THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER.THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER.[270]
After the sermon was over I rushed upstairs, and was preaching it to the family with all its quaintnesses, when I saw Mary Stanley making most unaccountable faces, and turning round,I found Mr. Evans close behind me. The little dark figure had hirpled itself into the room and was listening all the time.
Madame Mohl (whom I have described at Paris in 1858) was staying at the Deanery, where Arthur and Augusta were very fond of her, and always called her "Molina." She was most amusing.
"When I was leaving Paris, I asked my friend M. Bourdon whether I could take anything to England for him, and he said that he was obliged to me, and that if I would take a very valuable Indian shawl, he would avail himself of my offer. However, before I left Paris, my little friend Barbara was starting for England, and she said to me that part of her box was empty, and that she could take anything I wanted, so I was very glad to give her M. Bourdon's Indian shawl. Now Barbara was in that dreadful accident at Staplehurst, and so were all her boxes, and when the train went over, the boxes went down into the water, and all the things were spoilt. At first I hoped it was not so bad, but 'the fact is that the shawlisspoilt,' wrote Barbara to me, and ever since that M. Bourdon and I have beenen froid, which I am very sorry for, as we used to be such good friends.""Oh, that will soon pass," I said."No, I am afraid it willnot," said Madame Mohl, "for remember we areen froid, not merelyen delicatesse. Beingen delicatesseis easily remedied. 'Je suis en delicatesse avec maman,' said a younglady to me.... A little while ago I went to see the famous author Jules Janin. He could not attend to me. He was sitting at a table covered with papers and was writing notes. Messengers went off with the notes, and almost immediately came back with the answers, which were evidently written a very short distance off. This went on for some time, till at last Jules Janin looked up and said, 'Je vous demande mille pardons: faites bien d'excuses, Madame: c'est que je suis en delicatesse avec ma femme.'"
"When I was leaving Paris, I asked my friend M. Bourdon whether I could take anything to England for him, and he said that he was obliged to me, and that if I would take a very valuable Indian shawl, he would avail himself of my offer. However, before I left Paris, my little friend Barbara was starting for England, and she said to me that part of her box was empty, and that she could take anything I wanted, so I was very glad to give her M. Bourdon's Indian shawl. Now Barbara was in that dreadful accident at Staplehurst, and so were all her boxes, and when the train went over, the boxes went down into the water, and all the things were spoilt. At first I hoped it was not so bad, but 'the fact is that the shawlisspoilt,' wrote Barbara to me, and ever since that M. Bourdon and I have beenen froid, which I am very sorry for, as we used to be such good friends."
"Oh, that will soon pass," I said.
"No, I am afraid it willnot," said Madame Mohl, "for remember we areen froid, not merelyen delicatesse. Beingen delicatesseis easily remedied. 'Je suis en delicatesse avec maman,' said a younglady to me.... A little while ago I went to see the famous author Jules Janin. He could not attend to me. He was sitting at a table covered with papers and was writing notes. Messengers went off with the notes, and almost immediately came back with the answers, which were evidently written a very short distance off. This went on for some time, till at last Jules Janin looked up and said, 'Je vous demande mille pardons: faites bien d'excuses, Madame: c'est que je suis en delicatesse avec ma femme.'"
One day Madame Mohl told me:—
"There was a handsome young woman married to a man who was in her own, which was a very lowly station of life, but after her marriage she consented to go a journey by sea with a family which she had previously lived with. On the way the ship was wrecked, and she was one of the few persons saved. It was a desolate coast, and one of the officers who was saved with her fell in love with her—she was a very pretty young woman—and married her. Eventually they returned to England, and he died, leaving her a very fine place and a large fortune. Some years after, her favourite maid told her that she was going to be married, and, being attached to her maid, she desired her to bring her betrothed that she might see what he was like. When he came in, she recognised her own first husband. He did not know her again, but going upstairs, she put on an old shawl, and coming down said, 'Do you remember that shawl?'—'Yes,' he said, 'it is the shawl which I gave to my wife on ourwedding-day.' Then the lady revealed herself and took her husband back; but he was a low man, and led her an awful life and drank dreadfully; but on the whole that was a good thing perhaps, for it soon brought on delirium tremens, so that he died and she got rid of him. 'What a fool she was ever to let him know who she was!' was what I felt when I heard the story.""Well, I suppose she wanted to save her maid from marrying a man who was married already," I said; "it would have been very wrong if she had not.""So the Bishop of Winchester seemed to think," said Madame Mohl, "for he was there when the story was told, and he was very much shocked and very grave, and he said, 'I think, Madame, that you should recollect our life is only a railway, and that it does not signify so much if we are comfortable in the railway, as at the home to which we are going.' But I told him I would rather be comfortable in the railway as well, and that I would certainly not have been such a fool—and the Bishop of Winchester thought I was a very wicked person."
"There was a handsome young woman married to a man who was in her own, which was a very lowly station of life, but after her marriage she consented to go a journey by sea with a family which she had previously lived with. On the way the ship was wrecked, and she was one of the few persons saved. It was a desolate coast, and one of the officers who was saved with her fell in love with her—she was a very pretty young woman—and married her. Eventually they returned to England, and he died, leaving her a very fine place and a large fortune. Some years after, her favourite maid told her that she was going to be married, and, being attached to her maid, she desired her to bring her betrothed that she might see what he was like. When he came in, she recognised her own first husband. He did not know her again, but going upstairs, she put on an old shawl, and coming down said, 'Do you remember that shawl?'—'Yes,' he said, 'it is the shawl which I gave to my wife on ourwedding-day.' Then the lady revealed herself and took her husband back; but he was a low man, and led her an awful life and drank dreadfully; but on the whole that was a good thing perhaps, for it soon brought on delirium tremens, so that he died and she got rid of him. 'What a fool she was ever to let him know who she was!' was what I felt when I heard the story."
"Well, I suppose she wanted to save her maid from marrying a man who was married already," I said; "it would have been very wrong if she had not."
"So the Bishop of Winchester seemed to think," said Madame Mohl, "for he was there when the story was told, and he was very much shocked and very grave, and he said, 'I think, Madame, that you should recollect our life is only a railway, and that it does not signify so much if we are comfortable in the railway, as at the home to which we are going.' But I told him I would rather be comfortable in the railway as well, and that I would certainly not have been such a fool—and the Bishop of Winchester thought I was a very wicked person."
In August and September my mother was very well, and had a succession of visitors, so that I was able to be away from her.
ToMYMOTHER."Hallingbury, August 10, 1865.—The Archer Houblons' carriage met me at Bishop Stortford. This is a great red brick house in a large park, comfortableinside, but perfectly filled withoggetti—too many things. The country round is dull, except 'the forest,' Hatfield Broadoake, which is a grand possession for a private family—eight miles of green glades, old oaks, gnarled thorn-trees, and a small lake.""Mainsforth, August 13.—I went to Cambridge on Friday, and saw the dear Hurstmonceaux Rectory pictures, which no one seemed to admire as we did, and the Hurstmonceaux books in Trinity College Library, where nobody ever reads them. I dined with the Public Orator, and the next day went to Ely.... The Cathedral is beautifully situated, a green sloping lawn with fine trees on one side, and it stands in a group of picturesque and venerable buildings—Deanery, Palace, and Grammar-school.""Bamborough Castle, August 19.—My mother will be well able to imagine me in this old castle: it is such a pleasure that she knows it all. As we drove up the hill, I could see dear old Mrs. Liddell sitting in her usual place in the great window of the Court-room.... I walked till dinner with Mr. Liddell on those delicious open sands, fitful gleams coming on with the sunset over Holy Island, and the sea covered with herring-boats. Mr. Liddell talked of his youth. 'The old Duchess of Gordon used to lead thetonin my day—so exclusive it was! She took care to marry all her daughters well. With regard to their looks she said, "Give me eyes and I will supply the rest." Every one used to struggle to get into Almack's. When Lady Jersey was abroad, she heard of some "little people"being admitted, and set off home directly, saying, "I am obliged to come back to keep you all from going wrong." Lady Londonderry and Lady Jersey were rival queens, and I am afraid rejoiced in each other's misfortunes when their daughters married ill.'BAMBOROUGH CASTLE.BAMBOROUGH CASTLE."Yesterday we went to Holy Island—Charlotte, Mrs. George Liddell, Miss Parke, and I—crossing in a boat the emerald green waves, upon which great seagulls were floating in the most bewitching manner. We had luncheon in St. Cuthbert's Abbey, and by the time we were ready to return, the sea was like a lake, the lights most lovely in the still water, and the great castle looming against a yellow sky. We have had a very pleasant evening since. Mr. Liddell has just been telling me of an old man at Easington who said thatthe Bible was like a round of beef, it was always 'coot and coom again.'""Ford Cottage, August 22.—Lady Waterford had sent a kind invitation for the whole party at Bamborough to come to luncheon, so they drove with me here—sixteen miles. As we came down upon Ford all was changed. The gingerbread castle of Udolpho had marched back three centuries, and is now a grand massive building in the Audley End style, but with older towers. The ugly village had moved away from its old site to a hillside half a mile off, and picturesque cottages now line a broad avenue, in the centre of which is a fountain with a tall pillar surmounted by an angel. Schools for boys and girls have sprung up, a school for washing, adult schools, a grand bridge of three tall arches over the dens: it is quite magical."The cottage is radiant—gorgeous beds of flowers, smoothly shaven miniature lawns, and large majolica vases, while raised stands of scarlet geraniums look in at the windows. Dear old Lady Stuart received us, and then Lady Waterford came in. I felt rather shy at bringing such an immense party, but I believe the visit was really welcome to her, and all the guests were completely fascinated by her beauty, her kindness, and her goodness.... The castle will be magnificent inside. The ghost room is opened and a secret staircase found at the very spot from which the ghost was said to emerge. The Bamborough party went away after tea, and we had a delightful evening, Lady Waterford singing and talking by turns. 'Here are my two little choristers,' she said, showing her lastpicture. 'I painted them against the grass in early spring: it has all the effect of a gold ground. They like coming to me. They are the only children who have come to me who have not been sick: after the first hour, all the others used to turn perfectly livid and say "I'm sick." It was something in the room, and having to look fixedly at one object. Lady Marion Alford says it was just the same with the children who came to her.... I have often seen skies like this in my drawing, but I suppose others don't. I asked a little schoolgirl that came to me if she had ever seen anything like it. "No,never," she said.... I should like my fountain drawn either with a black cloud behind the angel or with a very deep blue sky; I have seen it both ways.... That is a sketch of a French town we went through, where the arms of the town are three owls. We asked a woman what it meant, and she said it was on account of a sermon. Some one betted the priest that he would not bring an owl into his sermon. So he preached on Dives and Lazarus, and, after describing the end of the rich man, said "Il bou, Il bou, Il bou" (He boils, boils, boils).... When Ruskin came here, he said I would never study or take pains, so I copied a print from Van Eyck in Indian-ink; it took me several months. When I took Ruskin into my school he only said, "Well, I expected you would have done something better than that."'"But, in spite of Ruskin, my mother would be perfectly enchanted with the schools, which are glorious. The upper part of the walls is entirely covered with large pictures, like frescoes, by Lady Waterford, of the 'Lives of Good Children'—Cain and Abel, Abrahamand Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his Brethren, &c., all being really portraits of the Ford children, so that little Cain and Abel sit underneath their own picture, &c. The whole place is unique. The fountain in the centre of the village is worthy of Perugia, with its tall red granite pillar and angel figure standing out against the sky. All the cottages have their own brilliant gardens of flowers, beautiful walks have been made to wander through the wooded dene below the castle, and miles of drive on Flodden, with its woodedhill and Marmion's Well. The whole country is wild and poetical—deep wooded valleys, rugged open heaths, wind-blown pine-woods, and pale blue distances of Cheviot Hill; and Lady Waterford is just the person to live in it, gleaning up and making the most of every effect, every legend, every ballad, and reproducing them with her wonderful pencil, besides which her large income enables her to restore all the old buildings and benefit all the old people who have the good fortune to be within her reach."
ToMYMOTHER.
"Hallingbury, August 10, 1865.—The Archer Houblons' carriage met me at Bishop Stortford. This is a great red brick house in a large park, comfortableinside, but perfectly filled withoggetti—too many things. The country round is dull, except 'the forest,' Hatfield Broadoake, which is a grand possession for a private family—eight miles of green glades, old oaks, gnarled thorn-trees, and a small lake."
"Mainsforth, August 13.—I went to Cambridge on Friday, and saw the dear Hurstmonceaux Rectory pictures, which no one seemed to admire as we did, and the Hurstmonceaux books in Trinity College Library, where nobody ever reads them. I dined with the Public Orator, and the next day went to Ely.... The Cathedral is beautifully situated, a green sloping lawn with fine trees on one side, and it stands in a group of picturesque and venerable buildings—Deanery, Palace, and Grammar-school."
"Bamborough Castle, August 19.—My mother will be well able to imagine me in this old castle: it is such a pleasure that she knows it all. As we drove up the hill, I could see dear old Mrs. Liddell sitting in her usual place in the great window of the Court-room.... I walked till dinner with Mr. Liddell on those delicious open sands, fitful gleams coming on with the sunset over Holy Island, and the sea covered with herring-boats. Mr. Liddell talked of his youth. 'The old Duchess of Gordon used to lead thetonin my day—so exclusive it was! She took care to marry all her daughters well. With regard to their looks she said, "Give me eyes and I will supply the rest." Every one used to struggle to get into Almack's. When Lady Jersey was abroad, she heard of some "little people"being admitted, and set off home directly, saying, "I am obliged to come back to keep you all from going wrong." Lady Londonderry and Lady Jersey were rival queens, and I am afraid rejoiced in each other's misfortunes when their daughters married ill.'
BAMBOROUGH CASTLE.BAMBOROUGH CASTLE.
"Yesterday we went to Holy Island—Charlotte, Mrs. George Liddell, Miss Parke, and I—crossing in a boat the emerald green waves, upon which great seagulls were floating in the most bewitching manner. We had luncheon in St. Cuthbert's Abbey, and by the time we were ready to return, the sea was like a lake, the lights most lovely in the still water, and the great castle looming against a yellow sky. We have had a very pleasant evening since. Mr. Liddell has just been telling me of an old man at Easington who said thatthe Bible was like a round of beef, it was always 'coot and coom again.'"
"Ford Cottage, August 22.—Lady Waterford had sent a kind invitation for the whole party at Bamborough to come to luncheon, so they drove with me here—sixteen miles. As we came down upon Ford all was changed. The gingerbread castle of Udolpho had marched back three centuries, and is now a grand massive building in the Audley End style, but with older towers. The ugly village had moved away from its old site to a hillside half a mile off, and picturesque cottages now line a broad avenue, in the centre of which is a fountain with a tall pillar surmounted by an angel. Schools for boys and girls have sprung up, a school for washing, adult schools, a grand bridge of three tall arches over the dens: it is quite magical.
"The cottage is radiant—gorgeous beds of flowers, smoothly shaven miniature lawns, and large majolica vases, while raised stands of scarlet geraniums look in at the windows. Dear old Lady Stuart received us, and then Lady Waterford came in. I felt rather shy at bringing such an immense party, but I believe the visit was really welcome to her, and all the guests were completely fascinated by her beauty, her kindness, and her goodness.... The castle will be magnificent inside. The ghost room is opened and a secret staircase found at the very spot from which the ghost was said to emerge. The Bamborough party went away after tea, and we had a delightful evening, Lady Waterford singing and talking by turns. 'Here are my two little choristers,' she said, showing her lastpicture. 'I painted them against the grass in early spring: it has all the effect of a gold ground. They like coming to me. They are the only children who have come to me who have not been sick: after the first hour, all the others used to turn perfectly livid and say "I'm sick." It was something in the room, and having to look fixedly at one object. Lady Marion Alford says it was just the same with the children who came to her.... I have often seen skies like this in my drawing, but I suppose others don't. I asked a little schoolgirl that came to me if she had ever seen anything like it. "No,never," she said.... I should like my fountain drawn either with a black cloud behind the angel or with a very deep blue sky; I have seen it both ways.... That is a sketch of a French town we went through, where the arms of the town are three owls. We asked a woman what it meant, and she said it was on account of a sermon. Some one betted the priest that he would not bring an owl into his sermon. So he preached on Dives and Lazarus, and, after describing the end of the rich man, said "Il bou, Il bou, Il bou" (He boils, boils, boils).... When Ruskin came here, he said I would never study or take pains, so I copied a print from Van Eyck in Indian-ink; it took me several months. When I took Ruskin into my school he only said, "Well, I expected you would have done something better than that."'
"But, in spite of Ruskin, my mother would be perfectly enchanted with the schools, which are glorious. The upper part of the walls is entirely covered with large pictures, like frescoes, by Lady Waterford, of the 'Lives of Good Children'—Cain and Abel, Abrahamand Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his Brethren, &c., all being really portraits of the Ford children, so that little Cain and Abel sit underneath their own picture, &c. The whole place is unique. The fountain in the centre of the village is worthy of Perugia, with its tall red granite pillar and angel figure standing out against the sky. All the cottages have their own brilliant gardens of flowers, beautiful walks have been made to wander through the wooded dene below the castle, and miles of drive on Flodden, with its woodedhill and Marmion's Well. The whole country is wild and poetical—deep wooded valleys, rugged open heaths, wind-blown pine-woods, and pale blue distances of Cheviot Hill; and Lady Waterford is just the person to live in it, gleaning up and making the most of every effect, every legend, every ballad, and reproducing them with her wonderful pencil, besides which her large income enables her to restore all the old buildings and benefit all the old people who have the good fortune to be within her reach."
THE SUNDIAL GARDEN, FORD.THE SUNDIAL GARDEN, FORD.[271]
THE FOUNTAIN, FORD.THE FOUNTAIN, FORD.[272]
"Ford Cottage, August 24.—I have been walking in the dene to-day with Lady Stuart. She narrates very comically the effect which her two beautiful daughters produced when they came out into the world, and the way in which she saw a lady at a ball gaze at them, and then at her, and heard her say, 'Howbeautiful they are, and isn't it strange,considering?' Some one spoke of how Blake the artist used to go into a summer-house with Mrs. Blake, and practise for the Adam and Eve of his pictures, and how one day some visitors came, and it was very awkward. 'It would not have been so with the real Adam and Eve,' said Lady Stuart, 'for they could never dread any droppers-in.' In her anecdotes of old times and people, she is quite inexhaustible. Here are some of them:—"'Yes, we were at George the Fourth's coronation; a great many other ladies and I went with Lady Castlereagh—she, you know, was the minister's wife—by water in one of the great state barges. We embarked at Hungerford Stairs, and we got out at a place called Cotton Garden, close to Westminster Hall. Lord Willoughby was with us. When we got out, we were looking about to see where all the ministers lived, &c., when somebody came up and whispered something to Lord Willoughby. He exclaimed "Good God!" and then, apologising for leaving us, went off in a hurry looking greatly agitated. Queen Caroline was at that moment knocking at the door of the Abbey. She had got Lady Anne Barnard, who was with her, to get her a peer's ticket, which was given her, but it was not countersigned, and they would not admit her. Shewas in despair. She stood on the platform and wrung her hands in a perfect agony. At last Alderman Wood, who was advising her, said, "Really your Majesty had better retire." The people who had tickets for the Abbey, and who were to go in by that door, were all waiting and pressing for entrance, and when the Queen went away, there were no acclamations for her; the people thought she had no business to come to spoil their sport.[273]"'She had been married twenty-five years to the King then. They offered her £100,000 a year to stay quietly abroad, but she would come back at once and assert her rights as a queen. She died of that Coronation-day. She went home and was very ill. Then came a day on which she was to go to one of the theatres. It was placarded all about that she was to appear, and her friends tried to get up a little reaction in her favour. She insisted on going, and she was tolerably well received, but when she came home she was worse, and she died two days after."'The Duchesse de Berri[274]thought of marrying George IV. after her Duke was dead. People began to talk to her about marrying again. "Oh dear, no," she said, "I shall never marry again. At least there is only one person—there is the King of England. How funny it would be to have two sons, one theKing of France and the other King of England—yes, and the King of England the cadet of the two." I never had courage to tell George IV. what she said, though I might have done it. He once said to me, when his going to France was talked of, "Oh dear, no, I don't want to see them. Poor Louis XVIII., he was a friend of mine, but then he's dead; and as for Charles X., I don't want to see him. The Dauphine! yes, I pity her; and the Duchesse de Bern, she's dreadful ugly, ain't she?" I wish I had said to him, "Yes, but she does not wish your Majesty to think so.""'I went down one day to St. Cloud to see the Duchesse de Berri; she had been pleased to express a wish to see me. While I was there, her son rushed in.[275]"Come now," she said, "kiss the hand of Madame l'Ambassadrice. But what have you got there?" she said. "Oh, je vous apportais mes papillons," said he, showing some butterflies in a paper case, and then, with an air of pride, "C'est une assez belle collection." The Duchesse laughed at them, and the boy looked so injured and hurt, that I said, "But it is a very nice collection indeed." Many years afterwards, only three years ago, Lou and I were at Venice, and we went to dine with the Chambords. He remembered all about it, and laughed, and said, "Après, je regrettais mes papillons." For it was only a fortnight after I saw them that the Revolution took place, and the family had to fly, and of course the butterflies in their paper case were left behind in the flight. We were in the Pyrenees then, and indeed when the Duchesse sent forme, it was because she heard I was going there, and she wished to tell me about the places she had been to, and to ask me to engage her donkey-woman."'When they were at Venice, the Chambords lived in one palace, a very fine one, and the Duchesse de Berri in another farther down the canal, and the Duchess of Parma in a third. I did not see the Duchesse de Berri, though I should have liked to have done so. She was married then to a Marchese Lucchesi, by whom she had a quantity of grown-up sons and daughters. They were dreadfully extravagant—not Lucchesi, he never was, but she was, and her sons-in-law. The Comte de Chambord paid her debts over and over again, but at last her things were obliged to be sold."'When we went to dine with the Chambords, we were warned that we must not allow anything to pass, or we should not get any dinner. We went at half-past four, and the soup came, and the Duke (de Bordeaux) was talking to me at that time, and, while I was listening, the soup was carried away, and so it was with nearly everything else. The party was almost entirely composed of French exiles. Lou wrote down their names at the time, but I have forgotten them now. At seven our gondola was ordered, and it came too late, the royalties were so punctual. The Duke and Duchess got up, and saying, "I wish you a pleasant evening," went out, and then we had nothing for it but to go away. An old Venetian gentleman helped us out of the scrape, and gave us a lift home in his gondola, and very much aghast our gondoliers were when they met us in another boat upon the canal, while they wererowing with all their might to fetch us away. The royal family used to go in the evening to an island, which the Duke had bought for them to have exercise upon."'They would never do for France: they have not the manners. She is ugly,[276]and then she dresses so badly—no, she would never do. The only one who would do out of both sets is Aumale: he is really a fine prince. The Comte de Paris would of course naturally come first, but the Duke of Orleans used to say, 'I will never be a king by anything but popular election,' and that is against his family succeeding. All the members of the familylook upto Aumale."'Did you ever hear about the old Duc de Coigny and his arm? His arm was shot during the Moscow campaign, and when it was amputated, numbers of others having their limbs taken off at the same time, he exclaimed, "Oh mon cher bras, qui m'a si bien servi, je ne puis jamais me séparer de ce cher bras," and he insisted on its being found for him, which was highly inconvenient, and packed it up in a portmanteau, which he carried before him on horseback during the whole of the return. The soldiers quite hated that arm; however, the Duke insisted upon it. At last, as he was crossing a ford in a carriage, the portmanteau rolled off his knee on to his foot and hurt it exceedingly, upon which he was so exasperated that in a fit of rage he opened the carriage door and kicked it out into the river. When he got to his night quarters, however, the Duke was in absolute despair—"Oh mon pauvrebras! mon pauvre cher bras!" He had wished it to be buried with him; for was it not his most faithful servant? he said. However, none of the soldiers were inclined to go and fish it up for him, and since then, poor man, he has had to be buried without it."'The wife of this Duc de Coigny was Henrietta Dalrymple Hamilton, who brought him large estates. Her parents were miserable at her marrying a foreigner, from the idea that the estates would certainly then go out of the family; but of all his children only two daughters survive; one is Lady Manvers, and the other married Lord Stair, and thus brought back the estates to the elder branch of the Dalrymples. The Duc died last year, chiefly of grief for the death of another daughter who had married a Frenchman. His sister married Maréchal Sebastiani and had five daughters. One of these was the murdered Duchesse de Praslin."'Madame de Praslin was one of a society that there was in Paris then, who used to laugh at anything like spiritualism or warnings from another world. Madame de Rabuteau was her great friend and partisan in these opinions. One day Madame de Praslin went with her husband to Choiseul Praslin. Her room was magnificent, and she slept in a great velvet bed. In the middle of the night, she awoke with a sense of something moving in the room, and, lifting herself up in bed, saw, by the expiring embers of the fire, a figure, and as it turned, she saw, as it were, something green. She scarcely knew whether she was asleep or awake, and, to convince herself, stretched out her hand and encountered something cold, hard, and which felt likesteel. Then, widely awake, she saw the figure recede and vanish out of the room. She felt a thrill of horror and began to reason with herself. "Well," she said, "I have always opposed and laughed at belief in these things, and now one of them has come tome. Now what can it mean? It can only mean that I am soon to die, and it has come as a warning.""'Soon after Madame de Praslin returned to Paris, and at the house of Madame de Rabuteau she met all her former intimates. "Oh," said Madame de Rabuteau as she entered the room, "I am so glad you have come to help me to laugh at all these people, who are holding forth upon revelations from another world."—"Indeed, I think we had better talk of something else," said Madame de Praslin; "let us talk of something else."—"Why, my dear, you used to be such an ardent defender of mine," said Madame de Rabuteau, "areyougoing over to the other side?" But Madame de Praslin resolutely refused the subject and "parlons d'autre chose" was all that could be extracted from her. When the rest of the company was gone, Madame de Rabuteau said, "Well, now, what is it? what can have come over you this evening? why do you not laugh at their manifestations?"—"Simply because I have had one myself," replied very gravely Madame de Praslin, and she told what had happened, saying that she believed it to indicate her approaching death. Madame de Rabuteau tried to argue her out of the impression, but in vain. Madame de Praslin went home, and a few days after she was murdered in the Hôtel Sebastiani."'When the Duke was taken, search was made, andamongst his things were found a green mask and a dagger. He had evidently intended to murder the Duchess at Choiseul Praslin, and it had been no spirit that she saw."'Madame de Feuchères was originally a Miss Sophia Dawes, the daughter of Mr. Dawes, who was a shipbuilder at Ryde and a very respectable man. The Duc de Bourbon[277]saw her somewhere and took a great fancy to her, and, to facilitate an intimacy with her, he married her to his aide-de-camp, the Baron de Feuchères. But M. de Feuchères was a very honourable man. When the marriage was proposed to him, the Duke paying the dowry, he took her for a daughter of the Duke, and when he found out the real state of things, he separated from her at once, leaving all her fortune in her hands. It was supposed that Madame de Feuchères was in the Orleans interest, and that therefore the Duke would leave everything to the Duc d'Aumale. I must say for the Duchesse de Berri that she was exceedingly good-natured about that. When there was a question about the Feuchères being received at the palace, she advocated it, for the sake ofma tante,[278]and Madame de Feuchères came. But when the Revolution took place and Charles X. fled, the feelings of the Duc de Bourbon were changed; all his loyalty was roused, and he said that he mustfollowson roi. Nothing that Madame de Feuchères could say could change this resolution. They said that he hanged himself (August 27, 1830), immediately after hearing of the escape, but few believed it; most thought that Madame de Feuchères had done it—unjustly perhaps, because, on arriving at an inn where they were to sleep, the Duke observed that the landlord looked very dispirited, and knowing the cause, said, "I am afraid you have had some sad trouble in your family besides all these terrible public events."—"Yes, Monseigneur," said the man, "my brother hanged himself yesterday morning."—"And how did he do that?" said the Duke. "Oh, Monseigneur, he hanged himself from the bolt of the shutter."—"No, that is impossible," said the Duke, "for the man was too tall." Then the landlord exactly described the process by which his brother had effected his purpose, raising himself upon his knees, &c., and it was precisely in that way that the body of the Duke was found in the château of St. Leu. Still most people thought that Madame de Feuchères had murdered him in his bed, and then hung up his body to avoid suspicion.[279]"'It was said that the Duke could not have hanged himself, because he had hurt his hand and could not use it, and so could not have tied himself up, but Lord Stuart always said that he was very thankful that his evidence was not called for, because he had met theDuke at a dinner-party a little while before, when he showed that he could use his hand by carving a large turkey beautifully. That dinner-party was at St. Leu. Madame Adelaide had wanted to buy St. Leu, but the Duke said, "No; yet never mind; some day it will come into your family all the same." The Duke sat by Madame Adelaide at dinner and carved the turkey. "Pray do not attempt it, Monseigneur," she said, "for it will be too much for you," but he was able to do it very well."'In consequence of the Duke dying when he did, the Duc d'Aumale got the Condé property. Madame de Feuchères came to England, and her brother, Mr. Dawes, took a place for her near Highcliffe. I never called on her, but Lord Stuart did. I remember Bemister, a carpenter, being sent for by her, and coming to me afterwards. He told me, "I felt very queer when she told me to hang up a picture of the Duke on the wall of her room, and before I thought what I was about I said, 'And where willyouhanghe?'"—"And what in the world did she answer?" I asked. "Well," he said, "I was looking very foolish, and she said, 'Why, you don't think I reallydidit, do you?'"—"And what did you really think, Bemister?" I said. "Why, I don't think shedidit," answered Bemister, "but I think she worrited of him into doing it himself," and I suspect this was pretty near the truth.'"I sleep at the castle, and at 10A.M.go down to the cottage, which looks radiant in its bowers of flowers and shrubs, with a little burn tossing in front. Lady Waterford reads the lessons and prayers to the household (having already been to church herself). Thencomes breakfast in the miniature dining-room opening into the miniature garden, during which she talks ceaselessly in her wonderfully poetical way. Then I sit a little with Lady Stuart—then draw, while Lady Waterford has her choristers and other boy models to sit to her. At two is luncheon, then we go out, Lady Stuart in a donkey-chair. Yesterday we went all over Flodden; to-day we are going to Yetholm, the gipsy capital. At half-past seven we dine, then Lady Waterford paints, while I tell them stories, oranything, for they like to hear everything, and then Lady Waterford sings, and tells me charming things in return. Here are some snatches from her:—"'I wish you had seen Grandmama Hardwicke.[280]She was such a beautiful old lady—very little, and with the loveliest skin, and eyes, and hair; and she had such beautiful manners, so graceful and so gracious. Grandmama lived till she was ninety-five. She died in '58. I have two oak-trees in the upper part of the pleasaunce which were planted by her. When she was in her great age, all her grandchildren thought they would like to have oak-trees planted by her, and so a row of pots was placed in the window-sill, and her chair was wheeled up to it, to make it as little fatigue as possible, and she dropped an acorn into each of the pots. Her old maid, Maydwell, who perfectly doted upon her, and was always afraid of her overdoing herself, stood by with a glass of port wine and a biscuit, and when she had finished her work, she tookthe wine, and passing it before the pots, said, "Success to the oak-trees," and drank it. I am always so sorry that Ludovic Lindsay (Lord Lindsay's eldest boy) should not have seen her. Lord Lindsay wished it: he wished to have carried on further the recollection of a person whose grandfather's wife was given away by Charles the Second; but it was Maydwell who prevented it, I believe, because she was too proud of her mistress, and did not think her looking quite so well then as she had looked some years before. The fact was, I think, that some of the little Stuarts had been taken to see her, and as they were going out they had been heard to say, "Howawfullyold she looks.""'Her father, Lord Balcarres, was what they call "out in the '45," and his man was called on to swear that he had not been present at a time when he was. The man swore it and Lord Balcarres got off. When they were going away safe he said to his man, "Well now, howcouldyou swear such a lie!"—"Because I had rather trust my sowle to God," said the man, "than your body to deevils." The first wife of Lord Balcarres's father[281]was Mauritia of Nassau, who was given away by Charles II. When they came to the altar, the bridegroom found that he had totally forgotten the ring. In a great fright he asked if one of the bystanders could lend him a ring, and a friend gave him one. He did not find out then that it bore the device of a death's-head and cross-bones, but Mauritia of Nassau found it out afterwards: sheconsidered it a prophecy of evil, and she died within the year."'When he was almost an old man, Lord Balcarres went to stay with old Lady Keith. There were a quantity of young ladies in the house, and before he came Lady Keith said, "Now there is this old gentleman coming to stay, and I particularly wish that you should all endeavour to make yourselves as pleasant to him as you can." They all agreed, but a Miss Dalrymple[282]said, "Well, you may all do what you like, but I'll bet you anything you please that I'll make him like me the best of all of us," and so she did; she made him exclusively devoted to her all the while he was there; but she never thought of anything more than this, and when he asked her to marry him, she laughed at the very idea. He was exceedingly crestfallen, but when he went away he made a will settling everything he possessed upon this Miss Dalrymple. Somehow she heard of this, and said, "Well then, after all, he must really care for me, and Iwillmarry him," and she did. He was fifty-eight then, but they had eleven children. When Lady Balcarres was an old woman, she was excessively severe, indeed she became so soon after her marriage. One day some one coming along the road towards her house met a perfect procession of children of all ages, from three upwards, walking one behind the other, and the eldest boy, who came first, gipsy fashion carrying the baby on his back. They were the eleven children of Lady Balcarres making their escape from their mother, with the intention ofgoing out to seek their own fortunes in the world. It was one of the family of this Lady Balcarres who was the original of Lucy Ashton in the "Bride of Lammermoor." The story is all true. The Master of Ravenswood was Lord Rutherford. She rode to church on a pillion behind her brother that he might not feel how her heart was beating."'In consequence of Grandmama Hardwicke's great age, people used to be astonished at my aunt Lady Mexborough, when nearly eighty, running upstairs and calling out 'Mama.' When my aunt Lady Somers was at Bath, she sent for a doctor, and he said to her, "Well, my lady, atyourage, you cannot expect to be ever much better."—"Atmyage!" she said, "why, my mother only died last year." The doctor was perfectly petrified with amazement. "It is the most wonderful thing," he said, "that I ever heard in my life." My grandmother's sisters were very remarkable women; one was Lady Margaret Lindsay, the other was Lady Anne Barnard. Lady Anne was the real authoress of "Auld Robin Gray." She loved the tune,[283]but the original words were bad and unfit for a lady to sing, so she wrote, "Auld Robin Gray," though some one else has always had the credit of it.'FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE.FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE.[284]"We have been walking this afternoon through the cornfields towards Etal. Lady Waterford recalled howLady Marion Alford had shown her that all the sheaves leaning towards one another were like hands praying. To-night Mr. Williams dined at the cottage. Asking Lady Waterford about him afterwards, she said:—"'I do not know if Mr. Williams is old or young. I think he is like the French lady of whom it was said, "Elle n'avait pas encore perdu l'ancienne habitude d'être jeune." Apropos of this, Lady Gifford made such a pretty speech once. A little girl asked her, "Do tellme, are you old or young? I nevercanmake out," and she said, "My dear, I have been a very long time young.""'The story of Mr. Williams is quite a pretty one. When Lord Frederick FitzClarence was in India, there was a great scandal in his government, and two of his aides-de-camp had to be sent away. He wrote to his brother-in-law to send him out another in a hurry, and he sent Mr. Williams. When he arrived, Lord Frederick was very ill, and soon after he died. After his death, Mr. Williams had the task of bringing Lady Frederick and her daughter home. Miss FitzClarence was then very much out of health, and he used to carry her up on deck, and they were thrown very much together. I believe the maids warned Lady Frederick that something might come of it, but she did not see it. Before the end of the voyage, Mr. Williams and Miss FitzClarence had determined to be married, but she decided not to tell her mother as yet. When the ship arrived at Portsmouth, the coffin of Lord Frederick had to remain all night on the deck, and Mr. Williams never left it, but walked up and down the whole time watching it, which touched Lady Frederick very much. Still, when her daughter told her she was going to marry him, she was quite furious, contrary to her usual disposition, which is an exceedingly mild one, and she would not hear of it, and sent him away at once."'It was the time of the war, and Captain Williams went off to the Crimea, but Miss FitzClarence grew worse and worse, and at last the difference between them made her so uncomfortable with her mother, that she went off to her grandmother; but while there shecontinued to get worse, and at last it was evidently a case of dying, and when her mother went to her, she was so alarmed that she begged she would marry any one she liked; she would consent to whatever she wished, and would send for Captain Williams at once. So Williams threw up everything, though it was considered a disgrace in time of war, and came home, but when he arrived, poor Miss FitzClarence was dead."'Then Lady Frederick felt that she could not do enough for him, and she took him to live with her as her son. The relations, however, were all very angry, and themauvaises languessaid that she meant to marry him herself. So then she thought it would not do, and she got him an agency on Lord Fife's property and sent him to live alone. However, after a time, the agency somehow was given up, and he came back, and he always lives now with Lady Frederick. At Etal they always sit in church gazing into the open grave, which Lady Frederick will never have closed, in which his love is to be buried when she (the mother) dies, and is laid there also, and at Ford he sits by his love's dead head."'I think Captain Williams must be no longer young, because he is so very careful about his dress, and that is always a sign of a man's growing old, isn't it?""The neighbours at Ford most of them seem to have 'stories' and are a perpetual source of interest. Lady Waterford says:—"'Grindon is a fine old manor-house near Tillmouth. Mr. Friar lives there. One morning he was a carpenter working down a coal-pit, and in the evening he was the master of Grindon: I believe an uncle left it him."'Then there was that Sir F. Blake whose wife was a Persian princess, who afterwards left a fine diamond necklace and two most magnificent Persian vases to the family. I was so sorry when those vases were sold for £40: they were worth many hundreds."'Near Howtell is Thorpington, a farm of the Hunts. Sir J. Hunt was attainted for fighting in the Jacobite cause, and his property was all confiscated. His son was so reduced that he was obliged to become a groom, but he so gained the regard of his master, that, when he died, he left him all his horses. From that time the Hunts have taken to selling horses and their breed has become famous. They never sell a horse, however, under £200: if they do not get that sum, they either shoot them or give them away.'""Chillingham Castle, August 27, 1865.—On Thursday afternoon I drove with Lady Waterford and Lady Stuart to Yetholm, twelve miles from Ford. The way wound through wild desolate valleys of the Cheviots, and the village itself is a miserable place. I drew the palace of the gipsy queen—a wretched thatched hovel with a mud floor, but royalty was absent on a tinkering expedition."On Friday I went in the pony-carriage to Etal. There I was shown into a room hung with relics of Lord Frederick FitzClarence and miniatures of George IV. and the royal family. Very soon Lady Frederick[285]came in—a figure like a nun, one straight fall of crape, without crinoline, enveloping her thin figure, and her hair all pushed back into a tight round white muslincap, and coal-scuttle bonnet. She scarcely ever sees any one, so it was an effort to her to receive me, but she was not so odd as I expected. She talked about the place and then about wasps, and said that if Captain Williams was stung by a wasp, it had such an effect upon him that he swelled up all over and fell down perfectly senseless upon the ground that instant. In the hall was the dinner service of Nelson (painted with figures of Lady Hamilton as Amphytrite), which was given to Lord Frederick by William IV. Captain Williams went with me to the ruined castle of Etal and then along a walk above the Till, which was very beautiful, with weird old willows, high rocks, and lovely reaches of wood and water."Yesterday morning I made a sketch of the door of the cottage, with all its flowers, &c., which I gave to Lady Stuart, much to her pleasure. She told me about Lord Waterford's death. On that morning, as always, Lady Waterford read to him a chapter in the Bible whilst he was dressing, and for that day it was the lament for Absalom. It contained the verse in which a pillar is raised up to him for 'he had no son to keep his name in remembrance;' so his widow determined to raise a pillar to his memory, and has done so in the beautiful angel-fountain at Ford.Elizabeth, Lady Stuart de Rothesay. From a miniature by Miss Dixon.Elizabeth, Lady Stuart de Rothesay.From a miniature by Miss Dixon."In the middle of luncheon Lady Tankerville drove up, came to fetch me, and bringing Lady Bagot[286]and Lady Blanche Egerton[287]to see the castle. So at five I came away with them, and took leave of the cottageand its delightful inmates.... It was a cold dreary day, and gusts of wind and rain blew from the Cheviots during our fourteen miles. Lady Tankerville drove.""Chillingham, August 29.—Yesterday we all drove through pouring rain to Hulne Abbey in Alnwick Park, where we were glad of the shelter of the one unruined tower for our luncheon. Afterwards we drove through the park to the castle, which I had not seen since the reign of Algernon the Great and Eleanor the Good. Now we were the guests of Lady Percy, a kind pleasant person, and Lady Louisa. The rooms are grandly uncomfortable (except the library, which is an attractive room), but the decorations cost £350,000!""August 30.—Yesterday, as the family here are impervious to damp, we picknicked in the forest. Lady Tankerville made the fire and boiled the kettle; Lady Blanche laid the cloth and cut bread and butter; a young Grey and I made the toast, and the little boys and girls caught fresh trout out of the burn close by. In the evening Lord Tankerville told us this story:—"'My father had a beautiful villa at Walton, which we have given up now. It was in the old days when we had to ride across Putney Heath to reach it. My father used to think it very odd that when he went into the stables to see his horses in the morning, they were all in a foam and perfectly exhausted, as if they were worn out with hard riding. One day he was coming home across Putney Heath, and he was bringing Lord Derby back with him. When they came nearthe heath, he had said, "Well, now, we had better have our pistols ready, because highwaymen are often to be met with here." So they loaded their pistols, and it was not a bit too soon, for directly after a highwayman rode up to the carriage-window and demanded their money or their lives. As he spoke he recognised them, and saw also that my father recognised his own groom upon one of his own horses. In the moment's hesitation he drew back, and in that moment my father and Lord Derby fired. Several shots were exchanged on both sides, but at last came a moment's pause, during which Lord Derby cried out of the window to the postillion to ride forward, and he dashed on at full gallop. The highwayman fired into the back of the carriage, and Lord Derby and my father returned his fire by leaning out of the windows. At last the back of the carriage was quite riddled with shot, and the ammunition of those inside was quite exhausted, and then Lord Derby held out a white handkerchief as a flag of truce out of the window, and the highwayman rode up and they delivered up all their valuables to him. Of course my father never saw his groom again, and his horses were in much better condition ever afterwards—at least those which were left, for the highwayman rode away upon the best horse in the stables.'""Howick, Sept. 1, 1865.—Yesterday I was able to stop the express at the private station (for Howick), whither Lord Grey sent for me. It was a drive of about a mile and a half, chiefly through shrubberies of hollies and rhododendrons, to this large square house with wings. It is most comfortable inside, with abeautiful library opening into a great conservatory. Lady Grey[288]is one of the severest-looking and one of the kindest-meaning persons I have ever seen. Lord Grey is little and lame, but gets about with a stick very actively. He is quite grey, but the very image of Lady Mary Wood. The rest of the party had put off coming for a day from different reasons, but I was not sorry to make acquaintance alone first with my host and hostess, and they were most pleasant, so that it was a very agreeable evening.""Sept. 2.—Yesterday morning a great bell on the top of the house summoned all in it to prayers, which were read by Lord Grey in the breakfast-room opening on to very pretty terraces of flowers, with perfect shrubberies of sweet verbena, for the climate here is very mild. After breakfast I went down through the wood to the sea, not a mile distant, and a very fine bit of coast, with rich colour in the rocks and water, and Dunstanborough Castle on its crag as the great feature. The place reminds me a little of Penrhôs. When I returned from driving with Lady Grey to Alnwick, the Belhavens arrived, and before dinner the Bishop of London and Mrs. Tait, and the Durhams.""Sept. 4.—My dearest mother will like to know how intensely I have enjoyed being at Howick. The Greys make their house so pleasant and the life here is so easy. Then Lady Belhaven[289]is always celebratedas a talker, and it has been delightful to sit on the outskirts of interesting conversations between my host and Sir George Grey or the Bishop."On Saturday afternoon I drove with the Durhams and Lady Belhaven to Dunstanborough. The sea was of a deep Mediterranean blue under the great cliffs and overhanging towers of the ruined castle. Lord Durham[290]and I walked back three miles along the cliffs—a high field-walk like the old one at Eastbourne."On Sunday the Bishop preached at the little church in the grounds. It has been rebuilt and decorated with carvings by Lady Grey and her sisters-in-law. In the chancel is the fine tomb of the Prime Minister Lord Grey. I went with Durham afterwards all over the gardens, which are charming, with resplendent borders of old-fashioned flowers; and after afternoon church, we all went down through the dene to the sea, where there is a bathing-house, with a delightful room fitted up with sofas, books, &c., just above the waves. All the French herring-fleet was out, such a pretty sight. The Bishop read prayers in the evening to the great household of forty-eight persons. He is a very pleasant, amiable Bishop."I enjoyed seeing so much of Durham; no one could help very much liking one who is very stiff with people in general, and most exceedingly nice to oneself. But Lady Durham[291]is always charming, so perfectly naïve, natural, and beautiful. She is devotedto her husband and he to her. Some one spoke of people in general not loving all their children. She said: 'Then that is because they do not love their husbands. Some women think no more of marriage than of dancing a quadrille; but when women love their husbands, they love all their children equally. Every woman must love her first child: the degree in which they love the others depends upon the degree in which they love their husbands.'"Sitting by her at dinner, I asked if she had ever read 'Les Misérables'? 'No. When I was confirmed, the clergyman who was teaching me saw a French novel on the table, and said, "My dear child, you don't read these things, do you?" I said "No," which was quite true, for it belonged to my French governess, and he then said, "Well, I wish you never would. Don't make any actual promise, for fear you should not keep it, but don't do it unless you are obliged;" and I never have.'"I spoke to her of the inconsistency involved by the confirmation ceremony, by which young ladies renounced the pomps and vanities of the world, being generally the immediate predecessor of their formal entrance upon them."'Yes; I never thought of that. But certainly my pomps and vanities were of very short duration. I went to three balls, two tea-parties, and one dinner, and that was all I ever saw of the world; for then I was married. One year I was in the school-room in subjection to every one, ordered about here and there, and the next I was free and my own mistress and married.'"'And did not you find it rather formidable?' I said. 'Formidable to be my own mistress! oh no. One thing I found rather formidable certainly. It was when a great deputation came to Lambton to congratulate George upon his marriage, and I had to sit at the end of the table with a great round of beef before me. I wanted them not to think I was young and inexperienced. I wanted to appear thirty at least; so Iwouldcarve: and then only think of their saying afterwards in the newspaper paragraphs, "We are glad to learn that the youthful Countess is not only amiable but intelligent." I was glad that they should think I was amiable, but when they said I was intelligent, I was perfectly furious, as if George's wife could possibly have been anything else."'I was brought up a Tory, but as long as I can remember I have felt myself a Radical. I cannot bear to think of the division between the classes, and there is so much good in a working-man. I love working-men: they are my friends: they are so much better than we are."'When my little George of four years old—such a little duck he is!—was with me at Weymouth, I told him he might take off his shoes and stockings and paddle in the water, and he went in up to his chest; and then the little monster said, "Now, mama, if you want to get me again, you may come in and fetch me, for I shan't come out." I was in despair, when a working-man passed by and said, "Do you want that little boy, ma'am?" and I said "Yes," and he tucked up his trousers and went in and fetched George out for me; but if theman'slittle boy had been in the water, Iam afraid I should not have offered to fetch him out for him."'And when I was going to church at Mr. Cumming's in Covent Garden (I daresay you think I'm very wrong for going there, but I can't help that), it began to pour with rain, and a cabman on a stand close by called out, "Don't you want a cab, ma'am?" I said, "Yes, very much, but I've got no money." And the cabman said, "Oh, never mind, jump in; you'll only spoil your clothes in the rain, and I'll take you for nothing." When we got to the church door, I said, "If you will come to my house you shall be paid," but he would not hear of it, and I have liked cabmen ever since. Oh, there is so much good in the working-men; they are so much better than we are.'""Winton Castle, N.B., Sept. 5, 1865.—My sweetest mother will like to think of me here with the dear old Lady Ruthven.[292]I left Howick at mid-day yesterday, with the Bishop and Mrs. Tait and their son Crauford, an Eton school-boy. It had been a very pleasant visit to the last, and I shall hope to repeat it another year, and also to go to the Durhams. We had an agreeable journey along the cliffs. I had become quite intimate with the Taits in the three days I was with them, and liked the Bishop very much better than Mrs. Tait, though I am sure she is a very good and useful woman.[293]At Tranent Lady Ruthven's carriage waswaiting for me. I found her in a sadly nervous state, dreadfully deaf, and constantly talking, the burden of her refrain being—'Mummitie mum, mummitie mum,Mummitie, mummitie, mummitie mum.'But in the evening she grew much better, and was like other people, only that she would constantly walk in and out of the dark ante-chambers playing on a concertina, which, as she wore a tiara of pearls and turquoises, had a very odd effect in the half light; and then at eleven o'clock at night she would put on her bonnet and cloak and go off for a walk by herself in the woods. Charming Miss Minnie Fletcher of Saltoun is here. She told me that—"Sir David Brewster and his daughter went to stay with the Stirlings of Kippenross. In the night Miss Brewster was amazed by being awakened by her father coming into her room and saying, 'My dear, don't be alarmed, but I really cannot stay in my room. It may be very foolish and nervous, but there are such odd noises, such extraordinary groanings and moanings, that I positively cannot bear it any longer, and you must let me stay here. Don't disturb yourself; I shall easily sleep on the sofa.'"Miss Brewster thought her father very silly, but there he stayed till morning, when he slipped away to his own room to dress, so as not to be found when the servant came to call his daughter. When the maid came she said, 'Pray, ma'am, how long are you going to stay in this house?' Miss Brewster was surprised, and said she did not know. 'Because, ma'am, if youare going to stay, I am sorry to say I must leave you. I like you very much, ma'am, and I shall be sorry to go, but I would do anything rather than again go through all I suffered last night; such awful groanings and moanings and such fearful noises I can never endure again.' Miss Brewster was very much annoyed and laughed at the maid, who nevertheless continued firm in her decision."In the afternoon Miss Brewster had a headache, and at length it became so bad that she was obliged to leave the dinner-table and go up to her room. At the head of the stairs she saw a woman—a large woman in a chintz gown, leaning against the banisters. She took her for the housekeeper, and said, 'I am going to my room: will you be so kind as to send my maid to me?' The woman did not answer, but bowed her head three times and then pointed to a door in the passage and went downstairs. Miss Brewster went to her room, and after waiting an hour in vain for her maid, she undressed and went to bed. When the maid came up, she asked why she had not come before, and said she had sent the housekeeper for her. 'How very odd,' said the maid, 'because I have been sitting with the housekeeper the whole time.' Miss Brewster then described the person she had seen, upon which the maid gave a shriek and said, 'Oh, then you have seen the ghost.' The maid was in such a state of terror, that when Mrs. Stirling came up to inquire after her headache, Miss Brewster asked her about the woman she had seen, when, to her surprise, Mrs. Stirling looked quite agonised, and said, 'Oh, then there is more misery in store for me. You do not know what that ghosthas been to me all through my married life.' She then made Miss Brewster promise not to tell the persons who slept in the room pointed at, that theirs was the room. It was a Major and Mrs. Wedderburn who slept there. Mrs. Stirling and Miss Brewster then both wrote out accounts of what had happened and signed and sealed them. Before the year was out, they heard that the Wedderburns were both killed in the Indian Mutiny.""Winton Castle, Sept. 8.—My visit here has been very pleasant indeed. The Speaker and Lady Charlotte Denison came on Tuesday afternoon with the Belhavens. He is a fine-looking elderly man, with a wonderful fund of agreeable small-talk. Lady Charlotte[294]is very refined, quite unaffected, and very pretty still: they are both most kind to me. Miss Fletcher has been here all the time to help Lady Ruthven, for whom it is well that she has such a kind, pleasant greatniece only a mile off, to come and help her to amuse all her guests, as she has had fifty-six parties of peoplestayingin the house in the last year. We saw a large party of the great-great nephews and nieces of Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven on Wednesday, when we went to spend the afternoon at Lord Elcho's. It is a fine place, Amisfield—a huge red stone house in a large park close to the town of Haddington, where there is a beautiful old cathedral, but in ruins, like all the best Scotch churches. Lady Elcho[295]has the stately refinement of a beautiful Greek statue. Her childrenare legion, the two eldest boys very handsome and pleasant. We went over the house, with old tapestry, &c., to be seen, and the gardens with fine cedars, and then all Lord Wemyss's twenty-four race horses were brought out in turn to be exercised round the courtyard and admired: after which we had Scotch tea—scones, cakes, apricot-jam, &c."I have made rather friends with John Gordon,[296]a younger brother of Lord Aberdeen, who has been staying here. He is a second Charlie Wood in character, though only eighteen, and I have seldom seen any one I liked as well on short acquaintance. His family are all supposed to be dreadfully shy, but he seems to be an exception."Yesterday Lady Belhaven and Lady Ruthven went to Edinburgh, and I stayed with Miss Fletcher, and walked with her in the afternoon to Saltoun, where we had tea with Lady Charlotte and saw the curiosities. Lady Charlotte Fletcher[297]said:—"'The French royal family were often here at Saltoun when they were at Holyrood—Charles X. and the Duchesse d'Angoulême, and the Duchesse de Berri and her daughter, the Duc and Duchesse de Guise and the Duc de Polignac.... The Duchesse d'Angoulême and the Duc de Polignac used to go down to the bridge in the glen and stay there for hours: they said it reminded them so much of France, the trees and the water. The Duc de Polignac said our picture of the leave-taking of Louis XVI. and his family contained figures more like than any he had seen elsewhere.We turned it to the wall and locked the door when they came, for fear the Duchesse d'Angoulême should see it, but the little Mademoiselle de Berri was playing hide-and-seek through the rooms, and she got in by the outer door, and it was the first thing she observed, and she insisted on seeing it.... She did me a little drawing, and left it behind her."'The family were very fond of coming here, because my father, Lord Wemyss, had been kind to them when they were here during the first Revolution. On the Duchesse de Berri's birthday, she was asked what she would like to do in honour of it, and she chose a day at Saltoun. It was very inconvenient their all coming with the children at a few hours' notice, such a large party, but she wrote a pretty note, saying what a pleasure it would be to see her old friends again, and another afterwards, saying what a delight it had been, so that we were quite compensated.'"On Sunday, when it was church-time, Lady Ruthven said, 'We'll just gang awa to the kirk and see what sort of a discoorse the minister makes; and if he behaves himself, well—we'll ask him up to dinner!' She sat in kirk, with her two dogs beside her, in a kind of chair of state just under the pulpit, where she might have been mistaken for the clerk. She is as demonstrative in church as elsewhere, and once when Miss Fletcher came unexpectedly into the gallery after she had been some time without seeing her, she called out, 'Eh, there ye are, Minnie, my darling,' before the whole congregation, and began kissing her hands to her. When a child screamed in kirk, and its mother was taking it out, the minister interrupted his discourse with, 'Na, bide a wee: I'm no that fashed wi' the bairn.'—'Na, na,' said the mother, 'I'll no bide: it's the bairn that's fashed wi' ye.' Talking afterwards of the change of feeling with which church-services were usually regarded now-a-days, Lady Charlotte Fletcher said:—"'Old Lady Hereford, my aunt, was quite one of the old school. She had a large glass pew in church, and the service was never allowed to begin till she had arrived, settled herself, and opened the windows of her pew. If she did not like the discourse, she slammed down her windows. After the service was over, her steward used to stand by the pew door to receive her orders as to which of the congregation were to be invited to dine in her hall that day.'"While the party were talking of the change of manners, Lord Belhaven said:—"'I just remember the old drinking days:[298]they were just dying out when I entered the army. Scarcely any gentlemen used to drink less than two bottles of claret after dinner. They used to chew tobacco, which was handed round, and drink their wine through it, wine and tobacco-juice at the same time. A spittoon was placed between every two gentlemen. It was universal to chew tobacco in country-houses: they chewed it till they went in to dinner, and they began again directly the ladies left the room, when tobacco and spittoons were handed round."'There were usually the bottles called "Jeroboams" on the table, which held six bottles of port. The oldDuke of Cleveland[299]always had his wine-glasses made without a foot, so that they would not stand, and you were obliged to drink off the whole glass when you dined with him."'I remember once dining at a house from which I was going away the next morning. I got to bed myself at twelve. When I came down to go off at eight, I asked when the other gentlemen had left the diningroom. "Oh," said the servant, "they are there still." I went in, and there, sure enough, they all were. When they saw me, they made a great shout, and said, "Come, now, you must drink off a bumper," and filled a tumbler with what they thought was spirits, but to my great relief I saw it was water. So I said, "Very well, gentlemen, I shall be glad to drink to your health, and of course you will drink to mine,"—so I drank the water, and they drank the spirits.'""Castlecraig, Noblehouse, Sept. 9.—I came out this morning by the railway to Broomlee, a pretty line, leading into wild moorland, and at the station a dogcart met me, and brought me six miles farther, quite into the heart of the Pentlands. The ascent to this house is beautiful, through woods of magnificent alpine-looking firs. Addie Hay[300]was waiting for me. You would scarcely believe him to be as ill as he is, and he is most cheerful and pleasant, making no difficulties about anything. He is often here with my present host, Sir William Carmichael.""Winton Castle, Sept. 10.—Yesterday I saw the beautiful grounds of Castlecraig—green glades in the hills with splendid pines, junipers, &c., and part of the garden consecrated as a burial-ground, with mossgrown sculptured tombs of the family ancestors on the green lawn."At Eskbank Lady Ruthven met me, and I came on with her to Newbattle. It is an old house, once an abbey, lying low in a large wooded park on the banks of the Esk—a fine hall and staircase hung with old portraits, and a beautiful library with long windows, carved ceiling, old books, illuminated missals, and stands of Australian plants. Lady Lothian is very young and pretty,[301]Lord Lothian a hopeless invalid from paralysis. She showed me the picture gallery and then we went to the garden—most lovely, close to the rushing Esk, and of mediæval aspect in its splendid flowers backed by yew hedges and its stone sundials. After seeing Lady Lothian's room and pictures, we had tea in the garden. The long drive back to Winton was trying, as, with the thermometer at 70°, Lady Ruthven would have a large bottle of boiling water at the bottom of the close carriage."Lady Ruthven is most kind, but oh! the life with her is so odd. One day a gentleman coming down in the morning looked greatly agitated, which was discovered to be owing to his having looked out of his window in the middle of the night, and believing that he had seen a ghost flitting up and down the terrace in a most ghastly clinging white dress. Itwas the lady of the castle in her white dressing-gown and night-gown!""Wishaw, Sept. 14.—I came here (to the Belhavens) after a two days' visit to Mrs. Stirling of Glenbervie, whence I saw Falkirk Tryste—the great cattle fair of Scotland. It was a curious sight, an immense plain covered with cattle of every description, especially picturesque little Highland beasts attended by drovers in kilts and plumes. When I saw the troops of horses kicking and prancing, I said how like it all was to Rosa Bonheur's 'Horse Fair,' and then heard she had been there to study for her picture."We dined yesterday at Dalzel, Lady Emily Hamilton's,[302]a beautiful old Scotch house, well restored by Billings. To-day is tremendously hot, but though I am exhausted by the sun, I am much more so by all the various hungers I have gone through, as we had breakfast at half-past ten and luncheon at half-past five, and in the interval went to Bothwell—Lord Home's,—beautiful shaven lawns above a deep wooded ravine of the Clyde, and on the edge of the slope a fine old red sandstone castle.""Lagaray, Gareloch, Sept. 17.—How I longed for my mother on Friday in the drive from Helensburgh along a terrace on the edge of the Gareloch, shaded by beautiful trees, and with exquisite views of distant grey mountains and white-sailed boats coming down the loch! I was most warmly welcomed by Robert Shaw Stewart[303]and his wife.... Yesterday we went an immense excursion of forty-five miles, seeing the three lakes—Lomond, Long, and Gareloch.""Carstairs House, Lanarkshire, Sept. 18.—Nothing could exceed the kindness of the Shaw Stewarts, and I was very sorry to leave them. The Gareloch is quite lovely, such fine blue mountains closing the lake, with its margin of orange-coloured seaweeds.... The Monteith family were at luncheon when I arrived at this large luxurious house—the guests including two Italians, one a handsome specimen of the Guardia Nobile—Count Bolognetti Cenci, a nephew by many greats of the famous Beatrice. After luncheon we were sent to the Falls of the Clyde—Cora Linn—a grand mass of water foaming and dashing, which the Italians called 'carina'!"
"Ford Cottage, August 24.—I have been walking in the dene to-day with Lady Stuart. She narrates very comically the effect which her two beautiful daughters produced when they came out into the world, and the way in which she saw a lady at a ball gaze at them, and then at her, and heard her say, 'Howbeautiful they are, and isn't it strange,considering?' Some one spoke of how Blake the artist used to go into a summer-house with Mrs. Blake, and practise for the Adam and Eve of his pictures, and how one day some visitors came, and it was very awkward. 'It would not have been so with the real Adam and Eve,' said Lady Stuart, 'for they could never dread any droppers-in.' In her anecdotes of old times and people, she is quite inexhaustible. Here are some of them:—
"'Yes, we were at George the Fourth's coronation; a great many other ladies and I went with Lady Castlereagh—she, you know, was the minister's wife—by water in one of the great state barges. We embarked at Hungerford Stairs, and we got out at a place called Cotton Garden, close to Westminster Hall. Lord Willoughby was with us. When we got out, we were looking about to see where all the ministers lived, &c., when somebody came up and whispered something to Lord Willoughby. He exclaimed "Good God!" and then, apologising for leaving us, went off in a hurry looking greatly agitated. Queen Caroline was at that moment knocking at the door of the Abbey. She had got Lady Anne Barnard, who was with her, to get her a peer's ticket, which was given her, but it was not countersigned, and they would not admit her. Shewas in despair. She stood on the platform and wrung her hands in a perfect agony. At last Alderman Wood, who was advising her, said, "Really your Majesty had better retire." The people who had tickets for the Abbey, and who were to go in by that door, were all waiting and pressing for entrance, and when the Queen went away, there were no acclamations for her; the people thought she had no business to come to spoil their sport.[273]
"'She had been married twenty-five years to the King then. They offered her £100,000 a year to stay quietly abroad, but she would come back at once and assert her rights as a queen. She died of that Coronation-day. She went home and was very ill. Then came a day on which she was to go to one of the theatres. It was placarded all about that she was to appear, and her friends tried to get up a little reaction in her favour. She insisted on going, and she was tolerably well received, but when she came home she was worse, and she died two days after.
"'The Duchesse de Berri[274]thought of marrying George IV. after her Duke was dead. People began to talk to her about marrying again. "Oh dear, no," she said, "I shall never marry again. At least there is only one person—there is the King of England. How funny it would be to have two sons, one theKing of France and the other King of England—yes, and the King of England the cadet of the two." I never had courage to tell George IV. what she said, though I might have done it. He once said to me, when his going to France was talked of, "Oh dear, no, I don't want to see them. Poor Louis XVIII., he was a friend of mine, but then he's dead; and as for Charles X., I don't want to see him. The Dauphine! yes, I pity her; and the Duchesse de Bern, she's dreadful ugly, ain't she?" I wish I had said to him, "Yes, but she does not wish your Majesty to think so."
"'I went down one day to St. Cloud to see the Duchesse de Berri; she had been pleased to express a wish to see me. While I was there, her son rushed in.[275]"Come now," she said, "kiss the hand of Madame l'Ambassadrice. But what have you got there?" she said. "Oh, je vous apportais mes papillons," said he, showing some butterflies in a paper case, and then, with an air of pride, "C'est une assez belle collection." The Duchesse laughed at them, and the boy looked so injured and hurt, that I said, "But it is a very nice collection indeed." Many years afterwards, only three years ago, Lou and I were at Venice, and we went to dine with the Chambords. He remembered all about it, and laughed, and said, "Après, je regrettais mes papillons." For it was only a fortnight after I saw them that the Revolution took place, and the family had to fly, and of course the butterflies in their paper case were left behind in the flight. We were in the Pyrenees then, and indeed when the Duchesse sent forme, it was because she heard I was going there, and she wished to tell me about the places she had been to, and to ask me to engage her donkey-woman.
"'When they were at Venice, the Chambords lived in one palace, a very fine one, and the Duchesse de Berri in another farther down the canal, and the Duchess of Parma in a third. I did not see the Duchesse de Berri, though I should have liked to have done so. She was married then to a Marchese Lucchesi, by whom she had a quantity of grown-up sons and daughters. They were dreadfully extravagant—not Lucchesi, he never was, but she was, and her sons-in-law. The Comte de Chambord paid her debts over and over again, but at last her things were obliged to be sold.
"'When we went to dine with the Chambords, we were warned that we must not allow anything to pass, or we should not get any dinner. We went at half-past four, and the soup came, and the Duke (de Bordeaux) was talking to me at that time, and, while I was listening, the soup was carried away, and so it was with nearly everything else. The party was almost entirely composed of French exiles. Lou wrote down their names at the time, but I have forgotten them now. At seven our gondola was ordered, and it came too late, the royalties were so punctual. The Duke and Duchess got up, and saying, "I wish you a pleasant evening," went out, and then we had nothing for it but to go away. An old Venetian gentleman helped us out of the scrape, and gave us a lift home in his gondola, and very much aghast our gondoliers were when they met us in another boat upon the canal, while they wererowing with all their might to fetch us away. The royal family used to go in the evening to an island, which the Duke had bought for them to have exercise upon.
"'They would never do for France: they have not the manners. She is ugly,[276]and then she dresses so badly—no, she would never do. The only one who would do out of both sets is Aumale: he is really a fine prince. The Comte de Paris would of course naturally come first, but the Duke of Orleans used to say, 'I will never be a king by anything but popular election,' and that is against his family succeeding. All the members of the familylook upto Aumale.
"'Did you ever hear about the old Duc de Coigny and his arm? His arm was shot during the Moscow campaign, and when it was amputated, numbers of others having their limbs taken off at the same time, he exclaimed, "Oh mon cher bras, qui m'a si bien servi, je ne puis jamais me séparer de ce cher bras," and he insisted on its being found for him, which was highly inconvenient, and packed it up in a portmanteau, which he carried before him on horseback during the whole of the return. The soldiers quite hated that arm; however, the Duke insisted upon it. At last, as he was crossing a ford in a carriage, the portmanteau rolled off his knee on to his foot and hurt it exceedingly, upon which he was so exasperated that in a fit of rage he opened the carriage door and kicked it out into the river. When he got to his night quarters, however, the Duke was in absolute despair—"Oh mon pauvrebras! mon pauvre cher bras!" He had wished it to be buried with him; for was it not his most faithful servant? he said. However, none of the soldiers were inclined to go and fish it up for him, and since then, poor man, he has had to be buried without it.
"'The wife of this Duc de Coigny was Henrietta Dalrymple Hamilton, who brought him large estates. Her parents were miserable at her marrying a foreigner, from the idea that the estates would certainly then go out of the family; but of all his children only two daughters survive; one is Lady Manvers, and the other married Lord Stair, and thus brought back the estates to the elder branch of the Dalrymples. The Duc died last year, chiefly of grief for the death of another daughter who had married a Frenchman. His sister married Maréchal Sebastiani and had five daughters. One of these was the murdered Duchesse de Praslin.
"'Madame de Praslin was one of a society that there was in Paris then, who used to laugh at anything like spiritualism or warnings from another world. Madame de Rabuteau was her great friend and partisan in these opinions. One day Madame de Praslin went with her husband to Choiseul Praslin. Her room was magnificent, and she slept in a great velvet bed. In the middle of the night, she awoke with a sense of something moving in the room, and, lifting herself up in bed, saw, by the expiring embers of the fire, a figure, and as it turned, she saw, as it were, something green. She scarcely knew whether she was asleep or awake, and, to convince herself, stretched out her hand and encountered something cold, hard, and which felt likesteel. Then, widely awake, she saw the figure recede and vanish out of the room. She felt a thrill of horror and began to reason with herself. "Well," she said, "I have always opposed and laughed at belief in these things, and now one of them has come tome. Now what can it mean? It can only mean that I am soon to die, and it has come as a warning."
"'Soon after Madame de Praslin returned to Paris, and at the house of Madame de Rabuteau she met all her former intimates. "Oh," said Madame de Rabuteau as she entered the room, "I am so glad you have come to help me to laugh at all these people, who are holding forth upon revelations from another world."—"Indeed, I think we had better talk of something else," said Madame de Praslin; "let us talk of something else."—"Why, my dear, you used to be such an ardent defender of mine," said Madame de Rabuteau, "areyougoing over to the other side?" But Madame de Praslin resolutely refused the subject and "parlons d'autre chose" was all that could be extracted from her. When the rest of the company was gone, Madame de Rabuteau said, "Well, now, what is it? what can have come over you this evening? why do you not laugh at their manifestations?"—"Simply because I have had one myself," replied very gravely Madame de Praslin, and she told what had happened, saying that she believed it to indicate her approaching death. Madame de Rabuteau tried to argue her out of the impression, but in vain. Madame de Praslin went home, and a few days after she was murdered in the Hôtel Sebastiani.
"'When the Duke was taken, search was made, andamongst his things were found a green mask and a dagger. He had evidently intended to murder the Duchess at Choiseul Praslin, and it had been no spirit that she saw.
"'Madame de Feuchères was originally a Miss Sophia Dawes, the daughter of Mr. Dawes, who was a shipbuilder at Ryde and a very respectable man. The Duc de Bourbon[277]saw her somewhere and took a great fancy to her, and, to facilitate an intimacy with her, he married her to his aide-de-camp, the Baron de Feuchères. But M. de Feuchères was a very honourable man. When the marriage was proposed to him, the Duke paying the dowry, he took her for a daughter of the Duke, and when he found out the real state of things, he separated from her at once, leaving all her fortune in her hands. It was supposed that Madame de Feuchères was in the Orleans interest, and that therefore the Duke would leave everything to the Duc d'Aumale. I must say for the Duchesse de Berri that she was exceedingly good-natured about that. When there was a question about the Feuchères being received at the palace, she advocated it, for the sake ofma tante,[278]and Madame de Feuchères came. But when the Revolution took place and Charles X. fled, the feelings of the Duc de Bourbon were changed; all his loyalty was roused, and he said that he mustfollowson roi. Nothing that Madame de Feuchères could say could change this resolution. They said that he hanged himself (August 27, 1830), immediately after hearing of the escape, but few believed it; most thought that Madame de Feuchères had done it—unjustly perhaps, because, on arriving at an inn where they were to sleep, the Duke observed that the landlord looked very dispirited, and knowing the cause, said, "I am afraid you have had some sad trouble in your family besides all these terrible public events."—"Yes, Monseigneur," said the man, "my brother hanged himself yesterday morning."—"And how did he do that?" said the Duke. "Oh, Monseigneur, he hanged himself from the bolt of the shutter."—"No, that is impossible," said the Duke, "for the man was too tall." Then the landlord exactly described the process by which his brother had effected his purpose, raising himself upon his knees, &c., and it was precisely in that way that the body of the Duke was found in the château of St. Leu. Still most people thought that Madame de Feuchères had murdered him in his bed, and then hung up his body to avoid suspicion.[279]
"'It was said that the Duke could not have hanged himself, because he had hurt his hand and could not use it, and so could not have tied himself up, but Lord Stuart always said that he was very thankful that his evidence was not called for, because he had met theDuke at a dinner-party a little while before, when he showed that he could use his hand by carving a large turkey beautifully. That dinner-party was at St. Leu. Madame Adelaide had wanted to buy St. Leu, but the Duke said, "No; yet never mind; some day it will come into your family all the same." The Duke sat by Madame Adelaide at dinner and carved the turkey. "Pray do not attempt it, Monseigneur," she said, "for it will be too much for you," but he was able to do it very well.
"'In consequence of the Duke dying when he did, the Duc d'Aumale got the Condé property. Madame de Feuchères came to England, and her brother, Mr. Dawes, took a place for her near Highcliffe. I never called on her, but Lord Stuart did. I remember Bemister, a carpenter, being sent for by her, and coming to me afterwards. He told me, "I felt very queer when she told me to hang up a picture of the Duke on the wall of her room, and before I thought what I was about I said, 'And where willyouhanghe?'"—"And what in the world did she answer?" I asked. "Well," he said, "I was looking very foolish, and she said, 'Why, you don't think I reallydidit, do you?'"—"And what did you really think, Bemister?" I said. "Why, I don't think shedidit," answered Bemister, "but I think she worrited of him into doing it himself," and I suspect this was pretty near the truth.'
"I sleep at the castle, and at 10A.M.go down to the cottage, which looks radiant in its bowers of flowers and shrubs, with a little burn tossing in front. Lady Waterford reads the lessons and prayers to the household (having already been to church herself). Thencomes breakfast in the miniature dining-room opening into the miniature garden, during which she talks ceaselessly in her wonderfully poetical way. Then I sit a little with Lady Stuart—then draw, while Lady Waterford has her choristers and other boy models to sit to her. At two is luncheon, then we go out, Lady Stuart in a donkey-chair. Yesterday we went all over Flodden; to-day we are going to Yetholm, the gipsy capital. At half-past seven we dine, then Lady Waterford paints, while I tell them stories, oranything, for they like to hear everything, and then Lady Waterford sings, and tells me charming things in return. Here are some snatches from her:—
"'I wish you had seen Grandmama Hardwicke.[280]She was such a beautiful old lady—very little, and with the loveliest skin, and eyes, and hair; and she had such beautiful manners, so graceful and so gracious. Grandmama lived till she was ninety-five. She died in '58. I have two oak-trees in the upper part of the pleasaunce which were planted by her. When she was in her great age, all her grandchildren thought they would like to have oak-trees planted by her, and so a row of pots was placed in the window-sill, and her chair was wheeled up to it, to make it as little fatigue as possible, and she dropped an acorn into each of the pots. Her old maid, Maydwell, who perfectly doted upon her, and was always afraid of her overdoing herself, stood by with a glass of port wine and a biscuit, and when she had finished her work, she tookthe wine, and passing it before the pots, said, "Success to the oak-trees," and drank it. I am always so sorry that Ludovic Lindsay (Lord Lindsay's eldest boy) should not have seen her. Lord Lindsay wished it: he wished to have carried on further the recollection of a person whose grandfather's wife was given away by Charles the Second; but it was Maydwell who prevented it, I believe, because she was too proud of her mistress, and did not think her looking quite so well then as she had looked some years before. The fact was, I think, that some of the little Stuarts had been taken to see her, and as they were going out they had been heard to say, "Howawfullyold she looks."
"'Her father, Lord Balcarres, was what they call "out in the '45," and his man was called on to swear that he had not been present at a time when he was. The man swore it and Lord Balcarres got off. When they were going away safe he said to his man, "Well now, howcouldyou swear such a lie!"—"Because I had rather trust my sowle to God," said the man, "than your body to deevils." The first wife of Lord Balcarres's father[281]was Mauritia of Nassau, who was given away by Charles II. When they came to the altar, the bridegroom found that he had totally forgotten the ring. In a great fright he asked if one of the bystanders could lend him a ring, and a friend gave him one. He did not find out then that it bore the device of a death's-head and cross-bones, but Mauritia of Nassau found it out afterwards: sheconsidered it a prophecy of evil, and she died within the year.
"'When he was almost an old man, Lord Balcarres went to stay with old Lady Keith. There were a quantity of young ladies in the house, and before he came Lady Keith said, "Now there is this old gentleman coming to stay, and I particularly wish that you should all endeavour to make yourselves as pleasant to him as you can." They all agreed, but a Miss Dalrymple[282]said, "Well, you may all do what you like, but I'll bet you anything you please that I'll make him like me the best of all of us," and so she did; she made him exclusively devoted to her all the while he was there; but she never thought of anything more than this, and when he asked her to marry him, she laughed at the very idea. He was exceedingly crestfallen, but when he went away he made a will settling everything he possessed upon this Miss Dalrymple. Somehow she heard of this, and said, "Well then, after all, he must really care for me, and Iwillmarry him," and she did. He was fifty-eight then, but they had eleven children. When Lady Balcarres was an old woman, she was excessively severe, indeed she became so soon after her marriage. One day some one coming along the road towards her house met a perfect procession of children of all ages, from three upwards, walking one behind the other, and the eldest boy, who came first, gipsy fashion carrying the baby on his back. They were the eleven children of Lady Balcarres making their escape from their mother, with the intention ofgoing out to seek their own fortunes in the world. It was one of the family of this Lady Balcarres who was the original of Lucy Ashton in the "Bride of Lammermoor." The story is all true. The Master of Ravenswood was Lord Rutherford. She rode to church on a pillion behind her brother that he might not feel how her heart was beating.
"'In consequence of Grandmama Hardwicke's great age, people used to be astonished at my aunt Lady Mexborough, when nearly eighty, running upstairs and calling out 'Mama.' When my aunt Lady Somers was at Bath, she sent for a doctor, and he said to her, "Well, my lady, atyourage, you cannot expect to be ever much better."—"Atmyage!" she said, "why, my mother only died last year." The doctor was perfectly petrified with amazement. "It is the most wonderful thing," he said, "that I ever heard in my life." My grandmother's sisters were very remarkable women; one was Lady Margaret Lindsay, the other was Lady Anne Barnard. Lady Anne was the real authoress of "Auld Robin Gray." She loved the tune,[283]but the original words were bad and unfit for a lady to sing, so she wrote, "Auld Robin Gray," though some one else has always had the credit of it.'
FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE.FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE.[284]
"We have been walking this afternoon through the cornfields towards Etal. Lady Waterford recalled howLady Marion Alford had shown her that all the sheaves leaning towards one another were like hands praying. To-night Mr. Williams dined at the cottage. Asking Lady Waterford about him afterwards, she said:—
"'I do not know if Mr. Williams is old or young. I think he is like the French lady of whom it was said, "Elle n'avait pas encore perdu l'ancienne habitude d'être jeune." Apropos of this, Lady Gifford made such a pretty speech once. A little girl asked her, "Do tellme, are you old or young? I nevercanmake out," and she said, "My dear, I have been a very long time young."
"'The story of Mr. Williams is quite a pretty one. When Lord Frederick FitzClarence was in India, there was a great scandal in his government, and two of his aides-de-camp had to be sent away. He wrote to his brother-in-law to send him out another in a hurry, and he sent Mr. Williams. When he arrived, Lord Frederick was very ill, and soon after he died. After his death, Mr. Williams had the task of bringing Lady Frederick and her daughter home. Miss FitzClarence was then very much out of health, and he used to carry her up on deck, and they were thrown very much together. I believe the maids warned Lady Frederick that something might come of it, but she did not see it. Before the end of the voyage, Mr. Williams and Miss FitzClarence had determined to be married, but she decided not to tell her mother as yet. When the ship arrived at Portsmouth, the coffin of Lord Frederick had to remain all night on the deck, and Mr. Williams never left it, but walked up and down the whole time watching it, which touched Lady Frederick very much. Still, when her daughter told her she was going to marry him, she was quite furious, contrary to her usual disposition, which is an exceedingly mild one, and she would not hear of it, and sent him away at once.
"'It was the time of the war, and Captain Williams went off to the Crimea, but Miss FitzClarence grew worse and worse, and at last the difference between them made her so uncomfortable with her mother, that she went off to her grandmother; but while there shecontinued to get worse, and at last it was evidently a case of dying, and when her mother went to her, she was so alarmed that she begged she would marry any one she liked; she would consent to whatever she wished, and would send for Captain Williams at once. So Williams threw up everything, though it was considered a disgrace in time of war, and came home, but when he arrived, poor Miss FitzClarence was dead.
"'Then Lady Frederick felt that she could not do enough for him, and she took him to live with her as her son. The relations, however, were all very angry, and themauvaises languessaid that she meant to marry him herself. So then she thought it would not do, and she got him an agency on Lord Fife's property and sent him to live alone. However, after a time, the agency somehow was given up, and he came back, and he always lives now with Lady Frederick. At Etal they always sit in church gazing into the open grave, which Lady Frederick will never have closed, in which his love is to be buried when she (the mother) dies, and is laid there also, and at Ford he sits by his love's dead head.
"'I think Captain Williams must be no longer young, because he is so very careful about his dress, and that is always a sign of a man's growing old, isn't it?"
"The neighbours at Ford most of them seem to have 'stories' and are a perpetual source of interest. Lady Waterford says:—
"'Grindon is a fine old manor-house near Tillmouth. Mr. Friar lives there. One morning he was a carpenter working down a coal-pit, and in the evening he was the master of Grindon: I believe an uncle left it him.
"'Then there was that Sir F. Blake whose wife was a Persian princess, who afterwards left a fine diamond necklace and two most magnificent Persian vases to the family. I was so sorry when those vases were sold for £40: they were worth many hundreds.
"'Near Howtell is Thorpington, a farm of the Hunts. Sir J. Hunt was attainted for fighting in the Jacobite cause, and his property was all confiscated. His son was so reduced that he was obliged to become a groom, but he so gained the regard of his master, that, when he died, he left him all his horses. From that time the Hunts have taken to selling horses and their breed has become famous. They never sell a horse, however, under £200: if they do not get that sum, they either shoot them or give them away.'"
"Chillingham Castle, August 27, 1865.—On Thursday afternoon I drove with Lady Waterford and Lady Stuart to Yetholm, twelve miles from Ford. The way wound through wild desolate valleys of the Cheviots, and the village itself is a miserable place. I drew the palace of the gipsy queen—a wretched thatched hovel with a mud floor, but royalty was absent on a tinkering expedition.
"On Friday I went in the pony-carriage to Etal. There I was shown into a room hung with relics of Lord Frederick FitzClarence and miniatures of George IV. and the royal family. Very soon Lady Frederick[285]came in—a figure like a nun, one straight fall of crape, without crinoline, enveloping her thin figure, and her hair all pushed back into a tight round white muslincap, and coal-scuttle bonnet. She scarcely ever sees any one, so it was an effort to her to receive me, but she was not so odd as I expected. She talked about the place and then about wasps, and said that if Captain Williams was stung by a wasp, it had such an effect upon him that he swelled up all over and fell down perfectly senseless upon the ground that instant. In the hall was the dinner service of Nelson (painted with figures of Lady Hamilton as Amphytrite), which was given to Lord Frederick by William IV. Captain Williams went with me to the ruined castle of Etal and then along a walk above the Till, which was very beautiful, with weird old willows, high rocks, and lovely reaches of wood and water.
"Yesterday morning I made a sketch of the door of the cottage, with all its flowers, &c., which I gave to Lady Stuart, much to her pleasure. She told me about Lord Waterford's death. On that morning, as always, Lady Waterford read to him a chapter in the Bible whilst he was dressing, and for that day it was the lament for Absalom. It contained the verse in which a pillar is raised up to him for 'he had no son to keep his name in remembrance;' so his widow determined to raise a pillar to his memory, and has done so in the beautiful angel-fountain at Ford.
Elizabeth, Lady Stuart de Rothesay. From a miniature by Miss Dixon.Elizabeth, Lady Stuart de Rothesay.From a miniature by Miss Dixon.
"In the middle of luncheon Lady Tankerville drove up, came to fetch me, and bringing Lady Bagot[286]and Lady Blanche Egerton[287]to see the castle. So at five I came away with them, and took leave of the cottageand its delightful inmates.... It was a cold dreary day, and gusts of wind and rain blew from the Cheviots during our fourteen miles. Lady Tankerville drove."
"Chillingham, August 29.—Yesterday we all drove through pouring rain to Hulne Abbey in Alnwick Park, where we were glad of the shelter of the one unruined tower for our luncheon. Afterwards we drove through the park to the castle, which I had not seen since the reign of Algernon the Great and Eleanor the Good. Now we were the guests of Lady Percy, a kind pleasant person, and Lady Louisa. The rooms are grandly uncomfortable (except the library, which is an attractive room), but the decorations cost £350,000!"
"August 30.—Yesterday, as the family here are impervious to damp, we picknicked in the forest. Lady Tankerville made the fire and boiled the kettle; Lady Blanche laid the cloth and cut bread and butter; a young Grey and I made the toast, and the little boys and girls caught fresh trout out of the burn close by. In the evening Lord Tankerville told us this story:—
"'My father had a beautiful villa at Walton, which we have given up now. It was in the old days when we had to ride across Putney Heath to reach it. My father used to think it very odd that when he went into the stables to see his horses in the morning, they were all in a foam and perfectly exhausted, as if they were worn out with hard riding. One day he was coming home across Putney Heath, and he was bringing Lord Derby back with him. When they came nearthe heath, he had said, "Well, now, we had better have our pistols ready, because highwaymen are often to be met with here." So they loaded their pistols, and it was not a bit too soon, for directly after a highwayman rode up to the carriage-window and demanded their money or their lives. As he spoke he recognised them, and saw also that my father recognised his own groom upon one of his own horses. In the moment's hesitation he drew back, and in that moment my father and Lord Derby fired. Several shots were exchanged on both sides, but at last came a moment's pause, during which Lord Derby cried out of the window to the postillion to ride forward, and he dashed on at full gallop. The highwayman fired into the back of the carriage, and Lord Derby and my father returned his fire by leaning out of the windows. At last the back of the carriage was quite riddled with shot, and the ammunition of those inside was quite exhausted, and then Lord Derby held out a white handkerchief as a flag of truce out of the window, and the highwayman rode up and they delivered up all their valuables to him. Of course my father never saw his groom again, and his horses were in much better condition ever afterwards—at least those which were left, for the highwayman rode away upon the best horse in the stables.'"
"Howick, Sept. 1, 1865.—Yesterday I was able to stop the express at the private station (for Howick), whither Lord Grey sent for me. It was a drive of about a mile and a half, chiefly through shrubberies of hollies and rhododendrons, to this large square house with wings. It is most comfortable inside, with abeautiful library opening into a great conservatory. Lady Grey[288]is one of the severest-looking and one of the kindest-meaning persons I have ever seen. Lord Grey is little and lame, but gets about with a stick very actively. He is quite grey, but the very image of Lady Mary Wood. The rest of the party had put off coming for a day from different reasons, but I was not sorry to make acquaintance alone first with my host and hostess, and they were most pleasant, so that it was a very agreeable evening."
"Sept. 2.—Yesterday morning a great bell on the top of the house summoned all in it to prayers, which were read by Lord Grey in the breakfast-room opening on to very pretty terraces of flowers, with perfect shrubberies of sweet verbena, for the climate here is very mild. After breakfast I went down through the wood to the sea, not a mile distant, and a very fine bit of coast, with rich colour in the rocks and water, and Dunstanborough Castle on its crag as the great feature. The place reminds me a little of Penrhôs. When I returned from driving with Lady Grey to Alnwick, the Belhavens arrived, and before dinner the Bishop of London and Mrs. Tait, and the Durhams."
"Sept. 4.—My dearest mother will like to know how intensely I have enjoyed being at Howick. The Greys make their house so pleasant and the life here is so easy. Then Lady Belhaven[289]is always celebratedas a talker, and it has been delightful to sit on the outskirts of interesting conversations between my host and Sir George Grey or the Bishop.
"On Saturday afternoon I drove with the Durhams and Lady Belhaven to Dunstanborough. The sea was of a deep Mediterranean blue under the great cliffs and overhanging towers of the ruined castle. Lord Durham[290]and I walked back three miles along the cliffs—a high field-walk like the old one at Eastbourne.
"On Sunday the Bishop preached at the little church in the grounds. It has been rebuilt and decorated with carvings by Lady Grey and her sisters-in-law. In the chancel is the fine tomb of the Prime Minister Lord Grey. I went with Durham afterwards all over the gardens, which are charming, with resplendent borders of old-fashioned flowers; and after afternoon church, we all went down through the dene to the sea, where there is a bathing-house, with a delightful room fitted up with sofas, books, &c., just above the waves. All the French herring-fleet was out, such a pretty sight. The Bishop read prayers in the evening to the great household of forty-eight persons. He is a very pleasant, amiable Bishop.
"I enjoyed seeing so much of Durham; no one could help very much liking one who is very stiff with people in general, and most exceedingly nice to oneself. But Lady Durham[291]is always charming, so perfectly naïve, natural, and beautiful. She is devotedto her husband and he to her. Some one spoke of people in general not loving all their children. She said: 'Then that is because they do not love their husbands. Some women think no more of marriage than of dancing a quadrille; but when women love their husbands, they love all their children equally. Every woman must love her first child: the degree in which they love the others depends upon the degree in which they love their husbands.'
"Sitting by her at dinner, I asked if she had ever read 'Les Misérables'? 'No. When I was confirmed, the clergyman who was teaching me saw a French novel on the table, and said, "My dear child, you don't read these things, do you?" I said "No," which was quite true, for it belonged to my French governess, and he then said, "Well, I wish you never would. Don't make any actual promise, for fear you should not keep it, but don't do it unless you are obliged;" and I never have.'
"I spoke to her of the inconsistency involved by the confirmation ceremony, by which young ladies renounced the pomps and vanities of the world, being generally the immediate predecessor of their formal entrance upon them.
"'Yes; I never thought of that. But certainly my pomps and vanities were of very short duration. I went to three balls, two tea-parties, and one dinner, and that was all I ever saw of the world; for then I was married. One year I was in the school-room in subjection to every one, ordered about here and there, and the next I was free and my own mistress and married.'
"'And did not you find it rather formidable?' I said. 'Formidable to be my own mistress! oh no. One thing I found rather formidable certainly. It was when a great deputation came to Lambton to congratulate George upon his marriage, and I had to sit at the end of the table with a great round of beef before me. I wanted them not to think I was young and inexperienced. I wanted to appear thirty at least; so Iwouldcarve: and then only think of their saying afterwards in the newspaper paragraphs, "We are glad to learn that the youthful Countess is not only amiable but intelligent." I was glad that they should think I was amiable, but when they said I was intelligent, I was perfectly furious, as if George's wife could possibly have been anything else.
"'I was brought up a Tory, but as long as I can remember I have felt myself a Radical. I cannot bear to think of the division between the classes, and there is so much good in a working-man. I love working-men: they are my friends: they are so much better than we are.
"'When my little George of four years old—such a little duck he is!—was with me at Weymouth, I told him he might take off his shoes and stockings and paddle in the water, and he went in up to his chest; and then the little monster said, "Now, mama, if you want to get me again, you may come in and fetch me, for I shan't come out." I was in despair, when a working-man passed by and said, "Do you want that little boy, ma'am?" and I said "Yes," and he tucked up his trousers and went in and fetched George out for me; but if theman'slittle boy had been in the water, Iam afraid I should not have offered to fetch him out for him.
"'And when I was going to church at Mr. Cumming's in Covent Garden (I daresay you think I'm very wrong for going there, but I can't help that), it began to pour with rain, and a cabman on a stand close by called out, "Don't you want a cab, ma'am?" I said, "Yes, very much, but I've got no money." And the cabman said, "Oh, never mind, jump in; you'll only spoil your clothes in the rain, and I'll take you for nothing." When we got to the church door, I said, "If you will come to my house you shall be paid," but he would not hear of it, and I have liked cabmen ever since. Oh, there is so much good in the working-men; they are so much better than we are.'"
"Winton Castle, N.B., Sept. 5, 1865.—My sweetest mother will like to think of me here with the dear old Lady Ruthven.[292]I left Howick at mid-day yesterday, with the Bishop and Mrs. Tait and their son Crauford, an Eton school-boy. It had been a very pleasant visit to the last, and I shall hope to repeat it another year, and also to go to the Durhams. We had an agreeable journey along the cliffs. I had become quite intimate with the Taits in the three days I was with them, and liked the Bishop very much better than Mrs. Tait, though I am sure she is a very good and useful woman.[293]At Tranent Lady Ruthven's carriage waswaiting for me. I found her in a sadly nervous state, dreadfully deaf, and constantly talking, the burden of her refrain being—
'Mummitie mum, mummitie mum,Mummitie, mummitie, mummitie mum.'
But in the evening she grew much better, and was like other people, only that she would constantly walk in and out of the dark ante-chambers playing on a concertina, which, as she wore a tiara of pearls and turquoises, had a very odd effect in the half light; and then at eleven o'clock at night she would put on her bonnet and cloak and go off for a walk by herself in the woods. Charming Miss Minnie Fletcher of Saltoun is here. She told me that—
"Sir David Brewster and his daughter went to stay with the Stirlings of Kippenross. In the night Miss Brewster was amazed by being awakened by her father coming into her room and saying, 'My dear, don't be alarmed, but I really cannot stay in my room. It may be very foolish and nervous, but there are such odd noises, such extraordinary groanings and moanings, that I positively cannot bear it any longer, and you must let me stay here. Don't disturb yourself; I shall easily sleep on the sofa.'
"Miss Brewster thought her father very silly, but there he stayed till morning, when he slipped away to his own room to dress, so as not to be found when the servant came to call his daughter. When the maid came she said, 'Pray, ma'am, how long are you going to stay in this house?' Miss Brewster was surprised, and said she did not know. 'Because, ma'am, if youare going to stay, I am sorry to say I must leave you. I like you very much, ma'am, and I shall be sorry to go, but I would do anything rather than again go through all I suffered last night; such awful groanings and moanings and such fearful noises I can never endure again.' Miss Brewster was very much annoyed and laughed at the maid, who nevertheless continued firm in her decision.
"In the afternoon Miss Brewster had a headache, and at length it became so bad that she was obliged to leave the dinner-table and go up to her room. At the head of the stairs she saw a woman—a large woman in a chintz gown, leaning against the banisters. She took her for the housekeeper, and said, 'I am going to my room: will you be so kind as to send my maid to me?' The woman did not answer, but bowed her head three times and then pointed to a door in the passage and went downstairs. Miss Brewster went to her room, and after waiting an hour in vain for her maid, she undressed and went to bed. When the maid came up, she asked why she had not come before, and said she had sent the housekeeper for her. 'How very odd,' said the maid, 'because I have been sitting with the housekeeper the whole time.' Miss Brewster then described the person she had seen, upon which the maid gave a shriek and said, 'Oh, then you have seen the ghost.' The maid was in such a state of terror, that when Mrs. Stirling came up to inquire after her headache, Miss Brewster asked her about the woman she had seen, when, to her surprise, Mrs. Stirling looked quite agonised, and said, 'Oh, then there is more misery in store for me. You do not know what that ghosthas been to me all through my married life.' She then made Miss Brewster promise not to tell the persons who slept in the room pointed at, that theirs was the room. It was a Major and Mrs. Wedderburn who slept there. Mrs. Stirling and Miss Brewster then both wrote out accounts of what had happened and signed and sealed them. Before the year was out, they heard that the Wedderburns were both killed in the Indian Mutiny."
"Winton Castle, Sept. 8.—My visit here has been very pleasant indeed. The Speaker and Lady Charlotte Denison came on Tuesday afternoon with the Belhavens. He is a fine-looking elderly man, with a wonderful fund of agreeable small-talk. Lady Charlotte[294]is very refined, quite unaffected, and very pretty still: they are both most kind to me. Miss Fletcher has been here all the time to help Lady Ruthven, for whom it is well that she has such a kind, pleasant greatniece only a mile off, to come and help her to amuse all her guests, as she has had fifty-six parties of peoplestayingin the house in the last year. We saw a large party of the great-great nephews and nieces of Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven on Wednesday, when we went to spend the afternoon at Lord Elcho's. It is a fine place, Amisfield—a huge red stone house in a large park close to the town of Haddington, where there is a beautiful old cathedral, but in ruins, like all the best Scotch churches. Lady Elcho[295]has the stately refinement of a beautiful Greek statue. Her childrenare legion, the two eldest boys very handsome and pleasant. We went over the house, with old tapestry, &c., to be seen, and the gardens with fine cedars, and then all Lord Wemyss's twenty-four race horses were brought out in turn to be exercised round the courtyard and admired: after which we had Scotch tea—scones, cakes, apricot-jam, &c.
"I have made rather friends with John Gordon,[296]a younger brother of Lord Aberdeen, who has been staying here. He is a second Charlie Wood in character, though only eighteen, and I have seldom seen any one I liked as well on short acquaintance. His family are all supposed to be dreadfully shy, but he seems to be an exception.
"Yesterday Lady Belhaven and Lady Ruthven went to Edinburgh, and I stayed with Miss Fletcher, and walked with her in the afternoon to Saltoun, where we had tea with Lady Charlotte and saw the curiosities. Lady Charlotte Fletcher[297]said:—
"'The French royal family were often here at Saltoun when they were at Holyrood—Charles X. and the Duchesse d'Angoulême, and the Duchesse de Berri and her daughter, the Duc and Duchesse de Guise and the Duc de Polignac.... The Duchesse d'Angoulême and the Duc de Polignac used to go down to the bridge in the glen and stay there for hours: they said it reminded them so much of France, the trees and the water. The Duc de Polignac said our picture of the leave-taking of Louis XVI. and his family contained figures more like than any he had seen elsewhere.We turned it to the wall and locked the door when they came, for fear the Duchesse d'Angoulême should see it, but the little Mademoiselle de Berri was playing hide-and-seek through the rooms, and she got in by the outer door, and it was the first thing she observed, and she insisted on seeing it.... She did me a little drawing, and left it behind her.
"'The family were very fond of coming here, because my father, Lord Wemyss, had been kind to them when they were here during the first Revolution. On the Duchesse de Berri's birthday, she was asked what she would like to do in honour of it, and she chose a day at Saltoun. It was very inconvenient their all coming with the children at a few hours' notice, such a large party, but she wrote a pretty note, saying what a pleasure it would be to see her old friends again, and another afterwards, saying what a delight it had been, so that we were quite compensated.'
"On Sunday, when it was church-time, Lady Ruthven said, 'We'll just gang awa to the kirk and see what sort of a discoorse the minister makes; and if he behaves himself, well—we'll ask him up to dinner!' She sat in kirk, with her two dogs beside her, in a kind of chair of state just under the pulpit, where she might have been mistaken for the clerk. She is as demonstrative in church as elsewhere, and once when Miss Fletcher came unexpectedly into the gallery after she had been some time without seeing her, she called out, 'Eh, there ye are, Minnie, my darling,' before the whole congregation, and began kissing her hands to her. When a child screamed in kirk, and its mother was taking it out, the minister interrupted his discourse with, 'Na, bide a wee: I'm no that fashed wi' the bairn.'—'Na, na,' said the mother, 'I'll no bide: it's the bairn that's fashed wi' ye.' Talking afterwards of the change of feeling with which church-services were usually regarded now-a-days, Lady Charlotte Fletcher said:—
"'Old Lady Hereford, my aunt, was quite one of the old school. She had a large glass pew in church, and the service was never allowed to begin till she had arrived, settled herself, and opened the windows of her pew. If she did not like the discourse, she slammed down her windows. After the service was over, her steward used to stand by the pew door to receive her orders as to which of the congregation were to be invited to dine in her hall that day.'
"While the party were talking of the change of manners, Lord Belhaven said:—
"'I just remember the old drinking days:[298]they were just dying out when I entered the army. Scarcely any gentlemen used to drink less than two bottles of claret after dinner. They used to chew tobacco, which was handed round, and drink their wine through it, wine and tobacco-juice at the same time. A spittoon was placed between every two gentlemen. It was universal to chew tobacco in country-houses: they chewed it till they went in to dinner, and they began again directly the ladies left the room, when tobacco and spittoons were handed round.
"'There were usually the bottles called "Jeroboams" on the table, which held six bottles of port. The oldDuke of Cleveland[299]always had his wine-glasses made without a foot, so that they would not stand, and you were obliged to drink off the whole glass when you dined with him.
"'I remember once dining at a house from which I was going away the next morning. I got to bed myself at twelve. When I came down to go off at eight, I asked when the other gentlemen had left the diningroom. "Oh," said the servant, "they are there still." I went in, and there, sure enough, they all were. When they saw me, they made a great shout, and said, "Come, now, you must drink off a bumper," and filled a tumbler with what they thought was spirits, but to my great relief I saw it was water. So I said, "Very well, gentlemen, I shall be glad to drink to your health, and of course you will drink to mine,"—so I drank the water, and they drank the spirits.'"
"Castlecraig, Noblehouse, Sept. 9.—I came out this morning by the railway to Broomlee, a pretty line, leading into wild moorland, and at the station a dogcart met me, and brought me six miles farther, quite into the heart of the Pentlands. The ascent to this house is beautiful, through woods of magnificent alpine-looking firs. Addie Hay[300]was waiting for me. You would scarcely believe him to be as ill as he is, and he is most cheerful and pleasant, making no difficulties about anything. He is often here with my present host, Sir William Carmichael."
"Winton Castle, Sept. 10.—Yesterday I saw the beautiful grounds of Castlecraig—green glades in the hills with splendid pines, junipers, &c., and part of the garden consecrated as a burial-ground, with mossgrown sculptured tombs of the family ancestors on the green lawn.
"At Eskbank Lady Ruthven met me, and I came on with her to Newbattle. It is an old house, once an abbey, lying low in a large wooded park on the banks of the Esk—a fine hall and staircase hung with old portraits, and a beautiful library with long windows, carved ceiling, old books, illuminated missals, and stands of Australian plants. Lady Lothian is very young and pretty,[301]Lord Lothian a hopeless invalid from paralysis. She showed me the picture gallery and then we went to the garden—most lovely, close to the rushing Esk, and of mediæval aspect in its splendid flowers backed by yew hedges and its stone sundials. After seeing Lady Lothian's room and pictures, we had tea in the garden. The long drive back to Winton was trying, as, with the thermometer at 70°, Lady Ruthven would have a large bottle of boiling water at the bottom of the close carriage.
"Lady Ruthven is most kind, but oh! the life with her is so odd. One day a gentleman coming down in the morning looked greatly agitated, which was discovered to be owing to his having looked out of his window in the middle of the night, and believing that he had seen a ghost flitting up and down the terrace in a most ghastly clinging white dress. Itwas the lady of the castle in her white dressing-gown and night-gown!"
"Wishaw, Sept. 14.—I came here (to the Belhavens) after a two days' visit to Mrs. Stirling of Glenbervie, whence I saw Falkirk Tryste—the great cattle fair of Scotland. It was a curious sight, an immense plain covered with cattle of every description, especially picturesque little Highland beasts attended by drovers in kilts and plumes. When I saw the troops of horses kicking and prancing, I said how like it all was to Rosa Bonheur's 'Horse Fair,' and then heard she had been there to study for her picture.
"We dined yesterday at Dalzel, Lady Emily Hamilton's,[302]a beautiful old Scotch house, well restored by Billings. To-day is tremendously hot, but though I am exhausted by the sun, I am much more so by all the various hungers I have gone through, as we had breakfast at half-past ten and luncheon at half-past five, and in the interval went to Bothwell—Lord Home's,—beautiful shaven lawns above a deep wooded ravine of the Clyde, and on the edge of the slope a fine old red sandstone castle."
"Lagaray, Gareloch, Sept. 17.—How I longed for my mother on Friday in the drive from Helensburgh along a terrace on the edge of the Gareloch, shaded by beautiful trees, and with exquisite views of distant grey mountains and white-sailed boats coming down the loch! I was most warmly welcomed by Robert Shaw Stewart[303]and his wife.... Yesterday we went an immense excursion of forty-five miles, seeing the three lakes—Lomond, Long, and Gareloch."
"Carstairs House, Lanarkshire, Sept. 18.—Nothing could exceed the kindness of the Shaw Stewarts, and I was very sorry to leave them. The Gareloch is quite lovely, such fine blue mountains closing the lake, with its margin of orange-coloured seaweeds.... The Monteith family were at luncheon when I arrived at this large luxurious house—the guests including two Italians, one a handsome specimen of the Guardia Nobile—Count Bolognetti Cenci, a nephew by many greats of the famous Beatrice. After luncheon we were sent to the Falls of the Clyde—Cora Linn—a grand mass of water foaming and dashing, which the Italians called 'carina'!"
Before returning home, I went again to Chesters in Northumberland, to meet Dr. Bruce, the famous authority on "The Roman Wall" of Northumberland, on which he has written a large volume. It was curious to find how a person who had allowed his mind to dwell exclusively on one hobby could see no importance in anything else. He said, "Rome was now chiefly interesting as illustrating the Roman Wall in Northumberland, and as for Pompeii, it was not to be compared to the English station of Housesteads."
At the end of September I returned home,and had a quiet month with the dear mother, who was now quite well. I insert a fragment of a letter from a niece who had been with her in my absence, as giving a picture of her peaceful, happy state at this time:—