Story of My Life Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: STOKE CHURCH.]

I can see the congregation still in imagination, the old women in their red cloaks and large black bonnets; the old men with their glistening bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and each with his bunch of southern-wood--"old man"--to snuff at. In my childhood the tunes of the hymns were always given with a pitch-pipe. "Dame Dutton's School" used to be ranged round the altar, and the grand old alabaster tomb of Sir Reginald Corbet, and if any of the children behaved ill during the service, they were turned up and soundly whipped then and there, their outcries mingling oddly with the responses of the congregation. But in those days, now considered so benighted, there was sometimes real devotion. People sometimes said real prayers even in church, before the times since which the poor in village churches are so frequently compelled to say their prayers to music. The curates always came to luncheon at the Rectory on Sundays. They were always compelled to come in ignominiously at the back door, lest they should dirty the entrance: only Mr. Egerton was allowed to come in at the front door, because he was "a gentleman born." How Grannie used to bully the curates! They were expected not to talk at luncheon, if they did they were soon put down. "Tea-table theology" was unknown in those days. As soon as the curates had swallowed a proper amount of cold veal, they were called upon to "give an account to Mrs. Leycester" of all that they had done in the week in the four quarters of the parish--Eton, Ollerton, Wistanswick, and Stoke--and soundly were they rated if their actions did not correspond with her intentions. After the curates, came the school-girls to practise their singing, and my mother was set down to strum the piano by the hour together as an accompaniment, while Grannie occupied herself in seeing that they opened their mouths wide enough, dragging the mouths open by force, and, if they would not sing properly, putting her fingers so far down their throats that she made them sick. One day, when she was doing this, Margaret Beeston bit her violently. Mr. Egerton was desired to talk to her afterwards about the wickedness of her conduct. "How could you be such a naughty girl, Margaret, as to bite Mrs. Leycester?"--"What'n her put her fingers down my throat for? oi'll boite she harder next time," replied the impenitent Margaret.

Grannie used to talk of chaney (china), laylocks (lilacs), and gould (gold): of the Proos.h.i.+ans and the Roos.h.i.+ans: of things being "plaguey dear" or "plaguey bad." In my childhood, however, half my elders used such expressions, which now seem to be almost extinct. "Obleege me by pa.s.sing the cowc.u.mber," Uncle Julius always used to say.

There were always three especial sources of turmoil at Stoke--the curates, the butlers, and the gardeners. Grannie was very severe to all her dependants, but to no one more than to three young lady _prot?g?es_ who lived with her in turn--Eliza Lathom, Emma Hunt, and Charlotte Atkinson--whom she fed on skim-milk and dry bread, and treated so harshly that the most adventurous and youngest of them, Charlotte Atkinson,[25] ran away altogether, joined a party of strolling players, and eventually married an actor (Mr. Tweedie). I remember Grannie going down into the kitchen one day and scolding the cook till she could bear it no longer, when she seized the dinner-bell from the shelf and rang it in her ears till she ran out of the kitchen. When there was "a wash" at Stoke, which was about every third week, it was a rule with Grannie that, summer or winter, it must always begin at one A.M. At that hour old Hannah Berry used to arrive from the village, the coppers were heated and the maids at work. The ladies-maids, who were expected to do all the fine muslins, &c., themselves, had also always to be at the washtubs at three A.M.--by candlelight. If any one was late, the housekeeper reported to Mrs. Leycester, who was soon down upon them pretty sharply. Generally, however, her real practical kindness and generosity prevented any one minding Mrs. Leycester's severity: it was looked upon as only "her way;" for people were not so tender in those days as they are now, and certainly no servant would have thought of giving up a place which was essentially a good one because they were a little roughly handled by their mistress. In those days servants were as liable to personal chastis.e.m.e.nt as the children of the house, and would as little have thought of resenting it. "You don't suppose I'm going to hurt _my_ fingers in boxing _your_ ears," said Grannie, when about to chastise the school children she was teaching, and she would take up a book from the table and use it soundly, and then say, "Now, we mustn't let the other ear be jealous," and turn the child round and lay on again on the other side. Grannie constantly boxed her housemaids' ears, and alas! when he grew very old, she used to box dear Grandpapa's, though she loved him dearly, the great source of offence being that he would sometimes slyly give the servant's elbow a tip when his daily table-spoonful of brandy was being poured out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STOKE RECTORY--THE GARDEN SIDE.]

As I have said, Grannie was quite devoted to Grandpapa, yet as she was twenty years younger, his great age could not but accustom her to the thought of his death, and she constantly talked before him, to his great amus.e.m.e.nt, of what she should do as a widow. Judge Leycester ("Uncle Hugh"), my grandfather's brother, had left her a house in New Street, Spring Gardens, and whenever Mary Stanley went to Stoke, she used to make her write down the different stages and distances to London to be ready for her removal. Frequently the family used to be startled by a tremendous "rat-a-tat-tat-tat," on the dining-room door. Grannie had ordered Richard, the young footman, up, and was teaching him how to give "a London knock"--it was well he should be prepared. One day the party sitting in the drawing-room were astonished to see the family carriage drive up to the door, with Spragg the butler on the box. "I was only seeing how Spragg will look as coachman when your Grandpapa is dead," said Grannie, and Grandpapa looked on at the arrangements and enjoyed them heartily.

As for dear Grandpapa himself, he was always happy. He would amuse himself for hours in touching up in grey or brown his own (very feeble) sketches in Switzerland or France. Being a great cla.s.sical scholar, he also read a great deal of Italian and Latin poetry, and addressed a Latin ode to his daughter-in-law Lady Charlotte Penrhyn when he was in his ninety-second year! This kind aunt of my childhood--"Aunt Nin," as I always called her--was a very simple person, utterly without pretension, but because she was Lord Derby's daughter, Grannie always treated her as the great person of the family. When we went to Stoke, no difference whatever was made in the house, the stair-carpets were not laid down, and though the drawing-room was constantly lived in, its furniture was all swathed in brown holland after the fas.h.i.+on of an uninhabited London house. When the Stanleys or Leycesters of Toft came to Stoke, the stair-carpet was put down and the _covers-covers_ were taken off; but on the rare occasions when Aunt Penrhyn came to Stoke--oh sublime moment!--the _covers_ themselves were taken off.

From our constant winter walk--"the Rope Walk"--my mother and I could see Hodnet Tower, of which Grandpapa had at one time been Rector as well as of Stoke. Bishop Heber had been Rector before him, and in his time my mother had found much of her chief happiness at Hodnet, from sources which I did not understand, when I used so often to walk up and down with her on Sundays, listening to the beautiful Hodnet bells. In my childhood, Mrs. Cholmondeley was living at Hodnet Hall, having been Mary Heber, the Bishop's sister. She was very kind to me, writing for my instruction in English history a "Chapter of Kings," of which I can only remember the two last lines, which were rather irreverent:

"William the Fourth was a long time sick, And then was succeeded by little Queen Vick."

It was a great event at Stoke when my mother was allowed to have the carriage, though what John Minshull the coachman generally did no one could ever find out. If we drove, it was generally to Buntingsdale, a fine old brick house of the last century standing at the end of a terraced garden, with lime avenues above the Terne, near Market Drayton.

Here Mr. and Mrs. Tayleur lived with their four daughters--Mary, Harriet, Lucy, and Emma, who were very severely brought up, though their father was immensely rich. The old fas.h.i.+on was kept up at Buntingsdale of all the daughters being expected to spend the whole morning with their mother in the morning-room at work round a round table, and formality in everything was the rule. Yet many of my childish pleasures came from Buntingsdale, and I was always glad when we turned out of the road and across some turnip-fields, which were then the odd approach to the lime avenue on the steep bank above the s.h.i.+ning Terne, and to see the brilliant border of crocuses under the old garden wall as we drove up to the house. The eldest daughter, Mary, who looked then like a delicate china figure and always smelt of lavender and rose-leaves, used to show me her sh.e.l.l cabinet and her b.u.t.terflies, and teach me to collect snail-sh.e.l.ls! The bright energetic second daughter, Harriet, drew capitally and encouraged my early interest in art. The other two daughters, Lucy and Emma, died young, almost at the same time: my chief recollection is of their bending over their eternal worsted-work, very pale and fragile, and their pa.s.sing away is one of my earliest impressions of death.

The other neighbours whom we saw most of were the Hills of Hawkestone, then a very numerous family. Five of the brothers--Sir Rowland (afterwards Lord Hill), Sir Robert, Sir Francis, Sir Noel, and Colonel Clement Hill, were in the battle of Waterloo, and my mother has often described to me the sickening suspense in watching for the postman after the first news of the engagement had come, with the almost certainty that at least some of the brothers must be killed. Miss Emma was deputed to receive the news, as the sister of strongest nerve, but when she heard that all her brothers were safe (only Sir Robert being slightly wounded), she fainted away. Lord Hill used to ride to see my Grandfather upon the charger he rode at Waterloo, which horse had such a reputation, that people would come from great distances more even to see the horse than Lord Hill himself. In earlier days, the family at Hawkestone used to be likened to that of the Osbaldistons in "Rob Roy"--and had all the same elements--the chaplain, the soldiers, the sportsmen, the fox-hunter, the fisherman, and in Rachel (daughter of the Colonel Hill who was killed by a fall from his horse) a very handsome Diana Vernon, with frank natural manners: people called her "the Rose of Hawkestone."

My mother often used to recall how remarkable it was that though, when gathered at home, the family seemed to have no other purpose than to pursue the amus.e.m.e.nts of a country life, when called on by their country to go forth in her service, none of her sons were so brave, none more self-devoted, than the Hill brothers.

When all the family were at Hawkestone, they dined early and had a hot supper at nine o'clock. As the family interests were confined to sporting, the conversation was not very lively, and was relieved by the uncles endeavouring to provoke each other and the young ones--to yawn!

no very difficult task, seeing they had nothing to do. The eldest Miss Hill (Maria) was a very primitive-looking person, with hair cut short, and always insisted upon sitting alone at a side-table that no one might see her eat; but I cannot remember whether she was alive in my time, or whether I have only heard of her. Even in the days of a comparative inattention to those niceties of feminine attire now universally attended to, the extraordinary head-gear worn by the Misses Hill, their tight gowns, and homely appearance, were matter for general remark. But if they lacked in these points, they vied with their brothers in the possession of brave hearts and loving sympathies--"Every eye blessed them: every tongue gave witness" to their active benevolence.

In true patriarchal style, the six children of the eldest of the Hill brothers were brought up with the uncles and aunts at Hawkestone Hall, nor was any change made when the father's sudden death left a young widow to be tended with all the kindness of real brethren in the old family home. At length the grandfather died, and Sir Rowland, then about eighteen, succeeded. But when his affairs were inquired into, it was found, that in consequence of very serious losses in a county bankruptcy and from mismanagement of the estate, there was a heavy debt upon the property, which, at best, it would take years to liquidate. A plan of rescue presented itself to Mrs. Hill, the young baronet's mother, who was a clever and kind-hearted woman, but lacked the simplicity of her sisters-in-law. A rich merchant, a Mr. Clegg from Manchester, had bought the estate adjoining Hawkestone. His only grand-daughter was then scarcely more than a child; but it was as great an object of desire to old Mr. Clegg to ally his child with an ancient and respected family and to procure for her the rank and station which his gold could not obtain, as it was to Mrs. Hill to replenish her son's empty treasury, and enable him to keep up the family place. A compact for the future was soon settled. In a few years, however, the fatal illness of Mr. Clegg obliged Mrs. Hill to hurry matters, and over her grandfather's deathbed Sir Rowland was married to the girl of fifteen. Immediately after the ceremony Mr. Clegg died. Mrs. Hill then took the girl-bride home, and educated her with her own niece, no one suspecting her secret. Sir Rowland went abroad. When two years had elapsed, Mrs. Hill also went abroad with "Miss Clegg"--who returned as the wife of Sir Rowland, received with great festivities. The marriage was a most happy one. The una.s.suming gentleness of the lady was as great as if she had been born in the station to which she was called: and in the charities of social and domestic life and the exercise of the widest-hearted benevolence to all around her, she long reigned at Hawkestone.[26] Her son Rowland was only a year older than myself, and was the nearest approach to a boy-acquaintance that I had quite as a child.

Hawkestone was and is one of the most enchanting places in England.

There, the commonplace hedges and fields of Shrops.h.i.+re are broken by a ridge of high red sandstone cliffs most picturesque in form and colour, and overgrown by old trees with a deep valley between them, where great herds of deer feed in the shadow. On one side is a grotto, and a marvellous cavern--"the Druid's Cave"--in which I used to think a live Druid, a guide dressed up in white with a wreath, appearing through the yellow light, most bewildering and mysterious. On the other side of the valley rise some castellated ruins called "the Red Castle." There was a book at Stoke Rectory about the history of this castle in the reign of King Arthur, which made it the most interesting place in the world to me, and I should no more have thought of questioning the fight of Sir Ewaine and Sir Hue in the valley, and the reception of the former by "the Lady of the Rock," and the rescue of Sir Gawaine from the gigantic Carados by Sir Lancelot, than I should have thought of attacking--well, the divine legation of Moses. But even if the earlier stories of the Red Castle are contradicted, the a.s.sociations with Lord Audley and the battle of Blore Heath would always give it a historic interest.

Over one of the deep ravines which ran through the cliff near the Red Castle was "the Swiss Bridge"--Aunt Kitty painted it in oils. Beneath it, in a conical summer-house--"the Temple of Health"--an old woman used to sit and sell packets of ginger-bread--"Drayton ginger-bread"--of which I have often bought a packet since for a.s.sociation's sake.

But the most charming expedition of all from Stoke was when, once every year, I was sent to pay a visit to the Goldstone Farm, where the mother of my dear nurse Mary Lea lived. It was an old-fas.h.i.+oned farmhouse of the better cla.s.s, black and white, with a large house-place and a cool parlour beyond it, with old pictures and furniture. In front, on the green, under an old cherry-tree, stood a grotto of sh.e.l.ls, and beyond the green an open common on the hillside covered with heath and gorse, and where cranberries were abundant in their season. Behind, was a large garden, with gra.s.s walks and abundance of common flowers and fruit.

Dear old Mrs. Lea was charming, and full of quaint proverbs and sayings, all, as far as I remember them, of a very enn.o.bling nature. With her lived her married daughter, Hannah Challinor, a very fat good-natured farmeress. Words cannot describe the fuss these good people made over me, or my own dear Lea's pride in helping to do the honours of her home, or the excellent tea, with cream and cakes and jam, which was provided.

After Mrs. Lea's death, poor Mrs. Challinor fell into impoverished circ.u.mstances, and was obliged to leave Goldstone, though the pain of doing so almost cost her her life. I was then able for many years to return in a measure the kindness shown me so long before.

Long after the railway was made which pa.s.sed by Whitmore (within a long drive of Stoke), we continued to go in our own carriage, posting, to Shrops.h.i.+re. Gradually my mother consented to go in her own carriage, on a truck, by rail as far as Birmingham; farther she could not endure it.

Later still, nearly the whole journey was effected by rail, but in our own chariot. At last we came to use the ordinary railway carriages, but then, for a long time, we used to have post-horses to meet us at some station near London: my mother would not be known to enter London in a railway carriage--"it was so excessively improper" (the sitting opposite strangers in the same carriage); so we entered the metropolis "by land,"

as it was called in those early days of railway travelling.

On returning to Lime in the spring of 1841, I was sent to Mr. Green's school, a commercial school at Windmill Hill, about a mile off. I used to ride to the school on my little pony "Gentle," much to the envy of the schoolboys; and in every way a most invidious distinction was made between me and them, which I daresay would have been thoroughly avenged upon me had I remained with them during play-hours; but I was only there from nine to twelve, doing my lessons at one of the great oak desks in the old-fas.h.i.+oned schoolroom. I chiefly remember of the school the abominable cases of favouritism that there were, and that if one of the ushers took a dislike to a boy, he was liable to be most unmercifully caned for faults for which another boy was scarcely reproved. In the autumn, when we went to Rockend, I was sent to another school at Torquay, a Mr. Walker's, where I was much more roughly handled, the master being a regular tartar. I remember a pleasant, handsome boy called Ray, who sat by me in school and helped me out of many a sc.r.a.pe, but Mr. Walker was very violent, and as he was not allowed to beat me as much as he did the other boys, he soon declined teaching me at all.

The railway from London to Brighton was now just opened, and we took advantage of it. As we reached Merstham (by the first morning train) the train stopped, and we were all made to get out, for the embankment had fallen in in front of us. It was pouring in torrents of rain, and the line muddy and slippery to a degree. We all had to climb the slippery bank through the yellow mud. I was separated from my mother and Lea and Uncle Julius, who was with us, but found them again in a desolate house, totally unfurnished, where all the pa.s.sengers by the train were permitted to take refuge. It was the place whither I have gone in later days to visit Lord Hylton. Here we sat on the boarded floor, with very little food, in a great room looking upon some dripping portugal-laurels, all through the long weary day till four in the afternoon, when omnibuses arrived to take us to another station beyond the broken line. We did not reach Brighton till nine P.M., and when we arrived at the station and inquired after our carriages, which were to have met us at mid-day and taken us home, we heard that a bad accident had taken place; one of the horses had run away, one of the carriages been overturned down a steep bank, and one of the servants had his arm broken. We remained at Brighton in some anxiety till Monday, when we found that it was my uncle's horse "Steady" which had run away, and his faithful old servant Collins who was injured.

When my uncle was driving himself, these accidents were so frequent that we scarcely thought anything of them, as he drove so carelessly and talked vehemently or composed his sermons or charges all the way. But if the family had an accident on their way to church, they always returned thanks for their preservation, which made quite a little excitement in the service. I remember one occasion on which my mother and aunt did not appear as usual, when a note was handed to Uncle Julius as he came out of the vestry, upon which thanks were returned for the "merciful preservation of Lucy and Maria Hare and Staunton Collins" (the coachman)--and all the Rectory servants and all the Lime servants immediately walked out of church to look after the wounded or--because they were too excited to stay! The horse had taken fright at a gipsy encampment in the marsh lane and the family had been precipitated into the ditch.

At this time Uncle Julius had been made one of the Poor Law Guardians and had to visit at the workhouse, and there was the most ceaseless ferment and outcry against him. All sorts of stories were got up. One was that he was going to put all the children into a boat and take them out to sink them in Pevensey Bay! One day old Betty l.u.s.ted went up to the Rectory and asked to see the Archdeacon. He went out to her: "Well, Betty, and what do you want?"--"I want to know, zur, if you do know the Scripture."--"Well, Betty, I hope I do, but why do you ask?"--"Because if you _do_ know the Scripture, how coomes it that you doona zee--'them whom G.o.d hath joined together let na man put asunder'?" (apropos of the separation of husbands and wives in the workhouse); and though she was a poor half-witted body, she brought the tears into his eyes. I remember his asking her daughter Polly once what she prayed for every night and morning. "Well, zur, I do pray for a new pair of shoes," replied Polly, without the slightest hesitation.

Uncle Julius would have given the world to have been able to talk easily and sympathetically to his people, but he could not get the words out.

Sick people in the parish used to say, "The Archdeacon he do come to us, and he do sit by the bed and hold our hands, and he do growl a little, but he do zay nowt."

One day he heard that a family named Woodhams were in great affliction.

It was just after poor Haydon had committed suicide, and he took down Wordsworth's sonnet on Haydon, and read it to them by way of comfort. Of course they had never heard of Haydon, and had not an idea what it was all about.[27]

It was on our way from Norwich to Stoke in the autumn of 1841 that I made my first sketch from nature. We slept at Bedford, to meet Charles Stanley there, and I drew Bedford Bridge out of the window--a view made by candlelight of a bridge seen by moonlight--but it was thought promising and I was encouraged to proceed. My mother, who drew admirably herself, gave me capital simple lessons, and in every way fostered my love of the picturesque. Indeed Hurstmonceaux itself did this, with its weird views across the levels to the faint blue downs, and its n.o.ble ruined castle. Of the stories connected with this castle I could never hear enough, and Uncle Julius told them delightfully. But the one I cared for most was of our remote ancestress Sybil Filiol, who lived at Old Court Manor in the reign of Edward II., I think. Uncle Julius used to describe how, after her marriage in Wartling Church, she went to take leave of her dead father's garden (before riding away upon a pillion behind her husband), and, whilst there, was carried off by gipsies. Her husband and other members of her family pursued them, but in those days locomotion was difficult, escape in the Cheviot Hills easy, and she was never heard of again.[28] How well I remember the pictorial description of a strange funeral seen approaching over the hills--"the gipsies of the north" bringing back the body of Sybil Filiol to be buried with her ancestors at Wartling, and the story of how her husband devoted her dowry to making "Sybil Filiol's Way," a sort of stone causeway to Hurstmonceaux Church, of which I delighted to trace the old grey stones near Boreham Street and in the Church Lane.

Our cousin Anna Maria s.h.i.+pley, who had been cruelly married by her father against her will to the savage paralytic Mr. Dashwood, and who had been very many years a widow, had, in 1838, made a second marriage with an old neighbour, Mr. Jones, who, however, lived only a year. In 1840, she married as her third husband the Rev. George Chetwode, and died herself in the year following. Up to the time of her death, it was believed and generally understood that the heirs of her large fortune were the children of her cousin Francis,[29] but it was then discovered that two days before she expired, she had made a will in pencil in favour of Mr. Chetwode, leaving all she possessed in his power. This news was an additional shock to my father, who had never recovered the will of Mrs. Louisa s.h.i.+pley, and he pa.s.sed the winter of 1841 at Palermo in the utmost melancholy. When he first arrived, he gave a few dinners, but after that, says Victoire, he seemed to have a presentiment of his end, though the doctors declared that he was not dangerously ill. For several nights in February F?lix sate up with him. Mr. Hare wished to send him to bed, "mais F?lix repondit, 'Rappelez-vous, monsieur, que je suis ancien militaire, et que quand j'ai une consigne, je ne la quitte jamais;'" and then he opposed F?lix no longer. "One morning at five o'clock A.M.," said Madame Victoire, "he asked F?lix what o'clock it was. F?lix told him. Then he said, 'Dans une demi-heure j'aurais mon lait d'?nesse,' parceque l'?nesse venait ? six heures.... Puis il commence ? faire jour, et F?lix se met ? arranger un peu la chambre. Se trouvant ? la fen?tre, il entend M. Hare faire un mouvement dans le lit: F?lix regarde de pr?s, il ?coute, il touche: M. Hare venait de finir."

My father was buried in the English Cemetery at Palermo, where there is a plain sarcophagus over his grave. The English Consul sent the following certificate to Mrs. Hare:--

"On Sat.u.r.day, the 15th January, 1842, the remains of the late Francis George Hare, Esquire, were interred in the Protestant Burial Ground at the Lazzaret of Palermo, in the presence of a large concourse of Sicilian n.o.blemen, and of the British, French, and American residents. The service of the church was read by the Rev. W. F. Holt, and the pall was supported by the Principino of Lardoria, the Prince of Radali, the American Consul, and Mr. J. F.

Turner. As a token of respect to the memory of the deceased, the flags of the British, French, and American vessels were hoisted half-mast high during the forenoon."

The summer was spent by the Marcus Hares at the Rectory--one of those intensely hot summers which I never remember since my childhood, when we gasped through the day, and lay at night under bowers of ash-boughs to keep off the torment of gnats, which used then to be as bad at Hurstmonceaux as I have since known mosquitoes in Italy. Of my cousins I preferred Theodore, who was a very engaging little child. I remember Uncle Julius coming out with tears streaming down his cheeks, and an open letter in his hand, one day when all the family were sitting under the trees. It was the news of the death of Dr. Arnold of Rugby.

In the autumn Mrs. Hare came with her children to spend some time at Hurstmonceaux Rectory. It was then arranged that I should call her "Italima" (being a corruption of "Italian Mama"), and by that name I will henceforth speak of her in these memoirs, but this must not be taken to imply any greater intimacy, as she never treated me familiarly or with affection. I remember the party arriving in their black dress--Italima, Francis, William, Esmeralda, Mr. Gaebler--the admirable tutor, F?lix, Victoire, and Cl?mence--my sister's maid. My sister, as a little child, was always called "the Tigress," but as she grew older, her cousin Lord Normanby remonstrated at this. "Then give her another name," said Italima. "Esmeralda,"--and Esmeralda she was now always called.

Italima must have found it intensely dull at the Rectory. She used to walk daily to Gardner Street, where the sight of "_somebody_" and the village shops was a consolation to her. She used to make my sister practise on the pianoforte for hours, and if she did not play well she shut her up for the rest of the day in a dressing-room, and I used to go and push fairy-stories to her under the door. Though she was so severe to my sister, she resented exceedingly any scoldings which Uncle Julius gave to Francis, who richly deserved them, and was terribly spoilt. He was, however, as beautiful as a boy as my sister was as a girl, and a wonderfully graceful pair they made when they danced the tarantella together in the evenings. Altogether my own brothers and sister being as children infinitely more attractive than the Marcus Hares', I was much happier with them, which was terribly resented in the family, and any sign I gave of real enjoyment was always followed by some privation, for fear I should be over-excited by it. Mr. Gaebler was a most pleasant and skilful tutor, and I found it delightful to do lessons with him, and made immense progress in a few weeks: but _because_ his teaching was pleasant, it was supposed that the "discipline" of lessons was wanting, and I was not long allowed to go on learning from him. In the afternoons we were all made to go to the school and practise ridiculous Hullah singing, which we loathed.

The Bunsens were now living at Hurstmonceaux Place. Bunsen had been Minister for Prussia at Rome at the time of my birth and the death of my uncle Augustus Hare, and had then become very intimate with my mother, as he had previously been with my uncle. Therefore, when he became Minister in London and wanted a country-house, Hurstmonceaux Place, which was then to let, seemed wonderfully suited to his requirements.

The great distance from London, however (the railway then coming no nearer than Brighton, twenty-four miles off) prevented the Bunsens from remaining more than two years at Hurstmonceaux; but during this time they added much to our happiness, and, child as I was, I was conscious of the vivifying influence which their refinement, their liberal views, and hightoned conversation brought into the narrow circle at Hurstmonceaux, which being so much and so often cut off from outer influences, was becoming more and more of a Mutual Admiration Society.

In the many loving daughters of the house, my mother found willing helpers in all her work amongst the poor, while the cheerful wisdom and unfailing spirit of Madame Bunsen made her the most delightful of companions. For several months I went every morning to Hurstmonceaux Place, and did all my lessons with Theodore Bunsen, who was almost my own age, under the care of his German tutor, Herr Deimling.

It must have been in 1841, I think, that Bunsen inoculated my uncle and mother with the most enthusiastic interest in the foundation of the Bishopric of Jerusalem, being himself perfectly convinced that it would be the Church thus founded which would meet the Saviour at his second coming. Esther Maurice, by a subscription amongst the ladies of Reading, provided the robes of the new Bishop.

In the spring of 1843 I was dreadfully ill with the whooping-cough, which I caught (as I had done the chicken-pox before) from my mother's numerous parochial G.o.dchildren, when they came to Lime for their lessons. When I was better we went for three days in our own carriage to the Mount Ephraim Hotel at Tunbridge Wells. It was my first "tour," and it was with rapture that I saw Mayfield Palace, Bayham Abbey, and the High Rocks, on our way to which Lea and I were run away with by our donkeys.

When the Marcus Hares were not at the Rectory, Uncle Julius in these years had a wonderfully varied society there, of whom we always saw more or less--German philosophers, American philologists, English astronomers, politicians, poets. Amongst those I particularly disliked were Whewell and Thirlwall--so icily cold were their manners. Bunsen, Star, Archdeacon Moore, Prentiss the American, Darley, Hull, I liked; but Professor Sedgwick I was quite devoted to.[30] He "threw a mantle of love over every one;"[31] and nothing could be more charming than his stories, more attractive and interesting than his conversation, especially with children, with whom he took pains to "be agreeable." I saw so many people of this kind, that I used to think that what I heard called "society" was all like these specimens: I was very much mistaken.

A visit from the gentle and amiable Copley Fielding early encouraged my love of art. He greatly admired the peculiar scenery of Hurstmonceaux--the views from the churchyard, so like the descent upon the marshes of Ostia; the burnt uplands of the old deer-park; the long flat reaches of blue-green level; and the hazy distant downs, which were especially after his own heart. There was one view of the castle towers seen from behind, and embossed against the delicate hues of the level, which he used to make a frequent study of, and which my mother and uncle ever after called "Copley Fielding's view."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HURSTMONCEAUX.]

Amongst other visitors of this year, I must mention our cousin Penelope, Mrs. Warren (eldest daughter of Dean s.h.i.+pley and sister of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Heber), who spent some days at the Rectory with her daughters, because under her protection I had my only sight of the upper part of Hurstmonceaux Castle. One of the staircases remained then, and the timbers of many of the upper rooms were left, though the floors were gone. One day we were with my mother and uncle in the ruins, and they were saying how no one would ever see the upper floor again, when, to their horror, Mrs. Warren seized me in her arms and darted up the staircase. "Look, child, look!" she said, "for no one will ever see this again," and she leapt with me from beam to beam. I recollect the old chimney-pieces, the falling look of everything. It was wonderful that we came down safe; the staircase was removed immediately after, that no one might follow in our footsteps.

I remember Carlyle coming to stay at the Rectory, where they did not like him much. He came in a high hat--every one wore high hats then. The day he arrived, the wind blew his hat off into a ditch as he was getting over a stile: and he went off at once into one of his unbounded furies against "the most absurd outrageous head-covering in the world, which the vanity of the Prince Regent had caused people to adopt."

Aunt Lucy and the Maurices had long urged my mother to send me to school, and perhaps in many ways my terrible fits of naughtiness made it desirable, though they chiefly arose from nervousness, caused by the incessant "nagging" I received at home from every one except my mother and Lea. But the choice of the school to which I was sent at nine years old was very unfortunate. When illness had obliged my Uncle Augustus Hare to leave his beloved little parish of Alton Barnes for Italy, a Rev. Robert Kilvert came thither as his temporary curate--a very religious man, deeply learned in ultra "evangelical" divinity, but strangely unpractical and with no knowledge whatever of the world--still less of the boyish part of it. As Dr. John Brown once said--"The grace of G.o.d can do muckle, but it canna gie a man common-sense." Mr. Kilvert was a good scholar, but in the dryest, hardest sense; of literature he knew nothing, and he was entirely without originality or cleverness, so that his knowledge was of the most untempting description. Still his letters to my mother in her early widowhood had been a great comfort to her, and there was no doubt of his having been a thoroughly good parish-priest. He had lately married a Miss Coleman, who derived the strange name of Thermuthis from the daughter of Pharaoh who saved Moses out of the bulrushes, and he had opened a small school at his tiny Rectory of Hardenhuish, or, as it was generally called, Harnish, the estate of the Clutterbucks, near Chippenham in Wilts.h.i.+re; so my mother, thinking it of far more importance to select "a good man" than "a good master," determined to send me there. How often since have I seen the terrible mistake of parents in "packing off" children to a distant school, to be entirely in the hands of masters of whose practical influence and social competence for their duties they know nothing whatever!

My own experience of Harnish is one of the many instances I have known of how little the character of the head of an establishment affects the members of it, unless his spirituality is backed up by a thorough knowledge of the world. The greater portion of Mr. Kilvert's scholars--his "little flock of lambs in Christ's fold"--were a set of little monsters. All infantine immoralities were highly popular, and--in such close quarters--it would have been difficult for the most pure and high-minded boy to escape from them. The first evening I was there, at nine years old, I was compelled to eat Eve's apple quite up--indeed, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was stripped absolutely bare: there was no fruit left to gather.

I wonder if children often go through the intense agony of anguish which I went through when I was separated from my mother. Perhaps not, as few children are brought up so entirely by and with their parents in such close companions.h.i.+p. It was leaving my mother that I minded, not the going to school, to which my misery was put down: though, as I had never had any companions, the idea of being left suddenly amongst a horde of young savages was anything but comforting. But my nervous temperament was tortured with the idea that my mother would die before I saw her again (I had read a story of this kind), that our life was over, that my aunts would persuade her to cease to care for me,--indeed, the anguish was so great and so little understood, that though it is more than fifty years ago, as I write this, I can scarcely bear to think of it.

III

BOYHOOD