lord Derwentwater and his brother, and one of her ancestors concealed Simon, Lord Lovat, in his house for months: the closet where he was hidden is still to be seen, and very curious. Then we went to Long Witton, to Mrs. Spencer Trevelyan, a great botanist and eccentric person, who breakfasts at six, dines at twelve, teas at four, and goes to bed at seven o'clock.
"Yesterday Miss Ogle and I went to Harnham, where Mrs. Catherine Babington, a famous Puritan lady who was excommunicated, is buried in the rock; to Shortflat Tower, the old peel castle of the Dents; and to the Poind and his Man, Druidical antiquities, and Shaftoe Crag, a beautiful wild cliff overgrown with heather. The country round this is singularly interesting—the view from the church (Cambo), wherewe have just been, quite beautiful over the endless waves of distant hill."
WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET.WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET.
"Warkworth, Oct. 2.—My mother will like to think of me with the Clutterbucks in this charming sunny old house, the most perfect contrast to Wellington; but if Sir Walter saw his house papered and furnished like those of other people's, he would certainly pine away from excess of luxury. I have spent two days with the Ogles, whom we have often met abroad, with their dark handsome daughters—dark, people say,because their grandmother was a Spaniard. They are proud of their supposed Spanish blood, and when Isabel Ogle married George Clayton, all her sisters followed in longblacklace veils. Near their modern house is the old moated family castle of Ogle."
"St. Michael's Vicarage, Alnwick, Oct. 4.—I have been kindly received here by the Court Granvilles: he is a fiery, impetuous little man; she (Lady Charlotte) a sister of the Duke of Athole. The Duke of Northumberland sent for me to his hot room at the castle, where he sits almost immovable, fingers and toes swollen with gout, and talked a great deal about the importance of my work, the difficulty of getting accurate information, &c.; but I do not think he heard a word that I said in reply, for when he has the gout he is almost quite deaf. Then he sent for the Duchess, who good-naturedly knotted her pocket-handkerchief round her throat, and went through all the rooms to show me the pictures. We went again to dinner—only Sir Cresswell Cresswell, the famous judge, there, and Lady Alvanley, sister of the Duke of Cleveland. Sir Cresswell was most amusing in describing how, when a lady was being conveyed in a sedan-chair to a party at Northumberland House, the bottom fell out, and, as she shouted in vain to make her bearers hear, she was obliged to run as fast as she could all the way through the mire inside the shell of the chair."
"Blenkinsopp Castle, Oct. 11.—This is the castellated house of the Coulsons, in the upper part of South Tyne Valley—very large and comfortable. The owner,Colonel Coulson, is a great invalid, and his daughter-in-law, a daughter of Lord Byron, does the honours. We have made pleasant excursions to Gilsland Spa, and to Llanercost and Naworth, the latter—externally a magnificent feudal castle—the home of Belted Will Howard in mosstrooping times."
"Bamborough Castle, Oct. 17.—How enchanting it is in this grand old castle looking out on the sea, with all the Farne Islands stretched out as on a map. I think even the Mediterranean is scarcely such a beautiful sea as this, the waves are so enormous and have such gorgeous colouring. I have had delightful walks with the dear old cousin on the sands, and to Spindleston, where the famous dragon lived."
"Winton Castle, Tranent, Oct. 17, Evening.—As my mother will see, I have come here for holidays, and shall be glad of a day or two in which the mind is not kept in perpetual tension. I heard from Lady Ruthven that I was to meet Lord Belhaven at Prestonpans station, and had no doubt which was he—an old gentleman in a white hat with white hair and hooked nose. We drove here together, and very pleasant it was to exchange the pouring rain without for the large, low, old-fashioned drawing-room, with a splendid ceiling and sculptured chimney, thick Indian carpets, and fine old pictures and china. Soon Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven came in, calling out 'welcome' as they entered the room. The other guests are Lady Arthur Lennox and her youngest daughter, who looks, as Lady Ruthven says, 'just like a Watteau;' alsoLord Leven, cousin of our hostess, and Miss Fletcher of Saltoun."
WINTON CASTLE.WINTON CASTLE.
"Winton Castle, Oct. 20.—When I awoke on Saturday, I was surprised to see a fine old tower opposite my windows, with high turrets and richly-carved chimneys and windows; but the castle has been miserably added to. Lady Ruthven is most original, with a wonderfully poetical mind, and is very different from her regal-looking sister, Lady Belhaven, who, still very handsome, sweeps about the long rooms, and for whom 'gracious'is the only befitting expression. All the guests are pushed together by Lady Ruthven in a way which makes it impossible that they should not be intimate. For instance, as we went in to breakfast on Saturday, she said, 'Now, Mr. Hare, you are to sit next to Lord Leven, for you will not see any more of him; so mind you devote yourselves to one another all breakfast time.'
"On Saturday we all went to luncheon at Saltoun, the great place of the neighbourhood, where Mr. Fletcher lives, whose wife, Lady Charlotte, is one of Lady Ruthven's nieces. It is a large, stately, modern castle, containing a fine library and curious MSS. The tables were loaded with 'loot' from the Summer Palace in China.
"Yesterday we all went at twelve o'clock to the Presbyterian church at Pencaitland, one of the oldest in Scotland. The singing was beautiful, and we had an admirable sermon from the minister, Mr. Rioch, who came in the evening and made a very long 'exposition' to the servants."
"Oct. 21.—The Mount-Edgecumbes and I went to-day with Lady Ruthven to Gosford—her nephew Lord Wemyss's place, near the sea. I walked for some time in the shrubberies with Lady Mount-Edgecumbe, till we were sent for into the house. There we found old Lady Wemyss with her daughter, Lady Louisa Wells, and her daughter-in-law, Lady Elcho. The last is a celebrated beauty, and has been celebrated also for fulfilling the part of 'Justice' in a famous tableau. In ordinary life she is perfectly statuesque, with a frigidmanner. She was very kind, however, and took us over the house, full of works of art, of which we had not time to see a tenth part, but there is a grand Pordenone."
"North Berwick, Oct. 23.—It has been charming to be here again with dear Mrs. Dalzel.... What a quaint place it is. Formerly every one who lived in North Berwick was a Dalrymple: there were nine families of Dalrymples, and seventeen Miss Dalrymples, old maids: the only street in the town was Quality Street, and all its houses were occupied by Dalrymples. North Berwick supported itself formerly upon its herring-fishery, and it is sadly conducive to strict Sabbatarianism that the herrings have totally disappeared, and the place become poverty-stricken, since an occasion in the spring when the fishers went out on a Sunday."
"Kings Meadows, Oct. 25.—This comfortable house of kind old Sir Adam Hay is close to Peebles. 'As quiet as Peebles or the grave,' is a proverb. The Baillie, however, does not think so. He went to Paris, and when he came back, all his neighbours were longing to know his impressions. 'Eh, it's just a grand place, but Peebles for pleasure,' he said. Ultra-Sabbatarianism reigns supreme. An old woman's son whistled on a Sunday. 'Eh, I could just put up wi' a wee swearing, but I canna thole whistling on the Sabbath,' she lamented. Another woman, being invited to have some more at a dinner given to some of the poor, answered, 'No, thank ye, mum, I won't have any more, mum; the sufficiency that I have had is enough for me.'"
"Wishaw House, Motherwell, Oct. 27.—When I came here, I found Lord and Lady Belhaven alone, but a large party arrived soon afterwards, who have since been admirably shaken together by their hostess. The place is almost in the Black Country, but is charming nevertheless. A rushing river, the Calder, dashes through the rocky glen below the castle, under a tall ivy-covered bridge, and through woods now perfectly gorgeous with the crimson and golden tints of autumn. Above, on either side, are hanging walks, and in the depth of the glen an old-fashioned garden with a stone fountain, clipped yew-trees, and long straight grass walks.
"We have been taken to Brainscleugh, a wonderful little place belonging to Lady Ruthven—a sort of Louis XIV. villa, overhanging the river Avon by a series of quaint terraces, with moss-grown staircases and fountains—more like something at Albano than in Scotland. Miss Melita Ponsonby, Sir Charles Cuffe, and I walked on hence to the old Hamilton Chase, full of oaks which have stood there since the Conquest, and part of the forest which once extended across Scotland from one sea to the other. It poured with rain, but we reached the place where the eighty wild milk-white cattle were feeding together. Then we pursued the rest of the party to Hamilton Palace, which is like a monster London house—Belgrave Square covered in and brought into the country. There are endless pictures, amongst them an awful representation of Daniel in an agony of prayer in the lions' den. 'It is no wonder the lions were afraid of him,' the Duchess of Hamilton overheard one of thecrowd say as they were being shown round. In the park is a huge domed edifice something like the tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna. It was erected by the last Duke for himself, his son, grandson, and his nine predecessors. 'What a grand sight it will be,' he said, 'when twelve Dukes of Hamilton rise together here at the Resurrection!' He lies himself just under the dome, upon a pavement of coloured marbles and inside the sarcophagus of an Egyptian queen, withherimage painted and sculptured outside. He had this sarcophagus brought from Thebes, and used frequently to lie down in it to see how it fitted. It is made of Egyptian syenite, the hardest of all stones, and could not be altered; but when dying he was so haunted by the idea that his body might be too long to go inside the queen, that his last words were, 'Double me up! double me up!' The last drive he took had been to buy spices for his own embalming. After he was dead, no amount of doubling could get him into the mummy-case, and they had to cut off his feet to do it![221]The mausoleum is a most strange place, and as you enter mysterious voices seem to be whispering and clamouring together in the height of the dome; and when the door bangs, it is as if all the demons in the Inferno were let loose, and the shriekings and screamings around you are perfectly terrific. Beneath lie all the house of Hamilton in their crimson coffins, which you survey by the light of a single tallow candle.
"Yesterday I went to Dalzell, the old fortified houseof the Hamiltons, and we have also been taken to the Falls of the Clyde at Stonebyres, which were magnificent, the river tossing wildly through woods which now have all the gorgeous colouring of an Indian autumn."
"Ford Cottage, Nov. 5.—This is a charming little house, nestling at the foot of the castle-hill, and it has been an amusement to Lady Waterford to fit it up temporarily with the most interesting contents of the castle. The walls are hung with beautiful pictures and the rooms furnished with ivory and ebony cabinets, quantities of old china, tall glasses piled with ferns and flowers, old-fashioned tables and deep velvet arm-chairs. She will be here for another year probably, and thoroughly enjoys the life, saying that she never knew what it was to have a garden before.
"Dear old Lady Stuart is here in her deep mourning, and Lady Waterford, now her only remaining child, has been more closely united to her mother than ever since Lady Canning's death.[222]
"Lady Waterford is indeed perfectly delightful—brimming with originality and enthusiasm, and with the power—which so few people have—of putting all her wonderfully poetical thoughts into words, and so letting others have the benefit of them. Sometimes she will sit down to the pianoforte and sing in the most thrilling way—Handel or Beethoven, or old Spanish ballads—without having the music or words beforeher. At others she will draw, suddenly and at once, the beautiful inspirations which come to her. Last night it was a lovely child crowned and sporting with flowers, and four other sweet little maidens dancing round her with garlands; it was from the childhood of Mary Queen of Scots and her four Maries. She is never tired of hearing ofpeople; she says she sees so few and knows so little of them now—placesshe does not care to hear about.