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 CHANTEY HOUSE
 
 * • ?a- 
 
 CHANTEY HOUSE 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELOTTE M. YONGE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE,' ' UNKNOWN TO HISTORY,' ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ILontron 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1886 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.
 
 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Xursery Prose 1 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 Schoolroom Days . . . . . • 13 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 Win and Slow 20 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 Ubi Lapsus, Quid Feci 29 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 A Helping Hand 40 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 The Valley of Humiliation . . . . 50 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 The Inheritance 58
 
 VI CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Old House 69 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Rats 78 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Our Tuneful Choir 85 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 'They Fordys' 95 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Mrs. Sophia's Feud 103 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 A Scrape HI 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Mullion Chamber 124 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Rational Theories 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Cat Language I 45
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Siege of Hillside 156 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 The Portrait 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The White Feather 183 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Veni, Vidi, Vici 197 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 The Outside of the Courtship .... 206 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 Bristol Diamonds 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Quicksands 229
 
 CHAPTEE T. 
 
 A NURSERY PROSE. 
 
 ' And if it be the heart of man 
 Which our existence measures, 
 Far longer is our childhood's span 
 Than that of manly pleasures. 
 
 ' For long each month and year is then, 
 
 Their thoughts and days extending, 
 
 But months and years pass swift with men 
 
 To time's last goal descending. ' 
 
 Isaac Williams. 
 
 The united force of the younger generation has 
 been brought upon me to record, with the aid of 
 ' diaries and letters, the circumstances connected 
 with Chantry House and my two dear elder 
 brothers. Once this could not have been done 
 without more pain than I could brook, but the 
 lapse of time heals wounds, brings compensations, 
 and, when the heart has ceased from aching and 
 yearning, makes the memory of what once filled it 
 a treasure to be brought forward with joy and thank- 
 fulness. Nor would it be well that some of those 
 O VOL. I. b
 
 2 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 mentioned in the coming narrative should be wholly 
 forgotten, and their place know them no more. 
 
 To explain all, I must go back to a time long 
 before the morning when my father astonished us 
 all by exclaiming, ' Poor old James Winslow ! So 
 Chantry House is come to us after all!' Previous 
 to that event I do not think we were aware of the 
 existence of that place, far less of its being a possible 
 inheritance, for my parents would never have per- 
 mitted themselves or their family to be unsettled 
 by the notion of doubtful contingencies. 
 
 My father, John Edward Winslow, was a barrister, 
 and held an appointment in the Admiralty Office, 
 which employed him for many hours of the day at 
 Somerset House. My mother, whose maiden name 
 was Mary Griffith, belonged to a naval family. Her 
 father had been lost in a West Indian hurricane at 
 sea, and her uncle, Admiral Sir John Griffith, was 
 the hero of the family, having been at Trafalgar 
 and distinguished himself in cutting out expeditions. 
 My eldest brother bore his name. The second 
 was named after the Duke of Clarence, with whom 
 my mother had once danced at a ball on board 
 ship at Portsmouth, and who had been rather fond 
 of my uncle. Indeed, I believe my father's appoint- 
 ment had been obtained through his interest, just 
 about the time of Clarence's birth. 
 
 We three boys had come so fast upon each
 
 l] a nursery prose. 3 
 
 other's heels in the Novembers of 1809, 10, and 
 11, that any two of us used to look like twins. 
 There is still extant a feeble water-coloured draw- 
 ing of the trio, in nankeen frocks, and loog white 
 trowsers, with bare necks and arms, the latter 
 twined together, and with the free hands, Griffith 
 holding a bat, Clarence a trap, and I a ball. I 
 remember the emulation we felt at Griffith's 
 privilege of eldest in holding the bat. 
 
 The sitting for that picture is the only thing 
 I clearly remember during those earlier days. I 
 have no recollection of the disaster, which, at four 
 years old, altered my life. The catastrophe, as 
 others have described it, was that we three boys 
 were riding cock-horse on the balusters of the 
 second floor of our house in Montagu Place, Russell 
 Square, when we indulged in a general meUe, 
 which resulted in all tumbling over into the vesti- 
 bule below. The others, to whom I served as 
 cushion, were not damaged beyond the power of 
 yelling, and were quite restored in half -an -hour, 
 but I was undermost, and the consequence has 
 been a curved spine, dwarfed stature, an elevated 
 shoulder, and a shortened, nearly useless leg. 
 
 What I do remember, is my mother reading to 
 me Miss Edge worth's Frank and the little dog 
 Trusty, as I lay in my crib in her bedroom. I 
 made one of my nieces hunt up the book for me
 
 4 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 the other day, and the story brought back at once 
 the little crib, or the watered blue moreen canopy 
 of the big four-poster to which I was sometimes 
 lifted for a change; even the scrawly pattern of 
 the paper, which my weary eyes made into purple 
 elves perpetually pursuing crimson ones, the foremost 
 of whom always turned upside down ; and the knobs 
 in the Marseilles counterpane with which my lingers 
 used to toy. I have heard my mother tell that 
 whenever I was most languid and suffering I used 
 to whine out, ' do read Frank and the little 
 clog Trusty! and never permitted a single word to 
 be varied, in the curious childish love of reiteration 
 with its soothing power. 
 
 I am afraid that any true picture of our parents, 
 especially of my mother, will not do them justice 
 in the eyes of the young people of the present 
 day, who are accustomed to a far more indulgent 
 government, and yet seem to me to know little of 
 the loyal veneration and submission with which we 
 have, through life, regarded our father and mother. 
 It would have been reckoned disrespectful to address 
 them by these names ; they were through life 
 to us, in private, papa and mamma, and we never 
 presumed to take a liberty with them. I doubt 
 whether the petting, patronising equality of terms 
 on which children now live with their parents be 
 equally wholesome. There was then, however, strong
 
 i.] A NURSERY PROSE. 5 
 
 love and self-sacrificing devotion; but not mani- 
 fested in softness or cultivation of sympathy. No- 
 thing was more dreaded than spoiling, which was 
 viewed as idle and unjustifiable self-gratification at 
 the expense of the objects thereof. There were 
 an unlucky little pair in Eussell Square who were 
 said to be ' spoilt children,' and who used to be 
 mentioned in our nursery with bated breath as a 
 kind of monsters or criminals. I believe our 
 mother laboured under a perpetual fear of spoiling 
 Griff as the eldest, Clarence as the beauty, me as 
 the invalid, Emily (two years younger) as the 
 only girl, and Martyn as the after-thought, six 
 years below our sister. She was always perform- 
 ing little acts of conscientiousness, little as we 
 guessed it. 
 
 Thus though her unremitting care saved my 
 life, and was such that she finally brought on 
 herself a severe and dangerous illness, she kept 
 me in order all the time, never wailed over me 
 nor weakly pitied me, never permitted resistance 
 to medicine nor rebellion against treatment, en- 
 forced little courtesies, insisted on every required 
 exertion, and hardly ever relaxed the rule of 
 Spartan fortitude in herself as in me. It is to 
 this resolution on her part, carried out consistently 
 at whatever present cost to us both, that I owe 
 such powers of locomotion as I possess, and the
 
 6 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 habits of exertion that have been even more valu- 
 able to me. 
 
 When at last, after many weeks, nay months, of 
 this watchfulness, she broke down, so that her life 
 was for a time in danger, the lack of her bracing 
 and tender care made my life very trying, after I 
 found myself transported to the nursery, scarcely 
 understanding why, accused of having by my naughti- 
 ness made my poor mamma so ill, and discovering 
 for the first time that I was a miserable, naughty 
 little fretful being, and with nobody but Clarence 
 and the housemaid to take pity on me. 
 
 Nurse Gooch was a masterful, trustworthy woman, 
 and was laid under injunctions not to indulge Master 
 Edward. She certainly did not err in that respect, 
 though she attended faithfully to my material wel- 
 fare; but woe to me if I gave way to a little 
 moaning ; and what I felt still harder, she never 
 said ' good boy ' if I contrived to abstain. 
 
 I hear of carpets, curtains, and pictures in the 
 existing nurseries. They must be palaces compared 
 with our great bare attic, where nothing was allowed 
 that could gather dust. One bit of drugget by the 
 fireside, where stood a round table at which the 
 maids talked and darned stockings, was all that 
 hid the bare boards ; the walls were as plain as 
 those of a workhouse, and when the London sun 
 did shine, it glared into my eyes through the great
 
 I.] A NURSERY PROSE. 7 
 
 unshaded windows. There was a deal table for the 
 meals (and very plain meals they were), and two or 
 three big presses painted white for our clothes, and 
 one cupboard for our toys. I must say that Gooch 
 was strictly just, and never permitted little Emily, 
 nor Griff — though he was very decidedly the 
 favourite, — to bear off my beloved woolly dog to be 
 stabled in the houses of wooden bricks which the two 
 were continually constructing for their menagerie 
 of maimed animals. 
 
 Griff was deservedly the favourite with every one 
 who was not, like our parents, conscientiously bent 
 on impartiality. He was so bright and winning, he 
 had such curly tight-rolled hair with a tinge of 
 auburn, such merry bold blue eyes, such glowing 
 dimpled cheeks, such a joyous smile all over his 
 face, and such a ringing laugh ; he was so strong, 
 brave, and sturdy, that he was a boy to be proud 
 of, and a perfect king in his own way, making every 
 one do as he pleased. All the maids, and Peter the 
 footman, were his slaves, every one except nurse and 
 mamma, and it was only by a strong effort of 
 principle that they resisted him ; while he dragged 
 Clarence about as his devoted though not always 
 happy follower. 
 
 Alas ! for Clarence ! Courage was not in him. 
 The fearless infant boy chiefly dwells in conven- 
 tional fiction, and valour seldom comes before strength.
 
 8 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 Moreover, I have come to the opinion that though 
 no one thought of it at the time, his nerves must 
 have had a terrible and lasting shock at the accident 
 and at the sight of my crushed and deathly condition, 
 which occupied every one too much for them to 
 think of soothing or shielding him. At any rate, 
 fear was the misery of his life. Darkness was his 
 horror. He would scream till he brought in some one, 
 though he knew it would be only to scold or slap 
 him. The housemaid's closet on the stairs was to 
 him an abode of wolves. Mrs. Gatty's tale of The 
 Tiger in the Coal-box is a transcript of his feelings, 
 except that no one took the trouble to reassure 
 him ; something undefined and horrible was thought 
 to wag in the case of the eight -day clock; and he 
 could not bear to open the play cupboard lest ' some- 
 thing ' should jump out on him. The first time he 
 was taken to the Zoological Gardens, the monkeys 
 so terrified him that a bystander insisted on Gooch's 
 carrying him away lest he should go into fits, 
 though Griffith was shouting with ecstasy, and could 
 hardly forgive the curtailment of his enjoyment. 
 
 Clarence used to aver that he really did see 
 ' things ' in the dark, but as he only shuddered and 
 sobbed instead of describing them, he was punished 
 for ' telling fibs,' though the housemaid used to 
 speak under her breath of his being a ' Sunday 
 child.' And after long penance, tied to his stool
 
 i.] A NDESEEY PROSE. 9 
 
 in the corner, he would creep up to me and whisper, 
 'But, Eddy, I really did! 5 . 
 
 However, it was only too well established in the 
 nursery that Clarence's veracity was on a par with 
 his courage. When taxed with any misdemeanour, 
 he used to look round scared and bewildered, and 
 utter a flat demur. One scene in particular comes 
 before me. There were strict laws against going 
 into shops or buying dainties without express per- 
 mission from mamma or nurse ; but one day when 
 Clarence had by some chance been sent out alone 
 with the good-natured housemaid, his fingers were 
 found sticky. 
 
 ' Xow, Master Clarence, you've been a naughty 
 boy, eating of sweets,' exclaimed stern Justice in a 
 mob cap and frills. 
 
 'ISTo — no ' faltered the victim ; but, alas! Mrs. 
 
 Gooch had only to thrust her hand into the little 
 pocket of his monkey suit to convict him on the 
 spot. 
 
 The maid was dismissed with a month's wages, 
 and poor Clarence underwent a strange punishment 
 from my mother, who was getting about again by 
 that time, namely, a drop of hot sealing-wax on his 
 tongue, to teach him practically the doom of the 
 false tongue. It might have done him good if there 
 had been sufficient encouragement to him to make 
 him try to win a new character, but it only added
 
 10 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 a fresh terror to his rnind ; and nurse grew fond of 
 manifesting her incredulity of his assertions by 
 always referring to Griff or to me, or even to little 
 Emily. What was worse, she used to point him 
 out to her congeners in the Square or the Park as 
 ' such a false child.' 
 
 He was a very pretty little fellow, with a deli- 
 cately rosy face, wistful blue eyes, and soft, light, 
 wavy hair, and perhaps Gooch was jealous of his 
 attracting more notice than Griffith, and thought he 
 posed for admiration, for she used to tell people 
 that no one could guess what a child he was for 
 slyness ; so that he could not bear going out with 
 her, and sometimes bemoaned himself to me. 
 
 There must be a good deal of sneaking in the 
 undeveloped nature, for in those days I was ashamed 
 of my preference for Clarence, the naughty one. 
 But there was no helping it, he was so much more 
 gentle than Griff, and would always give up any 
 sport that incommoded me, instead of calling me a 
 stupid little ape, and becoming more boisterous after 
 the fashion of Griff. Moreover, he fetched and 
 carried for me unweariedly, and would play at 
 spillekins, help to put up puzzles, and enact little 
 dramas with our wooden animals, such as Griff 
 scorned as only lit for babies. Even nurse allowed 
 Clarence's merits towards me and little Emily, but 
 always with the sigh : ' If he was but as good
 
 I.] A XTJRSERY PROSE. 11 
 
 in other respects, but them quiet ones is always 
 sly.' 
 
 Good Nurse Gooch ! We all owe much to her 
 staunch fidelity, strong discipline, and unselfish de- 
 votion, but nature had not fitted her to deal with a 
 timid, sensitive child, of highly nervous temperament, 
 Indeed, persons of far more insight might have been 
 perplexed by the fact that Clarence was exemplary 
 at church and prayers, family and private, — when- 
 ever Griff would let him, that is to say, — and would 
 add private petitions of his own, sometimes of a 
 startling nature. He never scandalised the nursery, 
 like Griff, by unseemly pranks on Sundays, nor by 
 innovations in the habits of Noah's ark, but was as 
 much shocked as nurse when the lion was made 
 to devour the elephant, or the lion and wolf fought 
 in an embrace fatal to their legs. Bible stories and 
 Watt's hymns were more to Clarence than even to 
 me, and he used to ask questions for which Gooch's 
 theology was quite insufficient, and which brought 
 the invariable answers, ' Now, Master Clarry, I 
 never did ! Little boys should not ask such ques- 
 tions ! ' ' What's the use of your pretending, sir ! 
 It's all falseness, that's what it is ! I hates hyper- 
 criting!' 'Don't worrit, Master Clarence; you are a 
 very naughty boy to say such things. I shall put 
 you in the corner !' 
 
 Even nurse was scared one night when Clarence
 
 12 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. i. 
 
 had a frightful screaming fit, declaring that he saw 
 ' her — her — all white/ and even while being slapped 
 reiterated, ' her, Lucy !' 
 
 Lucy was a kind elder girl in the Square gardens, 
 a protector of little timid ones. She was known 
 to be at that time very ill with measles, and in fact 
 died that very night. Both my brothers sickened 
 the next day, and Emily and I soon followed their 
 example, but no one had it badly except Clarence, 
 who had high fever, and very much delirium each 
 night, talking to people whom he thought he saw, 
 so as to make nurse regret her severity on the 
 vision of Lucy.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SCHOOLROOM DAYS. 
 
 ' In the loom of life-cloth pleasure, 
 
 Ere our childish days be told, 
 With the warp and woof enwoven, 
 
 Glitters like a thread of gold.' — Jeax Ixgelow. 
 
 Looking back, I think my mother was the leading 
 spirit in our household, though she never for a 
 moment suspected it. Indeed, the chess queen 
 must be the most active on the home board, and 
 one of the objects of her life was to give her 
 husband a restful evening when he came home to 
 the six o'clock dinner. She also had to make both 
 ends meet on an income which would seem starva- 
 tion at the present day ; but she was strong, spirited, 
 and managing, and equal to all her tasks till the 
 long attendance upon me, and the consequent illness, 
 forced her to spare herself — a little — a very little. 
 
 Previously she had been our only teacher, 
 except that my father read a chapter of the Bible 
 with us every morning before breakfast, and heard
 
 14 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 the Catechism on a Sunday. For we could all read 
 long before young gentlefolks nowadays can say 
 their letters. It was well for me, since books with 
 a small quantity of type, and a good deal of frightful 
 illustration, beguiled many of my weary moments. 
 You may see my special favourites, bound up, on 
 the shelf in my bedroom. Crabbe's Tales, Frank, tJie 
 Parent's Assistant, and later, Croker's Tales from 
 English History, Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, 
 Tales of a Grandfather, and the Rival Crusoes stand 
 pre-eminent — also Mrs. Leicester's School, with the 
 ghost story cut out. 
 
 Fairies and ghosts were prohibited as unwhole- 
 some, and not unwisely. The one would have been 
 enervating to me, and the other would have been a 
 definite addition to Clarence's stock of horrors. 
 Indeed, one story had been cut out of Crabbe's Tales, 
 and another out of an Annual presented to Emily, 
 but not before Griff had read the latter, and the 
 version he related to us probably lost nothing in the 
 telling ; indeed, to this day I recollect the man, wont 
 to slay the harmless cricket on the hearth, and in a 
 storm at sea pursued by a gigantic cockroach and 
 thrown overboard. The night after hearing this 
 choice legend Clarence was found crouching beside 
 me in bed for fear of the cockroach. I am afraid 
 the vengeance was more than proportioned to the 
 offence J
 
 ii.] SCHOOLROOM DAYS. 15 
 
 Even during my illness that brave mother 
 struggled to teach my brothers' daily lessons, and 
 my father heard them a short bit of Latin grammar 
 at his breakfast (five was thought in those days to 
 be the fit age to begin it, and fathers the fit teachers 
 thereof). And he continued to give this morning 
 lesson when, on our return from airing at Eamsgate 
 after our recovery from the measles, my mother found 
 she must submit to transfer us to a daily governess. 
 
 Old Miss Newton's attainments could not 
 have been great, for her answers to my inquiries 
 were decidedly funny, and prefaced sotto voce with, 
 ' What a child it is !' But she was a good kindly 
 lady, who had the faculty of teaching, and of fore- 
 stalling rebellion ; and her little thin corkscrew 
 curls, touched with gray, her pale eyes, prim black 
 silk apron, and sandalled shoes, rise before me full 
 of happy associations of tender kindness and 
 patience. She was wise, too, in her own simple 
 way. When nurse would have forewarned her of 
 Clarence's failings in his own hearing, she cut the 
 words short by declaring that she should like never 
 to find out which was the naughty one. And when 
 habit was too strong, and he had denied the ink 
 spot on the atlas, she persuasively wiled out a 
 confession not only to her but to mamma, who 
 hailed the avowal as the beginning of better things, 
 and kissed instead of punishing.
 
 16 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 Clarence's queries had been snubbed into reserve, 
 and I doubt whether Miss Newton's theoretic theo- 
 logy was very much more developed than that of 
 Mrs. Gooch, but her practice and devotion were 
 admirable, and she fostered religious sentiment 
 among us, introducing little books which were 
 welcome in the restricted range of Sunday reading. 
 Indeed, Mrs. Sherwood's have some literary merit, 
 and her Fairchild Family indulged in such delicious 
 and eccentric acts of naughtiness as quite atoned 
 for all the religious teaching, and fascinated Griff, 
 though he was apt to be very impatient of certain 
 little affectionate lectures to which Clarence listened 
 meekly. My father and mother were both of the 
 old-fashioned orthodox school, with minds formed 
 on Jeremy Taylor, Blair, South, and Seeker, who 
 thought it their duty to go diligently to church 
 twice on Sunday, communicate four times a year 
 (their only opportunities), after grave and serious 
 preparation, read a sermon to their household on 
 Sunday evenings, and watch over their children's 
 religious instruction, though in a reserved unde- 
 monstrative manner. My father always read one 
 daily chapter with us every morning, one Psalm at 
 family prayers, and my mother made us repeat a 
 few verses of Scripture before our other studies 
 began ; besides which there was special teaching on 
 Sunday, and an abstinence from amusements, such
 
 ii.] SCHOOLROOM DAYS. 17 
 
 as would now be called Sabbatarian, but a walk in 
 the Park with papa was so much esteemed that it 
 made the day a happy and honoured one to those 
 who could walk. 
 
 There was little going into society, comparatively, 
 for people in our station, — solemn dinner-parties 
 from time to time — two a year, did we give, and 
 then the house was turned upside down, — and now 
 and then my father dined out, or brought a friend 
 home to dinner ; and there were so-called morning 
 calls in the afternoon, but no tea-drinking. For the 
 most part the heads of the family dined alone at 
 six, and afterwards my father read aloud some book 
 of biography or travels, while we children were 
 expected to employ ourselves quietly, threading 
 beads, drawing, or putting up puzzles, and listen or 
 not as we chose, only not interrupt, as we sat at 
 the big, central, round, mahogany table. To this 
 hour I remember portions of Belzoni's Eesearches 
 and Franklin's terrible American adventures, and 
 they bring back tones of my father's voice. As an 
 authority ' papa ' was seldom invoked, except on 
 very serious occasions, such as Griffith's audacity, 
 Clarence's falsehood, or my obstinacy ; and then the 
 affair was formidable. He was judicial and awful, 
 and, though he would graciously forgive on signs of 
 repentance, he never was sympathetic. He had 
 not married young, and there were forty years or 
 
 vol. I. c
 
 18 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 more between him and his sons, so that he had left 
 too far behind him the feelings of boyhood to make 
 himself one with us, even if he had thought it right 
 or dignified to do so, — yet I cannot describe the 
 depth of the respect and loyalty he inspired in us, 
 nor the delight we felt in a word of commendation 
 or a special attention from him. 
 
 The early part of Miss Newton's rule was unusu- 
 ally fertile in such pleasures, and much might have 
 been spared, could Clarence have been longer under 
 her influence ; but Griff grew beyond her manage- 
 ment, and was taunted by ' fellows in the Square ' 
 into assertions of manliness, such as kicking his 
 heels, stealing her odd little fringed parasol, pitch- 
 ing his books into the area, keeping her in misery 
 with his antics during their walks, and finally lead- 
 ing Clarence off after Punch into the Eookery of St. 
 Giles's, where she could not follow, because Emily 
 was in her charge. 
 
 This was the crisis. She had to come home 
 without the boys, and though they arrived long 
 before any of the authorities knew of their absence, 
 she owned with tears that she could not conscien- 
 tiously be responsible any longer for Griffith, — who 
 not only openly defied her authority, but had found 
 out how little she knew, and laughed at her. I 
 have reason to believe also that my mother had 
 discovered that she frequented the preachings of
 
 ii.] SCHOOLROOM DAYS. 19 
 
 Eowlancl Hill and Baptist Noel ; and had confiscated 
 some unorthodox tracts presented to the servants, 
 thus being alarmed lest she should implant the 
 seeds of dissent. 
 
 Parting with her after four years under her was 
 a real grief. Even Griff was fond of her ; when 
 once emancipated, he used to hug her and bring her 
 remarkable presents, and she heartily loved her 
 tormentor. Everybody did. It remained a great 
 pleasure to get her to spend an evening with us 
 while the elders were gone out to dinner ; nor do I 
 think she ever did us anything but good, though I 
 am afraid we laughed at ' Old Newton ' as we grew 
 older and more conceited. We never had another 
 governess. My mother read and enforced diligence 
 on Emily and me, and we had masters for different 
 studies; the two boys went to school; and when 
 Martyn began to emerge from babyhood, Emily was 
 Iris teacher.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 WIN AND SLOW. 
 
 ' The rude will shuffle through with ease enough : 
 Great schools best suit the sturdy and the rough. ' 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 At school Griffith was very happy, and brilliantly 
 successful, alike in study and sport, though sports 
 were not made prominent in those days, and 
 triumphs in them were regarded by the elders with 
 doubtful pride, lest they should denote a lack of 
 attention to matters of greater importance. All his 
 achievements were, however, poured forth by him- 
 self and Clarence to Emily and me, and we felt 
 as proud of them as if they had been our own. 
 
 Clarence was industrious, and did not fail in his 
 school work, but when he came home for the holi- 
 days there was a cowed look about him, and private 
 revelations were made over my sofa that made my 
 flesh creep. The scars were still visible, caused by 
 having been compelled to grasp the bars of the 
 grate bare -handed; and, what was worse, he had
 
 chap, in.] WIN AND SLOW. 21 
 
 been suspended outside a third story window by the 
 wrists, held by a schoolfellow of thirteen ! 
 
 1 But what was Griff about ? ' I demanded, with 
 hot tears of indignation. 
 
 ' Oh, Win ; — that's what they call him, and me 
 Slow; — he said it would do me good. But I don't 
 think it did, Eddy. It only makes my heart beat 
 fit to choke me whenever I go near the passage 
 window.' 
 
 I could only utter a vain wish that I had been 
 there and able to fight for him, and I attacked Griff 
 on the subject on the first opportunity. 
 
 'Oh! 5 was his answer, ' it is only what all fellows 
 have to bear if there's no pluck in them. They 
 tried it on upon me, you know, but I soon showed 
 them it would not do ' — with the cock of the nose, 
 the flash of the eyes, the clench of the fist, that were 
 peculiarly Griffs own ; and when I pleaded that he 
 might have protected Clarence, he laughed scorn- 
 fully. ' As to Slow, wretched being, a fellow can't 
 help bullying him. It comes as natural as to a cat 
 with a mouse.' On further and reiterated plead- 
 ings, Griff declared, first, that it was the only thing 
 to do Slow any good, or make a man of him ; and 
 next, that he heartily wished that \Vinslow junior 
 had been Miss Clara at once, as the fellows called 
 him — it was really hard on him (Griff) to have such 
 a sneaking little coward tied to him for a junior !
 
 22 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 I particularly resented the term Slow, for Clarence 
 had lately been the foremost of us in his studies ; 
 but the idea that learning had anything to do with 
 the matter was derided, and as time went on, there 
 was vexation and displeasure at his progress not 
 being commensurate with his abilities. It would 
 have been treason to school-boy honour to let the 
 elders know that though a strong, high-spirited 
 popular boy like 'Win' might venture to excel 
 big bullying dunces, such fair game as poor ' Slow ' 
 could be terrified into not only keeping below 
 them, but into doing their work for them. To 
 him Cowper's 'Tirocinium' had only too much 
 sad truth. 
 
 As to his old failing, there were no special 
 complaints, but in those pre-Arnolclian times no 
 lofty code of honour was even ideal among school- 
 boys, or expected of them by masters ; shuffling was 
 thought natural, and allowances made for faults in 
 indolent despair. 
 
 My mother thought the Navy the proper element 
 of boyhood, and her uncle the Admiral promised 
 a nomination, — a simple affair in those happy days, 
 involving neither examination nor competition. 
 Griffith was, however, one of those independent boys 
 who take an aversion to whatever is forced on them 
 as their fate. He was ready and successful with 
 his studies, a hero among his comrades, and pre-
 
 in.] WIN AND SLOW. 23 
 
 ferrecl continuing at school to what he pronounced, 
 on the authority of the nautical tales freely thrown 
 in our way, to be the life of a clog, only fit for 
 the fool of the family ; besides, he had once been 
 out in a boat, tasted of sea-sickness, and been 
 laughed at. My father was gratified, thinking 
 his brains too good for a midshipman, and pleased 
 that he should wish to tread in his own steps at 
 Harrow and Oxford, and thus my mother could 
 not openly regret his degeneracy when all the 
 rest of us were crazy over Torn Cringle's Log, and 
 ready to envy Clarence when the offer was passed 
 on to him, and he appeared in the full glory of 
 his naval uniform. Not much choice had been 
 offered to him. My mother would have thought 
 it shameful and ungrateful to have no son avail- 
 able, my father was glad to have the boy's pro- 
 fession fixed, and he himself was rejoiced to escape 
 from the miseries he knew only too well, and 
 ready to believe that uniform and dirk would make 
 a man of him at once, with all his terrors left behind. 
 Perhaps the chief drawback was that the ladies 
 would say, ' What a darling !' affording Griff endless 
 opportunities for the good-humoured mockery by 
 which he concealed his own secret regrets. Did 
 not even Selina Clarkson, whose red cheeks, dark 
 blue eyes, and jetty profusion of shining curls, 
 were our notion of perfect beauty, select the little
 
 24 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 naval cadet for her partner at the dancing master's 
 ball? 
 
 In the first voyage, a cruise in the Pacific, all 
 went well. The good Admiral had carefully chosen 
 ship and captain; there were an excellent set of 
 officers, a good tone among the midshipmen, and 
 Clarence, who was only twelve years old, was con- 
 stituted the pet of the cockpit. One lad in especial, 
 Coles by name, attracted by Clarence's pleasant 
 gentleness, and impelled by the generosity that 
 shields the weak, became his guardian friend, and 
 protected him from all the roughnesses in his power. 
 If there were a fault in that excellent Coles, it 
 was that he made too much of a baby of his 
 pvoUge, and did not train him to shift for himself : 
 but wisdom and moderation are not characteristics 
 of early youth. At home we had great enjoyment 
 of Iris long descriptive letters, winch came under 
 cover to our father at the Admiralty, but were 
 chiefly intended for my benefit. All were proud 
 of them, and great was my elation when I heard 
 papa relate some fact out of them with the preface, 
 ' My boy tells me, my boy Clarence, in the Calypso ; 
 he writes a capital letter.' 
 
 How great was our ecstasy when after three 
 years and a half we had him at home again ; 
 handsome, vigorous, well -grown, excellently re- 
 ported of, fully justifying my mother's assurances
 
 in.] WIN AND SLOW. 25 
 
 that the sea would make a man of him. There 
 was Griffith in the fifth form and a splendid 
 cricketer, but Clarence could stand up to him now, 
 and Harrovian exploits were tame beside stories 
 of sharks and negroes, monkeys and alligators. 
 There was one in particular, about a whole boat's 
 crew sitting down on what they thought was a 
 fallen tree, but which suddenly swept them all 
 over on their faces, and turned out to be a boa- 
 constrictor, and would have embraced one of them 
 if he had not had the sail of the boat coiled round 
 the mast, and palmed off upon him, when he gorged 
 it contentedly, and being found dead on the next 
 landing, his skin was used to cover the captain's 
 sea-chest. Clarence declined to repeat this tale 
 and many others before the elders, and was dis- 
 pleased with Emily for referring to it in public. 
 As to his terrors, he took it for granted that an 
 officer of H.M.S. Calypso, had left them behind, 
 and in fact, he naturally forgot and passed over 
 what he had not been shielded from, while his 
 hereditary love of the sea really made those inci- 
 dental to his profession much more endurable than 
 the bullying he had undergone at school. 
 
 We were very happy that Christmas, and very 
 proud of our boys. One evening we were treated 
 to a box at the pantomime, and even I was able 
 to go to it. We put our young sailor and our
 
 26 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 sister in the forefront, and believed that every one 
 was as much struck with them as with the wonder- 
 ful transformations of Goody-Two-Shoes under the 
 wand of Harlequin. Brother -like, w r e might tease 
 our one girl, and call her an affected little pussy 
 cat, but our private opinion was that she excelled 
 all other damsels with her bright blue eyes and 
 pretty curling hair, which had the same chestnut 
 shine as Griff's — enough to make us correct possible 
 vanity by terming it red, though we were ready 
 to fight any one else who presumed to do so. 
 Indeed Griff had defended its hue in single com- 
 bat, and his eye was treated for it with beefsteak 
 by Peter in the pantry. We were immensely, 
 though silently, proud of her in her white embroidered 
 cambric frock, red sash and shoes, and coral necklace, 
 almost an heirloom, for it had been brought from 
 Sicily in Nelson's days by my mother's poor young 
 father. How parents and doctors in these days 
 would have shuddered at her neck and arms, bare, not 
 only in the evening, but by day ! When she was a 
 little younger she could so shrink up from her clothes 
 that Griff, or little Martyn, in a mischievous mood, 
 would put things down her back, to reappear below 
 her petticoats. Once it was a dead wasp, which 
 descended harmlessly the length of her spine ! She 
 was a good-humoured, affectionate, dear sister, my 
 valued companion, submitting patiently to be eclipsed
 
 in.] WIN AXD SLOW. 27 
 
 when Clarence was present, and everything to me 
 in his absence. Stnrdy little Martyn too, was held 
 by us to be the most promising of small boys. He 
 was a likeness of Clarence, only stouter, hardier, and 
 without the delicate, girlish, wistful look ; imitating 
 Griff in everything, and rather a heavy handful to 
 Emily and me when left to our care, though we 
 were all the more proud of his high spirit, and were 
 fast becoming a mutual admiration society. 
 
 What then were our feelings when Griff, always 
 fearless, dashed to the rescue of a boy under whom 
 the ice had broken in St. James' Park, and held him 
 up till assistance came ? Martyn, who was with him, 
 was sent home to fetch dry clothes and reassure my 
 mother, which he did by dashing upstairs, shouting, 
 ' Where's mamma ? Here's Griff been into the 
 water and pulled out a boy, and they don't know if 
 he is drowned; but he looks — oh 1' 
 
 Even after my mother had elicited that Martyn's 
 he meant the boy, and not Griff, she could not rest 
 without herself going to see that our eldest was un- 
 hurt, greet him, and bring him home. What happy 
 tears stood in her eyes, how my father shook hands 
 with him, how we drank his health after dinner, and 
 how ungrateful I was to think Clarence deserved 
 his name of Slow for having stayed at home to play 
 chess with me because my back was aching, when he 
 might have been winning the like honours ! How 
 
 o o
 
 28 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. ill. 
 
 red and gruff and shy the hero looked, and how he 
 entreated no one to say any more about it ! 
 
 He would not even look publicly at the paragraph 
 about it in the paper, only vituperating it for having 
 made him into ' a juvenile Etonian,' and hoping no 
 one from Harrow would guess whom it meant. 
 
 I found that paragraph the other day in my 
 mother's desk, folded over the case of the medal of 
 the Eoyal Humane Society, which Griff affected to 
 despise, but which, when he was well out of the way, 
 used to be exhibited on high days and holidays. It 
 seems now like the boundary mark of the golden 
 days of our boyhood, and unmitigated hopes for one 
 another.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 UBI LAPSUS, QUID FECI. 
 
 ' Clarence is come — false, fleeting, perjured Clarence.' 
 
 King Richard III. 
 
 There was much stagnation in the Navy in those 
 days in the reaction after the great war ; and though 
 our family had fair interest at the Admiralty, it 
 was seven months before my brother went to sea 
 again. To me they were very happy months, with 
 my helper of helpers, companion of companions, who 
 made possible to me many a little enterprise that 
 could not be attempted without him. My father 
 made him share my studies, and thus they became 
 doubly pleasant. And oh, ye boys ! who murmur 
 at the Waverley Xovels as a dry holiday task, ye 
 may envy us the zest and enthusiasm with which 
 we devoured them in their freshness. Strangely 
 enough, the last that we read together was the Fair 
 Maid of Perth. 
 
 Clarence and his friend Coles longed to sail 
 together again, but Coles was shelved ; and when
 
 30 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 Clarence's appointment came at last, it was to the 
 brig Clotlw, Commander Brydone, going out in the 
 Mediterranean Fleet, under Sir Edward Codrington. 
 My mother did not like brigs, and my father did not 
 like what he heard of the captain ; but there had 
 been jealous murmurs about appointments being 
 absorbed by sons of officials — he durst not pick and 
 choose ; and the Admiral pronounced that if the lad 
 had been spoilt on board the Calypso, it was time 
 for him to rough it — a dictum whence there was no 
 appeal. 
 
 Half a year later the tidings of the victory of 
 Navarino rang through Europe, and were only half 
 welcome to the conquerors ; but in our household it 
 is connected with a terrible recollection. Though 
 more than half a century has rolled by, I shrink 
 from dwelling on the shock that fell on us when my 
 father returned from Somerset House with such a 
 countenance that we thought our sailor had fallen ; 
 but my mother could brook the fact far less than if 
 her son had died a gallant death. The Clotlw was 
 on her way home, and Midshipman William Clarence 
 Winslow was to be tried by court-martial for insub- 
 ordination, disobedience, and drunkenness. My 
 mother was like one turned to stone. She would 
 hardly go out of doors ; she could scarcely bring 
 herself to go to church ; she would have had my 
 father give up his situation if there had been any
 
 IV.] UBI LAPSUS, QUID FECI. 31 
 
 other means of livelihood. She could not talk ; only 
 when my father sighed, ' "We should never have put 
 him into the Navy/ she hotly replied, 
 
 ' How was I to suppose that a son of mine would 
 be like that?' 
 
 Emily cried all day and all night. Some others 
 would have felt it a relief to have cried too. In 
 more furious language than parents in those days 
 tolerated, Griff wrote to me his utter disbelief, and 
 how he had punched the heads of fellows who 
 presumed to doubt that it was not all a rascally, 
 villainous plot. 
 
 When the time came my father went down by 
 the night mail to Portsmouth. He could scarcely 
 bear to face the matter; but, as he said, he could 
 not have it on his conscience if the boy did any- 
 thing desperate for want of some one to look after 
 him. Besides, there might be some explanation. 
 
 ' Explanation/ said my mother bitterly. ' That 
 there always is !' 
 
 The 'explanation' was this — I have put to- 
 gether what came out in evidence, what my father 
 and the Admiral heard from commiserating officers, 
 and what at different times I learned from Clarence 
 himself. Captain Brydone was one of the rough old 
 description of naval men, good sailors and stern 
 disciplinarians, but wanting in any sense of moral 
 duties towards their ship's company. His lieutenant
 
 32 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 was of the same class, soured, moreover, by tardy 
 promotion, and prejudiced against a gentleman-like, 
 fair-faced lad, understood to have interest, and bear- 
 ing a name that implied it. Of the other two mid- 
 shipmen, one was a dull lad of low stamp, the other 
 a youth of twenty, a born bully, with evil as well 
 as tyrannical propensities ; — the crew conforming 
 to severe discipline on board, but otherwise wild 
 and lawless. In such a ship a youth with good 
 habits, sensitive conscience, and lack of moral or 
 physical courage, could not but lead a life of misery, 
 losing every day more of his self-respect and spirit 
 as he was driven to the evil he loathed, dreading the 
 consequences, temporal and eternal, with all his soul, 
 yet without resolution or courage to resist. 
 
 As every one knows, the battle of jSTavarino came 
 on suddenly, almost by mistake ; and though it is 
 perhaps no excuse, the hurly-burly and horror burst 
 upon him at unawares. Though the English loss 
 was comparatively very small, the Clotlw was a good 
 deal exposed, and two men were killed — one so close 
 to Clarence that his clothes were splashed with 
 blood. This entirely unnerved him; he did not 
 even know what he did, but he was not to be found 
 when required to carry an order, and was discovered 
 hidden away below, shuddering, in his berth, and then 
 made some shallow excuse about misunderstanding 
 orders. Whether this would have been brought up
 
 IV.] UBI LAPSUS, QUID FECI. 33 
 
 against him under other circumstances, or whether 
 it would have been remembered that great men, in- 
 cluding Charles V. and Henri IV., have had their 
 moment de peur, I cannot tell ; but there were other 
 charges. I cannot give date or details. There is 
 no record among the papers before me ; and I can 
 only vaguely recall what could hardly be read for 
 the sense of agony, was never discussed, and was 
 driven into the most oblivious recesses of the 
 soul fifty years ago. There was a story about 
 having let a boat's crew, of which he was in charge, 
 get drunk and over-stay their time. One of them 
 deserted ; and apparently prevarication ran to the 
 bounds of perjury, if it did not overpass them. 
 (N.B. — Seeing seamen flogged was one of the sicken- 
 ing horrors that haunted Clarence in the Clotlw) 
 Also, when on shore at Malta with the young man 
 whose name I will not record — his evil genius — he 
 was beguiled or bullied into a wine-shop, and while 
 not himself was made the cat's-paw of some insolent 
 practical joke on the lieutenant; and when called 
 to account, was so bewildered and excited as to use 
 unpardonable language. 
 
 Whatever it might have been in detail, so much 
 was proved against him that he was dismissed his 
 ship, and his father was recommended to withdraw 
 him from the service, as being disqualified by want 
 of nerve. Also, it was added more privately, that 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 .34 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 such vicious tendencies needed home restraint. The 
 big bully, his corrupter, bore witness against him, 
 but did not escape scot free, for one of the captains 
 spoke to him in scathing tones of censure. 
 
 Whenever my mother was in trouble, she always 
 re -arranged the furniture, and a family crisis was 
 always heralded by a revolution of chairs, tables, 
 and sofas. She could not sit still under suspense, 
 and, during these terrible days the entire house 
 underwent a setting to rights. Emily attended upon 
 her, and I sat and dusted books. No doubt it was 
 much better for us than sitting still. My father's 
 letter came by the morning mail, telling us of the 
 sentence, and that he and our poor culprit, as he 
 said, would come home by the Portsmouth coach 
 in the evening. 
 
 One room was already in order when Sir John 
 Griffith kindly came to see whether he could bring- 
 any comfort to a spirit which would infinitely have 
 preferred death to dishonour, and was, above all, 
 shocked at the lack of physical courage. Xever 
 had I liked our old Admiral so well as when 
 I heard how his chief anger was directed against 
 the general mismanagement, and the cruelty of 
 blighting a poor lad's life when not yet seventeen. 
 His father miofht have been warned to remove 
 
 o 
 
 him without the public scandal of a court-martial 
 and dismissal.
 
 iv.] UBI LAPSUS, QUID FECI. 35 
 
 ' The guilt and shame would have been all the 
 same to us/ said my mother. 
 
 ' Come, Mary, don't be hard on the poor fellow. 
 In quiet times like these a poor boy can't look over 
 the wall where one might have stolen a horse, ay, 
 or a dozen horses, when there was something else to 
 think about !' 
 
 1 You would not have forgiven such a thin^, sir.' 
 
 ' It never would have happened under me, or 
 in any decently -commanded ship!' he thundered. 
 ' There wasn't a fault to be found with him in 
 the Calypso. What possessed Winslow to let him 
 sail with Brydone ? But the service is going,' etc. 
 etc., he ran on — forgetting that it was he himself 
 who had been unwilling, perhaps rightly, to press 
 the Duke of Clarence for an appointment to a crack 
 frigate for his namesake. However, when he took 
 leave he repeated, as he kissed my mother, ' Mind, 
 Mary, don't be set against the lad. That's the way to 
 make 'em desperate, and he is a mere boy, after all.' 
 
 Poor mother, it was not so much hardness as a 
 wounded spirit that made her look so rigid. It 
 might have been better if the return could have 
 been delayed so as to make her yearn after her son, 
 but there was nowhere for him to go, and the coach 
 was already on its way. How strange it was to 
 feel the wonted glow at Clarence's return coupled 
 with a frightful sense of disgrace and depression.
 
 36 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 The time was far on in October, and it was thus 
 quite dark when the travellers arrived, having walked 
 from Charing Cross, where the coach set them down. 
 My father came in first, and my mother clung to 
 him as if he had been absent for weeks, while all 
 the joy of contact with my brother swept over me, 
 even though his hand hung limp in mine, and was 
 icy cold like his cheeks. My father turned to him 
 with oue of the little set speeches of those clays. 
 'Here is our son, Mary, who has promised me to 
 do his utmost to retrieve his character, as far as 
 may be possible, and happily he is still young.' 
 
 My mother's embrace was in a sort of mechanical 
 obedience to her husband's gesture, and her voice 
 was not perhaps meant to be so severe as it sounded 
 when she said, c You are very cold — come and warm 
 yourself.' 
 
 They made room for him by the fire, and my 
 father stood up in front of it, giving particulars of 
 the journey. Emily and Marty n were at tea in the 
 nursery, in a certain awe that hindered them from 
 coming down ; indeed, Martyn seems to have ex- 
 pected to see some strange transformation in his 
 brother. Indeed, there was alteration in the absence 
 of the blue and gold, and, still more, in the loss of 
 the lightsome, hopeful expression from the young face. 
 
 There is a picture of Ary Scheffer's of an old 
 knight, whose son had fled from the battle, cutting
 
 IV.] UBI LAPSUS, QUID FECI. 37 
 
 the tablecloth in two between himself and the un- 
 happy youth. Like that stern baron's countenance 
 was that with which my mother sat at the head of 
 the dinner-table, and we conversed by jerks about 
 whatever we least cared for, as if we could hide 
 our wretchedness from Peter. When the children 
 appeared each gave Clarence the shyest of kisses, 
 and they sat demurely on their chairs on either side 
 of my father to eat their almonds and raisins, after 
 which we went upstairs, and there was the usual 
 reading. It is curious, but though none of us could 
 have told at the time what it was about, on turning 
 over not long ago a copy of Head's Pampas and 
 Andes, one chapter struck me with an intolerable 
 sense of melancholy, such as the bull chases of 
 South America did not seem adequate to produce ; 
 and by and by I remembered that it was the book 
 in course of being read at that unhappy period. 
 My mother went on as diligently as ever with some 
 of those perpetual shirts which seemed to be always 
 in hand except before company, when she used to 
 do tambour work for Emily's frocks. Clarence sat 
 the whole time in a dark corner, never stirring, 
 except that he now and then nodded a little. He 
 had gone through many wakeful, and worse than 
 wakeful, nights of wretched suspense, and now the 
 worst was over ! 
 
 Family prayers took place, chill good-nights were
 
 38 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 exchanged, and nobody interfered with his helping 
 me np to my bedroom as usual ; but there was 
 something in his face to which I durst not speak, 
 though perhaps I looked, for he exclaimed, ' Don't, 
 Ned !' wrung my hand, and sped away to his own 
 quarters higher up. Then came a sound which 
 made me open my door to listen. Dear little Emily ! 
 She had burst out of her own room in her dressing- 
 gown, and flung herself upon her brother as he was 
 plodding wearily upstairs in the dark, clinging round 
 his neck sobbing, ' Dear, dear Clarry ! I can't bear 
 it ! I don't care. You're my own dear brother, and 
 they are all wicked, horrid people.' 
 
 That was all I heard, except hushings on Clarence's 
 part, as if the opening of my door and the thread 
 of light from it warned him that there was risk of 
 interruption. He seemed to be dragging her up to 
 her own room, and I was left with a pang at her 
 being foremost in comforting him. 
 
 My father enacted that he should be treated as 
 usual. But how could that be when papa himself 
 did not know how changed were his own ways from 
 his kindly paternal air of confidence ? All trust had 
 been undermined, so that Clarence could not cross 
 the threshold without being required to state his 
 object, and, if he overstayed the time calculated, he 
 was cross-examined, and his replies received with a 
 sigh of doubt.
 
 iv.] UBI LAPSUS, QUID FECI. 39 
 
 He hung about the house, not caring to do much, 
 except taking me out in my Bath chair or languidly 
 reading the most exciting books he could get ; — but 
 there was no great stock of sensation then, except 
 the Byronic, and from time to time one of my 
 parents would exclaim, ' Clarence, I wonder you can 
 find nothing more profitable to occupy yourself with 
 than trash like that !' 
 
 He would lay down the book without a word, 
 and take up Smith's Wealth of Nations or Smollett's 
 England — the profitable studies recommended, and 
 speedily become lost in a dejected reverie, with fixed 
 eyes and drooping lips.
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 A HELPING HAND. 
 
 4 Though hawks can prey through storms and winds, 
 The poor "bee in her hive must dwell.' — Henry Yaughan. 
 
 In imagination the piteous dejection of our family 
 seems to have lasted for ages, but on comparison 
 of elates it is plain that the first lightening of the 
 burthen came in about a fortnight's time. 
 
 The firm of Frith and Castleford was coming to 
 the front in the Chinese trade. The junior partner 
 was an old companion of my father's boyhood ; his 
 London abode was near at hand, and he was a kind 
 of semi-godfather to both Clarence and me, having 
 stood proxy for our nominal sponsors. He was as 
 good and open-hearted a man as ever lived, and had 
 always been very kind to us ; but he was scarcely 
 welcome when my father, finding that he had come 
 up alone to London to see about some repairs to his 
 house, while his family were still in the country, 
 asked him to dine and sleep — our first guest since 
 our misfortune.
 
 chap, v.] A HELPING HAND. 41 
 
 My mother could hardly endure to receive any 
 one, hut she seemed glad to see my father become 
 animated and like himself while Eoman Catholic 
 Emancipation was vehemently discussed, and the 
 ruin of England hotly predicted. Clarence moped 
 about silently as usual, and tried to avoid notice, 
 and it was not till the next morninsj — after breakfast, 
 when the two gentlemen were in the dining-room, 
 nearly ready to go their several ways, and I was in 
 the window awaiting my classical tutor — that Mr. 
 Castleford said, 
 
 'May I ask, Winslow, if you have any plans 
 for that poor boy ? ' 
 
 ' Edward ? ' said my father, almost wilfully 
 misunderstanding. 'His ambition is to be curator 
 of something in the British Museum, isn't it ? ' 
 
 Mr. Castleford explained that he meant the other, 
 and my father sadly answered that he hardly knew ; 
 he supposed the only thing was to send him to a 
 private tutor, but where to find a fit one he did not 
 know and besides, what could be his aim ? Sir 
 John Griffith had said he was only fit for the 
 Church, 'But one does not wish to dispose of a tar- 
 nished article there.' 
 
 ' Certainly not,' said Mr. Castleford ; and then 
 he spoke words that rejoiced my heart, though they 
 only made my father groan, bidding him remember 
 that it was not so much actual guilt as the acci-
 
 42 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 dent of Clarence's being in the Navy that had given 
 so serious a character to his delinquencies. If he 
 had been at school, perhaps no one would ever have 
 heard of them, ' Though I don't say,' added the good 
 man, casting a new light on the subject, ' that it 
 would have been better for him in the end.' Then, 
 quite humbly, for he knew my mother especially 
 had a disdain for trade, he asked what my father 
 would think of letting him give Clarence work in 
 the office for the present. ' I know,' he said, ' it is 
 not the line your family might prefer, but it is 
 present occupation ; and I do not think you could 
 well send a youth who has seen so much of the 
 w r orld back to schooling. Besides, this would keep 
 him under your own eye.' 
 
 My father was greatly touched by the kindness, 
 but he thought it right to set before Mr. Castleford 
 the very worst side of poor Clarence ; declaring that 
 he durst not answer for a boy who had never, in 
 spite of pains and punishments, learnt to speak truth 
 at home or abroad, repeating Captain Brydone's 
 dreadful report, and even adding that, what was 
 most grievous of all, there was an affectation of 
 piety about him that could scarcely be anything 
 but self-deceit and hypocrisy. ' Now,' he said, ' my 
 eldest son, Griffith, is just a boy, makes no profession, 
 is not — as I am afraid you have seen — exemplary 
 at church, when Clarence sits as meek as a mouse,
 
 V.] A HELPING HAND. 43 
 
 but then he is always above-board, frank and 
 straightforward. You know where to have a high- 
 spirited fellow, who will tame down, but you never 
 know what will come next with the other. I 
 sometimes wonder for what error of mine Providence 
 has seen fit to give me such a son.' 
 
 Just then an important message came for Mr. 
 Winslow, and he had to hurry away, but Mr. Castle- 
 ford still remained, and presently said, 
 
 1 Edward, I should like to know what your eyes 
 have been trying to say all this time.' 
 
 ' Oh, sir,' I burst out, ' do give him a chance. 
 Indeed he never means to do wrong. The harm is 
 not in him. He would have been the best of us all 
 if he had only been let alone.' 
 
 Those were exactly my own foolish words, for 
 which I could have beaten myself afterwards ; but 
 Mr. Castleford only gave a slight grave smile, and 
 said, ' You mean that your brother's real defect is 
 in courage, moral and physical.' 
 
 ' Yes,' I said, with a great effort at expressing 
 myself. ' When he is frightened, or bullied, or brow- 
 beaten, he does not know what he is dohig or saying. 
 He is quite different when he is his own self; only 
 nobody can understand.' 
 
 Strange that though the favoured home son and 
 nearly sixteen years old, it would have been impos- 
 sible to utter so much to one of our parents. Indeed
 
 44 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 the last sentence felt so disloyal that the colour burnt 
 in my cheeks as the door opened ; but it only ad- 
 mitted Clarence, who, having heard the front door 
 shut, thought the coast was clear, and came in with 
 a load of my books and dictionaries. 
 
 'Clarence,' said Mr. Castleford, and the direct 
 address made him start and flush, ' supposing your 
 father consents, should you be willing to turn your 
 mind to a desk in my counting-house V 
 
 He flushed deeper red, and his fingers quivered as 
 he held by the table. { Thank you, sir. Anything 
 — anything,' he said hesitatingly. 
 
 ' Well/ said Mr. Castleford, with the kindest of 
 voices, ' let us have it out. What is in your mind ? 
 You know, I'm a sort of godfather to you.' 
 
 ' Sir, if you would only let me have a berth on 
 board one of your vessels, and go right away.' 
 
 ' Aye, my poor boy, that's what you would like 
 best, I've no doubt; but look at Edward's face 
 there, and think what that would come to at the 
 best !' 
 
 ' Yes, I know I have no right to choose,' said 
 Clarence, drooping his head as before. 
 
 ' 'Tis not that, my dear lad,' said the good man, 
 1 but that packing you off like that, among your 
 inferiors in breeding and everything else, would put 
 an end to all hope of your redeeming the past — 
 outwardly I mean, of course — and lodge you in a
 
 v.] A HELPING HAND. 45 
 
 position of inequality to your brothers and sister, 
 and all ' 
 
 ' That's done already/ said Clarence. 
 
 ' If you were a man grown it might be so/ 
 returned Mr. Castleford, ' but bless me, how old 
 are you V 
 
 ' Seventeen next 1st of November/ said Clarence. 
 
 'Not a bit too old for a fresh beginning/ said 
 Mr. Castleford cheerily. ' God helping you, you will 
 be a brave and good man yet, my boy — ' then as 
 my master rang at the door — ' Come with me and 
 look at the old shop.' 
 
 Poor Clarence muttered something unintelligible, 
 and I had to own for him that he never went out 
 without accounting for himself. Whereupon our 
 friend caused my mother to be hunted up, and 
 explained to her that he wanted to take Clarence 
 out with him — making some excuse about some- 
 thing they were to see together. 
 
 That walk enabled him to say something which 
 came nearer to cheering Clarence than anything 
 that had passed since that sad return, and made 
 him think that to be connected with Mr. Castleford 
 was the best thing that could befall him. Mr. 
 Castleford on his side told my father that he was 
 sure that the boy was good-hearted all the time, 
 and thoroughly repentant ; but this had the less 
 effect because plausibility, as my father called it,
 
 46 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 was one of the qualities that specially annoyed him 
 in Clarence, and made him fear that his friend 
 might be taken in. However, the matter was dis- 
 cussed between the elders, and it was determined 
 that this most friendly offer should be accepted 
 experimentally. It was impressed on Clarence, 
 with unnecessary care, that the line of life was 
 inferior ; but that it was his only chance of regain- 
 ing anything like a position, and that everything 
 depended on his industry and integrity. 
 
 ' Integrity ! ' commented Clarence, with a burning 
 spot on his cheek after one of these lectures ; ' I be- 
 lieve they think me capable of robbing the office ! ' 
 
 We found out, too, that the senior partner, Mr. 
 Frith, a very crusty old bachelor, did not like the 
 appointment, and that it was made quite against 
 his will. 'You'll be getting your clerks next from 
 Xewgate 1' was what some amiable friend reported 
 him to have said. However, Mr. Castleford had his 
 way, and Clarence was to begin his work with the New 
 Year, being in the meantime cautioned and lectured 
 on the crime and danger of his evil propensities 
 more than he could well bear. ' Oh !' he groaned, 
 ' it serves me right, I know that very well, but if 
 my father only knew how I hate and abhor all 
 those things — and how I loathed them at the very 
 time I was dragged into them ! ' 
 
 'Why don't you tell him so V I asked.
 
 v.] A HELPING HAND. 47 
 
 1 That would make it no better.' 
 
 ' It is not so bad as if you had gone into it 
 willingly, and for your own pleasure.' 
 
 'He would only think that another lie.' 
 
 No more could be said, for the idea of Clarence's 
 untruthfulness and depravity had become so deeply 
 rooted in our father's mind that there was little 
 hope of displacing it, and even at the best his 
 manner was full of grave constrained pity. Those 
 few words were Clarence's first approach to con- 
 fidence with me, but they led to more, and he 
 knew there was one person who did not believe 
 the defect was in the bent of his will so much 
 as in its strength. 
 
 All the time the prospect of the counting-house 
 in comparison with the sea was so distasteful to 
 him that I was anxious whenever he went out 
 alone, or even with Griffith, who despised the 
 notion of, as he said, sitting on a high stool, deal- 
 ing in tea, so much that he was quite capable of 
 aiding and abetting in an escape from it. Two 
 considerations, however, held Clarence back ; one, 
 the timidity of nature which shrank from so violent 
 a step, and the other, the strong affections that 
 bound him to his home, though his sojourn there 
 was so painful. He knew the misery his flight 
 would have been to me ; indeed I took care to let 
 him see it.
 
 48 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 And Griffith's return was like a fresh spring 
 wind dispersing vapours. He had gained an ex- 
 cellent scholarship at Brazenose, and came home 
 radiant with triumph, cheering us all up, and mak- 
 ing a generous use of his success. He was no 
 letter-writer, and after learning that the disaster 
 and disgrace were all too certain, he ignored the 
 whole, and hailed Clarence on his return as if 
 nothing had happened. As eldest son, and almost 
 a University man, he could argue with our parents 
 in a manner we never presumed on. At least I 
 cannot aver what he actually uttered, but probably 
 it was a revised version of what he thundered forth 
 to me. ' Such nonsense ! such a shame to keep 
 the poor beggar going about with that hang clog- 
 look, as if he had done for himself for life ! Why, 
 I've known fellows do ever so much worse of their 
 own accord, and nothing come of it. If it was 
 found out, there mio;ht be a row and a noo-omo- 
 and there was an end of it. As to going about 
 mourning, and keeping the whole house in doleful 
 dumps, as if there was never to be any good again, 
 it was utter folly, and so I've told Bill, and papa 
 and mamma, both of them !' 
 
 How this was administered, or how they took it, 
 there is no knowing, but Griff would neither skate 
 nor go to the theatre, nor to any other diversion, 
 without his brother ; and used much kindly force
 
 v.] A HELPING HAND. 49 
 
 and banter to unearth him from his dismal den in 
 the back drawing-room. He was only let alone 
 when there were engagements with friends, and 
 indeed, when meetings in the streets took place, 
 by tacit agreement, Clarence would shrink off in 
 the crowd as if not belonging to his companion ; 
 and these were the moments that stunsj him into 
 longing to flee to the river, and lose the sense of 
 shame among common sailors : but there was always 
 some good angel to hold him back from desperate 
 measures — chiefly just then, the love between us 
 three brothers, a love that never cooled throughout 
 our lives, and which dear old Griff made much 
 more apparent at this critical time than in the 
 old Win and Slow days of school. That return 
 of his enlivened us all, and removed the terrible 
 constraint from our meals, bringing us back, as it 
 were, to ordinary life and natural intercourse among 
 ourselves and with our neighbours. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 
 
 ' But when I lay upon the shore, 
 
 Like some poor wounded thing, 
 I deemed I should not evermore 
 
 Refit my wounded wing. 
 Nailed to the ground and fastened there, 
 This was the thought of my despair. ' 
 
 Abp. Trench. 
 
 Clarence's debut at the office was not wholly 
 unsuccessful. He wrote a good hand, and had a 
 good deal of method and regularity in his nature, 
 together with a real sense of gratitude to Mr. Castle- 
 ford; and this bore him through the weariness of 
 his new employment, and, what was worse, the cold 
 reception he met with from the other clerks. He 
 was too quiet and reserved for the wilder spirits, too 
 much of a gentleman for others, and in the eyes of 
 the managers, and especially of the senior partner, 
 a disgraced, untrustworthy youth foisted on the 
 office by Mr. Castleford's weak partiality. That old 
 Mr. Frith had, Clarence used to say, a perfectly 
 venomous way of accepting his salute, and seemed
 
 chap. VI.] THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 51 
 
 always surprised and disappointed if he came in in 
 time, or showed up correct work. Indeed, the old 
 man was disliked and feared by all his subordinates 
 as much as his partner was loved ; and while Mr. 
 Castleford, with his good-natured Irish wife and 
 merry family, lived a life as cheerful as it was 
 beneficent, Mr. Frith dwelt entirely alone, in rooms 
 over the office, preserving the habits formed when his 
 income had been narrow, and mistrusting everybody. 
 
 At the end of the first month of experiment, Mr. 
 Castleford declared himself contented with Clarence's 
 industry and steadiness, and permanent arrangements 
 were made, to which Clarence submitted with an 
 odd sort of passive gratitude, such as almost angered 
 my father, who little knew how trying the position 
 really was, nor how a certain home-sickness for the 
 seafaring life was tugging at the lad's heart, and 
 making each morning's entrance at the counting- 
 house an effort — each merchant -captain, redolent 
 of the sea, an object of envy. My mother would 
 have sympathised here, but Clarence feared her 
 more than my father, and she was living in con- 
 tinual dread of some explosion, so that her dark 
 curls began to show streaks of gray, and her face to 
 lose its round youthfulness. 
 
 Lent brought the question of Confirmation. Under 
 the influence of good Bishop Blomfield, and in the 
 wave of evangelical revival — then at its flood height 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF HUNCMS
 
 52 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 — Confirmation was becoming a more prominent 
 subject with religious people than it had probably 
 ever been in our Church, and it was recognised that 
 some preparation was desirable beyond the power 
 of repeating the Church Catechism. This was all 
 that had been required of my father at Harrow. 
 My mother's godfather, a dignified clergyman, had 
 simply said, ' I suppose, my dear, you know all 
 about it;' and as for the Admiral, he remarked, 
 ' Confirmed ! I never was confirmed anything but a 
 post-captain !' 
 
 Our incumbent was more attentive to his duties, 
 or rather recognised more duties, than his prede- 
 cessor. He preached on the subject, and formed 
 classes, sixteen being then the limit of age, — since 
 the idea of the vow, having become far more pro- 
 minent than that of the blessing, it was held that full 
 development of the will and understanding was 
 needful. 
 
 I was of the requisite age, and my father spoke 
 to the clergyman, who called, and, as I could not 
 attend the classes, gave me books to read and ques- 
 tions to answer. Clarence read and discussed the 
 questions with me, showing so much more insight 
 into them, and fuller knowledge of Scripture than I 
 possessed, that I exclaimed, ' Why should you not go 
 up for Confirmation too ? ' 
 
 c No,' he answered mournfully. ' I must take no
 
 VI.] THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 53 
 
 more vows if I can't keep them. It would just be 
 profane.' 
 
 I had no more to say ; indeed, my parents held 
 the same view. It was good Mr. Castleford who 
 saw things differently. He was a clergyman's son, 
 and had been bred up in the old orthodoxy, which 
 was just beginning to put forth fresh shoots, and, as 
 a quasi-godfather, he held himself bound to take an 
 interest in our religious life, while the sponsors, 
 whose names stood in the family Bible, and whose 
 spoons reposed in the plate -chest, never troubled 
 themselves on the matter. I remember Clarence 
 leaning over me and saying, ' Mr. Castleford thinks 
 I might be confirmed. He says it is not so much 
 the promise we make as of coming to Almighty 
 God for strength to keep what we are bound by 
 already ! He is going to speak to papa.' 
 
 Perhaps no one except Mr. Castleford could have 
 prevailed over the fear of profanation in the mind 
 of my father, who was, in his old-fashioned way, one 
 of the most reverent of men, and could not bear to 
 think of holy things being approached by one under 
 a stigma, nor of exposing his son to add to his guilt 
 by taking and breaking further pledges. However, 
 he was struck by his friend's arguments, and I heard 
 him telling my mother that when he had wished to 
 wait till there had been time to prove sincerity of 
 repentance by a course of steadiness, the answer had
 
 54 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 been that it was hard to require strength, while 
 denying the means of grace. My mother was 
 scarcely convinced, but as he had consented she 
 yielded without a protest ; and she was really glad 
 that I should have Clarence at my side to help me 
 at the ceremony. The clergyman was applied to, 
 and consented to let Clarence attend the classes, 
 where his knowledge, comprehension, and behaviour 
 were exemplary, so that a letter was written to my 
 father expressive of perfect satisfaction with him. 
 ' There,' said my father, ' I knew it would be so ! 
 It is not that which I want.' 
 
 The Confirmation seemed at the time a very short 
 and perfunctory result of our preparation; and, as 
 things were conducted or misconducted then, involved 
 so much crowding and distress that I recollect very 
 little but clinging to Clarence's arm under a strong- 
 sense of my infirmities, — the painful attempt at kneel- 
 ing, and the big outstretched lawn sleeves while the 
 blessing was pronounced over six heads at once, 
 and then the struggle back to the pew, while the 
 silver-pokered apparitor looked grim at us, as though 
 the maimed and halt had no business to get into 
 the way. Yet this was a great advance upon former 
 Confirmations, and the Bishop met my father after- 
 wards, and inquired most kindly after his lame son. 
 
 We were disappointed, and felt that we could 
 not attain to the feelings in the Confirmation poem
 
 vi.] THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 55 
 
 in the Christian Year — Mr. Castleford's gift to me. 
 Still, I believe that, though encumbered with such a 
 drag as myself, Clarence, more than I did, 
 
 And longed to own Him to the death.' 
 
 But the evangelical belief that dejection ought 
 to be followed by a full sense of pardon and assur- 
 ance of salvation somewhat perplexed and dimmed 
 our Easter Communion. For one short moment, as 
 Clarence turned to help my father lift me up from 
 the altar-rail, I saw his face and eyes radiant with 
 a wonderful rapt look ; but it passed only too fast, 
 and the more than ordinary glimpse his spiritual 
 nature had had made him all the more sad after- 
 wards, when he said, ' I would give everything to 
 know that there was any steadfastness in my purpose 
 to lead a new life.' 
 
 ' But you are leading a new life.' 
 
 * Only because there is no one to bully me,' he 
 said. Still, there had been no reproach against 
 him all the time he had been at Frith and Castle- 
 ford's, when suddenly we had a great shock. 
 
 Parties were running very high, and there were 
 scurrilous papers about, which my father perfectly 
 abhorred ; and one day at dinner, when declaiming 
 against something he had seen, he laid down strict 
 commands that none should be brought into the
 
 56 CHAXTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 house. Then, glancing at Clarence, something pos- 
 sessed him to say, c You have not been buying any.' 
 
 ' No, sir/ Clarence answered ; but a few minutes 
 later, when we were alone together, the others having 
 left him to help me upstairs, he exclaimed, ' Edward, 
 what is to be done ? I didn't buy it ; but there is 
 one of those papers in my great-coat pocket. Pollard 
 threw it on my desk ; and there was something in it 
 that I thought would amuse you.' 
 
 e Oh ! why didn't you say so ?' 
 
 ' There I am again ! I simply could not, with 
 his eye on me ! Miserable being that I am ! Oh, 
 where is the spirit of ghostly strength ? ' 
 
 'Helping you now to take it to papa in the 
 study and explain ! ' I cried ; but the struggle in that 
 tall fellow was as if he had been seven years old 
 instead of seventeen, ere he put his hand over his 
 face and gave me his arm to come out into the hall, 
 fetch the paper, and make his confession. Alas ! 
 we were too late. The coat had been moved, the 
 paper had fallen out ; and there stood my mother 
 with it in her hand, looking at Clarence with an 
 awful stony face of mute grief and reproach, while 
 he stammered forth what he had said before,, and 
 that he was about to give it to my father. She 
 turned away, bitterly, contemptuously indignant and 
 incredulous ; and my corroborations only served to 
 give both her and my father a certain dread of
 
 vi.] THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 57 
 
 Clarence's influence over me, as though I had been 
 either deceived or induced to back him in deceiving 
 them. The unlucky incident plunged him back into 
 the depths, just as he had begun to emerge. Slight 
 as it was, it was no trifle to him, in spite of Griffith's 
 exclamation, ' How absurd ! Is a fellow to be bound 
 to give an account of everything he looks at as if he 
 were six years old ? Catch me letting my mother 
 pry into my pockets ! But you are too meek, Bill ; 
 you perfectly invite them to make a row about 
 nothing !'
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE INHERITANCE. 
 
 ' For he that needs five thousand pound to live 
 Is full as poor as he that needs but five. 
 But if thy son can make ten pound his measure, 
 Then all thou addest may be called his treasure.' 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1829 that my father re- 
 ceived a lawyer's letter announcing the death of 
 James Winslow, Esquire, of Chantry House, Earls- 
 combe, and inviting him, as heir-at-law, to be pre- 
 sent at the funeral and opening of the will. The 
 surprise to us all was great. Even my mother 
 had hardly heard of Chantry House itself, far less as 
 a possible inheritance ; and she had only once seen 
 James Winslow. He was the last of the elder 
 branch of the family, a third cousin, and older than 
 my father, who had known him in times long past. 
 When they had last met, the Squire of Chantry 
 House was a married man, with more than one 
 child ; my father a young barrister ; and as one 
 lived entirely in the country and the other in town,
 
 CHAP. VII.] THE INHERITANCE. 5 9 
 
 without any special congeniality, no intercourse had 
 been kept up, and it was a surprise to hear that he 
 had left no surviving children. My father greatly 
 doubted whether being heir-at-law would prove to 
 avail him anything, since it was likely that so 
 distant a relation would have made a will in favour 
 of some nearer connection on his wife's or mother's 
 side. He was very vague about Chantry House, 
 only knowing that it was supposed to be a fair 
 property, and he would hardly consent to take 
 Griffith with him by the Western Eoyal Mail, 
 warning him and all the rest of us that our expecta- 
 tions would be disappointed. 
 
 Nevertheless we looked out the gentlemen's seats 
 in Patersons Road Book, and after much research, 
 for Chantry House lay far off from the main road, 
 we came upon — 
 
 ' Chantry House, Earlscombe, the seat of James 
 Winslow, Esquire, once a religious foundation ; 
 beautifully situated on a rising ground, commanding 
 an extensive prospect ' 
 
 ' A religious foundation!' cried Emily. ' It will 
 be a dear delicious old abbey, all Gothic architecture, 
 with cloisters and ruins and ghosts.' 
 
 ' Ghosts !' said my mother severely, ' what has 
 put such nonsense into your head V 
 
 Nevertheless Emily made up her mind that 
 Chantry House would be another Melrose, and went
 
 60 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 about repeating the moonlight scene in the Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel whenever she thought no one was 
 there to laugh at her. 
 
 My father and Griffith returned with the good 
 news that there was no mistake. Chantry House 
 was really his own, with the estate belonging to it, 
 reckoned at £5000 a year, exclusive of a handsome 
 provision to Miss Selby, the niece of the late Mrs. 
 Winslow, a spinster of a certain age, who had lived 
 with her uncle, and now proposed to remove to Bath. 
 Mr. Winslow had, it appeared, lost his only son as 
 a schoolboy, and his daughters, like their mother, 
 had been consumptive. He had always been resolved 
 that the estate should continue in the family ; but 
 reluctance to see any one take his son's place had 
 withheld him from making any advances to my 
 father; and for several years past he had been in 
 broken health with failing faculties. 
 
 Of course there was much elation. Griff de- 
 scribed as charming the place, perched on the 
 southern slope of a wooded hill, with a broad fertile 
 valley lying spread out before it, and the woods 
 behind affording every promise of sport. The house, 
 my father said, was good, odd and irregular, built at 
 different times, but quite habitable, and with plenty 
 of furniture, though he opined that mamma would 
 think it needed modernising, to which she replied 
 that our present chattels would make a great differ-
 
 vii.] THE INHERITANCE. 61 
 
 ence ; whereat my father, looking at the effects of 
 more than twenty years of London blacks, gave a 
 little whistle, for she was always the economical 
 one of the pair. 
 
 Emily, with glowing cheeks and eager eyes, 
 entreated to know whether it was Gothic, and had a 
 cloister ! Papa nipped her hopes of a cloister, but 
 there were Gothic windows and doorway, and a bit 
 of ruin in the garden, a fragment of the old chapel. 
 
 My father could not resign his office without 
 notice, and, besides, he wished Miss Selby to have 
 leisure for leaving her home of many years ; after 
 which there would be a few needful repairs. The 
 delay was not a great grievance to any of us except 
 little Martyn. We were much more Cockney than 
 almost any one is in these days of railways. We 
 were unusually devoid of kindred on both sides, my 
 father's holidays were short, I was not a very mov- 
 able commodity, and economy forbade long journeys, 
 so that we had never gone farther than Eamsgate, 
 where we claimed a certain lodging-house as a sort 
 of right every summer. 
 
 Real country was as much unknown to us as 
 the backwoods. My father alone had been born 
 and bred to village life and habits, for my mother 
 had spent her youth in a succession of seaport 
 towns, frequented by men-of-war. We heard, too, 
 that Chantry House was very secluded, with only a
 
 62 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 few cottages near at hand — a mile and a half from 
 the church and village of Earlscombe, three from 
 the tiny country town of Wattlesea, four from the 
 place where the coach passed, connecting it with the 
 civilisation of Bath and Bristol, from each of which 
 places it was about half a day's distance, according 
 to the measures of those times. It was a sort of 
 banishment to people accustomed to the stream of 
 life in London; and though the consequence and 
 importance derived from being raised to the ranks 
 of the Squirearchy were agreeable, they were a 
 dear purchase at the cost of being out of reach of 
 all our friends and acquaintances, as well as of 
 other advantages. 
 
 To my father, however, the retirement from his 
 many years of drudgery was really welcome, and he 
 had preserved enough of country tastes to rejoice 
 that it was, as he said, a clear duty to reside on his 
 estate and look after his property. My mother saw 
 his relief in the prospect, and suppressed her sighs 
 at the dislocation of her life-long habits, and the 
 loss of intercourse with the acquaintance whom 
 separation raised to the rank of intimate friends, 
 even her misgivings as to butchers, bakers, and 
 grocers in the wilderness, and still worse, as to 
 doctors for me. 
 
 ' Humph ! ' said the Admiral, ' the boy will be 
 all the better without them.'
 
 vil] THE INHERITANCE. 63 
 
 And so I was ; I can't say they were the snbject 
 of much regret, but I was really sorry to leave our 
 big neighbour, the British Museum, where there 
 were good friends who always made me welcome, 
 and encouraged me in studies of coins and heraldry, 
 which were great resources to me, so that I used to 
 spend hours there, and was by no means willing to 
 resign my ambition of obtaining an appointment 
 there, when I heard my father say that he was 
 especially thankful for his good fortune because it 
 enabled him to provide for me. There were lessons, 
 too, from masters in languages, music, and drawing, 
 which Emily and I shared, and which she had just 
 begun to value thoroughly. We had filled whole 
 drawing-books with wriggling twists of foliasre in 
 B B B marking pencil, and had just been promoted 
 to water-colours ; and she was beginning to sing very 
 prettily. I feared, too, that I should no longer have a 
 chance of rivalling Griffith's university studies. All 
 this, with my sister's girl friends, and those kind 
 people who used to drop in to play chess, and other- 
 wise amuse me, would all be left behind ; and, sorest 
 of all, Clarence, who, whatever he was in the eyes 
 of others, had grown to be my mainstay during this 
 last year. He it was who fetched me from the 
 Museum, took me into the gardens, helped me up 
 and down stairs, spared no pains to rout out what- 
 ever my fanciful pursuits required from shops in the
 
 64 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 City, and, in very truth, spoilt me through all his 
 hours that were free from business, besides being 
 my most perfect sympathising and understanding 
 companion. 
 
 I feared, too, that he would be terribly lone- 
 some, though of late he had been less haunted by 
 longings for the sea, had made some way with his 
 fellows, and had been commended by the managing 
 clerk ; and it was painful to find the elders did not 
 grieve on their own account at parting with him. 
 My mother told the Admiral that she thought it 
 would be good for Mr. Winslow's spirits not to be 
 continually reminded of his trouble ; and my father 
 might be heard confiding to Mr. Castleford that the 
 separation might be good for both her and her son, 
 if only the lad could be trusted. To which that 
 good man replied by giving him an excellent 
 character ; but was only met by a sigh, and ' Well, 
 we shall see ! ' 
 
 Clarence was to be lodged with Peter, whose 
 devotion would not extend to following us into 
 barbarism, where, as he told us, he understood there 
 was no such thing as a ' harea,' and master would 
 have to kill his own mutton. 
 
 Peter had been tranquilly engaged to Gooch for 
 years untold. They were to be transformed into 
 Mr. and Mrs. Eobson, with some small appointment 
 about the Law Courts for him, and a lodging-house
 
 VII.] THE INHERITANCE. 65 
 
 for her, where Clarence was to abide, my mother 
 feeling secure that neither his health, his morals, 
 nor his shirts could go much astray without her 
 receiving warning thereof. 
 
 Meanwhile, by the help of an antiquarian friend 
 of my father, Mr. Stafford, who was great in county 
 history, I hunted up in the Museum library all I 
 could discover about our new possession. 
 
 The Chantry of St. Cecily at Earlscombe, in 
 Somersetshire, had, it appeared, been founded and 
 endowed by Dame Isabel d'Oyley, in the year of 
 grace 1434, that constant prayers might be offered 
 for the souls of her husband and son, slain in the 
 French wars. The poor lady's intentions, which 
 to our Protestant minds appeared rather shocking 
 than otherwise, had been frustrated at the break 
 up of such establishments, when the Chantry, and 
 the estate that maintained its clerks and bedesmen, 
 was granted to Sir Harry Power, from whom, 
 through two heiresses, it had come to the Fordyces, 
 the last of whom, by name Margaret, had died 
 childless, leaving the estate to her stepson, Philip 
 Winslow, our ancestor. 
 
 Moreover, we learnt that a portion of the build- 
 ing was of ancient date, and that there was an 
 'interesting fragment' of the old chapel in the 
 grounds, which our good friend promised himself the 
 pleasure of investigating on his first holiday. 
 
 VOL. I. f
 
 66 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 To add to our newly-acquired sense of considera- 
 tion and of high pedigree, the family chariot, after 
 taking Miss Selby to Bath, came up post to London 
 to be touched up at the coachbuilder's, have the 
 escutcheon altered so as to impale the Griffith coat 
 instead of the Selby, and finally to convey us to our 
 new abode, in preparation for which all its boxes 
 came to be packed. 
 
 A chariot ! You young ones have as little notion 
 of one as of a British war -chariot armed with 
 scythes. Yet people of a certain grade were as sure 
 to keep their chariot as their silver tea-pot ; indeed 
 we knew one young couple who started in life with 
 no other habitation, but spent their time as nomads, 
 in visits to their relations and friends, for visits 
 v:ere visits then. 
 
 The capacities of a chariot were considerable. 
 Within, there was a good-sized seat for the principal 
 occupants, and outside a dickey behind, and a driving 
 box before, though sometimes there was only one 
 of these, and that transferable. The boxes were 
 calculated to hold family luggage on a six months' 
 tour. There they lay on the spare -room floor, 
 ready to be packed, the first earnest of our new 
 possessions — except perhaps the five -pound note 
 my father gave each of us four elder ones, on 
 the day the balance at the bank was made over 
 to him. There was the imperial, a grand roomy
 
 vii.] THE INHERITANCE. 67 
 
 receptacle, which was placed on the top of the 
 carriage, and would not always go upstairs in small 
 nouses ; the capbox, which fitted into a curved place 
 in front of the windows, and could not stand alone, 
 but had a frame to support it; two long narrow 
 boxes with the like infirmity of standing, which 
 fitted in below ; square ones under each seat ; and 
 a drop box fastened on behind. There were pockets 
 beneath each window, and, curious relic in name 
 and nature of the time when every gentleman 
 carried his weapon, there was the sword case, an 
 excrescence behind the back of the best seat, acces- 
 sible by lifting a cushion, where weapons used to 
 be carried, but where in our peaceful times travellers 
 bestowed their luncheon and their books. 
 
 Our chariot was black above, canary yellow 
 below, beautifully varnished, and with our arms 
 blazoned on each door. It was lined with dark 
 blue leather and cloth, picked out with blue and 
 yellow lace in accordance with our liveries, and 
 was a gorgeous spectacle. I am afraid Emily did 
 not share in Mistress Gilpin's humility when 
 
 1 The chaise was brought, 
 But yet was not allowed 
 To drive up to the door, lest all 
 Should say that she was proud ! ' 
 
 It was then that Emily and I each started a 
 diary to record the events of our new life. Hers
 
 68 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. vii. 
 
 flourished by fits and starts ; but I having perforce 
 more leisure than she, mine has gone on with few 
 interruptions till the present time, and is the back- 
 bone of this narrative, which I compile and condense 
 from it and other sources before destroying it.
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE OLD HOUSE. 
 
 ' Your history whither are you spinning ? 
 Can you do nothing hut describe ? 
 A house there is, and that's enough !' — Gray. 
 
 How we did enjoy our journey, when the wrench 
 from our old home was once made. We did not 
 even leave Clarence behind, for Mr. Castleford had 
 given him a holiday, so that he might not appear 
 to be kept at a distance, as if under a cloud, and 
 might help me through our travels. 
 
 My mother and I occupied the inside of the 
 carriage, with Emily between us at the outset; 
 but when we were off the London stones she was 
 often allowed to make a third on the dickey with 
 Clarence and Martyn, whose ecstatic heels could 
 be endured for the sake of the free air and the 
 view. Of course we posted, and where there 
 were severe hills we indulged in four horses. The 
 varieties of the jackets of our post-boys, blue or 
 yellow, as supposed to indicate the politics of their 
 inns, were interesting to us, as everything was in-
 
 70 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 teresting then. Otherwise their equipment was 
 exactly alike — neat drab corduroy breeches and top- 
 boots, and hats usually white, and they were all 
 boys, though the red faces and grizzled hair of 
 some looked as if they had faced the weather for 
 at least fifty years. 
 
 It was a beautiful August, and the harvest 
 fields were a sight perfectly new, filling us with 
 rapture unspeakable. At every hill which offered 
 an excuse, our outsiders were on their feet, thrust- 
 ing in their heads and hands to us within with 
 exclamations of delight, and all sorts of discoveries 
 — really new to us three younger ones. Ears of 
 corn, bearded barley, graceful oats, poppies, corn- 
 flowers, were all delicious novelties to Emily and 
 me, though Griff and my father laughed at our 
 ecstasies, and my mother occasionally objected to 
 the wonderful accumulation of curiosities thrust into 
 her lap or the door pockets, and tried to persuade 
 Martyn that rooks' wings, dead hedgehogs, sticks 
 and stones of various merits, might be found at 
 Earlscombe, until Clarence, by the judicious pur- 
 chase of a basket at Salisbury, contrived to satisfy 
 all parties and safely dispose of the treasures. The 
 objects that stand out in my memory on that journey 
 were Salisbury Spire, and a long hill where the 
 hedgebank was one mass of the exquisite rose-bay 
 willow herb — a perfect revelation to our city-bred
 
 viil] THE OLD HOUSE. 71 
 
 eyes ; but indeed, the whole route was like one 
 panorama to us of L Allegro and other descriptions 
 on which we had fed. For in those days we were 
 much more devoted to poetry than is the present 
 generation, which has a good deal of false shame 
 on that head. 
 
 Even dining and sleeping at an inn formed 
 a pleasing novelty, though we did not exactly 
 sympathise with Martyn when he dashed in at 
 breakfast exulting in having witnessed the killing of 
 a pig. As my father observed, it was too like realis- 
 ing Peter's forebodings of our return to savage life. 
 
 Demonstrations were not the fashion of these 
 times, and there was a good deal of dull discontent 
 and disaffection in the air, so that no tokens of 
 welcome were prepared for us — not even a peal of 
 bells ; nor indeed should we have heard them if 
 they had been rung, for the church was a mile 
 and a half beyond the house, with a wood between 
 cutting off the sound, except in certain winds. We 
 did not miss a reception, which would rather 
 have embarrassed us. We began to think it was 
 time to arrive, and my father believed we were 
 climbing the last hill, when, just as we had passed 
 a remarkably pretty village and church, Griffith 
 called out to say that we were on our own 
 ground. He had made his researches with the 
 gamekeeper while my father was busy with the
 
 72 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 solicitor, and could point to our boundary wall, a 
 little below the top of the hill on the northern side. 
 He informed us that the place we had passed 
 was Hillside — Fordyce property, — but this was 
 Earlscombe, our own. It was a great stony bit 
 of pasture with a few scattered trees, but after 
 the flat summit was past, the southern side was 
 all beechwood, where a gate admitted us into a 
 drive cut out in a slant down the otherwise steep 
 descent, and coining out into an open space. And 
 there we were ! 
 
 The old house was placed on the widest part of 
 a kind of shelf or natural terrace, of a sort of 
 amphitheatre shape, with wood on either hand, but 
 leaving an interval clear in the midst broad enough 
 for house and gardens, with a gentle green slope 
 behind, and a much steeper one in front, closed in 
 by the beechwoods. The house stood as it were 
 sideways, or had been made to do so by later 
 inhabitants. I know this is very long-winded, but 
 there have been such alterations that without minute 
 description this narrative will be unintelligible. 
 
 The aspect was northwards so far as the lie 
 of the ground was concerned, but the house stood 
 across. The main body was of the big symmetrical 
 Louis XIV. style — or, as it is now the fashion to 
 call it, Queen Anne — brick, with stone quoins, big 
 sash-windows, and a great square hall in the midst,
 
 viii.] THE OLD HOUSE. 73 
 
 with the chief rooms opening into it. The principal 
 entrance had been on the north, with a huge front 
 door and a flight of stone steps, and just space 
 enough for a gravel coach ring before the rapid 
 grassy descent. Later constitutions, however, must 
 have eschewed that northern front door, and later 
 nerves that narrow verge, and on the eastern front 
 had been added that Gothic porch of which Emily- 
 had heard, — and a flagrantly modern Gothic porch 
 it was, flanked by two comical little turrets, with 
 loopholes, from which a thread-paper or Tom Thumb 
 might have defended it. Otherwise it resembled a 
 church porch, except for the formidable points of a 
 sham portcullis ; but there was no denying that it 
 greatly increased the comfort of the house, with its 
 two sets of heavy doors, and the seats on either side. 
 The great hall door had been closed up, plastered 
 over within, and rendered inoffensive. Towards the 
 west there was another modern addition of drawing 
 and dining rooms, and handsome bedchambers above, 
 in Gothic taste, i.e. with pointed arches filled up 
 with glass over the sash-windows. The drawing- 
 room was very pretty, with a glass door at the end 
 leading into an old-fashioned greenhouse, and two 
 French windows to the south opening upon the 
 lawn, which soon began to slope upwards, curving, 
 as I said, like an amphitheatre, and was always 
 shady and sheltered, tilting its flower-beds towards
 
 74 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 the house as if to display them. The dining-room 
 had, in like manner, one west and two north win- 
 dows, the latter commanding a grand view over the 
 screen meadow-land helow, dotted with round knolls, 
 and rising into blue hills beyond. We became 
 proud of counting the villages and church towers 
 we could see from thence. 
 
 There was a still older portion, more ancient 
 than the square corps de logis, and built of the cream- 
 coloured stone of the country. It was at the south- 
 eastern angle, where the ground began sloping so 
 near the house that this wing — if it may so be 
 called — containing two good-sized rooms nearly on a 
 level with the upper floor, had nothing below but 
 some open stone vaultings, under which it was only 
 just possible for my tall brothers to stand upright, 
 at the innermost end. These opened into the 
 cellars which, no doubt, belonged to the fifteenth- 
 century structure. There seemed to have once 
 been a door and two or three steps to the ground, 
 which rose very close to the southern end ; but this 
 had been walled up. The rooms had deep mullioned 
 windows east and west, and very handsome groined 
 ceilings, and were entered by two steps down from 
 the gallery round the upper part of the hall. There 
 was a very handsome double staircase of polished 
 oak, shaped like a Y, the stem of which began just 
 opposite the original front door — making us wonder
 
 VIII.] 
 
 THE OLD HOUSE. 
 
 75 
 
 if people knew what draughts were in the days of 
 Queen Anne, and remember Madame de Maintenon's 
 complaint that health was sacrificed to symmetry. 
 Not far from this oldest portion were some broken 
 bits of wall and stumps of columns, remnants of the 
 chapel, and prettily wreathed with ivy and clematis. 
 We rejoiced in such a pretty and distinctive ornament 
 
 Dining 
 
 u ' Drawing 
 Room 
 
 Study 
 
 1 
 
 H all 
 
 Room I R 
 
 Edward' 
 Room 
 
 I Clar, 
 
 Clarences 
 Room 
 
 P 
 
 I 1 
 
 Mi-Hion 
 Rooms 
 
 to our garden, and never troubled ourselves about 
 the desecration ; and certainly ours was one of the 
 most delightful gardens that ever existed, what with 
 green turf, bright flowers, shapely shrubs, and the 
 grand beech -trees enclosing it with their stately 
 white pillars, green foliage, and the russet arcades 
 beneath them. The stillness was wonderful to ears 
 accustomed to the London roar — almost a new sensa- 
 tion. Emily was found, as she said, ' listening to 
 the silence;' and my father declared that no one
 
 76 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 could guess at the sense of rest that it gave 
 him. 
 
 Of space within there was plenty, though so 
 much had been sacrificed to the hall and staircase ; 
 and this was apparently the cause of the modern 
 additions, as the original sitting-rooms, wainscotted 
 and double -doored, were rather small for family 
 requirements. One of these, once the dining-room, 
 became my father's study, where he read and wrote, 
 saw his tenants, and by and by acted as Justice of 
 the Peace. The opposite one, towards the garden, 
 was termed the book-room. Here Martyn was to 
 do his lessons, and Emily and I carry on our studies, 
 and do what she called keeping up her accomplish- 
 ments. My couch and appurtenances abode there, 
 and it was to be my retreat from company, — or on 
 occasion could be made a supplementary drawing- 
 room, as its fittings showed it had been the parlour. 
 It communicated with another chamber, which be- 
 came my own — sparing the difficulties that stairs 
 always presented ; and beyond lay, niched under 
 the grand staircase, a tiny light closet, a passage- 
 room, where my mother put a bed for a man-servant, 
 not liking to leave me entirely alone on the ground 
 floor. It led to a passage to the garden door, also 
 to my mother's den, dedicated to housewifely cares 
 and stores, and ended at the back stairs, descending 
 to the servants' region. This was very old, hand-
 
 vin. J THE OLD HOUSE. 77 
 
 somely vaulted with stone, and, owing to the fall of 
 the ground, had ample space for light on the north 
 side, — where, beyond the drive, the descent was so 
 rapid as to afford Martyn infinite delight in rolling 
 down, to the horror of all beholders and the detriment 
 of his white duck trowsers. 
 
 I don't know much about the upper story, so I 
 spare you that. Emily had a hankering for one 
 of the pretty old niullioned- windowed rooms — the 
 mullion chambers, as she named them; but Griff 
 pounced on them at once, the inner for his repose, 
 the outer for his guns and his studies — not smoking, 
 for young men were never permitted to smoke within 
 doors, nor indeed in any home society. The choice 
 of the son and heir was undisputed, and he proceeded 
 to settle his possessions in his new domains, where 
 they made an imposing appearance.
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 RATS. 
 
 ' As louder and louder, drawing near, 
 The gnawing of their teeth he could hear. ' — Southey. 
 
 ' What a ridiculous old fellow that Chapman is,' 
 said Griff, coming in from a conference with the 
 gaunt old man who acted as keeper to our not very 
 extensive preserves. ' I told him to get some gins 
 for the rats in my rooms, and he shook his absurd 
 head like any mandarin, and said, " There baint no 
 trap as will rid you of them kind of varmint, sir.'" 
 
 ' Of course/ my father said, ' rats are part of the 
 entail of an old house. You may reckon on them.' 
 
 1 Those rooms of yours are the very place for 
 them,' added my mother. ' I only hope they will 
 not infest the rest of the house.' 
 
 To which Griff rejoined that they perpetrated 
 the most extraordinary noises he had ever heard 
 from rats, and told Emily she might be thankful to 
 him for taking those rooms, for she would have been 
 frightened out of her little wits. He meant, he 
 said, to get a little terrier, and have a thorough
 
 CHAP, ix.] EATS. 79 
 
 good rat hunt, at which Martyn capered about in 
 irrepressible ecstasy. 
 
 This, however, was deferred by the unwillingness 
 of old Chapman, of whom even Griff was somewhat 
 in awe. His fame as a sportsman had to be made, 
 and he had had only such practice as could be attained 
 by shooting at a mark ever since he had been aware 
 of his coming greatness. So he was desirous of 
 conciliating Chapman, and not getting laughed at 
 as the London young gentleman who could not hit 
 a hay-stack. My father, who had been used to 
 carrying a gun in his younger days, was much 
 amused, in his quiet way, at seeing Griff watch 
 Chapman off on his rounds, and then betake himself 
 to the locality most remote from the keeper's ears 
 to practise on the rook or crow. Martyn always 
 ran after him, having solemnly promised not to 
 touch the gun, and to keep behind. He was too 
 good-natured to send the little fellow back, though 
 he often tried to elude the pursuit, not wishing for 
 a witness to his attempts ; and he never invited 
 Clarence, who had had some experience of curious 
 game but never mentioned it. 
 
 Clarence devoted himself to Emily and me, tugging 
 my garden-chair along all the paths where it would 
 go without too much jolting, and when I had had 
 enough, exploring those hanging woods, either with 
 her or on his own account. They used to come
 
 80 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 home with their hands full of flowers, and this 
 resulted in a vehement attack of botany, — a taste 
 that has lasted all our lives, together with the 
 hortus siccus to which we still make additions, 
 though there has been a revolution there as well as 
 everywhere else, and the Linnaean system we learnt 
 so eagerly from Martin's Letters is altogether exploded 
 and antiquated. Still, my sister refuses to own the 
 scientific merits of the natural system, and can point 
 to school-bred and lectured young ladies who have 
 no notion how to discover the name or nature of a 
 live plant. 
 
 On the Friday after our arrival the noises had 
 been so fearful that Griff had been exasperated into 
 going off across the hills, accompanied by his constant 
 shadow, Martyn, in search of the professional rat- 
 catcher of the neighbourhood, in spite of Chapman's 
 warning — that Tom Petty was the biggest rascal in 
 the neighbourhood, and a regular out and out 
 poacher ; and as to the noises — he couldn't ' tackle 
 the like of they.' After revelling in the beauty of 
 the beechwoods as long as was good for me or for 
 Clarence, I was left in the garden to sketch the 
 ruin, while my two companions started on one of 
 their exploring expeditions. 
 
 It was getting late enough to think of going to 
 prepare for the six o'clock dinner when Emily came 
 forth alone from the path between the trees, announc-
 
 ix.] RATS. 81 
 
 ing — ' An adventure, Edward ! We have had such 
 an adventure.' 
 
 'Where's Clarence?' 
 
 ' Gone for the doctor ! Oh, no ; Griff hasn't shot 
 anybody. He is gone for the ratcatcher, you know. 
 It is a poor little herdboy, who tumbled out of a 
 tree ; and oh ! such a sweet, beautiful, young lady 
 — just like a book !' 
 
 When Emily became less incoherent, it appeared 
 that on coming out on the bit of common above the 
 wood, as she and Clarence were halting on the brow 
 of the hill to admire the view, they heard a call for 
 help, and hurrying down in the direction whence it 
 proceeded they saw a stunted ash -tree, beneath 
 which were a young lady and a little child bending 
 over a village lad who lay beneath moaning piteously. 
 The girl, whom Emily described as the most beautiful 
 creature she ever saw, explained that the boy, who 
 had been herding the cattle scattered around, had 
 been climbing the tree, a limb of which had broken 
 with him. She had seen the fall from a distance, 
 and hurried up; but she hardly knew what to do, 
 for her little sister was too young to be sent in 
 quest of assistance. Clarence thought one leg seri- 
 ously injured, and as the young lady seemed to know 
 the boy, offered to carry him home. School officers 
 were yet in the future ; children were set to work 
 almost as soon as they could walk, and this little 
 VOL. i. G
 
 82 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 fellow was so light and thin as to shock Clarence 
 when he had been taken up on his back, for he 
 weighed quite a trifle. The young lady showed 
 the way to a wretched little cottage, where a 
 bigger girl had just come in with a sheaf of corn 
 freshly gleaned poised on her head. They sent 
 her to fetch her mother, and Clarence undertook 
 to go for a doctor, but to the surprise and horror of 
 Emily, there was a demur. Something was said of 
 old Molly and her ' ile ' and ' yarbs,' or perhaps 
 Madam could step round. When Clarence, on this 
 being translated to him, pronounced the case beyond 
 such treatment, it was explained outside the door 
 that this was a terribly poor family, and the doctor 
 would not come to parish patients for an indefinite 
 time after his summons, besides which, he lived at 
 Wattlesea. ' Indeed mamma does almost all the 
 doctoring with her medicine chest,' said the girl. 
 
 On which Clarence declared that he would let 
 the doctor know that he himself would be respons- 
 ible for the cost of the attendance, and set off for 
 Wattlesea, a kind of town village in the flat below. 
 He could not get back till dinner was half over, and 
 came in alarmed and apologetic ; but he had nothing 
 worse to encounter than Griff's unmerciful banter (or, 
 as you would call it, chaff) about his knight errantry, 
 and Emily's lovely heroine in the sweetest of cottage 
 bonnets.
 
 ix.] EATS. 83 
 
 Griff could be slightly tyrannous in his merry 
 mockery, and when he found that on the ensuing 
 day Clarence proposed to go and inquire after the 
 patient, he made such wicked fun of the expecta- 
 tions the pair entertained of hearing the sweet 
 cottage bonnet reading a tract in a silvery voice 
 through the hovel window, that he fairly teased and 
 shamed Clarence out of starting till the renowned 
 Tom Petty arrived and absorbed all the three 
 brothers, and even their father, in delights as mys- 
 terious to me as to Emily. How she shrieked when 
 Martyn rushed triumphantly into the room where 
 we were arranging books with the huge patriarch of 
 all the rats dangling by his tail ! Three hopeful 
 families were destroyed; rooms, vaults, and cellars 
 examined and cleared ; and Petty declared the race 
 to be exterminated, picturesque ruffian that he was, 
 in his shapeless hat, rusty velveteen, long leggings, 
 a live ferret in his pocket, and festoons of dead rats 
 over his shoulder. 
 
 Chapman, who regarded him much as the ferret 
 did the rat, declared that the rabbits and hares 
 would suffer from letting ' that there chap ' show his 
 face here on any plea ; and, moreover, gave a grunt, 
 very like a scoff, at the idea of slumbers in the 
 mullion rooms (as they were called) being secured 
 by his good offices. 
 
 And Chapman was right. The unaccountable
 
 84 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. ix. 
 
 noises broke out again — screaming, wailing, sobbing 
 — sounds scarcely within the power of cat or rat, but 
 possibly the effect of the wind in the old building. 
 At any rate, Griff could not stand them, and declared 
 that sleep was impossible when the wind was in 
 that quarter, so that he must shift his bedroom else- 
 where, though he still wished to retain the outer 
 apartment, which he had taken pleasure in adorning 
 with his special possessions. My mother would 
 scarcely have tolerated such fancies in any one else, 
 but Griff had his privileges.
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 OUR TUNEFUL CHOIR. 
 
 • The church has been whitewashed, but right long ago, 
 As the cracks and the dinginess amply doth show ; 
 About the same time that a strange petrifaction 
 Confined the incumbent to mere Sunday action. 
 So many abuses in this place are rife, 
 The only church things giving token of life 
 Are the singing within and the nettles without — 
 Both equally rampant without any doubt. ' 
 
 F. R. Havergal. 
 
 All Griff's teasing could not diminish — nay, rather 
 increased — Emily's excitement in the hope of seeing 
 and identifying the sweet cottage bonnet at church 
 on Sunday. The distance we had to go was nearly 
 two miles, and my mother and I drove thither in a 
 donkey chair, which had been hunted up in London 
 for that purpose because the ' pheeatoii ' (as the ser- 
 vants insisted on calling it) was too high for me. 
 My father had an old-fashioned feeling about the 
 Fourth Commandment, which made him scrupulous 
 as to using any animal on Sunday ; and even when, in 
 bad weather, or for visitors, the larger carriage was
 
 86 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 used, lie always walked. He was really angry with 
 Griff that morning for mischievously maintaining 
 that it was a greater breach of the commandment to 
 work an ass than a horse. 
 
 It was a pretty drive on a road slanting gradually 
 through the brushwood that clothed the steep face 
 of the hillside, and passing farms and meadows full 
 of cattle — all things quieter and stiller than ever in 
 their Sunday repose. We knew that the living was 
 in Winslow patronage, but that it was in the hands 
 of one of the Selby connection, who held it, together 
 with it is not safe to say how many benefices, and 
 found it necessary for his health to reside at Bath. 
 The vicarage had Ions? since been turned into a farm- 
 house, and the curate lived at Wattlesea. All this 
 we knew, but we had not realised that he was like- 
 wise assistant curate there, and only favoured Earls- 
 combe with alternate mornino; and evening services 
 on Sundays. 
 
 Still less were we prepared for the interior of 
 the church. It had a picturesque square tower 
 covered with ivy, and a general air of fitness for a 
 sketch ; indeed, the photograph of it in its present 
 beautified state will not stand a comparison with our 
 drawings of it, in those days of dilapidation in the 
 middle of the untidy churchyard, with little boys 
 astride on the sloping, sunken lichen-grown head- 
 stones, mullein spikes and burdock leaves, more
 
 x.] OUR TUNEFUL CHOIR. 87 
 
 graceful than the trim borders and zinc crosses 
 which are pleasanter to the mental eye. 
 
 The London church we had left would be a fear- 
 ful shock to the present generation, but we were 
 accustomed to decency, order, and reverence ; and it 
 was no wonder that my father was walking about 
 the churchyard, muttering that he never saw such a 
 place, while my brothers were full of amusement 
 Their spruce looks in their tall hats, bright ties, dark 
 coats, and white trowsers strapped tight under their 
 boots, looked incongruous with the rest of the con- 
 gregation, the most distinguished members of which 
 were farmers in drab coats with huge mother-of-pearl 
 buttons, and long gaiters buttoned up to their knees 
 and strapped up to their gay waistcoats over their 
 white corduroys. Their wives and daughters were in 
 enormous bonnets, fluttering with ribbons ; but then 
 what my mother and Emily wore were no trifles. 
 The rest of the congregation were — the male part of it 
 — in white or gray smock-frocks, the elderly women 
 in black bonnets, the younger in straw ; but we had 
 not long to make our observations, for Chapman took 
 possession of us. He was parish clerk, and was in 
 great glory in his mourning coat and hat, and his 
 object was to marshal us all into our pew before he 
 had to attend upon the clergyman ; and of course I 
 was glad enough to get as soon as possible out of sight 
 of all the eyes not yet accustomed to my figure.
 
 88 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 And hidden enough I was when we had been 
 introduced through the little north chancel door into 
 a black-curtained, black-cushioned, black-lined pew, 
 well carpeted, with a table in the midst, and a stove, 
 whose pipe made its exit through the floriated 
 tracery of the window overhead. The chancel arch 
 was to the west of us, blocked up by a wooden 
 parcel -gilt erection, and to the east a decorated 
 window that would have been very handsome if two 
 side-lights had not been obscured by the two Tables 
 of the Law, with the royal arms on the top of the 
 first table, and over the other our own, with the 
 Fordyce in a scutcheon of pretence ; for, as an in- 
 scription recorded, they had been erected by Margaret, 
 daughter of Christopher Fordyce, Esquire, of Chantry 
 House, and relict of Sir James John Winslow, Kt., 
 sergeant-at-law, a.d. 1700 — the last date, I verily 
 believe, at which anything had been done to the 
 church. And on the wall, stopping up the southern 
 chancel window, was a huge marble slab, supported 
 by angels blowing trumpets, with a very long inscrip- 
 tion about the Fordyce family, ending with this same 
 Margaret, who had married the Winslow, lost two or 
 three infants, and died on 1st January 1708, three 
 years later than her husband. 
 
 Thus far I could see; but Griff was standing 
 lifting the curtain, and showing by the working of 
 his shoulders his amazement and diversion, so that
 
 x.] OUR TUNEFUL CHOIR. 89 
 
 only the daggers in my mother's eyes kept Martyn 
 from springing up after him. What he beheld was 
 an altar draped in black like a coffin, and on the 
 step up to the rail, boys and girls eating apples and 
 performing antics to beguile the waiting time, while 
 a row of white-smocked old men occupied the bench 
 opposite to our seat, conversing loud enough for us 
 to hear them. 
 
 My father and Clarence came in; the bells stopped; 
 there was a sound of steps, and in the fabric in 
 front of us there emerged a grizzled head and the 
 back of a very dirty surplice besprinkled with iron 
 moulds, while Chapman's back appeared above our 
 curtain, his desk (full of dilapidated prayer-books) 
 being wedged in between us and the reading-desk. 
 
 The duet that then took place between him and 
 the curate must have been heard to be credible, 
 especially as, being so close behind the old man, we 
 could not fail to be aware of all the remarkable shots 
 at long words which he bawled out at the top of his 
 voice, and I refrain from recording, lest they should 
 haunt others as they have done by me all my life. 
 Now and then Chapman caught up a long switch 
 and dashed out at some obstreperous child to give 
 an audible whack ; and towards the close of the 
 litany he stumped out — we heard his tramp the 
 whole length of the church, and by and by his voice 
 issued from an unknown height, proclaiming — ' Let
 
 90 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 us sing to the praise and glory in an antheni 
 
 taken from the 4 2d chapter of Genesis.' 
 
 There was an outburst of bassoon, clarionet, and 
 fiddle, and the performance that followed was the 
 most marvellous we had ever heard, especially when 
 the big butcher — fiddling all the time — declared in 
 a mighty solo, 'I am Jo — Jo — Jo — Joseph!' and 
 having reiterated this information four or five 
 times, inquired with equal pertinacity, ' Doth — doth 
 my fa-a-u-ther yet live?' Poor Emily was fairly 
 ' convulsed ; ' she stuffed her handkerchief into her 
 mouth, and grew so crimson that my mother was 
 quite frightened, and very near putting her out at the 
 little door of excommunication. To our last hour we 
 shall never forget the shock of that first anthem. 
 
 The Commandments were read from the desk, 
 Chapman's solitary response coming from the gallery ; 
 and while the second singing — four verses from Tate 
 and Brady — was going on, we beheld the surplice 
 stripped off, — like the slough of a May-fly, as Griff 
 said, — when a rusty black gown was revealed, in 
 which the curate ascended the pulpit and was lost 
 to our view before the concluding verse of the psalm, 
 which we had reason to believe was selected in 
 compliment to us, as well as to Earlscombe, — 
 
 ' My lot is fall'n in that blest land 
 Where God is truly known, 
 He fills my cup with liberal hand ; 
 
 Tis He — 'tis He — 'tis He — supports my throne.'
 
 x.] OUK TUNEFUL CHOIR. 91 
 
 We had great reason to doubt how far the second 
 line could justly be applied to the parish ! but there 
 was no judging of the sermon, for only detached 
 sentences reached us in a sort of mumble. Griff 
 afterwards declared churchgoing to be as good as a 
 comedy, and we all had to learn to avoid meeting 
 each other's eyes, whatever we might hear. When 
 the scuffle and tramp of the departing congregation 
 had ceased, we came forth from our sable box, and 
 beheld the remnants of a once handsome church, 
 mauled in every possible way, green stains on the 
 walls, windows bricked up, and a huge singing- 
 gallery. Good bits of carved stall work were nailed 
 anyhow into the pews ; the floor was uneven ; no 
 font was visible ; there was a mouldy uncared-for 
 look about everything. The curate in riding-boots 
 came out of the vestry, — a pale, weary-looking man, 
 painfully meek and civil, with gray hair sleeked 
 round his face. He ' louted low,' and seemed hardly 
 to venture on taking the hand my father held out 
 to him. There was some attempt to enter into 
 conversation with him, but he begged to be excused, 
 for he had to hurry back to Wattlesea to a funeral. 
 Poor man ! he was as great a pluralist as his vicar, 
 for he kept a boys' school, partially day, partially 
 boarding, and his eyes looked hungrily at Martyn. 
 
 If the ' sweet cottage bonnet ' had been at church 
 there would have been little chance of discovering
 
 92 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 her, but we found that we were the only ' quality/ 
 as Chapman called it, or things might not have been 
 so bad. Old James Winslow had been a mere fox- 
 hunting squire till he became a valetudinarian ; nor 
 had he ever cared for the church or for the poor, so 
 that the village was in a frightful state of neglect. 
 There was a dissenting chapel, old enough to be 
 overgrown with ivy and not too hideous, erected by 
 the Nonconformists in the reign of the Great 
 Deliverer, but this partook of the general decadence 
 of the parish, and, as we found, the chapel's prin- 
 cipal use was to serve as an excuse for not going to 
 church. 
 
 My father always went to church twice, so he 
 and Clarence walked to Wattlesea, where appear- 
 ances were more respectable ; but they heard the 
 same sermon over again, and, as my father drily 
 remarked, it was not a composition that would bear 
 repetition. 
 
 He was much distressed at the state of things, 
 and intended to write to the incumbent, though, as 
 he said, whatever was done would end by being at 
 his own expense, and the move and other calls left 
 him so little in hand that he sighed over the diffi- 
 culties, and declared that he was better off in 
 London, except for the honour of the thing. Per- 
 haps my mother was of the same opinion after a 
 dreary afternoon, when Griff and Martyn had been
 
 x.] OUE TUNEFUL CHOIR. 93 
 
 wandering about aimlessly, and were at length be- 
 trayed by the barking of a little terrier, purchased 
 the day before from Tom Petty, besieging the stable 
 cat, who stood with swollen tail, glaring eyes, and 
 thunderous growls, on the top of the tallest pillar of 
 the ruins. Emily nearly cried at their cruelty. 
 Martyn was called off by my mother, and set down, 
 half sulky, half ashamed, to Henry and his Bearer ; 
 and Griff, vowing that he believed it was that brute 
 who made the row at night, and that she ought to 
 be exterminated, strolled off to converse with Chap- 
 man, who was a quaint compound of clerk and 
 keeper — in the one capacity upholding his late 
 master, in the other bemoaning Mr. Mears' nn- 
 punctualities, specially as regarded weddings and 
 funerals ; one ' corp ' having been kept waiting till 
 a messenger had been sent to Wattlesea, who finding 
 both clergy out for the day, had had to go to Hill- 
 side, 'where they was always ready, though the 
 old Squire would have been mad with him if he'd 
 a-guessed one of they Fordys had ever set foot in 
 the parish.' 
 
 The only school in the place was close to the 
 meeting-house, ' a very dame's school indeed,' as 
 Emily described it after a peep on Monday. Dame 
 Dearlove, the old woman who presided, was a picture 
 of Shenstone's schoolmistress, — black bonnet, horn 
 spectacles, fearful birch rod, three-cornered buff
 
 94 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. x. 
 
 'kerchief, checked apron and all, but on meddling 
 with her, she proved a very dragon, the antipodes of 
 her name. Tattered copies of the Universal Spelling- 
 Book served her aristocracy, ragged Testaments the 
 general herd, whence all appeared to be shouting 
 aloud at once. She looked sour as verjuice when 
 my mother and Emily entered, and gave them to 
 understand that ' she wasn't used to no strangers in 
 her school, and didn't want 'em.' We found that 
 in Chapman's opinion she ' didn't lam 'em nothing.' 
 She had succeeded her aunt, who had taught him to 
 read ' right off,' but ' her baint to be compared with 
 she.' And now the farmers' children, and the little 
 aristocracy, including his own grand-children, — all 
 indeed who, in his phrase, 'cared for eddication,' — 
 went to Wattlesea.
 
 CHAPTEE XT. 
 
 THEY FOEDYS. 
 
 ' Of honourable reckoning are you both, 
 And pity 'tis, you lived at odds so long. ' 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 My father had a good deal of business in hand, and 
 was glad of Clarence's help in writing and accounts, 
 — a great pleasure, though it prevented his being 
 Griffs companion in his exploring and essays at 
 shooting. He had time, however, to make an 
 expedition with me in the donkey chair to inquire 
 after the herdboy, Amos Bell, and carry him some 
 kitchen physic. To our horror we found him quite 
 alone in the wretched cottage, while everybody was 
 out harvesting ; but he did not seem to pity him- 
 self, or think it otherwise than quite natural, as he 
 lay on a little bed in the corner, disabled by what 
 Clarence thought a dislocation. Miss Ellen had 
 brought him a pudding, and little Miss Anne a 
 picture-book. 
 
 He was not so dense and shy as the children of 
 the hamlet near us, and Emily extracted from him 
 that Miss Ellen was ' Our passon's young lady.'
 
 96 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 'Mr. Mears' !' she exclaimed. 
 
 ' No : ourn be Passon Fordy.' 
 
 It turned out that this place was not in Earls- 
 combe at all, but in Hillside, a different parish ; and 
 the boy, Amos, further communicated that there was 
 old Passon Forcly, and Passon Frank, and Madam, 
 what was Mr. Frank's lady. Yes, he could read, he 
 could ; he went to Sunday School, and was in Miss 
 Ellen's class ; he had been to school worky days, 
 only father was dead, and Farmer Hartop gave him 
 a job. 
 
 It was plain that Hillside was under a very 
 different rule from Earlscombe ; and Emily was 
 delighted to have discovered that the sweet cottage 
 bonnet's owner was called Ellen, which just then 
 was the pet Christian name of romance, in honour 
 of the Lady of the Lake. 
 
 In the midst of her raptures, however, just as 
 we were about to turn in at our own gate into the 
 wood, we heard horses' hoofs, and then came, career- 
 ing by on ponies, a very pretty girl and a youth of 
 about the same age. Clarence's hand rose to his 
 hat, and he made his eager bow ; but the young lady 
 did not vouchsafe the slightest acknowledgment, 
 turned her head away, and urged her pony to 
 speed. 
 
 Emily broke out with an angry disappointed 
 exclamation. Clarence's face was scarlet, and he
 
 XI.] 'THEY FORDYS.' 97 
 
 said low and hoarsely, ' That's Lester. He was in 
 the Argus at Portsmouth two years ago;' — and 
 then, as our little sister continued her indignant 
 exclamations, he added, ' Hush ! Don't on any 
 account say a word about it. I had better get 
 back to my work. I am only doing you harm by 
 staying here.' 
 
 At which Emily shed tears, and together we 
 persuaded him not to curtail his holiday, which, 
 indeed, he could not have done without assigning 
 the reason to the elders, and this was out of the 
 question. Nor did he venture to hang back when, 
 as our service was to be on Sunday afternoon, my 
 father proposed to walk to Hillside Church in the 
 morning. They came back well pleased. There 
 was care and decency throughout. The psalms 
 were sung to a 'grinder organ' — which was an 
 advanced state of things in those days — and very 
 nicely. Parson Frank read well and impressively, 
 and the old parson, a fine venerable man, had 
 preached an excellent sermon — really admirable, as 
 my father repeated. Our party had been scarcely 
 in time, and had been disposed of in seats close to 
 the door, where Clarence was quite out of sight of 
 the disdainful young lady and her squire, of whom 
 Emily begged to hear no more. 
 
 She looked askance at the cards left on the 
 hall table the next day — 'The Eev. Christopher 
 vol. I. u
 
 98 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 Fordyce,' and 'The Rev. F. C. Fordyce,' also 
 ' Mrs. F. C. Fordyce, Hillside Rectory.' 
 
 We had found out that Hillside was a family 
 living, and that there was much activity there on 
 the part of the father and son — rector and curate ; 
 and that the other clerical folk, ladies especially, 
 who called on us, spoke of Mrs. F. C. Fordyce with 
 a certain tone, as if they were afraid of her, as Sir 
 Horace Lester's sister, — very superior, very active, 
 very strict in her notions, — as if these were so many 
 defects. They were an offshoot of the old Fordyces 
 of Chantry House, but so far back that all recol- 
 lection of kindred or connection must have worn out. 
 Their property — all in beautiful order — marched 
 with ours, and Chapman was very particular 
 about the boundaries. ' Old master he wouldn't 
 have a bird picked up if it fell over on they Fordys' 
 ground — not he ! He couldn't abide passons, 
 couldn't the old Squire — not Miss Hannah More, 
 and all they Cheddar lot, and they Fordys least of 
 all. My son's wife, she was for sending her little 
 maid to Hillside to Madam Fordys' school, but, 
 bless your heart, 'twould have been as much as my 
 place was worth if master had known it.' 
 
 The visit was not returned till after Clarence 
 had gone back to his London work. Sore as was 
 the loss of him from my daily life, I could see that 
 the new world and fresh acquaintances were a trial
 
 xi.] ' THEY FOBDYS.' 99 
 
 to him, and especially since the encounter with 
 young Lester had driven him back into his shell, so 
 that he would be better where he was already known 
 and had nothing new to overcome. Emily, though 
 not yet sixteen, was emancipated from schoolroom 
 habits, and the dear girl was my devoted slave to 
 an extent that perhaps I abused. 
 
 Not being ' come out,' she was left at home on 
 the day when we set out on a regular progress in 
 the chariot with post-horses. The britshka and pair, 
 which were our ambition, were to wait till my father's 
 next rents came in. Morning calls in the country 
 were a solemn and imposing ceremony, and the head 
 of the family had to be taken on the first circuit ; 
 nor was there much scruple as to making them in 
 the forenoon, so several were to be disposed of before 
 fulfilling an engagement to luncheon at the farthest 
 point, where some old London friends had borrowed 
 a house for the summer, and had included me in 
 their invitation. 
 
 Here alone did I leave the carriage, but I had 
 Cooper's Spy and my sketch-book as companions 
 while waiting at doors where the inhabitants were 
 at home. The last visit was at Hillside Eectory, 
 a house of architecture somewhat similar to our 
 own, but of the soft creamy stone which so well 
 set off the vine with purple clusters, the myrtles 
 and fuchsias, that covered it. I was wishing we
 
 100 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 had drawn up far enough off for a sketch to be 
 possible, when, from a window close above, I heard 
 the following words in a clear girlish voice — 
 
 ' No, indeed ! I'm not going down. It is only 
 those horrid Earlscombe people. I can't think how 
 they have the face to come near us ! ' 
 
 There was a reply, perhaps that the parents had 
 made the first visit, for the rejoinder was — c Yes ; 
 grandpapa said it was a Christian duty to make an 
 advance ; but they need not have come so soon. 
 Indeed, I wonder they show themselves at all. 
 I am sure I would not if I had such a dreadful 
 son.' Presently, 'I hate to think of it. That I 
 should have thanked him. Depend upon it, he will 
 never pay the doctor. A coward like that is capable 
 of anything.' 
 
 The proverb had been realised, but there could 
 hardly have been a more involuntary or helpless 
 listener. Presently my parents came back, escorted 
 by both the gentlemen of the house, tall fine- 
 looking men, the elder with snowy hair, and the 
 dignity of men of the old school ; the younger 
 with a joyous, hearty, out-of-door countenance, 
 more like a squire than a clergyman. 
 
 The visit seemed to have been gratifying. Mrs. 
 Pordyce was declared to be of higher stamp than 
 most of the neighbouring ladies ; and my father 
 was much pleased with the two clergymen, while
 
 xi.] ' THEY FORDYS.' 101 
 
 as we drove along he kept on admiring the well- 
 ordered fields and fences, and contrasting the pretty 
 cottages and trim gardens with the dreary appear- 
 ance of our own village. I asked why Amos Bell's 
 home had been neglected, and was answered with 
 some annoyance, as I pointed down the lane, that 
 it was on our land, though in Hillside parish. ' I am 
 glad to have such neighbours !' observed my mother, 
 and I kept to myself the remarks I had heard, 
 though I was still tingling with the sting of them. 
 
 We heard no more of ' they Fordys ' for some 
 time. The married pair went away to stay with 
 friends, and we only once met the old gentleman, 
 when I was waiting in the street at Wattlesea in 
 the donkey chair, while my mother was trying to 
 match netting silk in the odd little shop that united 
 fancy work, toys, and tracts with the post office. 
 Old Mr. Fordyce met us as w T e drew up, handed 
 her out with a grand seigneur's courtesy, and stood 
 talking to me so delightfully that I quite forgot it 
 was from Christian duty. 
 
 My father corresponded with the old Eector 
 about the state of the parish, and at last went 
 over to Bath for a personal conference, but with- 
 out much satisfaction. The Earlscombe people 
 were pronounced to be an ungrateful good-for- 
 nothing set, for whom it was of no use to do any- 
 thing ; and indeed my mother made such discoveries
 
 102 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. xi. 
 
 in the cottages that she durst not let Emily fulfil 
 her cherished scheme of visiting them. The only 
 resemblance to the favourite heroines of religious 
 tales that could be permitted was assembling a tiny 
 Sunday class in Chapman's lodge ; and it must be 
 confessed that her brothers thought she made as 
 much fuss about it as if there had been a hundred 
 scholars. 
 
 However, between remonstrances and offers of 
 undertaking a share of the expense, my father 
 managed to get Mr. Mears' services dispensed with 
 from the ensuing Lady Day, and that a resident 
 curate should be appointed, the choice of whom 
 was to rest with himself. It was then and there 
 decided that Martyn should be ' brought up to the 
 Church,' as people then used to term destination 
 to Holy Orders. My father said he should feel 
 justified in building a good house when he could 
 afford it, if it was to be a provision for one of his 
 sons, and he also felt that as he had the charge 
 of the parish as patron, it was right and fitting to 
 train one of his sons up to take care of it. Nor 
 did Martyn show any distaste to the idea, as indeed 
 there was less in it then than at present to daunt 
 the imagination of an honest, lively boy, not as 
 yet specially thoughtful or devout, but obedient, 
 truthful, and fairly reverent, and ready to grow as 
 he was trained.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 mrs. Sophia's feud. 
 
 ' O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
 And said as plain as whisper in the ear, 
 The place is haunted.' — Hood. 
 
 We had a houseful at Christmas. The Rev. Charles 
 Henderson, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, 
 lately ordained a deacon, had been recommended 
 to us by our London vicar, and was willing not 
 only to take charge of the parish, but to direct my 
 studies, and to prepare Martyn for school. He 
 came to us for the Christmas vacation to reconnoitre 
 and engage lodgings at a farmhouse. "VVe liked 
 him very much — my mother being all the better 
 satisfied after he had shown her a miniature, and 
 confided to her that the original was waiting till 
 a college living should come to him in the distant 
 future. 
 
 Admiral Griffith could not tear himself from 
 his warm rooms and his club, but our antiquarian 
 friend, Mr. Stafford, came with his wife, and revelled
 
 104 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 in the ceilings of the mullion room, where he 
 would much have liked to sleep, but that its 
 accommodations were only fit for a bachelor. 
 
 Our other visitor was Miss Selby, or rather 
 Mrs. Sophia Selby, as she designated herself, ac- 
 cording to the becoming fashion of elderly spinsters, 
 which to my mind might be gracefully resumed. 
 It irked my father to think of the good lady's 
 solitary Christmas at Bath, and he asked her to 
 come to us. She travelled half-way in a post- 
 chaise, and then was met by the carriage. A very 
 nice old lady she was, with a meek, delicate babyish 
 face, which could not be spoilt by the cap of the 
 period, one of the most disfiguring articles of head 
 gear ever devised, though nobody thought so then. 
 She was full of kindness ; indeed, if she had a fault 
 it was the abundant pity she lavished on me, and 
 her determination to amuse me. The weather was 
 of the kind that only the healthy and hardy could 
 encounter, and when every one else was gone out, 
 and I was just settling in with a new book, or an 
 old crabbed Latin document, that Mr. Stafford had 
 entrusted to me to copy out fairly and translate, 
 she would glide in with her worsted work on a 
 charitable mission to enliven poor Mr. Edward. 
 
 However, this was the means of my obtaining 
 some curious enlightenments. A dinner-party was 
 in contemplation, and she was dismayed at the
 
 xii.] MBS. SOPHIA'S FEUD. 105 
 
 choice of the fashionable London honr of seven, 
 and still more by finding that the Fordyces were 
 to be anions the guests. She was too well-bred 
 to manifest her feelings to her hosts, but alone with 
 me, she could not refrain from expressing her aston- 
 ishment to me, all the more when she heard this 
 was reciprocity for an invitation that it had not 
 been possible to accept. Her poor dear uncle 
 would never hear of intercourse with Hillside. On 
 being asked why, she repeated what Chapman had 
 said, that he could not endure any one connected 
 with Mrs. Hannah More and her canting, hum- 
 bugging set, as the ungodly old man had chosen 
 to call them, imbuing even this good woman with 
 evil prejudices against their noble work at Cheddar. 
 
 ' Besides this, Fordyces and Winslows could 
 never be friends, since the Fordyces had taken on 
 themselves to dispute the will, and say it had been 
 improperly obtained.' 
 
 'What will?' 
 
 ' Mrs. Winslow's — Margaret Fordyce that was. 
 She was the heiress, and had every right to dispose 
 of her property.' 
 
 ' But that was more than a hundred years ago !' 
 
 ' So it was, my dear ; but though the law gave 
 it to us — to my uncle's grandfather (or great-grand- 
 father, was it ?) — those Fordyces never could rest 
 content. Why, one of them — a clergyman's son
 
 106 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 too — shot young Philip Winslow dead in a duel. 
 They have always grudged at us. Does your papa 
 know it, my dear Mr. Edward ? He ought to be 
 aware.' 
 
 ' I do not know/ I said ; ' but he would hardly 
 care about what happened in the time of Queen 
 Anne.' 
 
 It was curious to see how the gentle little lady 
 espoused the family quarrel, which, after all, was 
 none of hers. 
 
 ' "Well, you are London people, and the other 
 branch, and may not feel as we do down here ; but 
 I shall always say that Madam Winslow's husband's 
 son had every right to come before her cousin once 
 removed.' 
 
 I asked if we were descended from her, for, 
 having a turn for heraldry and genealogy, I wanted 
 to make out our family tree. Mrs. Sophia was ready 
 to hold up her hands at the ignorance of the ' other 
 branch.' This poor heiress had lost all her children 
 in their infancy, and bequeathed the estate to her 
 stepson, the Fordyce male heir having been endowed 
 by her father with the advowson of Hillside and a 
 handsome estate there, which Mrs. Selby thought 
 ought to have contented him, ' but some people 
 never know when they have enough ;' and, on my 
 observing that it might have been a matter of 
 justice, she waxed hotter, declaring that what the
 
 xii.] MRS. SOPHIA'S FEUD. 107 
 
 Winslows felt so much was the accusation of violence 
 against the poor lady. She spoke as if it were a 
 story of yesterday, and added, ' Indeed, they made 
 the common people have all sorts of superstitious 
 fancies about the room where she died — that old 
 part of the house.' Then she added in a low mys- 
 terious voice, ' I hear that your brother Mr. Griffith 
 Winslow could not sleep there ;' and when the rats 
 and the wind were mentioned — c Yes, that was what 
 my poor dear uncle used to say. He always called 
 it nonsense ; but we never had a servant who would 
 sleep there. You'll not mention it, Mr. Edward, 
 but I could not help asking that very nice house- 
 maid, Jane, whether the room was used, and she said 
 how Mr. Griffith had given it up, and none of the 
 servants could spend a night there when they are 
 sleeping round. Of course I said all in my power 
 to dispel the idea, and told her that there was 
 no accounting for all the noises in old houses ; 
 but you never can reason with that class of 
 people.' 
 
 ' Did you ever hear the noises, Mrs. Selby ?' 
 ' Oh, no ; I wouldn't sleep there for thousands ! 
 Not that I attach any importance to such folly, — 
 my poor dear uncle would never hear of such a 
 thing ; but I am such a nervous creature, I should 
 lie awake all night expecting the rats to run over 
 me. I never knew of any one sleeping there, except
 
 108 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 in the gay times when I was a child, and the house 
 used to be as full as, or fuller than, it could hold, 
 for the hunt breakfast or a ball, and my poor aunt 
 used to make up ever so many beds in the two 
 rooms, and then we never heard of any disturbance, 
 except what they made themselves.' 
 
 This chiefly concerned me, because home cosset- 
 ing had made me old woman enough to be uneasy 
 about unaired beds ; and I knew that my mother 
 meant to consign Clarence to the mullion chamber. 
 So, without betraying Jane, I spoke to her, and was 
 answered, ' Oh, sir, I'll take care of that ; I'll light a 
 fire and air the mattresses well. I wish that was 
 all, poor young gentleman !' 
 
 To the reply that the rats w T ere slaughtered and 
 the wind stopped out, Jane returned a look of com- 
 passion ; but the subject was dropped, as it was 
 supposed to be the right thing to hush up, instead 
 of fostering, any popular superstition ; but it sur- 
 prised me that, as all our servants were fresh 
 importations, they should so soon have become 
 imbued with these undefined alarms. 
 
 My father was much amused at being successor 
 to this family feud, and said that when he had time 
 he would look up the documents. 
 
 Mrs. Sophia was a sight when Mr. Forclyce and 
 his son and daughter-in-law were announced ; she 
 was so comically stiff between her deference to her
 
 xii.] mrs. sophia's feud. 109 
 
 hosts and her allegiance to her poor dear uncle ; 
 but her coldness melted before the charms of old 
 Mr. Fordyce, who was one of the most delightful 
 people in the world. She even was his partner at 
 whist, and won the game, and that she did like. 
 
 Parson Frank, as we naughty young ones called 
 him, was all good-nature and geniality — a thorough 
 clergyman after the ideas of the time, and a thorough 
 farmer too ; and in each capacity, as well as in 
 politics, he suited my father or Mr. Henderson. 
 His lady, in a blonde cap, exactly like the last 
 equipment my mother had provided herself with in 
 London, and a black satin dress, had much more 
 style than the more gaily -dressed country dames, 
 and far more conversation. Mr. Stafford, who had 
 dreaded the party, pronounced her a sensible, agree- 
 able woman, and she was particularly kind and 
 pleasant to me, coming and talking over the botany 
 of the country, and then speaking of my brother's 
 kindness to poor Amos Bell, who was nearly 
 recovered, but was a weakly child, for whom she 
 dreaded the toil of a ploughboy in thick clay with 
 heavy shoes. 
 
 I was sorry when, after Emily's well-studied per- 
 formance on the piano, Mrs. Fordyce was summoned 
 away from me to sing, but her music and her voice 
 were both of a very different order from ordinary 
 drawing-room music ; and when our evening was
 
 110 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. xii. 
 
 over, we congratulated ourselves upon our neigh- 
 bours, and agreed that the Fordyces were the gems 
 of the party. 
 
 Only Mrs. Sophia sighed at us as degenerate 
 Winslows, and Emily reserved to herself the right 
 of believing that the daughter was ' a horrid girl.'
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 A SCRAPE. 
 
 ' Though bound with weakness' heavy chain, 
 We in the dust of earth remain ; 
 Not all remorseful be our tears, 
 No agony of shame or fears, 
 Need pierce its passion's bitter tide. ' 
 
 Verses and Sonnets. 
 
 Perhaps it was of set purpose that our dinner- 
 party had been given before Clarence's return. 
 Griffith had been expected in time for it, but he 
 had preferred going by way of London to attend a 
 ball given by the daughter of a barrister friend of 
 my father's. Selina Clarkson was a fine showy girl, 
 with the sort of beauty to inspire boyish admiration, 
 and Grin's had been a standing family joke, even 
 my father condescending to tease him when the 
 young lady married Sir Henry Peacock, a fat vulgar 
 old man who had made his fortune in the commis- 
 sariat, and purchased a baronetcy. He was allowing 
 his young wife her full swing of fashion and enjoy- 
 ment. My mother did not think it a desirable 
 acquaintance, and was restless until both the brothers
 
 112 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 came home together, long after dark on Christmas 
 Eve, having been met by the gig at the corner where 
 the coach stopped. The dinner-hour had been put 
 off till half-past six, and we had to wait for them, 
 the coach having been delayed by setting down 
 Christmas guests and Christmas fare. They were a 
 contrast ; Griffith looking very handsome and manly, 
 all in a ruddy glow from the frosty air, and Clarence, 
 though equally tall, well-made, and with more refined 
 features, looked pale and effaced, now that his sailor 
 tan was worn off. The one talked as eagerly as he 
 ate, the other was shy, spiritless, and with little 
 appetite ; but as he always shrank into himself 
 among strangers, it was the less wonder that he sat 
 in his drooping way behind my sofa, while Griffith 
 kept us all merry with his account of the humours 
 of the ' Peacock at home ; ' the lumbering efforts of 
 old Sir Henry to be as young and gay as his wife, 
 in spite of gout and portliness ; and the extreme 
 delight of his lady in her new splendours — a gold 
 spotted muslin and white plumes in a diamond 
 agraffe. He mimicked Sir Henry's cockneyisms 
 more than my father's chivalry approved towards 
 his recent host, as he described the complaints he 
 had heard against ' my Lady being refused the 
 hentry at Halmack's, but treated like the wery 
 canal ;' and how the devoted husband ' wowed he 
 would get up a still more hexclusive circle, and
 
 XIII.] A SCRAPE. 113 
 
 shut liout these himpertinent fashionables who 
 regarded Halmack's as the seventh 'eaven.' 
 
 My mother shook her head at his audacious fun 
 about Paradise and the Peri, but he was so brilliant 
 and good-humoured that no one was ever long dis- 
 pleased with him. At night he followed when 
 Clarence helped me to my room, and carefully shut- 
 ting the door, Griff began, 'Now, Teddy, you're 
 always as rich as a Jew, and I told Bill you'd help 
 him to set it straight. I'd do it myself, but that 
 I'm cleaned out. I'd give ten times the cash rather 
 than see him with that hang-dog look again for just 
 nothing at all, if he would only believe so and be 
 rational.' 
 
 Clarence did look indescribably miserable while 
 it was explained that he had been commissioned to 
 receive about £20 which was owing to my father, 
 and to discharge therewith some small debts to 
 London tradesmen. All except the last, for a little 
 more than four pounds, had been paid, when Clarence 
 met in the street an old messmate, a good-natured 
 rattle-pated youth, — one of those who had thought 
 him harshly treated. There was a cordial greeting, 
 and an invitation to dine at once at a hotel, where 
 they were joined by some other young men, and by 
 and by betook themselves to cards, when my poor 
 brother's besetting enemy prevented him from with- 
 drawing when he found the points were guineas. 
 vol. I. I
 
 114 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 Thus he lost the remaining amount in his charge, 
 and so much of his own that barely enough was left 
 for his journey. His salary was not clue till Lady 
 Day; Mr. Castleford was in the country, and no 
 advances could be asked from Mr. Frith. Thus 
 Griff had found him in utter despair, and had ever 
 since been trying to cheer him and make light of 
 his trouble. If I advanced the amount, which was 
 no serious matter to me, Clarence could easily get 
 Peter to pay the bill, and if my father should 
 demand the receipt too soon, it would be easy to 
 put him off by saying there had been a delay in 
 setting the account sent in. 
 
 ' I couldn't do that,' said Clarence. 
 
 ' Well, I should not have thought you would 
 have stuck at that,' returned Griff. 
 
 ' There must be no untruth,' I broke in ; ' but if, 
 without that, he can avoid getting into a scrape 
 with papa ' 
 
 Clarence interrupted in the wavering voice we 
 knew so well, but growing clearer and stronger. 
 ' Thank you, Edward, but — but — no, I can't. There's 
 the Sacrament to-morrow.' 
 
 1 Oh — h !' said Griff, in an indescribable tone. 
 ' But he will never believe you, nor let you go.' 
 
 c Better so,' said Clarence, half choked, ' than go 
 profanely — deceiving — or not knowing whether I 
 shall '
 
 XIII.] A SCRAPE. 115 
 
 Just then we heard our father wishing the other 
 gentlemen good-night, and to our surprise Clarence 
 opened the door, though he was deadly white and 
 with dew starting on his forehead. 
 
 My father turned good-naturedly. ' Boys, boys, 
 you are glad to be together, but mamma won't have 
 you talking here all night, keeping her baby up.' 
 
 ' Sir,' said Clarence, holding by the rail of the bed, 
 ' I was waiting for you. I have something to tell you.' 
 
 The words that followed were incoherent and 
 wrong end foremost ; nor had many, indeed, been 
 uttered before my father cut them short with — 
 
 ' Xo false excuses, sir ; I know you too well to 
 listen. Go. I have ceased to hope for anything 
 better.' 
 
 Clarence went without a word, but Griff and I 
 burst out with entreaties to be listened to. Our 
 father thought at first that ours were only the 
 pleadings of partiality, and endeavours to shield the 
 brother we both so heartily loved ; but when he 
 understood the circumstances, the real amount of 
 the transgression, and Clarence's rejection of our 
 united advice and assistance to conceal it, he was 
 greatly touched and softened. ' Poor lad ! poor 
 fellow !' he muttered, 'he is really doing his best. I 
 need not have cut him so short. I was afraid of 
 more falsehoods if I let him open his mouth. I'll 
 go and see.'
 
 116 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 He went off, and we remained in suspense, Griff 
 observing that he had done his best, but poor Bill 
 always would be a fool, and that no one who had 
 not always lived at home like me would have let out 
 that we had been for the suppression policy. As I 
 was rather shocked, he went off to bed, saying he 
 should look in to see what remained of Clarence 
 after the pelting of the pitiless storm he was sure 
 to bring on himself by his ridiculous faltering 
 instead of speaking out like a man. 
 
 I longed to have been able to do the same, but 
 my father kindly came back to relieve my mind by 
 telling me that he was better satisfied about Clarence 
 than ever he had been before. When encouraged 
 to speak out, the narrative of the temptation had so 
 entirely agreed with what we had said as to show 
 there had been no prevarication, and this had done 
 more to convince my father that he was on the right 
 track than the having found him on his knees. He 
 had had a patient hearing, and thus was able to 
 command his nerves enough to explain himself, and 
 it had ended in my father giving entire forgiveness 
 for what, as Griff truly said, would have been a 
 mere trifle but for the past. The voluntary confes- 
 sion had much impressed my father, and he could 
 not help adding a word of gentle reproof to me for 
 having joined in aiding him to withhold it, but he 
 accepted my explanation and went away, observing,
 
 xiii.] A SCRAPE. 117 
 
 ' By the by, I don't wonder at what Griffith says of 
 that room ; I never heard such strange effects of 
 currents of air.' 
 
 Clarence was in my room before I was drest, 
 full of our father's ' wonderful goodness ' to him. 
 He had never experienced anything like it, he 
 said. ' Why ! he really seemed hopeful about me,' 
 were words uttered with a gladness enough to go 
 to one's heart. ' Edward, I feel as if there was 
 some chance of " steadfastly purposing " this time.' 
 
 It was not the way of the family to say much 
 of religious feeling, and this was much for Clarence 
 to utter. He looked white and tired, but there 
 was an air of rest and peace about him, above all 
 when my mother met him with a very real kiss. 
 Moreover, Mr. Castleford had taken care to brighten 
 our Christmas with a letter expressive of great 
 satisfaction with Clarence for steadiness and in- 
 telligence. Even Mr. Frith allowed that he was 
 the most punctual of all those young dogs. 
 
 1 1 do believe,' said my father, ' that his piety 
 is doing him some good after all' 
 
 So our mutual wishes of a happy Christmas 
 were verified, though not much according to the 
 notions of this half of the century. People made 
 their Christmas day either mere merriment, or some- 
 thing little different from the grave Sunday of that 
 date. And ours, except for the Admiral's dining with
 
 118 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 us, had always been of the latter description, all 
 the more that when celebrations of the Holy Com- 
 munion were so rare they were treated with an awe 
 and reverence which frequency has perhaps dimin- 
 ished, and a feeling (possibly Puritanical) prevailed 
 which made it appear incongruous to end with 
 festivity a day so begun. That we had a Christmas 
 Day Communion at all at Earlscombe was an innova- 
 tion only achieved by Mr. Henderson going to assist 
 the old Eector at Wattlesea ; and there were no 
 communicants except from our house, besides Chap- 
 man, his daughter-in-law, and five old creatures 
 between whom the alms were immediately divided. 
 We afterwards learnt that our best farmer and his 
 wife were much disappointed at the change from 
 Sunday interfering with the family jollification; 
 and Mrs. Sophia Selby was annoyed at the con- 
 tradiction to her habits under the rule of her poor 
 dear uncle. 
 
 Of the irregularities, irreverences, and squalor 
 of the whole I will not speak. They were not 
 then such stumbling-blocks as they would be now, 
 and many passed unperceived by us, buried as we 
 were in our big pew, with our eyes riveted on our 
 books ; yet even thus there was enough evident to 
 make my mother rejoice that Mr. Henderson would 
 be with us before Easter. Still this could not 
 mar the thankful gladness that was with us all
 
 XIII.] A SCEAPE. 119 
 
 that day, and which shone in Clarence's eyes. His 
 countenance always had a remarkable expression in 
 church, as if somehow his spirit went farther than ours 
 did, and things unseen were more real to him. 
 
 Hillside, as usual, had two services, and my 
 father and his friend were goinoj to walk thither 
 in the afternoon, but it was a raw cold day, threat- 
 ening snow, and Emily was caught by my mother 
 in the hall and ordered back, as w T ell as Clarence, 
 who had shown symptoms of having caught cold 
 on his dismal journey. Emily coaxed from her 
 permission to have a fire in the bookroom, and 
 there we three had a memorably happy time. We 
 read our psalms and lessons, and our Christian 
 Year, which was more and more the lodestar of 
 our feelings. We compared our favourite passages, 
 and discussed the obscurer ones, and Clarence was 
 led to talk out more of Ms heart than he had ever 
 shown to us before. Perhaps he had lost some of 
 his reserve through his intercourse with our good 
 old governess, Miss Newton, who was still grinding 
 away at her daily mill, though with somewhat fail- 
 ing eyesight, so that she could do nothing but knit 
 in the long evenings, and was most grateful to 
 her former pupil for coming, as often as he could, 
 to talk or read to her. 
 
 She was a most excellent and devout woman, 
 and when Emily, who in youthful gaicte de cceur
 
 120 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 had got a little tired of her, exclaimed at his taste, 
 and asked if she made him read nothing but Pike's 
 Early Piety, he replied gravely, ' She showed me 
 where to lay my burthen down,' and turned to 
 the two last verses of the poem for ' Good Friday ' 
 in the Christian Year, as well as to the one we had 
 just read on the Holy Communion. 
 
 My father's kindness had seemed to him the 
 pledge of the Heavenly Father's forgiveness ; and 
 he added, perhaps a little childishly, that it had 
 been his impulse to promise never to touch a card 
 again, but that he dreaded the only too familiar 
 reply, 'What availed his promises ?' 
 
 ' Do promise, Clarry !' cried Emily, ' and then 
 you won't have to play with that tiresome old 
 Mrs. Sophia.' 
 
 'That would rather deter me,' said Clarence 
 good-humouredly. 
 
 'A card -playing old age is despicable,' pro- 
 nounced Miss Emily, much to our amusement. 
 
 After that we got into a bewilderment. "We knew 
 nothing of the future question of temperance versus 
 total abstinence ; but after it had been extracted 
 that Miss Newton regarded cards as the devil's 
 books, the inconsistent little sister changed sides, 
 and declared it narrow and evangelical to renounce 
 what was innocent. Clarence argued that what 
 might be harmless for others might be dangerous
 
 xiii.] A SCRAPE. 121 
 
 for such as himself, and that his real difficulty in 
 making even a mental vow was that, if broken, 
 there was an additional sin. 
 
 ' It is not oneself that one trusts,' I said. 
 
 'No/ said Clarence emphatically; 'and setting 
 up a vow seems as if it might be sticking up the 
 reed of one's own word, and leaning on that — when 
 it breaks, at least mine does. If I could always 
 get the grasp of Him that I felt to-day, there would 
 be no more bewildered heart and failing spirit, 
 which are worse than the actual falls they cause.' 
 And as Emily said she did not understand, he replied 
 in words I wrote down and thought over, 'What 
 we are is the point, more than even what we do. 
 We do as we are ; and yet we form ourselves by 
 what we do! 
 
 ' And/ I put in, ' I know somebody who won a 
 victory last night over himself and his two brothers. 
 Surely doing that is a sign that he is more than he 
 used to be.' 
 
 ' If he were, it would not have been an effort 
 at all,' said Clarence, but with his rare sweet smile. 
 
 Just then Griff called him away, and Emily 
 sat pondering and impressed. ' It did seem so odd/ 
 she said, ' that Clarry should be so much the best, 
 and yet so much the worst of us.' 
 
 I agreed. His insight into spiritual things, and 
 his enjoyment of them, always humiliated us both,
 
 122 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 } r et he fell so much lower in practice, — ' But then 
 we had not his temptations.' 
 
 ' Yes/ said Emily ; ' but look at Griff ! He goes 
 about like other young men, and keeps all right, 
 and yet he doesn't care about religious things a 
 bit more than he can help.' 
 
 It was quite true. Eeligion was life to the one 
 and an insurance to the other, and this had been a 
 mystery to us all our young lives, as far as we had 
 ever reflected on the contrast between the practical 
 failure and success of each. Our mother, on the 
 other hand, viewed Clarence's tendencies as part of 
 an unreal, self-deceptive nature, and regretted his 
 intimacy with Miss Newton, who, she said, had 
 fostered ' that kind of thing' in his childhood — made 
 him fancy talk, feeling, and preaching were more 
 than truth and honour — and might lead him to run 
 after Irving, Eowlancl Hill, or Baptist Noel, about 
 whose tenets she was rather confused. It would 
 be an additional misfortune if he became a fanatical 
 Evangelical light, and he was just the character to 
 be worked upon. 
 
 My father held that she might be thankful for 
 any good influence or safe resort for a young man 
 in lodgings in London, and he merely bade Clarence 
 never resort to any variety of dissenting preacher. 
 We were of the school called — a little later — high 
 and dry, but were strictly orthodox according to our
 
 xiii.] A SCRAPE. 123 
 
 lights, and held it a prime duty to attend our parish 
 church, whatever it might be ; nor, indeed, had 
 Clarence swerved from these traditions. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Sophia was balked of the game at 
 whist, which she viewed as a legitimate part of the 
 Christmas pleasures ; and after we had eaten our 
 turkey, we found the evening long, except that 
 Martyn escaped to snapdragon with the servants ; 
 and, by and by, Chapman, magnificent in patronage, 
 ushered in the church singers into the hall, and 
 clarionet, bassoon, and fiddle astonished our ears.
 
 CHAPTEE XIY. 
 
 THE MULLION CHAMBEE. 
 
 ' A lady with a lamp I see, 
 Pass through the glimmering gloom, 
 And flit from room to room.' 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 Foe want of being able to take exercise, the first 
 part of the night had always been sleepless with 
 me, though my clear mother thought it wrong to 
 recognise the habit or allow me a lamp. A fire, 
 however, I had, and by its light, on the second 
 night after Christmas, I saw my door noiselessly 
 opened, and Clarence creeping in half-dressed and 
 barefooted. To my frightened interrogation the 
 answer came, through chattering teeth, ' It's I — only 
 I — Ted — no — nothing's the matter, only I can't 
 stand it any longer !' 
 
 His hands were cold as ice when he grasped 
 mine, as if to get hold of something substantial, 
 and he trembled so as to shake the bed. ' That 
 room,' he faltered. ' 'Tis not only the moans ! I've 
 seen her ! '
 
 chap. XIV.] THE MULLION CHAMBER. 125 
 
 1 Whom ?' 
 
 ' I don't know. There she stands with her lamp, 
 crying !' I could scarcely distinguish the words 
 through the clashing of his teeth, and as I threw 
 my arms round him the shudder seemed to pass to 
 me; but I did my best to warm him by drawing 
 the clothes over him, and he began to gather himself 
 together, and speak intelligibly. There had been 
 sounds the first night as of wailing, but he had been 
 too much preoccupied to attend to them till, soon 
 after one o'clock, they ended in a heavy fall and 
 long shriek, after which all was still. Christmas 
 night had been undisturbed, but on this the voices 
 had begun again at eleven, and had a strangely 
 human sound; but as it was windy, sleety weather, 
 and he had learnt at sea to disregard noises in 
 the rigging, he drew the sheet over his head and 
 went to sleep. ' I was dreaming that I was at sea,' 
 he said, 'as I always do on a noisy night, but this 
 was not a dream. I was wakened by a light in the 
 room, and there stood a woman with a lamp, moan- 
 ing and sobbing. My first notion was that one 
 of the maids had come to call me, and I sat up ; but 
 I could not speak, and she gave another awful sup- 
 pressed cry, and moved towards that walled -up 
 door. Then I saw it was none of the servants, for 
 it was an antique dress like an old picture. So I 
 knew what it must be, and an unbearable horror
 
 126 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 came over me, and I rushed into the outer room, 
 where there was a little fire left ; but I heard her 
 going on still, and I could endure it no longer. I 
 knew you would be awake and would bear with 
 me, so I came down to you.' 
 
 Then this was what Chapman and the maids had 
 meant. This was Mrs. Sophia Selby's vulgar super- 
 stition ! I found that Clarence had heard none of 
 the mysterious whispers afloat, and only knew that 
 Griff had deserted the room after his own return to 
 London. I related what I had learnt from the old 
 lady, and in that midnight hour we agreed that it 
 could be no mere fancy or rumour, but that cruel 
 wrong must have been done in that chamber. Our 
 feeling was that all ought to be made known, and 
 in that impression we fell asleep, Clarence first. 
 
 By and by I found him moving. He had heard 
 the clock strike four, and thought it wiser to repair 
 to his own quarters, where he believed the disturb- 
 ance was over. Lucifer matches as yet were not, 
 but he had always been a noiseless being, with a 
 sailor's foot, so that, by the help of the moonlight 
 through the hall windows, he regained his room. 
 
 And when morning had come, the nocturnal 
 visitation wore such a different aspect to both our 
 minds that we decided to say nothing to our parents, 
 who, said Clarence, would simply disbelieve him ; 
 and, indeed, I inclined to suppose it had been an
 
 xiv.] THE MULLION CHAMBER. 127 
 
 uncommonly vivid dream, produced in that sensitive 
 nature by the uncanny sounds of the wind in the 
 chinks and crannies of the ancient chamber. Had 
 not Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, which we 
 studied hard on that day, proved all such phantoms 
 to be explicable ? The only person we told was 
 Griff, who was amused and incredulous. He had 
 heard the noises — oh yes ! and objected to having 
 his sleep broken by them. It was too bad to expose 
 Clarence to them — poor Bill — on whom they worked 
 such fancies ! 
 
 He interrogated Chapman, however, but probably 
 in that bantering way which is apt to produce 
 reserve. Chapman never ' gave heed to them fictious 
 tales,' he said ; but, when hard pressed, he allowed 
 that he had 'heerd that a lady do walk o' winter 
 nights,' and that was why the garden door of the old 
 rooms was walled up. Griff asked if this was done 
 for fear she should catch cold, and this somewhat 
 affronted him, so that he averred that he knew 
 nought about it, and gave no thought to such 
 like. 
 
 Just then they arrived at the Winslow Arms, 
 and took each a glass of ale, when Griff, partly to 
 tease Chapman, asked the landlady — an old Chantry 
 House servant — whether she had ever met the ghost. 
 She turned rather pale, which seemed to have im- 
 pressed him, and demanded if he had seen it, ' It
 
 128 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 always walked at Christmas time — between then 
 and the New Year.' She had once seen a light in 
 the garden by the ruin in winter-time, and once 
 last spring it came along the passage, but that 
 was just before the old Squire was took for death, — 
 folks said that was always the way before any of 
 the family died — ' if you'll excuse it, sir.' Oh no, 
 she thought nothing of such things, but she had 
 heard tell that the noises were such at all times of 
 the year that no one could sleep in the rooms, but 
 the light wasn't to be seen except at Christmas. 
 
 Griff, with the philosophy of a university man, 
 was certain that all was explained by Clarence 
 having imbibed the impression of the place being- 
 haunted ; and going to sleep nervous at the noises, 
 his brain had shaped a phantom in accordance. Let 
 Clarence declare as he might that the legends were 
 new to him, Griff only smiled to think how easily 
 people forgot, and he talked earnestly about catching 
 ideas without conscious information. 
 
 However, he volunteered to sit up that night to 
 ascertain the exact causes of the strange noises and 
 convince Clarence that they were nothing but the 
 effects of draughts. The fire in his gunroom was 
 surreptitiously kept up to serve for the vigil, which 
 I ardently desired to share. It was an enterprise ; 
 it would gratify my curiosity; and besides, though 
 Griffith was good-natured and forbearing in a general
 
 xiv.] THE MULLION CHAMBER. 129 
 
 way towards Clarence, I detected a spirit of mockery 
 about him which might break out unpleasantly when 
 poor Clarry was convicted of one of his unreasonable 
 panics. 
 
 Both brothers were willing to gratify me, the 
 only difficulty being that the tap of my crutches 
 would warn the entire household of the expedition. 
 However, they had — all unknown to my mother — 
 several times carried me about queen's cushion 
 fashion, as, being always much of a size, they could 
 do most handily ; and as both were now fine, strong, 
 well-made youths of twenty and nineteen, they had 
 no doubt of easily and silently conveying me up the 
 shallow-stepped staircase when all was quiet for the 
 night. 
 
 Emily, with her sharp ears, guessed that some- 
 thing was in hand, but we promised her that she 
 should know all in time. I believe Griff, being 
 a little afraid of her quickness, led her to suppose 
 he was going to hold what he called a symposium in 
 his rooms, and to think it a mystery of college life 
 not intended for young ladies. 
 
 He really had prepared a sort of supper for us 
 when, after my father's resounding turn of the key of 
 the drawing-room door, my brothers, in their stocking 
 soles, bore me upstairs, the fun of the achievement for 
 the moment overpowering all sense of eeriness. Griff 
 said he could not receive me in his apartment with- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 out doing honour to the occasion, and that Dutch 
 courage was requisite for us both ; but I suspect it 
 was more in accordance with Oxford habits that he 
 had provided a bottle of sherry and another of ale, 
 some brandy cherries, bread, cheese, and biscuits, by 
 what means I do not know, for my mother always 
 locked up the wine. He was disappointed that 
 Clarence would touch nothing, and declared that 
 inanition was the preparation for ghost -seeing or 
 imagining. I drank his health in a glass of sherry 
 as I looked round at the curious old room, with its 
 panelled roof, the heraldic devices and badges of 
 the Power family, and the trophy of swords, dirks, 
 daggers, and pistols, chiefly relics of our naval grand- 
 father, but reinforced by the sword, helmet, and spurs 
 of the county Yeomanry which Griff had joined. 
 
 Griff proposed cards to drive away fancies, 
 especially as the sounds were beginning ; but though 
 we generally yielded to him we could not give our 
 attention to anything but these. There was first a 
 low moan. ' No great harm in that,' said Griff ; ' it 
 comes through that crack in the wainscot where there 
 is a sham window. Some putty will put a stop to 
 that.' 
 
 Then came a more decided wail and sob much 
 nearer to us. Griff hastily swallowed the ale in his 
 tumbler, and, striking a theatrical attitude, exclaimed, 
 'Angels and ministers of grace defend us !'
 
 xiv.] THE MULLIOX CHAMBER. 131 
 
 Clarence held up his hand in deprecation. The 
 door into his bedroom was open, and Griff, taking 
 up one of the flat candlesticks, pursued his researches, 
 holding the flame to all chinks or cracks in the 
 wainscoting to detect draughts which might cause 
 the dreary sounds, which were much more like sup- 
 pressed weeping than any senseless gust of wind. 
 Of draughts there were many, and he tried holding 
 his hand against each crevice to endeavour to silence 
 the wails ; but these became more human and more 
 distressful. Presently Clarence exclaimed, ' There !' 
 and on his face there was a whiteness and an ex- 
 pression which always recurs to me on reading those 
 words of Eliphaz the Temanite, ' Then a spirit passed 
 before my face, and the hair of my flesh stood up.' 
 Even Griff was awestruck as we cried, ' Where ? 
 what ? ' 
 
 ' Don't you see her ? There ! By the press — 
 look !' 
 
 ' I see a patch of moonlight on the wall,' said 
 Griff'. 
 
 ' Moonlight — her lamp. Edward, don't you see 
 her?' 
 
 I could see nothing but a spot of light on the 
 wall. Griff (plainly putting a force on himself) 
 came back and gave him a good-natured shake. 
 'Dreaming again, old Bill. Wake up and come to 
 your senses.'
 
 132 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 'Iain as much in my senses as you are/ said 
 Clarence. 'I see her as plainly as I see you.' 
 
 Nor could any one doubt either the reality of the 
 awe in his voice and countenance, nor of the light — 
 a kind of hazy ball — nor of the choking sobs. 
 
 'What is she like?' I asked, holding his hand, 
 for, though infected by his dread, my fears were 
 chiefly for the effect on him ; but he was much 
 calmer and less horror-struck than on the previous 
 night, though still he shuddered as he answered in a 
 low voice, as if loth to describe a lady in her pre- 
 sence, 'A dark cloak with the hood fallen back, a 
 kind of lace headdress loosely fastened, brown hair, 
 thin white face, eyes — oh, poor thing ! — staring with 
 fright, dark — oh, how swollen the lids ! all red be- 
 low with crying — black dress with white about it — 
 a widow kind of look — a glove on the arm with the 
 lamp. Is she beckoning — looking at us ? Oh, you 
 poor thing, if I could tell what you mean !' 
 
 I felt the motion of his muscles in act to rise, 
 and grasped him. Griff held him with a strong 
 hand, hoarsely crying, f Don't ! — don't ! — don't follow 
 the thing, whatever you do ! ' 
 
 Clarence hid his face. It was very awful and 
 strange. Once the thought of conjuring her to 
 speak by the Holy Name crossed me, but then 
 I saw no figure; and with incredulous Griffith 
 standing by, it would have been like playing,
 
 xiv.] THE MULMON CHAMBER. 133 
 
 nor perhaps could I have spoken. How long tins 
 lasted there is no knowing ; but presently the light 
 moved towards the walled-up door and seemed to 
 pass into it. Clarence raised his head and said she 
 was gone. We breathed freely. 
 
 ' The farce is over/ said Griff. ' Mr. Edward 
 Winslow's carriage stops the way !' 
 
 I was hoisted up, candle in hand, between the 
 two, and had nearly reached the stairs when there 
 came up on the garden side a sound as of tipsy 
 revellers in the garden. ' The scoundrels ! how can 
 they have got in ? ' cried Griff, looking towards the 
 window ; but all the windows on that side had 
 peculiarly heavy shutters and bars, with only a tiny 
 heart-shaped aperture very high up, so they some- 
 what hurried their steps downstairs, intending to 
 rush out on the intruders from the back door. But 
 suddenly, in the middle of the staircase, we heard a 
 terrible heartrending woman's shriek, making us all 
 start and have a general fall. My brothers managed 
 to seat me safely on a step without much damage 
 to themselves, but the candle fell and was extin- 
 guished, and we made too heavy a weight to fall 
 without real noise enough to bring the household 
 together before we could pick ourselves up in the 
 dark. 
 
 We heard doors opening and hurried calls, and 
 something about pistols, impelling Griff to call out,
 
 134 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. XIV. 
 
 'It's nothing, papa; but there are some drunken 
 rascals in the garden.' 
 
 A light had come by this time, and we were 
 detected. There was a general sally upon the enemy 
 in the garden before any one thought of me, except 
 a ' You here !' when they nearly fell over me. And 
 there I was left sitting on the stair, helpless without 
 my crutches, till in a few minutes all returned 
 declaring there was nothing — no signs of anything ; 
 and then as Clarence ran up to me with my crutches 
 my father demanded the meaning of my being there 
 at that time of night. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' said Griff, ' it is only that we have 
 been sitting up to investigate the ghost.' 
 
 ' Ghost ! Arrant stuff and nonsense ! What in- 
 duced you to be dragging Edward about in this 
 dangerous way ? ' 
 
 ' I wished it,' said I. 
 
 'You are all mad together, I think. I won't 
 have the house disturbed for this ridiculous folly. 
 I shall look into it to-morrow !'
 
 CHAPTEK XV. 
 
 RATIONAL THEORIES. 
 
 ' These are the reasons, they are natural. ' 
 
 Julius Ccesar. 
 
 If anything could have made our adventure more 
 unpleasant to Mr. and Mrs. Winslow, it would have 
 been the presence of guests. However, inquiry 
 was suppressed at breakfast, in deference to the 
 signs my mother made to enjoin silence before the 
 children, all unaware that Emily was nearly frantic 
 with suppressed curiosity, and Martyn knew more 
 about the popular version of the legend than any 
 of us. 
 
 Clarence looked wan and heavy-eyed. His head 
 was aching from a bump against the edge of a step, 
 and his cold was much worse ; no wonder, said my 
 mother ; but she was always softened by any ailment, 
 and feared that the phantoms were the effect of 
 coming illness. I have always thought that if 
 Clarence could have come home from his court- 
 martial with a brain fever he would have earned
 
 136 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 immediate forgiveness; but unluckily for him, he 
 was a very healthy person. 
 
 All three of us were summoned to the tribunal 
 in the study, where my father and my mother sat 
 in judgment on what they termed ' this preposterous 
 business.' In our morning senses our impressions 
 were much more vaime than at midnight, and we 
 betrayed some confusion ; but Griff and I had a 
 strong instinct of sheltering Clarence, and we stoutly 
 declared the noises to be beyond the capacities of 
 wind, rats, or cats ; that the licdit was visible and 
 inexplicable ; and that though we had seen nothing 
 else, we could not doubt that Clarence did. 
 
 ' Thought he did,' corrected my father. 
 
 ' Without discussing the word,' said Griff, ' I 
 mean that the effect on his senses was the same as 
 the actual sight. You could not look at him with- 
 out being certain.' 
 
 ' Exactly so,' returned my mother. ' I wish Dr. 
 Fellowes were near.' 
 
 Indeed nothing saved Clarence from being con- 
 signed to medical treatment but the distance from 
 Bath or Bristol, and the contradictory advice that 
 had been received from our county neighbours as to 
 our family doctor. However, she formed her theory 
 that his nervous imaginings — whether involuntary 
 or acted, she hoped the former, and wished she could 
 be sure — had infected us ; and, as she was really
 
 xv.] RATIONAL THEORIES. 137 
 
 uneasy about him, she would not let him sleep in 
 the mullion room, but having nowhere else to bestow 
 him, she turned out the man-servant and put him 
 into the little room beyond mine, and she also for- 
 bade any mention of the subject to him that clay. 
 
 This was a sore prohibition to Emily, who had 
 been discussing it with the other ladies, and was in 
 a nringled state of elation at the romance, and terror 
 at the supernatural, which found vent in excited 
 giggle, and moved Griff to cram her with raw-head 
 and bloody-bone horrors, conventional enough to be 
 suspicious, and send her to me tearfully to entreat 
 to know the truth. If by day she exulted in a 
 haunted chamber, in the evening she paid for it by 
 terrors at walking about the house alone, and, when 
 sent on an errand by my mother, looked piteous 
 enough to be laughed at or scolded on all sides. 
 
 The gentlemen had more serious colloquies, and 
 the upshot was a determination to sit up together 
 and discover the origin of the annoyance. Mr. 
 Stafford's antiquarian researches had made him 
 familiar with such mysteries, and enough of them 
 had been explained by natural causes to convince 
 him that there was a key to all the rest. Owls, 
 coiners, and smugglers had all been convicted of 
 simulating ghosts. In one venerable mansion, behind 
 the wainscot, there had been discovered nine skele- 
 tons of cats in different stages of decay, having
 
 138 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 trapped themselves at various intervals of time, and 
 during the gradual extinction of their eighty-one 
 lives having emitted cries enough to establish the 
 ghastly reputation of the place. Perhaps Mr. 
 Henderson was inclined to believe there were more 
 things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in 
 even an antiquary's philosophy. He owned himself 
 perplexed, but reserved his opinion. 
 
 At breakfast Clarence was quite well, except for 
 the remains of his sore throat, and the two seniors 
 were gruff and brief as to their watch. They had 
 heard odd noises, and should discover the cause ; the 
 carpenter had already been sent for, and they had 
 seen a light which was certainly due to reflection or 
 refraction. Mr. Henderson committed himself to 
 nothing but that ' it was very extraordinary ;' and 
 there was a wicked look of diversion on Griff's face, 
 and an exchange of glances. Afterwards, in our own 
 domain, we extracted a good deal more from them. 
 
 Griff told us how the two elders started on 
 politics, and denounced Brougham and O'Connell 
 loud enough to terrify any save the most undaunted 
 ghost, till Henderson said ' Hush !' and they paused 
 at the moan with which the performance always 
 commenced, making Mr. Stafford turn, as Griff said, 
 ' white in the gills,' though he talked of the wind 
 on the stillest of frosty nights. Then came the 
 sobbing and wailing, which certainly overawed them
 
 xv.] RATIONAL THEORIES. 139 
 
 all ; Henderson called them ' agonising,' but Griff 
 was in a manner inured to this, and felt as if master 
 of the ceremonies. Let them say what they would 
 by daylight about owls, cats, and rats, they owned 
 the human element then, and were far from com- 
 fortable, though they would not compromise their 
 good sense by owning what both their younger 
 companions had perceived — their feeling of some 
 undefinable presence. Vain attempts had been made 
 to account for the light or get rid of it by changing 
 the position of candles or bright objects in the outer 
 room; and Henderson had shut himself into the 
 bedroom with it; but there he still only saw the 
 hazy light — though all was otherwise pitch dark, 
 except the keyhole and the small gray patch of 
 sky at the top of the window -shutters. 'You saw 
 nothing else ?' said Griff. ' I thought I heard you 
 break out as Clarence did, just before my father 
 opened the door.' 
 
 'Perhaps I did so. I had the sense strongly on 
 me of some being in grievous distress very near me.' 
 
 I And you should have power over it,' suggested 
 Emily. 
 
 I I am afraid,' he said, ' that more thorough con- 
 viction and comprehension are needed before I could 
 address the thing with authority. I should like to 
 have stayed longer and heard the conclusion.' 
 
 For Mr. Stafford had grown impatient and weary,
 
 140 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 and my father having satisfied himself that there 
 was something to be detected, would not remain to 
 the end, and not only carried his companions off, 
 but locked the doors, perhaps expecting to imprison 
 some agent in a trick, and find him in the morning. 
 Indeed Clarence had a dim remembrance of having 
 been half wakened by some one looking in on him 
 in the night, when he was sleeping heavily after his 
 cold and the previous night's disturbance, and we 
 suspected, though we would not say, that our father 
 might have wished to ascertain that he had no share 
 in producing these appearances. He was, however, 
 fully acquitted of all wilful deception in the case, 
 and he was not surprised, though he was disappointed, 
 that his vision of the lady was supposed to be the 
 consequence of excited imagination. 
 
 ' I can't help it,' he said to me in private. ' I 
 have always seen or felt, or whatever you may call 
 it, things that others do not. Don't you remember 
 how nobody would believe that I saw Lucy Brooke V 
 
 ( That was in the beginning of the measles.' 
 
 ' I know ; and I will tell you something curious. 
 When I was at Gibraltar I met Mrs. Emmott ' 
 
 'Mary Brooke?' 
 
 ' Yes ; I spent a very happy Sunday with her. 
 We talked over old times, and she told me that 
 Lucy had all through her illness been very uneasy 
 about having promised to bring me a macaw's
 
 xv.] RATIONAL THEORIES. 141 
 
 feather the next time we played in the Square 
 gardens. It could not be sent to me for fear of 
 carrying the infection, but the dear girl was too 
 light-headed to understand, and kept on fretting and 
 wandering about breaking her word. I have no 
 doubt the wish carried her spirit to me the moment 
 it was free,' he added, with tears springing to his 
 eyes. He also said that before the court-martial 
 he had, night after night, dreams of sinking and 
 drowning in huge waves, and his friend Coles 
 struggling to come to his aid, but being forcibly 
 withheld ; and he had since learnt that Coles had 
 actually endeavoured to come from Plymouth to 
 bear testimony to his previous character, but had 
 been refused leave, and told that he could do no good. 
 
 There had been other instances of perception of 
 a presence and of a prescient foreboding. ' It is 
 like a sixth sense,' he said, ' and a very uncomfortable 
 one. I would give much to be rid of it, for it is 
 connected with all that is worst in my life. I had 
 it before Navarino, when no one expected an engage- 
 ment. It made me believe I should be killed, and 
 drove me to what was much worse — or at least I 
 used to think so.' 
 
 'Don't you now ?' I asked. 
 
 ' No,' said Clarence. ' It was a great mercy that 
 I did not die then. There's something to conquer 
 first. But you'll never speak of this, Ted. I have
 
 142 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 left off telling of such tilings — it only gives another 
 reason for disbelieving me.' 
 
 However, this time his veracity was not called 
 in question, — but he was supposed to be under a 
 hallucination, the creation of the noises acting on 
 his imagination and memory of the persecuted 
 widow, which must have been somewhere dormant 
 in his mind, though he averred that he had never 
 heard of it. It had now, however, made a strong 
 impression on him; he was convinced that some 
 crime or injustice had been perpetrated, and thought 
 it ought to be investigated; but Griffith made us 
 laugh at his championship of this shadow of a shade, 
 and even wrote some mock heroic verses about it, — 
 nor would it have been easy to stir my father to 
 seek for the motives of an apparition which no one 
 in the family save Clarence professed to have seen. 
 
 The noises were indisputable, but my mother 
 began to suspect a cause for them. To oblige a 
 former cook we had brought down with us as stable- 
 boy her son, George Sims, an imp accustomed to be 
 the pet and jester of a mews. Martyn was only 
 too fond of his company, and he made no secret of 
 his contempt for the insufferable dulness of the 
 country, enlivening it by various acts of monkey- 
 mischief, in some of which Martyn had been impli- 
 cated. That very afternoon, as Mrs. Sophia Selby 
 was walking home in the twilight from Chapman's
 
 xv.] EATIOXAL THEORIES. 143 
 
 lodge, in company with Mr. Henderson, an eldritch 
 yell proceeding from the vaults beneath the mullion 
 chambers nearly frightened her into fits. Henderson 
 darted in and captured the two boys in the fact. 
 Martyn's asseveration that he had taken the pair for 
 Griff and Emily would have pacified the good-natured 
 clergyman, but Mrs. Sophia was too much agitated, 
 or too spiteful, as we declared, not to make a scene. 
 Martyn spent the evening alone and in disgrace, 
 and only his unimpeachable character for truth caused 
 the acceptance of Ins affirmation that the yell was 
 an impromptu fraternal compliment, and that he had 
 nothing to do with the noises in the mullion 
 chamber. He had been supposed to be perfectly 
 unconscious of anything of the kind, and to have 
 never so much as heard of a phantom, so my mother 
 was taken somewhat aback when, in reply to her 
 demand whether he had ever been so naughty as to 
 assist George in making a noise in Clarence's room, 
 
 (DO ' 
 
 he said, ' Why, that's the ghost of the lady that was 
 murdered atop of the steps, and always walks every 
 Christmas !' 
 
 1 Who told you such ridiculous nonsense ? ' 
 The answer ' George ' was deemed conclusive that 
 all had been got up by that youth ; and there was 
 considerable evidence of his talent for ventriloquism 
 and taste for practical jokes. My mother was certain 
 that, having heard of the popular superstition, he
 
 144 CHAXTKY HOUSE. [chap. XV. 
 
 had acted ghost. She appealed to Woodstock to prove 
 the practicability of such feats ; and her absolute 
 conviction persuaded the maids (who had given 
 warning en masse) that the enemy was exorcised 
 when George Sims had been sent off on the Eoyal 
 Mail under Clarence's guardianship. 
 
 None of the junior part of the family believed 
 him guilty, but he had hunted the cows round the 
 paddock, mounted on my donkey, had nearly shot 
 the kitchen-maid with Griff's gun, and, if not much 
 maligned, knew the way to the apple-chamber only 
 too well, — so that he richly deserved his doom, 
 rejoiced in it himself, and was unregretted save by 
 Martyn. Clarence viewed him in the light of a 
 victim, and tried to keep an eye on him, but he 
 developed his talent as a ventriloquist, made his 
 fortune, and retired on a public-house. 
 
 My mother would fain have had the vaults under 
 the mullion rooms bricked up, but Mr. Stafford cried 
 out on the barbarism of such a proceeding. The 
 mystery was declared to be solved, and was added 
 to Mr. Stafford's good stories of haunted houses. 
 
 And at home my father forbade any further 
 mention of such rank folly and deception. The 
 inner mullion chamber was turned into a lumber- 
 room, and as weeks passed by without hearing or 
 seeing any more of lady or of lamp, we began to 
 credit the wonderful freaks of the goblin page.
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 CAT LANGUAGE. 
 
 ' Soon as she parted thence — the fearful twayne, 
 That blind old woman and her daughter deare, 
 Came forth, and finding Kirkrapine there slayne, 
 For anguish greate they gan to rend their heare 
 And beate their breasts, and naked flesh to teare ; 
 And when they both had wept and wayled their fill, 
 Then forth they ran, like two amazed deere, 
 Half mad through malice and revenging will, 
 To follow her that was the causer of their ill.' — Spenser. 
 
 The Christmas vacation was not without another 
 breeze about Griffith's expenses at Oxford. He held 
 his head high, and declared that people expected 
 something from the eldest son of a man of property, 
 and my father tried to convince him that a landed 
 estate often left less cash available than did the 
 fixed salary of an office. Griff treated all in his 
 light, good-humoured way, promised to be careful, 
 and came to me to commiserate the poor old gentle- 
 man's ignorance of the ways of the new generation. 
 
 There ensued some trying weeks of dark days, 
 raw frost, and black east wind, when the home 
 
 vol. I. l
 
 146 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 party cast longing, lingering recollections back to 
 the social intercourse, lamp-lit streets, and ready 
 interchange of books and other amenities we had 
 left behind us. We were not accustomed to have 
 our nearest neighbours separated from us by two 
 miles of dirty lane, or road mended with excruciat- 
 ing stones, nor were they very congenial when we 
 did see them. The Fordyce family might be 
 interesting, but we younger ones could not forget 
 the slight to Clarence, and, besides, the girls seemed 
 to be entirely in the schoolroom, Mrs. Fordyce was 
 delicate and was shut up all the winter, and the 
 only intercourse that took place was when my father 
 met the elder Mr. Fordyce at the magistrates' bench ; 
 also there was a conference about Amos Bell, who 
 was preferred to the post left vacant by George 
 Sims, in right of his being our tenant, but more 
 civilised than Earlscombers, a widow's son, and 
 not sufficiently recovered from his accident to be 
 exposed to the severe tasks of a ploughboy in 
 the winter. 
 
 Mrs. Fordyce was the manager of a book-club, 
 which circulated volumes covered in white cartridge 
 paper, with a printed list of the subscribers' names. 
 Two volumes at a time might be kept for a month 
 by each member in rotation, novels were excluded, 
 and the manager had a veto on all orders. We 
 found her more liberal than some of our other
 
 XVI.] CAT LANGUAGE. 147 
 
 neighbours, who looked on our wants and wishes 
 with suspicion as savouring of London notions. 
 Happily we could read old hooks and standard 
 hooks over again, and we gloated over Blackwood 
 and the Quarterly, enjoying, too, every out-of-door 
 novelty of the coming spring, as each revealed itself. 
 Emily will never forget her first primroses, nor I 
 the first thrush in early morning. 
 
 Blankets, broth, and what were uncomfortably 
 termed broken victuals had been given away during 
 the winter, and a bewildering amount of begging 
 women and children used to ask interviews with 
 ' the Lady Winslow,' with stories that crumbled on 
 investigation so as to make us recollect the Eector's 
 character of Earlscombe. 
 
 However, Mr. Henderson came in the second week 
 of Lent, and what our steps towards improvement 
 introduced would have seemed almost as shocking 
 to you youngsters, as what they displaced. For in- 
 stance, a plain crimson cloth covered the altar, instead 
 of the rags in the colours of the Winslow livery, 
 presented, according to the queer old register, by the 
 unfortunate Margaret. There was talk of velvet 
 and the gold monogram, surrounded by rays, alter- 
 nately straight and wavy, as in our London church, 
 but this was voted ' unfit for a plain village church.' 
 Still, the new hangings of pulpit, desk, and altar 
 were all good in quality and colour, and huge
 
 148 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 square cushions were provided as essential to each. 
 Moreover, the altar vessels were made somewhat more 
 respectable, — all this being at my father's expense. 
 
 He also carried in the Vestry, though not with- 
 out strong opposition from a dissenting farmer, 
 that new linen and a fresh surplice should be pro- 
 vided by the parish, which surplice would have 
 made at least six of such as are at present worn. 
 The farmers were very jealous of the interference 
 of the Squire in the Vestry — ' what he had no call 
 to/ and of church rates applied to any other object 
 than the reward of birdslayers, as thus, in the 
 register — 
 
 Hairy Wills, 1 score sprows heds . . . 2d. 
 
 Jems Brown, 1 poulcat 6d. 
 
 Jarge Bell, 2 howls 6d. 
 
 It was several years before this appropriation 
 of the church rates could be abolished. The year 
 1830, with a brand new squire and parson, was 
 too ticklish a time for many innovations. 
 
 Hillside Church was the only one in the neigh- 
 bourhood where Holy Week or Ascension Day had 
 been observed in the memory of man. When we 
 proposed going to church on the latter day the 
 gardener asked my mother ' if it was her will to 
 keep Thursday holy/ as if he expected its substi- 
 tution for Sunday. Monthly Communions and 
 Baptisms after the Second Lesson were viewed as
 
 xvi.] CAT LANGUAGE. 149 
 
 1 not fit for a country church/ and every attempt 
 at even more secular improvements was treated 
 with the most disappointing distrust and aversion. 
 When my father laid out the allotment grounds, 
 the labourers suspected some occult design for his 
 own profit, and the farmers objected that the 
 gardens would be used as an excuse for neglecting 
 their work and stealing their potatoes. Coal-club 
 and clothing-club were regarded in like manner, and 
 while a few took advantage of these offers in a grudg- 
 ing manner, the others viewed everything except 
 absolute gifts as ' me-an ' on our part, the principle 
 of aid to self-help being an absolute novelty. 
 When I look back to the notes in our journals 
 of that date I see how much has been overcome. 
 
 Perhaps we listened more than was strictly wise 
 to the revelations of Amos Bell, when he attended 
 Emily and me on our expeditions with the donkey. 
 Though living over the border of Hillside, he had 
 a family of relations at Earlscombe, and for a time 
 lodged with his grandmother there. When his 
 shyness and lumpishness gave way, he proved so 
 bright that Emily undertook to carry on his educa- 
 tion. He soon had a wonderful eye for a wild 
 flower, and would cliinb after it with the utmost 
 agility.; and when once his tongue was loosed, he 
 became almost too communicative, and made us 
 acquainted with the opinions of ' they Earlscoom
 
 150 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 folk ' with a freedom not to be found in an elder 
 or a native. 
 
 Moreover, he was the brightest light of the 
 Sunday school which Mr. Henderson opened at 
 once — for want of a more fitting place — in the dis- 
 used north transept of the church. It was an 
 uncouth, ill -clad crew which assembled on those 
 dilapidated paving tiles. Their own grandchildren 
 look almost as far removed from them in dress and 
 civilisation as did my sister in her white worked 
 cambric dress, silk scarf, huge Tuscan bonnet, and 
 the little curls beyond the lace quilling round her 
 bright face, far rosier than ever it had been in town. 
 And what would the present generation say to the 
 odd little contrivances in the way of cotton sun- 
 bonnets, check pinafores, list tippets, and print 
 capes, and other wonderful manufactures from 
 the rag-bag, which were then grand prizes and 
 stimulants ? 
 
 Previous knowledge or intelligence scarcely 
 existed, and then was not due to Dame Dearlove's 
 tuition. Mr. Henderson pronounced an authorised 
 school a necessity. My father had scruples as to 
 vested rights, for the old woman was the last sur- 
 vivor of a family who had had recourse to primer 
 and hornbook after their ejection on ' black Bartho- 
 lomew's Day;' and when the meeting-house was 
 built after the Eevolution, had combined preaching
 
 xvl] CAT LANGUAGE. 151 
 
 with teaching. Monopoly had promoted degeneracy, 
 and this last of the race was an unfavourable speci- 
 men in all save outward picturesqueness. However, 
 much against Henderson's liking, an accommodation 
 was proposed, by which books were to be supplied 
 to her, and the Church Catechism be taught in her 
 school, with the assistance of the curate and Miss 
 Winslow. 
 
 The terms were rejected with scorn. ~No School 
 Board could be more determined against the Cate- 
 chism, nor against 'passons meddling wi' she;' and 
 as to assistance, ' she had been a governess this thirty 
 year, and didn't want no one trapesing in and out 
 of her school.' 
 
 She was warned, but probably did not believe in 
 the possibility of an opposition school ; and really 
 there were children enough in the place to overfill 
 both her room and that which was fitted up after a 
 very humble fashion in one of our cottages. H.M. 
 Inspector would hardly have thought it even worth 
 condemnation any more than the attainments of the 
 mistress, the young widow of a small Bristol skipper. 
 Her qualifications consisted in her piety and con- 
 scientiousness, good temper and excellent needle- 
 work, together with her having been a scholar in 
 one of Mrs. Hannah More's schools in the Cheddar 
 district. She could read and teach reading well ; but 
 as for the dangerous accomplishments of writing and
 
 152 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 arithmetic, such as desired to pass beyond the rudi- 
 ments of them must go to Wattlesea. 
 
 So nice did she look in her black that Earlscombe 
 voted her a mere town lady, and even at a penny a 
 week hesitated to send its children to her. Indeed 
 it was currently reported that her school was part 
 of a deep and nefarious scheme of the gentlefolks for 
 reducing the poor-rates by enticing the children, and 
 then shipping them off to foreign parts from Bristol. 
 
 But the great crisis was one unlucky summer 
 evening when Emily and I were out with the 
 donkey, and Griffith, just come home from Oxford, 
 was airing the new acquisition of a handsome black 
 retriever. 
 
 Close by the old chapel, a black cat was leisurely 
 crossing the road. At her dashed Nero, stimulated 
 perhaps by an almost involuntary scss — scss — from 
 his master, if not from Amos and me. The cat flew 
 up a low wall, and stood at bay on the top on tip- 
 toe, with bristling tail, arched back, and fiery eyes, 
 while the dog danced round in agony on his hind 
 legs, barking furiously, and almost reaching her. 
 Female sympathy ever goes to the cat, and Emily 
 screamed out in the fear that he would seize her, or 
 even that Griff might aid him. Perhaps Amos 
 would have done so, if left to himself; but Griff, 
 who saw the cat was safe, could not help egging on 
 his dog's impotent rage, when in the midst, out flew
 
 xvi.] CAT LANGUAGE. 153 
 
 pussy's mistress, Dame Dearlove herself, broomstick 
 in hand, using language as vituperative as the cat's, 
 and more intelligible. 
 
 She was about to strike the dog — indeed I fancy 
 she did, for there was a howl, and Griff sprang to 
 his defence with — ' Don't hurt my dog, I say ! He 
 hasn't touched the brute ! She can take care of 
 herself. Here, there's half-a-crown for the fright,' 
 as the cat sprang down within the wall, and Nero 
 slunk behind him. But Dame Dearlove was not so 
 easily appeased. Her blood was up after our long- 
 series of offences, and she broke into a regular tirade 
 of abuse. 
 
 ' That's the way with you fine folk, thinking you 
 can tread down poor people like the dirt under your 
 feet, and insult 'em when you've taken the bread 
 out of the mouths of them that were here before 
 you. Passons and ladies a nieddin' where no one 
 ever set a foot before ! Ay, ay, but yell all be 
 down before long.' 
 
 Griff signed to us to go on, and thundered out 
 on her to take care what she was about and not be 
 abusive ; but this brought a fresh volley on him, 
 heralded by a derisive laugh. f Ha ! ha ! fine talk- 
 ing for the likes of you, Winslows that you are. 
 But there's a curse on you all ! The poor lady as 
 was murdered won't let you be ! Why, there's one 
 of you, poor humpy object '
 
 154 CHANTEY HOUSE. |chap. 
 
 At this savage attack on me, Griff waxed furious, 
 and shouted at her to hold her confounded tongue, 
 but this only diverted the attack on himself ' And 
 as for you — fine chap as ye think yourself, swagger- 
 ing and swearing at poor folk, and setting your dog 
 at them — your time's coming. Look out for your- 
 self. It's well known as how the curse is on the 
 first-born. The Lady Margaret don't let none of 'em 
 live to come after his father.' 
 
 Griff laughed and said, ' There, we have had 
 enough of this ;' and in fact we had already moved 
 on, so that he had to make some long steps to over- 
 take us, muttering, ' So we've started a Meg Merri- 
 lies ! My father won't keep such a foul-mouthed 
 hag in the parish long !' 
 
 To which I had to respond that her cottage be- 
 longed to the trustees of the chapel, whereat he 
 whistled. I don't think he knew that we had heard 
 her final denunciation, and we did not like to mention 
 it to him, scarcely to each other, though Emily looked 
 very white and scared. 
 
 We talked it over afterwards in private, and 
 with Henderson, who confessed that he had heard 
 of the old woman's saying something of the kind to 
 other persons. We consulted the registers in hopes 
 of confuting it, but did not satisfy ourselves. The 
 last Squire had lost his only son at school. He 
 himself had been originally second in the family,
 
 xvi.] CAT LANGUAGE. 155 
 
 and in the generation before him there had been 
 some child-deaths, after which we came back to a 
 young man, apparently the eldest, who, according to 
 Miss Selby's story, had been killed in a duel by one 
 of the Fordyces. It was not comfortable, till I 
 remembered that our family Bible recorded the 
 birth, baptism, and death of a son who had preceded 
 Griffith, and only borne for a day the name after- 
 wards bestowed on me. 
 
 And Henderson, who was so little our elder as 
 to discuss things on fairly equal grounds, had some 
 very interesting talks with us two over ancestral sin 
 and its possible effects, dwelling on the 18 th of 
 Ezekiel as a comment on the Second Commandment. 
 Indeed, we agreed that the uncomfortable state of 
 disaffection which, in 1830, was becoming only too 
 manifest in the populace, was the result of neglect 
 in former ages, and that, even in our own parish, 
 the bitterness, distrust, and ingratitude were due to 
 the careless, riotous, and oppressive family whom we 
 represented.
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 
 
 ' Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar, 
 Represt ambition struggles round the shove ; 
 Till, overwrought, the general system feels 
 Its motion stop, Or frenzy fire the wheels.' 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 Griffith had come straight home this year. There 
 were no Peacock gaieties to tempt him in London, 
 for old Sir Henry had died suddenly soon after the 
 ball in December ; nor was there much of a season 
 that year, owing to the illness and death of George IV. 
 A regiment containing two old schoolmates of 
 his was at Bristol, and he spent a good deal of time 
 there, and also in Yeomanry drill. As autumn came 
 on we rejoiced in having so stalwart a protector, 
 for the agricultural riots had begun, and the forebod- 
 ings of another French Eevolution seemed about to 
 be realised. We stayed on at Chantry House. My 
 father thought his duty lay there as a magistrate, 
 and my mother would not leave him ; nor indeed 
 was any other place much safer, certainly not London,
 
 chap, xvii.] THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 157 
 
 whence Clarence wrote accounts of formidable mobs 
 who were expected to do more harm than they 
 accomplished ; though their hatred of the hero of 
 our country filled us with direful prognostications, 
 and made us think of the guillotine, which was 
 linked with revolution in our minds, before we had 
 beheld the numerous changes that followed upon the 
 thirty years of peace in which we grew up. 
 
 The ladies did not much like losing so stalwart 
 a defender when Griff returned to Oxford ; and Jane 
 the housemaid went to bed every night with the 
 pepper-pot and a poker, the first wherewith to blind 
 the enemy, the second to charge them with. From 
 our height we could more than once see blazing 
 ricks, and were glad that the home farm was not in 
 our own hands, and that our only stack of hay was 
 a good way from the house. When the onset came 
 at last, it was December, and the enemy only con- 
 sisted of about thirty dreary-looking men and boys 
 in smock-frocks and chalked or smutted faces, armed 
 only with sticks and an old gun diverted from its 
 purpose of bird-scaring. They shouted for food, 
 money, and arms ; but my father spoke to them 
 from the hall steps, told them they had better go 
 home and learn that the public-house was a worse 
 enemy to them than any machine that had ever been 
 invented, and assured them that they would get no 
 help from him in breaking the laws and getting
 
 158 CHAXTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 themselves into trouble. A stone or two was 
 picked up, whereupon he went back and had the 
 hall door shut and barred, the heavy shutters of the 
 windows having all been closed already, so that we 
 could have stood a much more severe siege than from 
 these poor fellows. One or two windows were 
 broken, as well as the glass of the conservatory, 
 and the flower beds were trampled ; but finding our 
 fortress impregnable they sneaked away before dark. 
 We fared better than our neighbours, some of whom 
 were seriously frightened, and suffered loss of pro- 
 perty. Old Mr. Fordyce had for many years past 
 been an active magistrate — that a clergyman should 
 be on the bench having been quite correct according 
 to the notions of his younger days ; and in spite of 
 his beneficence he incurred a good deal of un- 
 popularity for withstanding the lax good -nature 
 which made his brother magistrates give orders for 
 parish relief refused to able-bodied paupers by their 
 own Vestries. This was a mischievous abuse of 
 the old poor-law times, which made people dispose 
 of every one's money save their own. He had also 
 been a keen sportsman ; and though his son had 
 given up field sports in deference to higher notions 
 of clerical duty (his wife's, as people said), the old 
 man's feeling prompted hini to severity on poachers. 
 Frank Fordyce, while by far the most earnest, hard- 
 working clergyman in the neighbourhood, worked off
 
 xvii.] THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 159 
 
 his superfluous energy on scientific farming, making 
 the glebe and the hereditary estate as much the 
 model farm as Hillside was the model parish. He 
 had lately set up a threshing-machine worked by 
 horses, which was as much admired by the in- 
 telligent as it was vituperated by the ignorant. 
 
 Neither paupers nor poachers abounded in Hill- 
 side ; the natives were chiefly tenants and employed 
 on the property, and, between good management and 
 beneficence, there was little real want and much 
 friendly confidence and affection ; and thus, in spite 
 of surrounding riots, Hillside seemed likely to be an 
 exception, proving what could be done by rightful 
 care and attention. Nor indeed did the attack come 
 from thence ; but the two parsons were bitterly 
 hated by outsiders beyond the reach of their personal 
 influence and benevolence. 
 
 It was on a Saturday evening, the clay after 
 Griff had come back for the Christmas vacation, that, 
 as Emily was giving Amos his lesson, she saw that 
 the boy was crying, and after examination he let 
 out that ' folk should say that the lads were agoing 
 to break Parson Fordy's machine and fire his 
 ricks that very night;' but he would not give his 
 authority, and when he saw her about to give 
 warning, entreated, ' Now, dont'ze say nothing, Miss 
 Emily ' 
 
 'What?' she cried indignantly; 'do you think
 
 160 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 I could hear of such a thing without trying to 
 stop it ?' 
 
 ' Us says/ he blurted out, ' as how Winslows be 
 always fain of ought as happens to the Fordys ' 
 
 ' We are not such wicked Winslows as you have 
 heard of,' returned Emily with dignity ; and she 
 rushed off in quest of papa and Griff, but when she 
 brought them to the bookroom, Amos had decamped, 
 and was nowhere to be found that night. We after- 
 wards learnt that he lay hidden in the hay-loft, not 
 daring to return to his granny's, lest he should be 
 suspected of being a traitor to his kind ; for our law- 
 less, untamed, discontented parish furnished a large 
 quota to the rioters, and he has since told me that 
 though all seemed to know what was about to be 
 done, he did not hear it from any one in particular. 
 
 It was no time to make light of a warning, but 
 very difficult to know what to do. Eural police were 
 non-existent; there were no soldiers nearer than 
 Keynsham, and the Yeomanry were all in their own 
 homesteads. However, the captain of Griff's troop, 
 Sir George Eastwood, lived about three miles beyond 
 Wattlesea, and had a good many dependants in the 
 corps, so it was resolved to send him a note by the 
 gardener, good James Ellis, a steady, resolute man, 
 on Emily's fast-trotting pony, while my father and 
 Griff should hasten to Hillside to warn the Eordyces, 
 who were not unlikely to be able to muster trust-
 
 xvii.] THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 161 
 
 worthy defenders among their own people, and might 
 send the ladies to take shelter at Chantry House. 
 
 My mother's brave spirit disdained to detain an 
 effective man for her own protection, and the groom 
 was to go to Hillside ; he was in the Yeomanry, and, 
 like Griff, put on his uniform, while my father had 
 the Riot Act in his pocket. All the horses were 
 thus absorbed, but Chapman and the man-servant 
 followed on foot. 
 
 Never did I feel my incapacity more than on 
 that strange night, when Emily was flying about 
 with Martyn to all the doors and windows in a wild 
 state of excitement, humming to herself — 
 
 ' When the dawn on the mountain was misty and gray, 
 My true love has mounted his steed and away.' 
 
 My mother was equally restless, prolonging as 
 much as possible the preparation of rooms for possible 
 guests ; and when she did come and sit down, she 
 netted her purse with vehement jerks, and scolded 
 Emily for jumping up and leaving doors open. 
 
 At last, after an hour according to the clock, but 
 far more by our feelings, wheels were heard in the 
 distance ; Emily was off like a shot to reconnoitre, 
 and presently Martyn bounced in with the tidings 
 that a pair of carriage lamps were coming up the 
 drive. My mother hurried out into the hall ; I made 
 my best speed after her, and found her hastily undo- 
 ing the door-chain as she recognised the measured, 
 VOL. i. M
 
 162 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 courteous voice of old Mr. Fordyce. In a moment 
 more they were all in the house, the old gentleman 
 giving his arm to his daughter-in-law, who was quite 
 overcome with distress and alarm; then came his 
 tall, slim granddaughter, carrying her little sister 
 with arms full of dolls, and sundry maid-servants 
 completed the party of fugitives. 
 
 'We are taking advantage of Mr. Winslow's 
 goodness,' said the old Eector. ' He assured us 
 that you would be kind enough to receive those 
 who would only be an encumbrance.' 
 
 ' Oh, but I must go back to Frank now that 
 you and the children are safe,' cried the poor lady. 
 ' Don't send away the carriage ; I must go back 
 to Frank.' 
 
 ' Nonsense, my dear,' returned Mr. Fordyce, 
 ' Frank is in no danger. He will get on much 
 better for knowing you are safe. Mrs. Winslow 
 will tell you so.' 
 
 My mother was enforcing this assurance, when 
 the little girl's sobs burst out in spite of her sister, 
 who had been trying to console her. ' It is Celestina 
 Mary,' she cried, pointing to three dolls whom 
 she had carried in clasped to her breast. ' Poor 
 Celestina Mary ! She is left behind, and Ellen 
 won't let me go and see if she is in the carriage.' 
 
 'My clear, if she is in the carriage, she will be 
 quite safe in the morning.'
 
 xvii.] THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 163 
 
 ' Ob, but she will be so cold. She had nothing 
 on but Eosella's old petticoat.' 
 
 The distress was so real that I had my hand 
 on the bell to cause a search to be instituted for 
 the missing damsel, when Mrs. Ford} r ce begged me 
 to do no such thing, as it was only a doll. The 
 child, while endeavouring to shelter with a shawl 
 the dolls, snatched in their night -gear from their 
 beds, wept so piteously at the rebuff that her 
 grandfather had nearly gone in quest of the lost one, 
 but was stopped by a special entreaty that he would 
 not spoil the child. Martyn, however, who had been 
 standing in open-mouthed wonder at such feeling for 
 a doll, exclaimed, ' Don't cry, don't cry. I'll go and 
 get it for you ;' and rushed off to the stable-yard. 
 
 This episode had restored Mrs. Fordyce, and 
 while providing some of our guests with wine, and 
 others with tea, we heard the story, only interrupted 
 by Martyn's return from a vain search, and Anne's 
 consequent tears, which, however, were somehow 
 hushed and smothered by fears of being sent to bed, 
 coupled with his promises to search every step of 
 the way to-morrow. 
 
 It appeared that while the Fordyce family were 
 at dinner, shouts, howls and yells had startled them. 
 The rabble had surrounded the Eectory, bawling 
 out abuse of the parsons and their machines, and 
 occasionally throwing stones. There was no help
 
 164 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 to be expected ; the only hope was in the strength 
 of the doors and windows, and the knowledge that 
 personal violence was very uncommon ; but those 
 were terrible moments, and poor Mrs. Fordyce 
 was nearly dead with suppressed terror when her 
 husband tried haranguing from an upper window, 
 and was received with execrations and a volley of 
 stones, while the glass crashed round him. 
 
 At that instant the shouts turned to yells of 
 dismay, ' The so'diers ! the so'diers ! ' 
 
 Our party had found everything still and dark in 
 the village, for in truth the men had hidden them- 
 selves. They were being too much attached to 
 their masters to join in the attack, but were afraid 
 of being compelled to assist the rioters, and not 
 resolute enough against their own class either to 
 inform against them or oppose them. 
 
 Through the midnight-like stillness of the street 
 rose the tumult around the Rectory ; and by the light 
 of a few lanterns, and from the upper windows, 
 they could see a mass of old hats, smock-frocked 
 shoulders, and the tops of bludgeons ; while at 
 soonest, Sir George Eastwood's troop could not be 
 expected for an hour or more. 
 
 ' We must get to them somehow,' said my father 
 and Griff to one another ; and Griff added, ' These 
 rascals are arrant cowards, and they can't see the 
 number of us.'
 
 xvn.] THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 165 
 
 Then, before my father knew what he was about — 
 certainly before he could get hold of the Eiot Act — 
 he found the stable lantern made over to him, and 
 Griff's sword flashing in light, as, making all possible 
 clatter and jingling with their accoutrements, the 
 two yeomen dashed among the throng, shouting 
 with all their might, and striking with the flat 
 of their swords. The rioters, ill-fed, dull-hearted 
 men for the most part — many dragged out by com- 
 pulsion, and already terrified — went tumbling over 
 one another and running off headlong, bearing off 
 with them (as we afterwards learnt) their leaders 
 by their weight, taking the blows and pushes they 
 gave one another in their pell-mell rush for those 
 of the soldiery, and falling blindly against the low 
 wall of the enclosure. The only difficulty was in 
 clearing them out at the two gates of the drive. 
 
 When Mr. Fordyce opened the door to hail 
 his rescuers he was utterly amazed to behold only 
 three, and asked in a bewildered voice, ' Where are 
 the others V 
 
 There were two prisoners, Petty the ratcatcher, 
 who had attempted some resistance and had been 
 knocked down by Griff's horse, and a young lad in 
 a smock-frock who had fallen off the wall and hurt 
 his knee, and who blubbered piteously, declaring that 
 them chaps had forced him to go with them, or 
 they would duck him in the horse -pond. They
 
 166 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 were supposed to be given in charge to some one, 
 but were lost sight of, and no wonder ! For 
 just then it was discovered that the machine 
 shed was on fire. The rioters had apparently 
 detached one of their number to kindle the flame 
 before assaulting the house. The matter was 
 specially serious, because the stackyard was on 
 a line with the Kectory, at some distance indeed, 
 but on lower ground ; and what with barns, hay 
 and wheat ricks, sheds, cowhouses and stables, all 
 thatched, a big wood-pile, and a long old-fashioned 
 Greenhouse, there was almost continuous communica- 
 tion. Clouds of smoke and an ominous smell were 
 already perceptible on the wind, generated by the 
 heat, and the loose straw in the centre of the farm- 
 yard was beginning to be ignited by the flakes and 
 sparks, carrying the mischief everywhere, and ren- 
 dering it exceedingly difficult to release the animals 
 and drive them to a place of safety. Water was 
 scarce. There were only two wells, besides the 
 pump in the house, and a shallow pond. The 
 brook was a quarter of a mile off in the valley, 
 and the nearest engine, a poor feeble thing, at 
 Wattlesea. Moreover, the assailants might dis- 
 cover how small was the force of rescuers, and 
 return to the attack. Thus, while Griff, who had 
 oiven amateur assistance at all the fires he could 
 reach in London, was striving to organise resist-
 
 xvii.] THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 167 
 
 ance to this new enemy, my father induced the 
 gentlemen to cause the horses to be put to the 
 various vehicles, and employ them in carrying the 
 women and children to Chantry House. The old 
 Eector was persuaded to go to take care of his 
 daughter-in-law, and she only thought of putting 
 her girls in safety. She listened to reason, and indeed 
 was too much exhausted to move when once she was 
 laid on the sofa. She would not hear of going to 
 bed, though her little daughter Anne was sent off 
 with her nurse, grandpapa persuading her that 
 Eosella and the others were very much tired. 
 When she was gone, he declared his fears that he 
 had sat down on Celestina's head, and showed so 
 much compunction that we were much amused 
 at his relief when Martyn assured him of having 
 searched the carriage with a stable lantern, so that 
 whatever had befallen the lady he was not the 
 guilty person. He really seemed more concerned 
 about this than at the loss of all his own barns 
 and stores. And little Anne was certainly as 
 lovely and engaging a little creature as ever I 
 saw ; while, as to her elder sister, in all the trouble 
 and anxiety of the night, I could not help enjoying 
 the sisfht of her beautiful eao;er face and form. She 
 was tall and very slight, sylph-like, as it was the 
 fashion to call it, but every limb was instinct with 
 grace and animation. Her face was, perhaps, rather
 
 168 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 too thin for robust health, though this enhanced the 
 idea of her being all spirit, as also did the transparency 
 of complexion, tinted with an exquisite varying 
 carnation. Her eyes were of a clear, bright, rather 
 light brown, and were sparkling with the lustre 
 of excitement, her delicate lips parted, showing 
 the pretty pearly teeth, as she was telling Emily, 
 in a low voice of enthusiasm, scarcely designed for 
 my ears, how glorious a sight our brother had been, 
 "riding there in his glancing silver, bearing down 
 all before him with his good sword, like the Captal 
 de Buch dispersing the Jacquerie. 
 
 To which Emily responded, ' Oh, don't you love 
 the Captal de Buch?' And their friendship was 
 cemented. 
 
 Next I heard, ' And that you should have been 
 so good after all my rudeness. But I thought you 
 were like the old Winslows ; and instead of that 
 you have come to the rescue of your enemies. Isn't 
 it beautiful ? ' 
 
 ' Oh no, not enemies,' said Emily. ' That was 
 all over a hundred years ago ! ' 
 
 ' So my papa and grandpapa say,' returned Miss 
 Fordyce ; ' but the last Mr. Winslow was not a very 
 nice man, and never would be civil to us.' 
 
 A report was brought that the glare of the fire 
 could be seen over the hill from the top of the 
 house, and off went the two young ladies to the leads,
 
 xvn.] THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. 169 
 
 after satisfying themselves that Anne was asleep 
 among her homeless dolls. 
 
 Old Mr. Fordyce devoted himself to keeping up 
 the spirits of his daughter-in-law as the night 
 advanced without any tidings, except that the girls, 
 from time to time, rushed down to tell us of fresh 
 outbursts of red flame reflected in the sky, then 
 that the glow was diminishing ; by which time they 
 were tired out, and, both sinking into a big arm- 
 chair, they went to sleep in each other's arms. 
 Indeed I believe we all dozed more or less before 
 any one returned from the scene of action — at about 
 three o'clock. 
 
 The struggle with the flames had been very 
 unequal. The long tongues soon reached the roof 
 of the large barn, which was filled with straw, nor 
 could the flakes of burning thatch be kept from the 
 stable, while the water of the pond was soon reduced 
 to mud. Helpers began to flock in, but who could 
 tell which were trustworthy ? and all were uncom- 
 prehending. 
 
 There was so little hope of saving the house that 
 the removal of everything valuable was begun under 
 my father's superintendence. Frank Fordyce was 
 here, there, and everywhere ; while Griffith, like a 
 gallant general, fought the foe with very helpless 
 unmanageable forces. Villagers, male and female, 
 had emerged and stood gaping round; but, let him
 
 1 70 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. xvn. 
 
 rage and storm as lie might, they would not go and 
 collect pails and buckets and form a line to the 
 brook. Still less would they assist in overthrowing 
 and carrying away the faggots of a big wood-pile 
 so as to cut off the communication with the offices. 
 Only Chapman and one other man gave any help in 
 this ; and presently the stack caught, and Griff, on 
 the top, was in great peril of the faggots rolling down 
 with him into the middle, and imprisoning him in 
 the blazing pile. ' I never felt so like Dido,' said 
 Griff. 
 
 That woodstack gave fearful aliment to the roar- 
 ing flame, which came on so fast that the destruction 
 of the adjoining buildings quickly followed. The 
 Wattlesea engine had come, but the yard well was un- 
 attainable, and all that could be done was to saturate 
 the house with water from its own well, and cover 
 the side with wet blankets ; but these reeked with 
 steam, and then shrivelled away in the intense glow 
 of heat. 
 
 However, by this time the Eastwood Yeomanry, 
 together with some reasonable men, had arrived. A 
 raid was made on the cottages for buckets, a chain 
 formed to the river, and at last the fire was got 
 under, having made a wreck of everything out-of- 
 doors, and consumed one whole wing of the house, 
 though the older and more esteemed portion was 
 saved.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE PORTRAIT. 
 
 ' When day was gone and night was come, 
 And all men fast asleep, 
 There came the spirit of fair Marg'ret 
 And stood at William's feet.' 
 
 Scotch Ballad. 
 
 When I emerged from my room the next morning 
 the phaeton was at the door to take the two clergy- 
 men to reconnoitre their abode before going to church. 
 Miss Fordyce went with them, and my father was 
 for once about to leave his parish church to give 
 them his sympathy, and join in their thanksgiving 
 that neither life nor limb had been injured. 
 
 He afterwards said that nothing could have been 
 more touching than old Mr. Fordyce's manner of 
 mentioning this special cause for gratitude before 
 the General Thanksgiving ; and Frank Fordyce, hav- 
 ing had all his sermons burnt, gave a short address 
 extempore (a very rare and almost shocking thing at 
 that date), reducing half the congregation to tears, 
 for they really loved ' the fam'ly,' though they had
 
 172 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 not spirit enough to defend it; and their passive- 
 ness always remained a subject of pride and pleasure 
 to the Fordyces. It was against the will of these 
 good people that Petty, the ratcatcher, was arrested, 
 but he had been engaged in other outrages, though 
 this was the only one in which a dwelling-house 
 had suffered. And Chapman observed that ' there 
 was nothing to be done with such chaps but to 
 string 'em up out of the way.' 
 
 Griff had toiled that night till he was as stiff as 
 a rheumatic old man when he came down only just 
 in time for luncheon. Mrs. Fordyce did not appear 
 at all. She was a fragile creature, and quite knocked 
 up by the agitations of the night. The gentlemen 
 had visited the desolate rectory, and found that 
 though the fine ancient kitchen had escaped, the 
 pleasant living rooms had been injured by the water, 
 and the place could hardly be made habitable before 
 the spring. They proposed to take a house in Bath, 
 whence Frank Fordyce could go and come for Sunday 
 duty and general superintendence, but my parents 
 were urgent that they should not leave us until 
 after Christmas, and they consented. Their larger 
 possessions were to be stored in the outhouses, their 
 lesser in our house, notably in the inner mullion 
 chamber, which would thus be so blocked that there 
 would be no question of sleeping in it. 
 
 Old Mr. Fordyce had ascertained that he might
 
 xviil] THE PORTRAIT. 173 
 
 acquit himself of smashing Celestina Mary, for no 
 remains appeared in the carriage; but a miserable 
 trunk was discovered in the ruins, which he identified 
 — though surely no one else save the disconsolate 
 parent could have done so. Poor little Anne's 
 private possessions had suffered most severely of all, 
 for her whole nursery establishment had vanished. 
 Her surviving dolls were left homeless, and devoid 
 of all save their night-clothing, which concerned her 
 much more than the loss of almost all her own oar- 
 ments. For what dolls were to her could never have 
 been guessed by us, who had forced Emily to disdain 
 them ; whereas they were children to the maternal 
 heart of this lonely child. 
 
 She was quite a new revelation to us. All the 
 Fordyces were handsome; and her chestnut curls 
 and splendid eyes, her pretty colour and unconscious 
 grace, were very charming. Emily was so near 
 our own age that we had never known the win- 
 someness of a little maid -child amongst us, and 
 she was a perpetual wonder and delight to us. 
 Indeed, from having always lived with her elders, 
 she was an odd little old-fashioned person, advanced 
 in some ways, and comically simple in others. Her 
 doll-heart was kept in abeyance all Sunday, and it 
 was only on Monday that her anxiety for Celestina 
 manifested itself with considerable vehemence ; but 
 her grandfather gravely informed her that the young
 
 174 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 lady was gone to an excellent doctor, who would 
 soon effect a cure. The which was quite true, for he 
 had sent her to a toy-shop by one of the maids who 
 had gone to restore the ravage on the wardrobes, 
 and who brought her back with a new head and arms, 
 her identity apparently not being thus interfered 
 with. The hoards of scraps were put under requisi- 
 tion to re-clothe the survivors ; and I won my first 
 step in Miss Anne's good graces by undertaking a 
 knitted suit for Rosella. 
 
 The good little girl had evidently been schooled 
 to repress her dread and repugnance at my unlucky 
 appearance, and was painfully polite, only shutting 
 her eyes when she came to shake hands with me ; 
 but after Rosella condescended to adopt me, we 
 became excellent friends. Indeed the following 
 conversation was overheard by Emily, and set down : 
 
 ' Do you know, Marty n, there's a fairies' ring on 
 Hillside Down V 
 
 ' Mushrooms,' quoth Martyn. 
 
 ' Yes, don't you know ? They are the fairies' 
 tables. They come out and spread them with lily 
 tablecloths at night, and have acorn cups for dishes, 
 with honey in them. And they dance and play 
 there. Well, couldn't Mr. Edward go and sit under 
 the beech- tree at the edge till they come ?' 
 
 1 1 don't think he would like it at all,' said 
 Martyn. ' He never goes out at odd times.'
 
 xviii.] THE PORTRAIT. 175 
 
 ' Oh, but don't you know ? when they come they 
 begin to sing — 
 
 ' ' ' Sunday and Monday, 
 Monday and Tuesday." 
 
 And if he was to sing nicely, 
 
 ' " Wednesday and Thursday," 
 
 they would be so much pleased that they would 
 make his back straight again in a moment. At 
 least, perhaps Wednesday and Thursday would not 
 do, because the little tailor taught them those ; but 
 Friday makes them angry. But suppose he made 
 some nice verse — 
 
 ' ' ' Monday and Tuesday 
 The fairies are gay, 
 Tuesday and Wednesday 
 They dance away — " 
 
 I think that would do as well, perhaps. Do get 
 him to do so, Martyn. It would be so nice if he 
 was tall and straight.' 
 
 Dear little thing ! Martyn, who was as much 
 her slave as was her grandfather, absolutely made her 
 shed tears over his history of our accident, and then 
 caressed them off; but I believe he persuaded her 
 that such a case might be beyond the fairies' reach, 
 and that I could hardly get to the spot in secret, 
 which, it seems, is an essential point. He had 
 imagination enough to be almost persuaded of fairy- 
 land by her earnestness, and she certainly took
 
 176 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 him into doll-land. He had a turn for carpentry 
 and contrivance, and he undertook that the Ladies 
 Kosella, etc., should be better housed than ever. A 
 great packing-case was routed out, and much in- 
 genuity was expended, much delight obtained, in the 
 process of converting it into a doll's mansion, and 
 replenishing it with furniture. Some was bought, but 
 Martyn aspired to make whatever he could ; I did 
 a good deal, and I believe most of our achievements 
 are still extant. Whatever we could not manage, 
 Clarence was to accomplish when he should come 
 home. 
 
 His arrival was, as usual, late in the evening; 
 and, as before, he had the little room within mine. 
 In the morning, as we were crossing the hall to the 
 bright wood tire, around which the family were wont 
 to assemble before prayers, he came to a pause, ask- 
 ing under his breath, ' What's that ? Who's that ?' 
 
 ' It is one of the Hillside pictures. You know 
 we have a great many things here from thence.' 
 
 ' It is she,' he said, in a low, awe-stricken voice. 
 No need to say who she meant. 
 
 I had not paid much attention to the picture. 
 It had come with several more, such as are rife in 
 country houses, and was one of the worst of the lot, 
 a poor imitation of Lely's style, with a certain air 
 common to all the family ; but Clarence's eyes were 
 riveted on it. ' She looks younger,' he said ; ' but
 
 xviii.] THE PORTRAIT. l7V 
 
 it is the same. I could swear to the lip and the 
 whole shape of the brow and chin. No — the dress 
 is different' 
 
 For in the portrait, there was nothing on the 
 head, and one long lock of hair fell on the shoulder 
 of the low-cut white-satin dress, done in very heavy 
 gray shading. The three girls came down together, 
 and I asked who the lady was. 
 
 1 Don't you know ? You ought ; for that is poor 
 Margaret who married your ancestor.' 
 
 Xo more was said then, for the rest of the world 
 was collecting, and then everybody went out their 
 several ways. Some tin tacks were wanted for the 
 dolls' house, and there were reports that Wattlesea 
 possessed a doll's grate and fire-irons. The children 
 were wild to go in quest of them, but they were not 
 allowed to go alone, and it was pronounced too far 
 and too damp for the elder sister, so that they 
 would have been disappointed, if Clarence — stimu- 
 lated by Marty n's kicks under the table — had not 
 offered to be their escort. When Mrs. Fordyce 
 demurred, my mother replied, ' You may perfectly 
 trust her with Clarence.' 
 
 ' Yes ; I don't know a safer squire,' rejoined my 
 father. 
 
 Commendation was so rare that Clarence quite 
 blushed with pleasure ; and the pretty little thing 
 was given into his charge, prancing and dancing 
 
 vol. I. N
 
 178 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 with pleasure, and expecting much more from six- 
 pence and from Wattlesea than was likely to be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Griff went out shooting, and the two young ladies 
 and I intended to spend a very rational morning in 
 the bookroom, reading aloud Mine, de La Eochejaque- 
 lein's Memoirs by turns. Our occupations were, on 
 Emily's part, completing a reticule, in a mosaic of 
 shaded coloured beads no bigger than pins' heads, 
 for a Christmas gift to mamma — a most wearisome 
 business, of which she had grown extremely tired. 
 Miss Fordyce was elaborately copying our Mliller's 
 print of Eaffaelle's St. John in pencil on cardboard, 
 so as to be as near as possible a facsimile ; and she 
 had trusted me to make a finished water-coloured 
 drawing from a rough sketch of hers of the Hillside 
 barn and farm-buildings, now no more. 
 
 In a pause Ellen Fordyce suddenly asked, 
 ' What did you mean about that picture ?' 
 
 1 Only Clarence said it was like ' and here 
 
 Emily came to a dead stop. 
 
 ' Grandpapa says it is like me,' said Miss Fordyce. 
 ' What, you don't mean that ? Oh ! oh ! oh ! is 
 it true ? Does she walk ? Have you seen her ? 
 Mamma calls it all nonsense, and would not have 
 Anne hear of it for anything ; but old Aunt Peggy 
 used to tell me, and I am sure grandpapa believes 
 it, just a little. Have you seen her ? '
 
 xvm.] THE PORTRAIT. 179 
 
 ' Only Clarence has, and he knew the picture 
 directly.' 
 
 She was much impressed, and on slight persua- 
 sion related the story, which she had heard from 
 an elder sister of her grandfather's, and which had 
 perhaps been the more impressed on her by her 
 mother's consternation at ' such folly ' having been 
 communicated to her. Aunt Peggy, who was much 
 older than her brother, had died only four years 
 ago, at eighty-eight, having kept her faculties to 
 the last, and handed down many traditions to her 
 great-niece. The old lady's father had been con- 
 tamporary with the Margaret of ghostly fame, so 
 that the stages had been few through which it had 
 come down from 1708 to 1830. 
 
 I wrote it down at once, as it here stands. 
 
 Margaret was the only daughter of the elder 
 branch of the Fordyces. Her father had intended 
 her to marry her cousin, the male heir on whom 
 the Hillside estates and the advowson of that 
 living were entailed ; but before the contract had 
 been formally made, the father was killed by 
 accident, and through some folly and ambition of 
 her mother's (such seemed to be the Fordyce belief), 
 the poor heiress was married to Sir James Winslow, 
 one of the successful intriguers of the days of the 
 later Stewarts, and with a family nearly as old, if 
 not older, than herself. Her own children died
 
 180 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 almost at their birth, and she was left a young 
 widow. Being meek and gentle, her step-sons and 
 daughters still ruled over Chantry House. They 
 prevented her Hillside relations from having access 
 to her whilst in a languishing state of health, and 
 when she died unexpectedly, she was found to 
 have bequeathed all her property to her step-son, 
 Philip Winslow, instead of to her blood relations, 
 the Fordyces. 
 
 This was certain, but the Fordyce tradition was 
 that she had been kept shut up in the mullion 
 chambers, where she had often been heard weep- 
 ing bitterly. One night in the winter, when the 
 gentlemen of the family had gone out to a Christmas 
 carousal, she had endeavoured to escape by the 
 steps leading to the garden from the door now 
 bricked up, but had been met by them and dragged 
 back with violence, of which she died in the course 
 of a few days ; and, what was very suspicious, she 
 had been entirely attended by her step -daughter 
 and an old nurse, who never would let her own 
 woman come near her. 
 
 The Fordyces had thought of a prosecution, 
 but the Winslows had powerful interest at Court 
 in those corrupt times, and contrived to hush up 
 the matter, as w T ell as to win the suit in which the 
 Fordyces attempted to prove that there was no right 
 to will the property away. Bitter enmity remained
 
 xviii.] THE PORTE AIT. 181 
 
 between the families ; they were always opposed in 
 politics, and their animosity was fed by the belief 
 which arose that at the anniversaries of her death 
 the poor lady haunted the rooms, lamp in hand, 
 wailing; and lamenting;. A duel had been fought 
 on the subject between the heirs of the two families, 
 resulting in the death of the young Winslow. 
 
 ' And now/ cried Ellen Fordyce, ' the feud is 
 so beautifully ended ; the doom must be appeased, 
 now that the head of one hostile line has come to 
 the rescue of the other, and saved all our lives.' 
 
 My suggestion that these would hardly have 
 been destroyed, even without our interposition, fell 
 very flat, for romance must have its swing. Ellen 
 told us how, on the news of our kinsman's death 
 and our inheritance, the ancestral story had been 
 discussed, and her grandfather had said he believed 
 there were letters about it in the iron deed-box, 
 and how he hoped to be on better terms with the 
 new heir. 
 
 The ghost story had always been hushed up in 
 the family, especially since the duel, and we all 
 knew the resemblance of the picture would be scouted 
 by our elders ; but perhaps this gave us the more 
 pleasure in dwelling upon it, while we agreed that 
 poor Margaret ought to be appeased by Griffith's 
 prowess on behalf of the Fordyces. 
 
 The two young ladies went off to inspect the
 
 182 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap, xviii. 
 
 mullion chamber, which they found so crammed 
 with Hillside furniture that they could scarcely 
 enter, and returned disappointed, except for having 
 inspected and admired all Griff's weapons, especially 
 what Miss Fordyce called the sword of her rescue. 
 
 She had been learning German — rather an un- 
 usual study in those days, and she narrated to us 
 most effectively the story of Die Weisse Fran, 
 working herself up to such a pitch that she would 
 have actually volunteered to spend a night in the 
 room, to see whether Margaret would hold any 
 communication with a descendant, after the example 
 of the White Woman and Lady Bertha, if there had 
 been either fire or accommodation, and if the only 
 entrance had not been through Griff's private 
 sitting-room.
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 THE WHITE FEATHER. 
 1 The white doe's milk is not out of his mouth.' — Scott. 
 
 Clarence had come home free from all blots. 
 His summer holiday had been prevented by the 
 illness of one of the other clerks, whose place, Mr. 
 Castleford wrote, he had so well supplied that ere 
 long he would be sure to earn his promotion. 
 That kind friend had several times taken him to 
 spend a Sunday in the country, and, as we after- 
 wards had reason to think, would have taken more 
 notice of him but for the rooted belief of Mr. Frith 
 that it was a case of favouritism, and that piety 
 and strictness were assumed to throw dust in the 
 eyes of his patron. 
 
 Such distrust had tended to render Clarence 
 more reserved than ever, and it was quite by 
 the accident of finding him studying one of Mrs. 
 Trimmer's Manuals that I discovered that, at the 
 request of his good Eector, he had become a Sunday- 
 school teacher, and was as much interested as the
 
 184 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 enthusiastic girls ; but I was immediately forbidden 
 to utter a word on the subject, even to Emily, lest 
 she should tell any one. 
 
 Such reserve was no doubt an outcome of his 
 natural timidity. He had to bear a certain amount 
 of scorn and derision among some of his fellow-clerks 
 for the stricter habits and observances that could 
 not be concealed, and he dreaded any fresh revela- 
 tion of them, partly because of the cruel imputation 
 of hypocrisy, partly because he feared the bringing 
 a scandal on religion by his weakness and failures. 
 
 Nor did our lady visitors' ways reassure him, 
 though they meant to be kind. They could not 
 help being formal and stiff, not as they were with 
 G-riff and me. The two gentlemen were thoroughly 
 friendly and hearty ; Parson Frank could hardly 
 have helped being so towards any one in the same 
 house with himself; and as to little Anne, she 
 found in the new-comer a carpenter and upholsterer 
 superior even to Martyn ; but her candour revealed 
 a great deal which I overheard one afternoon, when 
 the two children were sitting together on the hearth- 
 rug in the bookroom in the twilight. 
 
 c I want to see Mr. Clarence's white feather,' 
 observed Anne. 
 
 ' Griff has a white plume in his Yeomanry 
 helmet,' replied Martyn ; ' Clarence hasn't one.' 
 
 ' Oh, I saw Mr. Griffith's ! ' she answered ; ' but
 
 xix.] THE WHITE FEATHER. 185 
 
 Cousin Horace said Mr. Clarence showed the white 
 feather.' 
 
 'Cousin Horace is an ape !' cried Martyn. 
 
 ' I don't think he is so nice as an ape/ said 
 Anne. ' He is more like a monkey. He tries the 
 dolls by court-martial, and he shot Arabella with a 
 pea-shooter, and broke her eye ; only grandpapa 
 made him have it put in again with his own money, 
 and then he said I was a little sneak, and if I ever 
 did it agjain he would shoot me.' 
 
 ' Mind you don't tell Clarence what he said,' 
 said Martyn. 
 
 ' Oh, no ! I think Mr. Clarence very nice indeed ; 
 but Horace did tease so about that clay when he 
 carried poor Amos Bell home. He said Ellen had 
 gone and made friends with the worst of all the 
 wicked Winslows, who had shown the white feather 
 and disgraced his flag. No ; I know you are not 
 wicked. And Mr. Griff came all glittering, like 
 Eichard Coeur de Lion, and saved us all that night. 
 But Ellen cried to think what she had done, and 
 mamma said it showed what it was to speak to a 
 strange young man ; and she has never let Ellen and 
 me go out of the grounds by ourselves since that 
 day.' 
 
 ' It is a horrid shame,' exclaimed Martyn, ' that 
 a fellow can't get into a scrape without its being for 
 ever cast up to him.'
 
 186 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 ' I like him,' said Anne. ' He gave Mary Bell a 
 nice pair of boots, and he made a new pair of legs 
 for poor old Arabella, and she can really sit down ! 
 Oh, he is very nice ; but ' — in an awful whisper — 
 ' does he tell stories ? I mean fibs — falsehoods.' 
 
 ' Who told you that ? ' exclaimed Martyn. 
 
 1 Mamma said it. Ellen was telling them some- 
 thing about the picture of the white-satin lady, and 
 mamma said, " Oh, if it is only that young man, no 
 doubt it is a mere mystification ;" and papa said, 
 " Poor young fellow, he seems very amiable and 
 well disposed ;" and mamma said, " If he can invent 
 such a story, it shows that Horace was right, and he 
 is not to be believed." Then they stopped, but I 
 asked Ellen who it was, and she said it was Mr. 
 Clarence, and it was a sad thing for Emily and all 
 of you to have such a brother.' 
 
 Martyn began to stammer with indignation, and 
 I thought it time to interfere ; so I called the little 
 maid, and gravely explained the facts, adding that 
 poor Clarence's punishment had been terrible, but 
 that he was doing his best to make up for w T hat was 
 past ; and that, as to anything he might have told, 
 though he might be mistaken, he never said anything 
 now but what he believed to be true. She raised 
 her brown eyes to mine full of gravity, and said, ' I 
 do like him.' Moreover, I privately made Martyn 
 understand that if he told her what had been said
 
 xix.] THE WHITE FEATHER. 187 
 
 about the white-satin lady, he would never be for- 
 given ; the others would be sure to find it out, and 
 it might shorten their stay. 
 
 That was a dreadful idea, for the presence of 
 those two creatures, to say nothing of their parents, 
 was an unspeakable charm and novelty to us all. 
 We all worshipped the elder, and the little one was 
 like a new discovery and toy to us, who had never 
 been used to such a presence. She was not a 
 commonplace child; but even if she had been, she 
 would have been as charming a study as a kitten ; 
 and she had all the four of us at her feet, though 
 her mother was constantly protesting against oui 
 spoiling her, and really kept up so much wholesome 
 discipline that the little maid never exceeded the 
 bounds of being charming to us. After that explana- 
 tion there was the same sweet wistful gentleness in 
 her manner towards Clarence as she showed to me ; 
 while he, who never dreamt of such a child knowing 
 his history, was brighter and freer with her than 
 with any one else, played with her and Martyn, and 
 could be heard laughing merrily with them. Perhaps 
 her mother and sister did not fully like this, but they 
 could not interfere before our faces. And Parson 
 Frank was really kind to him ; took him out walk- 
 ing when going to Hillside, and talked to him so as 
 to draw him out ; certifying, perhaps, that he would 
 do no harm, although, indeed, the family looked on
 
 188 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 dear good Frank as a sort of "boy, too kind-hearted 
 and genial for his approval to be worth, as much as 
 that of the more severe. 
 
 These were our only Christmas visitors, for the state 
 of the country did not invite Londoners ; but we did 
 not want them. The suppression of Clarence was the 
 only flaw in a singularly happy time ; and, after all, 
 I believe I felt the pity of it more than he did, who 
 expected nothing, and was accustomed to being in 
 the background. 
 
 For instance, one afternoon in the course of one 
 of the grave discussions that used to grow up between 
 Miss Fordyce, Emily, and me, over subjects trite to 
 the better -instructed younger generation, we got 
 quite out of our shallow depths. I think it was on 
 the meaning of the c Communion of Saints,' for the 
 two girls were both reading in preparation for a 
 Confirmation at Bristol, and Miss Fordyce knew 
 more than we did on these subjects." All the time 
 Clarence had sat in the window, carving a bit of 
 doll's furniture, and quite forgotten ; but at night 
 he showed me the exposition copied from Pearson 
 on the Creed, a bit of Hooker, and extracts from one 
 or two sermons. I found these were notes written 
 out in a blank book, which he had had in hand 
 ever since his Confirmation — his logbook as he called 
 it; but he would not hear of their being mentioned 
 even to Emily, and only consented to hunt up the
 
 xix.] THE WHITE FEATHER. 189 
 
 books on condition I would not bring him forward 
 as the tinder. It was of no use to urge that it was 
 a deprivation to us all that he should not aid us 
 with his more thorough knowledge and deeper 
 thought. ' He could not do so/ he said, in a quiet 
 decisive manner ; ' it was enough for him to watch 
 and listen to Miss Fordyce, when she could forget 
 his presence.' 
 
 She often did forget it in her eagerness. She 
 was by nature one of the most ardent beings that I 
 ever saw, yet with enthusiasm kept in check by the 
 self-control inculcated as a primary duty. It would 
 kindle in those wonderful light brown eyes, glow in 
 the clear delicate cheek, quiver in the voice even 
 when the words were only half adequate to the 
 feeling. She was not what is now called gushing. 
 Oh, no ! not in the least ! She was too reticent and 
 had too much dignity for anything of the kind. 
 Emily had always been reckoned as our romantic 
 young lady, and teased accordingly, but her enthusi- 
 asm beside Ellen's was 
 
 'As moonlight is to sunlight, as water is to wine,' — 
 
 a mere reflection of the tone of the period, compared 
 with a real element in the character. At least so 
 my sister tells me, though at the time all the differ- 
 ence I saw was that Miss Fordyce had the most 
 originality, and unconsciously became the leader.
 
 190 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 The bookroom was given up to us, and there in the 
 morning we drew, worked, read, copied and practised 
 music, wrote out extracts, and delivered our youthful 
 minds to one another on all imaginable topics from 
 ' slea silk to predestination.' 
 
 Eeligious subjects occupied us more than might 
 have been held likely. A spirit of reflection and 
 revival was silently working in many a heart. 
 Evangelicalism had stirred old-fashioned orthodoxy, 
 and we felt its action. The Christian Year was 
 Ellen's guiding star — as it was ours, nay, doubly so 
 in proportion to the ardour of her nature. Certain 
 poems are dearer and more eloquent to me still, 
 because the verses recall to me the thrill of her 
 sweet tones as she repeated them. We were all 
 very ignorant alike of Church doctrine and his- 
 tory, but talking out and comparing our discoveries 
 and impressions was as useful as it was pleasant 
 to us. 
 
 What the Christian Year was in religion to us 
 Scott was in history. We read to verify or illustrate 
 him, and we had little raving fits over his characters, 
 and jokes founded on them. Indeed, Ellen saw life 
 almost through that medium ; and the siege of Hill- 
 side, dispersed by the splendid prowess of Griffith, the 
 champion with silver helm and flashing sword, was 
 precious to her as a renewal of the days of Ivanhoe 
 or Damian de Lacy.
 
 xix.] THE WHITE FEATHER. 191 
 
 As may be believed, these quiet mornings were 
 those when that true knight was employed in 
 field sports or yeomanry duties, such as the state of 
 the country called for. When he was at home, all 
 was fun and merriment and noise — walks and rides 
 on fine days, battledore and shuttlecock on wet ones, 
 music, singing, paper games, giggling and making 
 giggle, and sometimes dancing in the hall — Mr. 
 Frank Fordyce joining with all his heart and drollery 
 in many of these, like the boy he was. 
 
 I could play quadrilles and country dances, and 
 now and then a reel — nobody thought of waltzes — 
 and the three couples changed and counterchanged 
 partners. Clarence had the sailor's foot, and did 
 his part when needed ; Emily generally fell to his 
 share, and their silence and gravity contrasted 
 with the mirth of the other pairs. He knew very 
 well he was the pis aller of the party, and only 
 danced when Parson Frank was not dragged out, 
 nothing loth, by his little daughter. With Miss 
 Fordyce, Clarence never had the chance of dancing ; 
 she was always claimed by Griff, or pounced upon 
 by Martyn. 
 
 Miss Fordyce she always was to us in those 
 days, and those pretty lips scrupulously ' Mistered ' 
 and ' Winslowed ' us. I don't think she would 
 have been more to us, if we had called her Nell, 
 and had been Griff, Bill, and Ted to her, or if there
 
 192 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 had not been all the little formalities of avoiding 
 tete-a-tetes and the like. They were essentials of 
 propriety then — natural, and never viewed as prudish. 
 jSTor did it detract from the sweet dignity of maiden- 
 hood that there was none of the familiarity which 
 breeds something one would rather not mention in 
 conjunction with a lady. 
 
 Altogether there was a sunshine around Miss 
 Fordyce by which we all seemed illuminated, even 
 the least favoured and least demonstrative ; we were 
 all her willing slaves, and thought her smile and 
 thanks full reward. 
 
 One day, when Griff and Martyn were assisting 
 at the turn out of an isolated barn at Hillside, where, 
 Frank Fordyce declared, all the burnt-out rats and 
 mice had taken refuge, the young ladies went out to 
 cater for house decorations for Christmas under 
 Clarence's escort. Nobody but the clerk ever 
 thought of touching the church, where there were 
 holes in all the pews to receive the holly boughs. 
 
 The girls came back, telling in eager scared voices 
 how, while gathering butcher's broom in Farmer 
 Hodges' home copse, a savage dog had flown out at 
 them, but had been kept at bay by Mr. Clarence 
 Winslow with an umbrella, while they escaped over 
 the stile. 
 
 Clarence had not come into the drawing-room 
 with them, and while my mother, who had a great
 
 xix.] THE WHITE FEATHER. 193 
 
 objection to people standing about in out-door gar- 
 ments, sent them up to doff their bonnets and furs, 
 I repaired to our room, and was horrified to find 
 him on my bed, white and faint. 
 
 ' Bitten ? ' I cried in dismay. 
 
 ' Yes ; but not much. Only I'm such a fool. I 
 turned off when I began taking off my boots. 
 Xo, no — don't ! Don't call any one. It is no- 
 thing !' 
 
 He was springing up to stop me, but was forced 
 to drop back, and I made my way to the drawing- 
 room, where my mother happened to be alone. She 
 was much alarmed, but a glass of wine restored 
 Clarence; and inspection showed that the thick 
 trowser and winter stocking had so protected him 
 that little blood had been drawn, and there was 
 bruise rather than bite in the calf of the leg, where 
 the brute had caught him as he was getting over 
 the stile as the rear-guard. It was painful, though 
 the faintness was chiefly from tension of nerve, for 
 he had kept behind all the way home, and no one 
 had guessed at the hurt. My mother doctored it 
 tenderly, and he begged that nothing should be said 
 about it ; he wanted no fuss about such a trifle. 
 My mother agreed, with the proud feeling of not 
 enhancing the obligations of the Fordyce family ; but 
 she absolutely kissed Clarence's forehead as she 
 bade him lie quiet till dinner-time. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 We kept silence at table while the girls described 
 the horrors of the monster. ' A tawny creature, 
 with a hideous black muzzle/ said Emily. ' Like a 
 bad dream/ said Miss Fordyce. The two fathers 
 expressed their intention of remonstrating with the 
 farmer, and Griff declared that it would be lucky if 
 he did not shoot it. Miss Fordyce generously took 
 its part, saying the poor dog was doing its duty, and 
 Griff ejaculated, ' If I had been there !' 
 
 ' It would not have dared to show its teeth, eh ? ' 
 said my father, when there was a good deal of banter. 
 
 My father, however, came at night with mamma 
 to inspect the hurt and ask details, and he ended 
 with, ' Well done, Clarence, boy ; I am gratified to 
 see you are acquiring presence of mind, and can act 
 like a man/ 
 
 Clarence smiled when they were gone, saying, 
 ' That would have been an insult to any one else.' 
 
 Emily perceived that he had not come off un- 
 scathed, and was much aggrieved at being bound to 
 silence. ' Well/ she broke out, ' if the dog goes 
 mad, and Clarence has the hydrophobia, I suppose I 
 may tell/ 
 
 ' In that pleasing contingency/ said Clarence, 
 smiling. 'Don't you see, Emily, it is the worst 
 compliment you can pay me not to treat this as a 
 matter of course ?' Still, he was the happier for 
 not having failed. Whatever strengthened his self-
 
 xix.] THE WHITE FEATHEE. 195 
 
 respect and gave him trust in himself was a stepping- 
 stone. 
 
 As to rivalry or competition with Griff, the idea 
 seemingly never crossed his mind, and envy or 
 jealousy were equally aloof from it. One subject 
 of thankfulness runs through these recollections — 
 namely, that nothing broke the tie of strong affec- 
 tion between us three brothers. Griffith might 
 figure as the ' vary parfite knight,' the St. George 
 of the piece, glittering in the halo shed round him 
 by the bright eyes of the rescued damsel ; while 
 Clarence might drag himself along as the poor 
 recreant to be contemned and tolerated, and he would 
 accept the position meekly as only his desert, without 
 a thought of bitterness. Indeed, he himself seemed 
 to have imbibed Nurse Gooch's original opinion, that 
 his genuine love for sacred things was a sort of 
 impertinence and pretension in such as he — a kind 
 of hypocrisy even when they were the realities and 
 helps to which he clung with all his heart. Still, 
 this depression was only shown by reserve, and 
 troubled no one save myself, who knew him best, 
 guessed what was lost by his silence, and burned in 
 spirit at seeing him merely endured as one unworthy. 
 
 In one of our varieties of Waverley discussions 
 the crystal hardness and inexperienced intolerance 
 of youth made Miss Fordyce declare that had she 
 been Edith Plantagenet, she would never, never have
 
 196 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. xix. 
 
 forgiven Sir Kenneth. ' How could she, when he 
 had forsaken the king's banner ? Unpardonable !' 
 
 Then came a sudden, awful silence, as she recol- 
 lected her audience, and blushed crimson with the 
 misery of perceiving where her random shaft had 
 struck, nor did either of us know what to say; but 
 to our surprise it was Clarence who first spoke to 
 relieve the desperate embarrassment. ' Is forgiven 
 quite the right word, when the offence was not per- 
 sonal ? I know that such things can neither be 
 repaired nor overlooked, and I think that is what 
 Miss Fordyce meant.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Winslow,' she exclaimed, ' I am very 
 sorry — I don't think I quite meant ' — and then, as 
 her eyes for one moment fell on his subdued face, 
 she added, 'No, I said what I ought not. If there 
 is sorrow ' — her voice trembled — ' and pardon above, 
 no one below has any right to say unpardonable.' 
 
 Clarence bowed his head, and his lips framed, 
 but he did not utter, ' Thank you.' Emily nervously 
 began reading aloud the page before her, full of the 
 jingling recurring rhymes about Sir Thomas of Kent ; 
 but I saw Ellen surreptitiously wipe away a tear, 
 and from that time she was more kind and friendly 
 with Clarence.
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 VENI, VIDI, VICI. 
 
 ' None but the brave, 
 None but the brave, 
 None but the brave deserve the fair.' — Song. 
 
 Christmas trees were not yet heard of beyond 
 the Fatherland, and both the mothers held that 
 Christmas parties were not good for little children, 
 since Mrs. Winslow's strong common sense had 
 arrived at the same conclusion as Mrs. Fordyce had 
 derived from Hannah More and Eichard Lovell 
 Edgeworth. Besides, rick-burning and mobs were 
 far too recent for our neighbours to venture out 
 at night. 
 
 But as we were all resolved that little Anne 
 should have a memorable Christmas at Chantry 
 House, we begged an innocent, though iced cake, 
 from the cook, painted a set of characters ourselves, 
 including all the dolls, and bespoke the presence of 
 Frank Fordyce at a feast in the outer mullion room 
 — Griff's apartment, of course. The locality was 
 chosen as allowing more opportunity for high jinks
 
 198 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 than the bookroom, and also because the swords 
 and pistols in trophy over the mantelpiece had a 
 great fascination for the two sisters, and to 'drink 
 tea with Mr. Griffith ' was always known to be a 
 great ambition of the little queen of the festival. 
 As to the mullion chamber legends, they had 
 nearly gone out of our heads, though Clarence did 
 once observe, 'You remember, it will be the 26th 
 of December;' but we did not think this worthy of 
 consideration, especially as Anne's entertainment, at 
 its latest, could not last beyond nine o'clock ; and 
 the ghostly performances — now entirely laid to the 
 account of the departed stable-boy — never began 
 before eleven. 
 
 Nor did anything interfere with our merriment. 
 The fun of fifty years ago must be intrinsically 
 exquisite to bear being handed clown to another 
 generation, so I will attempt no repetition, though 
 some of those Twelfth Day characters still remain, 
 pasted into my diary. We anticipated Twelfth Day 
 because our guests meant to go to visit some other 
 friends before the New Year, and we knew Anne 
 would have no chance there of fulfilling her great 
 ambition of drawing for king and queen. These 
 home-made characters were really charming. Mrs. 
 Fordyce had clone several of them, and she drew 
 beautifully. A little manipulation contrived that 
 the exquisite Oberon and Titania should fall to
 
 xx.] VENI, VIDI, YICL 199 
 
 Martyn and Anne, for whom crowns and robes 
 had been prepared, worn by her majesty with com- 
 placent dignity, but barely tolerated by him ! The 
 others took their chance. Parson Frank was Tom 
 Thumb, and convulsed us all the evening by act- 
 ing as if no bigger than that worthy, keeping us 
 so merry that even Clarence laughed as I had 
 never seen him laugh before. 
 
 Cock Eobin and Jenny Wren — the best drawn 
 of all — fell to Griff and Miss Fordyce. There was 
 a suspicion of a tint of real carnation on her cheek, 
 as, on his low, highly-delighted bow, she held up 
 her impromptu fan of folded paper; and drollery 
 about currant wine and hopping upon twigs went 
 on more or less all the time, while somehow or 
 other the beauteous glow on her cheeks went on 
 deepening, so that I never saw her look so pretty 
 as when thus playing at Jenny Wren's coyness, 
 though neither she nor Griff had passed the bounds 
 of her gracious precise discretion. 
 
 The joyous evening ended at last. With the 
 stroke of nine, Jenny Wren bore away Queen 
 Titania to put her to bed, for the servants were 
 having an entertainment of their own downstairs 
 for all the out -door retainers, etc. Oberon de- 
 parted, after an interval sufficient to prove his 
 own dignity and advanced age. Emily went 
 down to report the success of the evening to the
 
 200 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 elders in the drawing-room, but we lingered while 
 Frank Fordyce was telling good stories of Oxford 
 life, and Griff capping them with more recent 
 ones. 
 
 We too broke up — I don't remember how ; but 
 Clarence was to help me down the stairs, and Mr. 
 Fordyce, frowning with anxiety at the process, was 
 offering assistance, while we had much rather he 
 had gone out of the way ; when suddenly, in the 
 gallery round the hall giving access to the bed- 
 rooms, there dawned upon us the startled but 
 scarcely displeased figure of Jenny Wren in her 
 white dress, not turning aside that blushing face, 
 while Cock Eobin was clasping her hand and press- 
 ing it to his lips. The tap of my crutches warned 
 them. She flew back within her door and shut it ; 
 Griff strode rapidly on, caught hold of her father's 
 hand, exclaiming, ' Sir, sir, I must speak to you !' 
 and dragged him back into the mullion room, 
 leaving Clarence and me to convey ourselves down- 
 stairs as best we might. 
 
 ' Our sister, our sweet sister !' 
 
 We were immensely excited. All the three of 
 us were so far in love with Ellen Fordyce that 
 her presence was an enchantment to us, and at 
 any rate none of us ever saw the woman we could 
 compare to her ; and as we both felt ourselves dis- 
 qualified in different ways from any nearer approach,
 
 xx.] VEXI, VIDI, VICI. 201 
 
 we were content to bask in the reflected rays of 
 our brother's happiness. 
 
 Not that he had gone that length as yet, as 
 we knew before the night was over, when he came 
 down to us. E\en with the dear maiden herself, 
 he had only made sure that she was not averse, and 
 that merely by her eyes and lips ; and he had 
 extracted nothing from her father but that they 
 were both very young, a great deal too young, and 
 had no business to think of such things yet. It 
 must be talked over, etc. etc. 
 
 But just then, Griff told us, Frank Fordyce 
 jumped up and turned round with the sudden ex- 
 clamation, ' Ellen!' looking towards the door behind 
 him with blank astonishment, as he found it had 
 neither been opened nor shut. He thought his 
 daughter had recollected something left behind, 
 and coming in search of it, had retreated precipi- 
 tately. He had seen her, he said, in the mirror 
 opposite. Griff told him there was no mirror, and 
 had to carry a candle across to convince him that 
 he had only been looking at the door into the inner 
 room, which though of shining dark oak, could hardly 
 have made a reflection as vivid as he declared that 
 his had been. Indeed, he ascertained that Ellen 
 had never left her own room at all. * It must 
 have been thinking about the dear child,' he said. 
 ' And after all, it was not quite like her — somehow
 
 202 CHAXTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 — she was paler, and had something over her 
 head.' 
 
 We had no doubt who it was. Griff had not 
 seen her, but he was certain that there had been 
 none of the moaning nor crying, ' In fact, she has 
 come to give her consent,' he said with earnest in 
 his mocking tone. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Clarence gravely, and with glistening 
 eyes. ' You are happy Griff. It is given to you 
 to right the wrong, and quiet that poor spirit ! ' 
 
 ' Happy ! The happiest fellow in the world,' 
 said Griff, ' even without that latter clause — if only 
 Madam and the old man will have as much sense 
 as she has !' 
 
 The next day was a thoroughly uncomfortable 
 one. Griff was not half so near his goal as he had 
 hoped last night when with kindly Parson Frank. 
 
 The commotion was as if a thunderbolt had 
 descended among the elders. What they had been 
 thinking of, I cannot tell, not to have perceived how 
 matters were tending ; but their minds were full of 
 the Eeform Bill and the state of the country, and, 
 besides, we were all looked on still as mere children. 
 Indeed, Griff was scarcely one-and-twenty, and Ellen 
 wanted a month of seventeen ; and the crisis had 
 really been a sudden impulse, as he said, ' She looked 
 so sweet and lovely, he could not help it.' 
 
 The first effect was a serious lecture upon maiden-
 
 xx.] VENI, VIDI, YICL 203 
 
 liness and propriety to poor Ellen from her mother, 
 who was sure that she must have transgressed the 
 bounds of discretion, or such ill-bred presumption 
 would have been spared her, and bitterly regretted 
 the having trusted her to take care of herself. There 
 were sufficient grains of truth in this to make the 
 poor girl cry herself out of all condition for appear- 
 ing at breakfast or luncheon, and Emily's report of 
 her despair made us much more angry with Mrs. 
 Eordyce than was perhaps quite due to that good 
 lady. 
 
 My parents were at first inclined to take the same 
 line, and be vexed with Griff for an act of imperti- 
 nence towards a guest. He had a great deal of 
 difficulty in inducing the elders to believe him in 
 earnest, or treat him as a man capable of knowing 
 his own mind ; and even thus they felt as if his 
 addresses to Miss Fordyce were, under present cir- 
 cumstances, taking almost an unfair advantage of the 
 other family — at which our youthful spirits felt 
 indignant. 
 
 Yet, after all, such a match was as obvious and 
 suitable as if it had been a family compact, and the 
 only objection was the youth of the parties. Mrs. 
 Eordyce would fain have believed her daughter's 
 heart to be not yet awake, and was grieved to find 
 childhood over, and the hero of romance become the 
 lover ; and she was anxious that full time should be
 
 204 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 given to perceive whether her daughter's feelings 
 were only the result of the dazzling aureole which 
 gratitude and excited fancy had cast around the fine, 
 handsome, winning youth. Her husband, however, 
 who had himself married very young, and was greatly 
 taken with Griff, besides being always tender-hearted, 
 did not enter into her scruples ; but, as we had 
 already found out, the grand-] ooking and clever man 
 .of thirty-eight was, chiefly from his impulsiveness 
 and good-nature, treated as the boy of the family. 
 His old father, too, was greatly pleased with Griff's 
 spirit, affection, and purpose, as well as with my 
 father's conduct in the matter ; and so, after a suc- 
 cession of private interviews, very tantalising to us 
 poor outsiders, it was conceded that though an 
 engagement for the present was preposterous, it 
 might possibly be permitted when Ellen was eighteen, 
 if Griff had completed his university life with full 
 credit. He was fervently grateful to have such an 
 object set before him, and my father was warmly 
 thankful for the stimulus. 
 
 That last evening was very odd and constrained. 
 We could not help looking on the lovers as new 
 specimens over which some strange transformation 
 had passed, though for the present it had stiffened 
 them in public into the strictest good behaviour. 
 They would have been awkward if it had been 
 possible to either of them, and, save for a certain
 
 xx.] VENI, VIDI, VICI. 205 
 
 look in their eyes, comported themselves as perfect 
 strangers. 
 
 The three elder gentlemen held discussions in the 
 dining-room, but we were not trusted in our play- 
 ground adjoining. Mrs. Fordyce nailed Griff down 
 to an interminable game at chess, and my mother 
 kept the two girls playing duets, while Clarence 
 turned over the leaves ; and I read over The Lady of 
 the Lake, a study which I always felt, and still feel, 
 as an act of homage to Ellen Fordyce, though there 
 was not much in common between her and the maid 
 of Douglas. Indeed, it was a joke of her father's to 
 tease her by criticising the famous passage about the 
 tears that old Douglas shed over his duteous 
 daughter's head — 'What in the world should the 
 man go whining and crying for ? He had much 
 better have laughed with her.' 
 
 Little did the elders know what was going on in 
 the next room, where there was a grand courtship 
 among the dolls ; the hero being a small jointed 
 Dutch one in Swiss costume, about an eighth part 
 of the size of the resuscitated Celestina Mary, but 
 the only available male character in doll -land ! 
 Anne was supposed to be completely ignorant of 
 what passed above her head ; and her mother would 
 have been aghast had she heard the remarkable dis- 
 coveries and speculations that she and Martyn com- 
 municated to one another.
 
 CHAPTEE XXL 
 
 THE OUTSIDE OF THE COURTSHIP. 
 
 ' Or framing, as a fair excuse, 
 The book, the pencil, or the muse ; 
 Something to give, to sing, to say, 
 Some modern tale, some ancient lay. ' 
 
 Scott. 
 
 It seems to me on looking back that I have hardly 
 done justice to Mrs. Fordyce, and certainly we — as 
 Griffith's eager partisans — often regarded her in the 
 light of an enemy and opponent ; but after this 
 lapse of time, I can see that she was no more than 
 a prudent mother, unwilling to see her fair young 
 daughter suddenly launched into womanhood, and 
 involved in an attachment to a young and untried 
 man. 
 
 The part of a drag is an invidious one ; and this 
 must have been her part through most of her life. 
 The Fordyces, father and son, were of good family, 
 gentlemen to their very backbones, and thoroughly 
 o-ood, religious men ; but she came of a more aristo- 
 cratic strain, had been in London society, and brought
 
 chap, xxi.] THE OUTSIDE OF THE COURTSHIP. 207 
 
 with her a high-bred air which, implanted on the 
 Fordyce good looks, made her daughter especially 
 fascinating. But that air did not recommend Mrs. 
 Fordyce to all her neighbours, any more than did 
 those stronger, stricter, more thorough-going notions 
 of religious obligation which had led her husband to 
 make the very real and painful sacrifice of his sport- 
 ing tastes, and attend to the parish in a manner 
 only too rare in those days. She was a very well- 
 informed and highly accomplished woman, and had 
 made her daughter the same, keeping her children 
 up in a somewhat exclusive style, away from all 
 gossip or undesirable intimacies, as recommended by 
 Miss Eclgeworth and other more religious authorities, 
 and which gave great offence in houses where there 
 were girls of the same age. No one, however, could 
 look at Ellen, and doubt of the success of the system, 
 or of the young girl's entire content and perfect 
 affection for her mother, though her father was her 
 beloved playfellow — yet always with respect. She 
 never took liberties with him, nor called him Pap or 
 any other ridiculous name inconsistent with the fifth 
 Commandment, though she certainly was more en- 
 tirely at ease with him than ever we had been with 
 our elderly father. When once Mrs. Fordyce found 
 on what terms we were to be, she accepted them 
 frankly and fully. Already Emily had been the 
 first girl, not a relation, whose friendship she had
 
 208 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 fostered with Ellen; and she had also become 
 thoroughly affectionate and at home with my mother, 
 who suited her perfectly on the conscientious, and 
 likewise on the prudent and sensible, side of her 
 nature. 
 
 To me she was always kindness itself, so kind 
 that I never felt, as I did on so many occasions, that 
 she was very pitiful and attentive to the deformed 
 youth ; but that she really enjoyed my companion- 
 ship, and I could help her in her pursuits. I have 
 a whole packet of charming notes of hers about 
 books, botany, drawings, little bits of antiquarianism, 
 written with an arch grace and finish of expression 
 peculiarly her own, and in a very pointed hand, yet 
 too definite to be illegible. I owe her more than 
 I can say for the windows of wholesome hope and 
 ambition she opened to me, giving a fresh motive 
 and zest even to such a life as mine. I can hardly 
 tell which was the most delightful companion, she 
 or her husband. In spite of ill health, she knew 
 every plant, and every bit of fair scenery in the 
 neighbourhood, and had fresh, amusing criticisms to 
 utter on each new book ; while he, not neglecting 
 the books, was equally well acquainted with all 
 beasts and birds, and shed his kindly light over 
 everything he approached. He was never melan- 
 choly about anything but politics, and even there it 
 was an immense consolation to him to have the
 
 xxi.] THE OUTSIDE OF THE COURTSHIP. 209 
 
 owner of Chantry House staunch on the same side, 
 instead of in chronic opposition. 
 
 The family party moved to a tall house at Bath, 
 but there still was close intercourse, for the younger 
 clergyman rode over every week for the Sunday 
 duty, and almost always dined and slept at Chantry 
 House. He acted as bearer of long letters, which, 
 in spite of a reticulation of crossings, were too 
 expensive by post for young ladies' pocket-money, 
 often exceeding the regular quarto sheet. It was a 
 favourite joke to ask Emily what Ellen reported 
 about Bath fashions, and to see her look of scorn. 
 For they were a curious mixture, those girlish letters, 
 of village interests, discussion of books, and thoughts 
 beyond their age ; Tommy Toogood and Prometheus ; 
 or Du Guesclin in the closest juxtaposition with 
 reports of progress in Abercrombie on the Intel- 
 lectual Poviers. It was the desire of Ellen to prove 
 herself not unsettled but improved by love, and to 
 become worthy of her ideal Griffith, never guessing 
 that he would have been equally content with her 
 if she had been as frivolous as the idlest girl who 
 lingered amid the waning glories of Bath. 
 
 We all made them a visit there when Marty n 
 was taken to a preparatory school in the place. 
 Mrs. Fordyce took me out for drives on the beautiful 
 hills ; and Emily and I had a very delightful time, 
 undisturbed by the engrossing claims of love-making. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 210 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 Very good, too, were our friends, after our departure, 
 in letting Martyn spend Sundays and holidays with 
 them, play with Anne as before, say his Catechism 
 with her to Mrs. Fordyce, and share her little 
 Sunday lessons, which had, he has since told, a 
 force and attractiveness he had never known before, 
 and really did much, young as he was, in preparing 
 the way towards the fulfilment of my father's design 
 for him. 
 
 When the Eectory was ready, and the family 
 returned, it was high summer, and there were con- 
 stant meetings between the households. No doubt 
 there were the usual amount of trivial disappoint- 
 ments and annoyances, but the whole season seems 
 to me to have been bathed in sunlight. The Eeform 
 Bill agitations and the London mobs of which Clar- 
 ence wrote to us were like waves surging beyond 
 an isle of peace. Clarence had some unpleasant 
 walks from the office. Once or twice the shutters 
 had to be put up at Frith and Castleford's to prevent 
 the windows from being broken ; and once Clarence 
 actually saw our nation's hero, ' the Duke,' riding 
 quietly and slowly through a yelling, furious mob, 
 who seemed withheld from falling on him by the 
 perfect impassiveness of the eagle face and spare 
 figure. Moreover a pretty little boy, on his pony, 
 suddenly pushed forward and rode by the Duke's 
 side, as if proud and resolute to share his peril.
 
 xxi.] THE OUTSIDE OF THE COURTSHIP. 211 
 
 'If Griffith had been there!' said Ellen and 
 Emily, though they did not exactly know what they 
 expected him to have done. 
 
 The chief storms that drifted across onr sky were 
 caused by Mrs. Fordyce's resolution that Griffith 
 should enjoy none of the privileges of an accepted 
 suitor before the engagement was an actual fact. 
 Ellen was obedient and conscientious ; and would 
 neither transgress nor endure to have her mother 
 railed at by Griff's hasty tongue, and this affronted 
 him, and led to little breezes. 
 
 When people overstay their usual time, tempers 
 are apt to get rather difficult. Griffith had kept all 
 his terms at Oxford, and was not to return thither 
 after the long vacation, but was to read with a tutor 
 before taking his degree. Moreover bills began to 
 come from Oxford, not very serious, but vexing my 
 father and raising annoyances and frets, for Griff 
 resented their being complained of, and thought 
 himself ill-used, going off to see his own friends 
 whenever he was put out. 
 
 One morning at breakfast, late in October, he 
 announced that Lady Peacock was in lodgings at 
 Clifton, and asked my mother to call on her. But 
 mamma said it was too far for the horse — she 
 visited no one at that distance, and had never 
 thought much of Selina Clarkson before or after her
 
 212 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 1 But now that she is a widow, it would be such 
 a kindness,' pleaded Griff. 
 
 ' Depend upon it, a gay young widow needs no 
 kindness from me, and had better not have it from 
 you,' said my mother, getting up from behind her 
 urn and walking off, followed by my father. 
 
 Griff drummed on the table. ' I wonder what 
 good ladies of a certain age do with their charity,' 
 he said. 
 
 And while we were still crying out at him, Ellen 
 Eordyce and her father appeared, like mirth bidding 
 good-morrow, at the window. All was well for the 
 time, but Griff wanted Ellen to set out alone with 
 him, and take their leisurely way through the wood- 
 path, and she insisted on waiting for her father, who 
 had got into an endless discussion with mine on the 
 Eeform Bill, thrown out in the last Session. Griff 
 tried to wile her on with him, but, though she con- 
 sented to wander about the lawn before the windows 
 with him, she always resolutely turned at the great 
 beech tree. Emily and I watched them from the win- 
 dow, at first amused, then vexed, as we could see, by 
 his gestures, that he was getting out of temper, and 
 her straw bonnet drooped at one moment, and was 
 raised the next in eager remonstrance or defence. 
 At last he flung angrily away from her, and went 
 off to the stables, leaving her leaning against the 
 gate in tears. Emily, in an access of indignant
 
 xxt.] THE OUTSIDE OF THE COURTSHIP. 213 
 
 sympathy, rushed out to her, aud they vanished 
 together into the summer-house, until her father 
 called her, and they went home together. 
 
 Emily told me that Ellen had struggled hard to 
 keep herself from crying enough to show traces of 
 tears which her father could observe, and that she 
 had excused Griff with all her might on the plea of 
 her own ' tiresomeness.' 
 
 We were all the more angry with him for his 
 selfishness and want of consideration, for Ellen, in 
 her torrent of grief, had even disclosed that he had 
 said she did not care for him — no one really 
 in love ever scrupled about a mother's nonsense, 
 etc. etc. 
 
 We were resolved, like two sages, to give him 
 a piece of our minds, and convince him that such 
 dutifulness was the pledge of future happiness, and 
 that it was absolute cruelty to the rare creature 
 he had won, to try to draw her in a direction con- 
 trary to her conscience. 
 
 However, we saw him no more that day ; and 
 only learnt that he had left a message at the stables 
 that dinner was not to be kept waiting for him. Such 
 a message from Clarence would have caused a great 
 commotion; but it was quite natural and a matter 
 of course from him in the eyes of the elders, who 
 knew nothing of his parting with Ellen. However, 
 there was annoyance enough, when bedtime came,
 
 214 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. xxi. 
 
 family prayers were over, and still there was no sign 
 of him. My father sat up till one o'clock, to let 
 him in, then gave it up, and. I heard his step 
 heavily mounting the stairs.
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 BRISTOL DIAMONDS. 
 
 ' Stafford. And you that are the King's friends, follow me. 
 
 Cade. And you that love the Commons, follow me ; 
 We will not leave one lord, one gentleman, 
 Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon.' 
 
 Act I. Henry VI. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and no Griff appeared 
 in the morning. Vexation, perhaps, prevented us 
 from attending as much as we otherwise might have 
 done to Mr. Henderson when he told us that there 
 were rumours of a serious disturbance at Bristol ; 
 until Emily recollected that Griff had been talking 
 for some days past of riding over to see his friend 
 in the cavalry regiment there stationed, and we all 
 agreed that it was most likely that he was there ; 
 and our wrath began to soften in the belief that he 
 might have been detained to give his aid in the 
 cause of order, though his single arm could not be 
 expected to effect as much as at Hillside. 
 
 Long after dark we heard a horse's feet, and in 
 another minute Griff, singed, splashed, and battered
 
 216 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 had hurried into the room — 'It has begun!' he 
 said. ' The revolution ! I have brought her — Lady 
 Peacock. She was at Clifton, dreadfully alarmed. 
 She is almost at the door now, in her carriage. I'll 
 just take the pony, and ride over to tell Eastwood 
 in case he will call out the Yeomanry/ 
 
 The wheels were to be heard, and everybody 
 hastened out to receive Lady Peacock, who was 
 there with her maid, full of gratitude. I heard her 
 broken sentences as she came across the hall, about 
 dreadful scenes — frightful mob — she knew not what 
 would have become of her but for Griffith — the 
 place was in flames when they left it — the military 
 would not act — Griffith had assured her that Mr. 
 and Mrs. Winslow would be so kind — as long as 
 any place was a refuge 
 
 We really did believe we were at the outbreak 
 of a revolution or civil war, and, all little frets for- 
 gotten, listened appalled to the tidings ; how the 
 appearance of Sir Charles Wetherall, the Eecorder 
 of Bristol, a strong opponent to the Eeform Bill, 
 seemed to have inspired the mob with fury. Griff 
 and his friend the dragoon, while walking in Broad 
 Street, were astonished by a violent rush of riotous 
 men and boys, hooting and throwing stones as the 
 Eecorder's carriage tried to make its way to the 
 Guildhall. In the midst a piteous voice exclaimed 
 — ' Oh, Griffith ! Mr. Griffith Winslow ! Is it you V
 
 XXII.] BRISTOL DIAMONDS. 217 
 
 and Lady Peacock was seen retreating upon the stone 
 steps of a house either empty, or where the inhabit- 
 ants were too much alarmed to open the doors. She 
 was terribly frightened, and the two gentlemen stood 
 in front of her till the tumultuary procession had 
 passed by. She was staying in lodgings at Clifton, and 
 had driven in to Bristol to shop, when she thus found 
 herself entangled in the mob. They then escorted 
 her to the place where she was to meet her carriage, 
 and found it for her with some difficulty. Then, 
 while the officer returned to his quarters, Griff 
 accompanied her far enough on the way to Clifton 
 to see that everything was quiet before her, and 
 then returned to seek out his friend. The court at 
 the Guildhall had had to be adjourned, but the 
 rioters were hunting Sir Charles to the Mansion- 
 House. Griff was met by one of the Town Council, 
 a tradesman with whom we dealt, who, having 
 perhaps heard of his prowess at Hillside, entreated 
 him to remain, offering him a bed, and saying that 
 all friends of order were needed in such a crisis as 
 this. Griff wrote a note to let us know what had 
 become of him, but everything was disorganised, and 
 we did not get it till two days afterwards. 
 
 In the evening the mob became more violent, 
 and in the midst of dinner a summons came for 
 Griff's host to attend the Mayor in endeavouring to 
 disperse it. Getting into the Mansion-House by
 
 218 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 private back ways, tliey were able to join the Mayor 
 when he came out, amid a shower of brickbats, 
 sticks, and stones, and read the Eiot Act three 
 times over, after warning them of the consequences 
 of persisting in their defiance. 
 
 c But they were far past caring for that,' said 
 Griff. 'An iron rail from the square was thrown 
 in the midst of it, and if I had not caught it there 
 would have been an end of his Worship.' 
 
 The constables, with such help as Griff and a 
 few others could give them, defended the front of 
 the Mansion-House, while the Eecorder, for whom 
 they savagely roared, made his escape by the roof 
 to another house. A barricade was made with beds, 
 tables, and chairs, behind which the defenders shel- 
 tered themselves, while volleys of stones smashed in 
 the windows, and straw was thrown after them. 
 But at last the tramp of horses' feet was heard, 
 and the Dragoons came up. 
 
 'We thought all over then,' said Griff; 'but 
 Colonel Brereton would not have a blow struck, far 
 less a shot fired ! He would have it that it was a 
 good-humoured mob ! I heard him ! When one 
 of his own men was brought up badly hurt with a 
 brickbat, I heard Ludlow, the Town-Clerk, ask him 
 what he thought of their good humour, and he had 
 nothing to say but that it was an accident ! And 
 the rogues knew it ! He took care they should ; he
 
 xxn.] BRISTOL DIAMONDS. 219 
 
 walked about among them and shook hands with 
 them ! ' 
 
 Griff waited at the Mansion-House all night, and 
 helped to board up the smashed windows ; but at 
 daylight Colonel Brereton came and insisted on 
 withdrawing the piquet on guard — not, however, 
 sending a relief for them, on the plea that they only 
 collected a crowd. The instant they were with- 
 drawn, down came the mob in fresh force, so 
 desperate that all the defences were torn down, and 
 they swarmed in so that there was nothing for it 
 but to escape over the roofs. 
 
 Griffith was sent to rouse the inhabitants of 
 College Green and St. Augustine's Back to come 
 in the King's name to assist the Magistrates, and 
 he had many good stories of the various responses 
 he met with. But the rioters, inflamed by the 
 wine they had found in sacking the Mansion- 
 House, and encouraged by the passiveness of the 
 troops, had become entirely masters of the situation. 
 And Colonel Brereton seems to have imagined that 
 the presence of the soldiers acted as an irritation ; 
 for in this crisis he actually sent them out of the 
 city to Keynsham, then came and informed the 
 mob, who cheered him, as well they might. 
 
 In the night the Becorder had left the city, 
 and notices were posted to that effect; also that 
 the Biot Act had been read, and any further dis-
 
 220 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 turbance would be capital felony. This escape of 
 their victim only had the effect of directing the rage 
 of the populace against Bishop Grey, who had like- 
 wise opposed the Eeform Bill. 
 
 Messages had been sent to advise the Bishop, 
 who was to preach that day at the Cathedral, to 
 stay away and sanction the omission of the service; 
 but his answer to one of his clergy was — ' These are 
 times in which it is necessary not to shrink from 
 danger ! Our duty is to be at our post.' And he 
 also said, ' Where can I die better than in my own 
 Cathedral?' 
 
 Since the bells were ringing, and it was under- 
 stood that the Bishop was actually going to dare the 
 peril, Griff and others of the defenders decided that 
 it was better to attend the service and fill up the 
 nave so as to hinder outrage. He said it was a 
 most strange and wonderful service. Chants and 
 Psalms and Lessons and prayers going on their 
 course as usual, but every now and then in the 
 pauses of the organ, a howl or yell of the voice of 
 the multitude would break on the ear through the 
 thick walls. Griff listened and hoped for a volley 
 of musketry. He was not tender-hearted ! But 
 none came, and by the time the service was over, 
 the mob had been greatly reinforced and had broken 
 into the prisons, set them on fire, and released the 
 prisoners. They were mustering on College Green
 
 xxii.] BRISTOL DIAMONDS. 221 
 
 for an attack on the palace. Griff aided in guarding 
 the entrance to the cloisters till the Bishop and his 
 family had had time to drive away to Almondsbury, 
 four miles off, and then the rush became so strong 
 that they had to give way. There was another great 
 struggle at the door of the palace, but it was forced 
 open with a crowbar, while shouts rang out ' No King 
 and no Bishops !' A fire was made in the dining- 
 room with chairs and tables, and live coals were 
 put into the beds, while the plunder went on. 
 
 Griff meantime had made his way to the party 
 headed by the magistrates, and accompanied by 
 the dragoons, and the mob began to flee ; but 
 Colonel Brereton had given strict orders that the 
 soldiers should not fire, and the plunderers rallied, 
 made a fire in the Chapter House, and burnt the 
 whole of the library, shouting with the maddest 
 triumph. 
 
 They next attacked the Cathedral, intending to 
 burn that likewise, but two brave gentlemen, Mr. 
 Balph and Mr. Linne, succeeded in saving this last 
 outrage, at the head of the better affected. 
 
 Griff had fought hard. He was all over bruises 
 which he really had never felt at the time, scarcely 
 even now, though one side of his face was turning 
 purple, and his clothes were singed. In a sort of 
 council held at the repulse of the attack on the 
 Cathedral, it had been decided that the best thing
 
 222 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 he could do would be to give notice to Sir George 
 Eastwood, in order that the Yeomanry might be 
 called out, since the troops were so strangely pre- 
 vented from acting. As he rode through Clifton, he 
 had halted at Lady Peacock's, and found her in 
 extreme alarm. Indeed, no one could guess what 
 the temper of the mob might be the next day, or 
 whether they might not fall upon private houses. 
 The Mansion -House, the prisons, the palace were 
 all burning and were an astounding sight, which 
 terrified her exceedingly, and she was sending 
 out right and left to endeavour to get horses to 
 take her away. In common humanity, and for old 
 acquaintance sake, it was impossible not to help 
 her, and Griff had delayed, to offer any amount of 
 reward in her name for posthorses, which he had 
 at last secured. Her own man-servant, whom she 
 had sent in quest of some, had never returned, and 
 she had to set off without him, Griff acting as out- 
 rider ; but after the first there was no more difficulty 
 about horses, and she had been able to change them 
 at the next stage. 
 
 We all thought the days of civil war were 
 really begun, as the heads of this account were 
 hastily gathered ; but there was not much said, 
 only Mr. Frank Fordyce laid his hand on Griff's 
 shoulder and said, ' Well done, my boy ; but you 
 have had enough for to-day. If you'll lend me a
 
 xxii.] BRISTOL DIAMONDS. 223 
 
 horse, Winslow, I'll ride over to Eastwood. That's 
 work for the clergy in these times, eh ? Griffith 
 should rest. He may he wanted to-morrow. Only 
 is there any one to take a note home for me, 
 to say where I'm gone ;' and then he added 
 with that sweet smile of his, ' Some one will he 
 more the true knight than ever, eh, you Griffith, 
 you ' 
 
 Griffith coloured a little, and Lady Peacock's 
 eyes looked interrogative. When the horse was 
 announced, Griff followed Mr. Fordyce into the 
 hall, and came hack announcing that, unless sum- 
 moned elsewhere, he should go to "breakfast at Hill- 
 side, and so hear what was decided on. He longed 
 to be back at the scene of action, but was so tired 
 out that he could not dispense with another night's 
 rest ; though he took all precautions for being called 
 up, in case of need. 
 
 However, nothing came, and he rode to the 
 Eectory in Yeomanry equipment. Nor could any 
 one doubt that in the ecstasy of meeting such a 
 hero, all the little misunderstanding and grief of 
 the night before was forgotten ? Ellen looked 
 as if she trod on air, when she came down with 
 her father to report that Griffith had gone, accord- 
 ing to the orders sent, to join the rest of the Yeo- 
 manry, who were to advance upon Bristol. They had 
 seen, and tried to turn back, some of the villagers
 
 224 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 who were starting with bludgeons to share in the 
 spoil, and who looked sullen, as if they were deter- 
 mined not to miss their share. 
 
 I do not think we were very much alarmed 
 for Griffs safety or for our own, not even the ladies. 
 My mother had the lion-heart of her naval ancestors, 
 and Ellen was in a state of exaltation. Would 
 that I could put her before other eyes, as she 
 stood with hands clasped and glowing cheek. 
 
 ' Oh ! — think ! — think of having one among us 
 who is as real and true knight as ever watched 
 his armour — 
 
 ' " For king, for church, for lady fight !" 
 
 It has all come gloriously true !' 
 
 1 Should not you like to bind on his spurs?' I 
 asked somewhat mischievously ; but she was serious 
 as she said, ' I am sure he has won them.' All the 
 rest of the Fordyces came down afterwards, too 
 anxious to stay at home. Our elders felt the 
 matter more gravely, thinking of what civil war 
 might mean to us all, and what an awful tiring it 
 was for Englishmen to be enrolled against each 
 other. Nottingham Castle had just been burnt, and 
 things looked only too like revolution, especially 
 considering the inaction of the dragoons. After 
 Griff had left Bristol, there had been some terrible 
 scenes at the Custom House, where the ring-leaders
 
 xxii.] BRISTOL DIAMONDS. 225 
 
 — unhappy men ! — were caught in a trap of their 
 own and perished miserably. 
 
 However, by the morning, the order sent 
 from Lord Hill, the arrival of Major Beckwith 
 from Gloucester, and the proceedings of the good- 
 humoured mob had put an end to poor Brereton's 
 hesitations ; a determined front had been shown ; the 
 mob had been fairly broken up; troops from all 
 quarters poured into the city, and by dinner-time 
 Griff came back with the news that all was quiet 
 and there was nothing more to fear. Ellen and 
 Emily both flew out to meet him at the first sound 
 of the horse's feet, and they all came into the 
 drawing-room together — each young lady having 
 hold of one of his hands — and Ellen's face in such 
 a glow, that I rather suspect that he had snatched 
 a reward which certainly would not have been 
 granted save in such a moment of uplifted feeling, 
 and when she was thankful to her hero for for- 
 getting how angry he had been w T ith her two days 
 before. 
 
 Minor matters were forgotten in the details of 
 his tidings, as he stood before the fire, shining in 
 his silver lace, and relating the tragedy and the 
 comedy of the scene. 
 
 It was curious, as the evening passed on, to see 
 how Ellen and Lady Peacock regarded each other, 
 now that the tension of suspense was over. To 
 
 vol. I. Q
 
 226 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 Ellen, the guest was primarily a distressed and 
 widowed dame, delivered by Griff, to whom she, 
 as his lady love, was bound to be gracious and 
 kind ; nor had they seen much of one another, the 
 elder ladies sitting in the drawing-room, and we 
 in our own regions ; but we were all together at 
 dinner and afterwards, and Lady Peacock, who had 
 been in a very limp, nervous, and terrified state all 
 day, began to be the Selina Clarkson we remembered, 
 and ' more too.' She was still in mourning, but 
 she came down to dinner in gray satin sheen, and 
 with her hair in a most astonishing erection of bows 
 and bands, on the very crown of her head, raising 
 her height at least four inches. Emily assures me 
 that it was the mode in use, and that she and 
 Ellen wore their hair in the same style, appeal- 
 ing to portraits to prove it. I can only say that 
 they never astonished my weak mind in the like 
 manner ; and that their heads, however dressed, 
 only appeared to me a portion of the general 
 woman, and part of the universal fitness of things. 
 Ellen was likewise amazed, most likely not at the 
 hair, but at the transformation of the disconsolate, 
 frightened widow, into the handsome, fashionable, 
 stylish lady, talking over London acquaintance 
 and London news with my father and Griff when- 
 ever they left the endless subject of the Bristol 
 adventures.
 
 xxn.] BRISTOL DIAMONDS. 227 
 
 The widow had gained a good deal in beauty 
 since her early girlhood, having regular features, 
 eyes of an uncommon deep blue, very black brows, 
 eye-lashes, and hair, and a form of the kind that is 
 better after early youth is over. 'A fine figure of 
 a woman,' Parson Frank pronounced her, and his 
 wife, with the fine edge of her lips replied, * exactly 
 what she is ." 
 
 She looked upon us younger ones as mere 
 children still — indeed she never looked at me at 
 all if she could help it — but she mortally offended 
 Emily by penning her up in a corner, and asking 
 if Griff were engaged to that sentimental little girl. 
 
 Emily coloured like a turkey cock between wrath 
 and embarrassment, and hotly protested against the 
 word sentimental. 
 
 'Ah yes, I see!' she said in a patronising tone, 
 'she -is your bosom friend, eh? That's the way 
 those things always begin. You need not answer : 
 I see it all. And no doubt it is a capital thing for 
 him ; properties joining and all. And she will get 
 a little air and style when he takes her to London.' 
 
 It was a tremendous offence even to hint that 
 Ellen's style was capable of improvement ; perhaps 
 an unprejudiced eye would have said that the 
 difference was between high-bred simplicity and 
 the air of fashion and society. 
 
 In our eyes Lady Peacock was the companion
 
 228 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. xxii. 
 
 of the elders, and as such was appreciated by the 
 gentlemen ; but neither of the two mothers was 
 equally delighted with her, nor was mine at all 
 sorry when, on Tuesday, the boxes were packed, 
 posthorses sent for, and my Lady departed, with 
 great expressions of thankfulness to us all. 
 
 ' A tulip to a jessamine,' muttered Griff as she 
 drove off, and he looked up at his Ellen's sweet 
 refined face. 
 
 The unfortunate Colonel Brereton put an end 
 to himself when the court-martial was half over. 
 How Clarence was shocked and how ardent was his 
 pity ! But Griffith received the thanks of the Cor- 
 poration of Bristol for his gallant conduct, when the 
 special assize was held in January. Mrs. Fordyce 
 was almost as proud of him as we were, and there 
 was much less attempt at restraining the terms on 
 which he stood with Ellen — though still the formal 
 engagement was not permitted.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 QUICKSANDS. 
 
 ' Whither shall I go ? 
 Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? ' 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 It was in the May of the ensuing year, 1832, that 
 Clarence was sent down to Bristol for a few weeks 
 to take the place of one of the clerks in the office 
 where the cargoes of the incoming vessels of the firm 
 were received and overhauled. 
 
 This was a good-natured arrangement of Mr. 
 Castleford's in order to give him change of work and 
 a sight of home, where, by the help of the coach, he 
 could spend his Sundays. That first spring day on 
 his way down was a great delight and even surprise 
 to him, who had never seen our profusion of prim- 
 roses, cowslips, and bluebells, nor our splendid 
 blossom of trees — apple, lilac, laburnum — all vieing 
 in beauty with one another. Emily conducted him 
 about in great delight, taking him over to Hillside 
 to see Mrs. Fordyce's American garden, blazing with 
 azaleas, and glowing with rhododendrons. He came
 
 230 CHAXTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 back with a great bouquet given to him by Ellen, 
 who had been unusually friendly with him, and he was 
 more animated and full of life than for years before. 
 Next time he came he looked less happy. There 
 was plenty of room in our house, but he used, by 
 preference, the little chamber within mine, and there 
 at night he asked me to lend him a few pounds, 
 since Griffith had written one of his off-hand letters 
 asking him to discharge a little bill or two at 
 Bristol, giving the addresses, but not sending the 
 accounts. This was no wonder, since any enclosure 
 doubled the already heavy postage. One of these 
 bills was for some sporting equipments from the 
 gunsmith's ; another, much heavier, from a tavern 
 for breakfasts, or rather luncheons, to parties of 
 gentlemen, mostly bearing date in the summer and 
 autumn of 1830, before the friendship with the 
 Fordyces had begun. On Clarence's defraying the 
 first and applying for the second, two more had 
 come in, one from a jeweller for a pair of drop- 
 earrings, the other from a nurseryman for a bouquet 
 of exotics. Doubting of these two last, Clarence 
 had written to Griff, but had not yet received an 
 answer. The whole amount was so much beyond 
 what he had been led to expect that he had not 
 brought enough money to meet it, and wanted an 
 advance from me, promising repayment, to which 
 latter point I could not assent, as both of us knew,
 
 xxiii.] QUICKSANDS. 231 
 
 but did not say, we should never see the sum again, 
 and to me it only meant stinting in new books and 
 curiosities. We were anxious to get the matter 
 settled at once, as Griffith spoke of being dunned ; 
 and it might be serious, if the tradesmen applied to 
 my father when he was still groaning over revela- 
 tions of college expenses. 
 
 On the ensuing Saturday, Clarence showed me 
 Griff's answer — ' I had forgotten these items. The 
 earrings were a wedding present to the pretty little 
 barmaid, who had been very civil. The bouquet 
 was for Lady Peacock ; I felt bound to do some- 
 thing to atone for mamma's severe virtue. It is all 
 right, you best of brothers.' 
 
 It was consolatory that all the dates were prior 
 to the Hillside fire, except that of the bouquet. As 
 to the earrings, we all knew that Griff could not 
 see a pretty girl without talking nonsense to her. 
 Anyway, if they were a wedding present, there 
 was an end of it ; and we were only glad to prevent 
 any hint of them from reaching the ears of the 
 authorities. 
 
 Clarence had another trouble to confide to me. 
 He had strong reason to believe that Tooke, the 
 managing clerk at Bristol, was carrying on a course 
 of peculation, and feathering his nest at the expense 
 of the firm. What a grand discovery, thought I, for 
 such a youth to have made. The firm would be
 
 232 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 infinitely obliged to him, and his fortune would be 
 secured. He shook his head, and said that was all 
 my ignorance; the man, Tooke, was greatly trusted, 
 especially by Mr. Frith the senior partner, and was 
 so clever and experienced that it would be almost 
 impossible to establish anything against him. Indeed 
 he had browbeaten Clarence, and convinced him at 
 the moment that his suspicions and perplexities were 
 only due to the ignorance of a foolish, scrupulous 
 youth, who did not understand the customs and 
 perquisites of an agency. It was only when Clar- 
 ence was alone, and reflected on the matter by the 
 light of experience gained on a similar expedition 
 to Liverpool, that he had perceived that Mr. Tooke 
 had been throwing dust in his eyes. 
 
 1 1 shall only get into a scrape myself,' said 
 Clarence despondently. ' I have felt it coming ever 
 since I have been at Bristol ;' and he pushed his 
 hair back with a weary hopeless gesture. 
 
 'But you don't mean to let it alone?' I cried 
 indignantly. 
 
 He hesitated in a manner that painfully recalled 
 his failing, and said at last, ' I don't know ; I sup- 
 pose I ought not.' 
 
 ' Suppose ? ' I cried. 
 
 ' It is not so easy as you think,' he answered, 
 ' especially for one who has forfeited the right to 
 be believed. I must wait till I have an opportunity
 
 xxiii.] QUICKSANDS. 233 
 
 of speaking to Mr. Castleford, and then I can hardly 
 do more than privately give him a hint to be watch- 
 ful. You don't know how things are in such houses 
 as ours. One may only ruin oneself without doing 
 any good.' 
 
 ' You cannot write to him ?' 
 
 1 Certainly not. He has taken his family to 
 Mrs. Castleford's home in the north of Ireland for a 
 month or six weeks. I don't know the address, and 
 1 cannot run the risk of the letter being opened at 
 the office.' 
 
 ' Can't you speak to my father ? ' 
 
 ' Impossible ! it would be a betrayal. He would 
 do things for which I should never be forgiven. 
 And, after all, remember, it is no business of mine. 
 I know of agents at the docks who do such things 
 as a matter of course. It is only that I happen to 
 know that Harris at Liverpool does not. Very 
 possibly old Frith knows all about it. I should 
 only get scored down as a meddlesome prig, worse 
 hypocrite than they think me already.' 
 
 He said a good deal more to this effect, and I 
 remember exclaiming, ' Oh, Clarence, the old story!' 
 and then being frightened at the whiteness that 
 came over his face. 
 
 Little did I know the suffering to which those 
 words of mine condemned him. For not only had 
 he to make up his mind to resistance, which to his
 
 234 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 nature was infinitely worse than it was to Griffith 
 to face a raging mob, but he knew very well that it 
 would almost inevitably produce his own ruin, and 
 renew the disgrace out of which he was beginning 
 to emerge. I did not — even while I prayed that 
 he might do the right — guess at his own agony of 
 supplication, carried on incessantly, day and night, 
 sleeping and waking, that the Holy Spirit of might 
 should brace his w T ill and govern his tongue, and 
 make him say the right thing at the right time, be 
 the consequences what they might. Xo one, not 
 constituted as he was, can guess at the anguish he 
 endured. I knew no more. Clarence did not come 
 home the next Saturday, to my mother's great vexa- 
 tion; but on Tuesday a small parcel was given to me, 
 brought from our point of contact with the Bristol 
 coach. It contained some pencils I had asked him 
 to get, and a note marked private. Here it is — 
 
 'Dear Edward — 1 am summoned to town. 
 Tooke has no doubt forestalled me. We have had 
 some curious interviews, in which he first, as I told 
 you, persuaded me out of my senses that it was all 
 right, and then, finding me still dissatisfied, tried in 
 a delicate fashion to apprise me that I had a claim 
 to a share of the plunder. When I refused to 
 appropriate anything without sanction from head- 
 quarters, he threatened me with the consequences
 
 xxii I. ] QUICKSANDS. 235 
 
 of presumptuous interference. It came to bullying 
 at last. I hardly know what I answered, but I 
 don't think I gave in. Now, a sharp letter from 
 old Frith recalls me. Say nothing at home ; and 
 whatever you do, do not betray Griff. He has more 
 to lose than I. Help me in the true way, as you 
 know how. — Ever yours, W. C. W. 
 
 I need not dwell on the misery of those days. 
 It was well that my father had ruled that our 
 letters should not be family property. Here were 
 all the others discussing a proposed tour in the 
 north of Devon, to be taken conjointly with the 
 Fordyces, as soon as Griff should come home. My 
 mother said it would do me good; she saw I was 
 flagging, but she little guessed at the continual 
 torment of anxiety, and my wonder at the warn- 
 ing about Griff. 
 
 At the end of the week came another letter. 
 
 ' You need not speak yet. Papa and mamma 
 will know soon enough. I brought down £150 
 in specie, to be paid over to Tooke. He avers that 
 only £130 was received. What is my word worth 
 against his ? I am told that if I am not prosecuted 
 it will only be out of respect to my father. I am 
 not dismissed yet, but shall get notice as soon as 
 letters come from Ireland. I have written, but it 
 is not in the nature of things that Mr. Castleford
 
 236 CHANTEY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 should not accept such proofs as have been sent him. 
 I have no hope, and shall be glad when it is over. 
 The part of black sheep is not a pleasant one. Say 
 not a word, and do not let my father come up. He 
 could do no good, and to see him believing it all 
 would be the last drop in the bucket. 
 
 N.B. — In this pass, nothing would be saved by 
 bringing Griff into it, so be silent on your life. 
 Innocence does not seem to be much comfort at 
 present. Maybe it will come in time. I know you 
 will not drop me, dear Ted, wherever I may be.' 
 
 Need I tell the distress of those days of sus- 
 pense and silence, when my only solace was in 
 bein^ left alone, and in writing letters to Clarence 
 which were mostly torn up again. 
 
 My horror was lest he should be driven to go 
 off to the sea, which he loved so well, knowing, as 
 nobody else did, the longing that sometimes seized 
 him for it, a hereditary craving that curiously con- 
 flicted with the rest of his disposition ; and, indeed, 
 his lack was more of moral than of physical courage. 
 It haunted me constantly that his entreaty that 
 my father should not come to London was a bad 
 sign, and that he would never face such another 
 return home. And was I justified in keeping all 
 this to myself, when my father's presence might 
 save him from the flight that would indeed be the
 
 XXIII.] QUICKSANDS. 237 
 
 surrender of his character, and to the life of a 
 common sailor ? Never have I known such leaden 
 days as these, yet the misery was not a tithe of 
 what Clarence was undergoing. 
 
 I was right in my forebodings. Prosecution 
 and a second return home in shame and disgrace 
 were alike hideous to Clarence, and the present 
 was almost equally terrible, for nobody at the office 
 had any doubt of his guilt, and the young men 
 who had sneered at his strictness and religious 
 habits regarded him as an unmasked hypocrite, 
 only waiting on sufferance till his greatly deceived 
 patron should write to decide on the steps to be 
 taken with him, while he knew he was thought to 
 be brazening it out in hopes of again deceiving 
 Mr. Castleford. 
 
 The sea began to exert its power over him, 
 and he thought with longing of its freedom, as if 
 the sails of the vessels were the wings of a dove 
 to flee away and be at rest. He had no illusions 
 as to the roughness of the life and companionship ; 
 but in his present mood, the frank rudeness and 
 profanity of the sailors seemed preferable to his 
 cramped life, and the scowls of his fellows ; and he 
 knew himself to have seamanship enough to rise 
 quickly, even if he could not secure a mate's berth 
 at first. 
 
 Mr. Castleford could not be heard from till the
 
 238 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap. 
 
 end of the week. Friday, Saturday came and not 
 a word. That was the climax ! When the consign- 
 ment of cash, hitherto carried by Clarence to the 
 Bank of England, was committed to another clerk, 
 the very office boy sniggered, and the manager 
 demonstratively waited to see him depart. 
 
 Unable to bear it any longer, he walked towards 
 Wapping, bought a Southwester, examined the lists 
 of shipping, and entered into conversation with 
 one or two sailors about the vessels making up 
 their crews ; intending to go down after dark, to 
 meet the skipper of a craft bound for Lisbon, who, 
 he heard, was so much in want of a mate as per- 
 haps to overlook the lack of testimonials, and at 
 any rate take him on board on Sunday. 
 
 Going home to pick up a few necessaries, a 
 book lent to him by Miss Newton came in his 
 way, and he felt drawn to carry it home, and see 
 her face for the last time. 
 
 All unconscious of his trouble and of his inten- 
 tions, the good lady told him of her strong desire 
 to hear a celebrated preacher at a neighbouring 
 church on the Sunday evening, but said that in her 
 partial blindness and weakness, she was afraid to 
 venture, unless he would have the extreme good- 
 ness, as she said, to take care of her. He saw that 
 she wished it so much that he had not the heart to 
 refuse, and he recollected likewise that very early
 
 xxiii.] QUICKSANDS. 239 
 
 on Monday morning would answer his purpose 
 equally well. 
 
 It was the 7th of June. The Psalm was the 
 37th — the supreme lesson of patience. 'Hold 
 thee still in the Lord ; and abide patiently on 
 Him ; and He shall bring it to pass. He shall 
 make thy righteousness as clear as the light, and 
 thy just dealing as the noonday.' 
 
 The awful sense of desolation seemed to pass 
 away under those words, with that gentle woman 
 beside him. And the sermon was on ' Oh tarry 
 thou the Lord's leisure ; be strong, and He shall 
 comfort thine heart ; and put thou thy trust in 
 the Lord.' 
 
 Clarence remembered nothing but the text. But 
 it was borne in upon him that his purpose of flight 
 was 'the old story,' — cowardice and virtual dis- 
 trust of the Lord, as well as absolute cruelty to 
 us who loved him. 
 
 When he had deposited Miss Newton at her 
 own door, he whispered thanks, and an entreaty 
 for her prayers. 
 
 And then he went home, and fought the battle 
 of his life, with his own horrible dread of Mr. 
 Castleford's disappointment; of possible prosecution; 
 of the shame at home ; the misery of a life a 
 second time blighted. He fought it out on his 
 knees, many a time persuading liimself that flight
 
 240 CHANTRY HOUSE. [chap, xxiii. 
 
 would not be a sin, then returning to the sense 
 that it was a temptation of his worse self to be 
 overcome. And by morning he knew that it would 
 be a surrender of himself to his lower nature, and 
 the evil spirit behind it ; while, by facing the worst 
 that could befall him, he would be falling into the 
 hand of the Lord. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.
 
 ■
 
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