Story of My Life Part 36

"_Good Friday, 1861._--When Charlie and I went to S. Michele at eight o'clock in the evening, we found the church crowded from end to end with people chanting the Miserere, and radiant with a thousand waxlights. In the choir, under a canopy, upon a raised bier surrounded by a treble row of tall tapers, lay the body of Christ, for which the whole service was a funeral celebration. Soon after we arrived, a sudden hush in the crowd showed that something important was going to happen, and a huge friar's lanthorn carried in by a boy preceded the celebrated 'Pilgrim Preacher of the Riviera,' a Capuchin monk with a long white beard, who exercises his wonderful gift of preaching all along the Riviera during Lent.

His sermon was short, but very graphic and striking. He began by describing a dreadful murder which people had committed upon the person of their kindest friend, with the horror it excited; and then, pointing to the white corpse which lay before him amid the blazing candles, he declared that those around him were themselves the perpetrators of the crime, and that the object of it was no other than their Saviour, whose image they saw there pale and bleeding before their eyes. Then, s.n.a.t.c.hing the crucifix from the support by his side, he held it aloft to urge repentance by the sufferings there portrayed. As he concluded, soldiers filed into the church, and, amid rolling of drums and blowing of trumpets which intermingled with the chanting, the body was taken up and carried three times round the church by the Black Penitents, Mentonais n.o.bles supporting a canopy over the bier."

With Charlie Wood, also, I went to Dolceacqua, which will always come back to me as one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, with its forest-clad mountains, its tall bridge, its blue river Nervia, and the palatial castle of the Dorias on a cliff, with sunlight streaming through its long lines of gla.s.sless windows. Almost equally picturesque were Peglia and Peglione, the latter on the top of a conical rock, with tremendous precipices and extraordinary mountain forms all around.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOLCEACQUA.][192]

In the spring we went for a few days to S. Remo, accompanied by several friends. With them, when my mother returned to Mentone, I travelled farther along the Riviera, an excursion which was most amusing, as we bargained for a little carriage from place to place, giving ridiculously small sums, and living entirely like Italians. We went on to many-towered Albenga, to Savona, and eventually to Genoa, making all the excursions belonging to each place. From Genoa we joined Mr. and Mrs. Strettel in an excursion to Porto Fino. When we returned, it was too late to reach Mentone before Sunday, and my companions refused to travel on that day, so we employed the interval in going to Piacenza, Parma, and Modena! Thence we were obliged to telegraph to Mr. Strettel (then chaplain at Genoa) to send us some money to get home with, which we did in a series of little carriages as we had come, but travelling all day and night, driving in the moonlight along the Riviera roads, or often walking for miles at night upon the sands by the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEGLIONE.][193]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VENTIMIGLIA.[194]]

Mr. Pet.i.t, the famous ecclesiologist,[195] spent some time at Mentone afterwards, and was very kind in taking me sketching excursions, as a fourth in the carriage with his sister, Miss Emma Pet.i.t, and his niece, Miss Salt. Mr. Pet.i.t was extraordinarily clever, especially as an artist, but most eccentric. He covered the backs of his pictures with caricatures of goblins, &c., representing the events of each day on which the pictures were done. When they travelled, this extraordinary family used to keep what they called "the Pet.i.t count:" if they met a cat, it counted for so much--a black goat for so much more, and so on: but if they met a royal prince, it annihilated the whole of the Pet.i.t count, and the party would consequently go a whole day's journey out of their way to evade a royal prince. Mr. Pet.i.t was most striking in appearance, with a great deal of colour and snow-white hair and beard. I remember the start which our donkey-boy Fran?ois gave when he first saw him, and his exclaiming, "Je crois, Monsieur, que c'est le fr?re du P?re Eternel!" One day I had gone with Mr. Pet.i.t and Miss Salt to Ventimiglia, and we were returning at a most alarming speed (with their horses, from Toulon, unaccustomed to the road) along the edge of an almost unguarded and perpendicular precipice. Suddenly the horses made a great dash, and I _felt_, rather than saw, that they were leaving the road. I threw myself out instantly over the side of the carriage. As I picked myself up, I had the horror of seeing the horses _over_, hanging in the branches of an olive-tree which overhung the sea at a tremendous height, and on the tiny plateau on which it grew. The carriage was swaying to and fro on the wall, which it had broken down, and which was rapidly giving way altogether. "Uncle, shall I get out?" said Miss Salt, as coolly as if nothing was going on. "Yes," he said--and they both got out. A crowd of men came and rescued the horses with ropes from their perilous position, and we walked home.

As usual, in our return to England, we lingered much by the way. The railway then only reached as far as Aix in Provence, and we joined it there after a long _vetturino_ journey; then, after visiting the wonderful deserted town of Les Baux near Arles and Vaucluse near Avignon, we went to S. Laurent du Pont and the Grande Chartreuse, greatly enjoying the beauty of the spring flowers there, as well as the scenery.

X

WORK IN NORTHERN COUNTIES

"Al ogni uccello suo nido par bello."

--_Italian Proverb._

"O my life! have we not had seasons That only said, Live and rejoice?

That asked not for causes or reasons, But made us all feeling and voice."

--LOWELL.

On our arrival in England, we were delighted with our little Holmhurst, which we arranged to be as much like Lime as possible, while many of the plants and shrubs we had brought with us, were, in the garden, a perpetual reminder of our old home. To my mother, however, our return was greatly clouded by the loss of her only brother, my Uncle Penrhyn, who died at Sheen while we were at Mentone, pa.s.sing away most peacefully, surrounded by his family. This uncle is one of the few figures connected with my childhood with whom I have no a.s.sociations but those of unvarying kindness, and in later years we had been brought nearer to him in our long winter visits at Sheen, and we missed him greatly.

My Handbook (nominally Murray's) of Oxfords.h.i.+re, Buckinghams.h.i.+re, and Berks.h.i.+re had been published during our winter absence: my little book "A Winter at Mentone" appeared soon after our return. With Murray's Handbook I had taken as much pains as if it were to appear in my own name, and felt as strongly the responsibility of what Miss Edgeworth calls "irremediable words," once past the press. The "Winter at Mentone"

fell perfectly flat, but Murray was so pleased with the laudatory notices which followed the appearance of the Handbook, that he asked me to select any other counties I liked. I chose Durham and Northumberland, and after the middle of July went there for three months. In undertaking these counties, I again a.s.sented to an arrangement by which I was never repaid for my work; but the work was one which I liked extremely, bringing me in contact with endless interesting persons, enabling me to be much with "Cousin Susan," who gave me a second home at Ridley Hall, and opening a field of historic study of the most interesting kind. On the way north I went to the Vaughans at Doncaster, of which Dr. Vaughan had lately become Vicar.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Doncaster, July 24, 1861._--The people here are a perpetual amus.e.m.e.nt to Kate, they are so quaint and original. She spoke to one old woman the other day about her sinful ways and the necessity for amendment. 'Na, na, Mrs. Vaughan,' she replied, 'I be got too old for Mr. Satan noo; he canna hurt I noo.' Another old woman who was brought into the hospital swore dreadfully all night long, to the great annoyance of her neighbours; but when they complained she said, 'Wal, I niver did it afore I coomed here, but I be gettin'

old, and I canna help it--and it's the will o' G.o.d, and I canna help it.'

"Kate said to an old man, 'What are you so low about, my man?'

'Why,' he said, 'what wi' faith, and gas, and balloons, and steam-ingines a-booming and a-fizzling through t' warld, and what wi't' arth a going round once in twenty-four hours, I'm fairly muzzled and stagnated.'

"I have been to call on the daughters of 'Presence-of-mind Smith,'

who was Dean of Christ Church, and to the close of his life used to tell this story of himself. 'In my life,' he said, 'there has been one most fortunate incident. A friend of mine persuaded me to go out with him in a boat upon a lake. I did not wish to go, but he persuaded me, and I went. By the intervention of Providence, I took my umbrella with me. We had not been long on the lake when the violence of the waves threw my friend out of the boat drowning, and he sank. Soon, as is the case with drowning persons, he came up again, and clutched hold of the side of the boat. Then such, providentially, was my presence of mind, that I seized my umbrella and rapped him violently on the knuckles till he let go. He sank, and I was saved.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT DURHAM.]

When I arrived at Durham, I presented myself at once to my cousins the George Liddells, who lived at a dingy brick house in the suburb called Old Elvet. They had never seen me before, but welcomed me with the utmost kindness and hospitality, making me quite at home with them. I took a little lodging close by, but they made me dine with them almost every day, and I went constant expeditions with them, staying to dinner at the neighbouring houses, Elemore, Aldin Grange, &c. Durham itself I always found charming. The smoke only gave a picturesqueness of its own, and on Sunday there was a Sabbath of nature, for when the chimneys ceased smoking, the birds began to sing, the flowers to bloom, and the sky to be blue. Sunday, however, was a severe day with the George Liddells, almost entirely spent in going to church, reading prayers, and listening to long sermons at home. Even on ordinary days, _after_ long morning prayers, we were expected to read all the Psalms and Lessons for the day, verse by verse, before we went out. But with all this, George Liddell was the very dearest and kindest of old men, and I was very fond too of his wife--"Cousin Louise"--who was most amusing and original.

Other cousins, who were intensely good to me at this time, were old Henry Liddell, brother of my great-uncle Lord Ravensworth, and his wife, who was daughter of Thomas Lyon of Hetton, my great-grandmother's youngest brother. I had known them first at Bath many years before, where they were kind to me when I had very few friends. With them lived their daughters Charlotte and Amelia, and their youngest son William, a very tall, very excellent, and very shy clergyman, who was his father's curate at Easington. Here I paid my first visit to them. It is an ugly village in the Black Country, but the Liddells' house was most comfortable, having the sea close by, with delightful sands and rocks, and many wooded "denes" running down to it, of which Castle Eden is especially beautiful.

I remember one day, after returning from Easington, dining with Dr.

Phillpotts, the celebrated Bishop of Exeter, who had a Canonry at Durham. He was very old, and was obliged to have a gla.s.s of wine given to him to obtain strength to go in to dinner, and every one wished him good-night when he left the dinner-table. He was good enough also to send for me alone to wish success to my book, &c. It was my only sight of this kindly old man, though I knew his daughter well, and valued her many good qualities. They both died shortly afterwards. Amongst the company at the Bishop's were Mr. and Mrs. Johnson of Akeley Heads, whom I also visited at their own beautiful place, which is on a high terrace overlooking Durham. It came to them in a curious way. Mr. Johnson was at school at Durham, and went out with his two elder brothers to spend the day with a rich old uncle who lived there. The eldest brother was his uncle's heir. They were sent to play in the garden, and seeing there a beautiful ripe peach upon the wall, they were unable to resist it, and ate it up. Soon the uncle came into the garden to look for that identical peach. "Where is my peach gone?" he said. The three boys were dreadfully frightened, and the two eldest denied knowing anything about it, but the youngest said, "We picked it and ate it up." The old man said nothing, but went home and altered his will that very afternoon, and when he was killed by an accident three weeks afterwards, his youngest nephew was found to be the heir of Akeley Heads.

I was frequently invited by Dean Waddington, who was a man of stately presence, "grand seigneur, fastueux, homme du monde," and had a great reputation for learning and cleverness; but in my acquaintance with him he seemed to care for nothing but his dinner, and his chief topic of conversation was his sherry of 1815, for which he gave ?12 a dozen.

"What with _diner ? la Russe_, crinoline, and pale sherry," he said one day, "England is fast going to the dogs."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Dilston, August 28._--The Greys gave me a warm welcome to Dilston--Mr. Grey being agent for the Greenwich Hospital Estates there, and a great agriculturist. Dilston is lovely. The house stands on a terraced height, covered with hanging woods, beneath which flows the Devil's Water, the most beautiful of Northumbrian rivers, with trout dancing about in its transparent brown currents, and floating away over its crumpled-looking rocks. On the hilltop is the ruined castle of the Earl of Derwent.w.a.ter, with his nursery, now overgrown by huge elder-trees, and the little chapel beneath which he was buried at night beside his ancestors. Below is the old grey pointed bridge, upon which, as he rode over, he repented of his rebellion and turned back to the castle, when his wife threw her fan at him, and calling him a coward, drove him forth to his destruction."

"_Ridley Hall, Sept. 1._--'How happily the days of Thalaba roll by'

might be applied to all the dwellers at Ridley Hall; for 'Cousin Susan' is so truly genial to her many guests, that they cannot fail to enjoy being with her."

"_Chillingham Castle, Sept. 6._--I went with Cousin Susan to spend two days at Matfen, Sir Edward Blackett's, a large modern Tudor house with a church beside it, looking into a great park, and entered through a stately gothic hall. Sir Edward and Lady Blackett have not been married many years, but four of his daughters by his first wife are now out. Lady Blackett also had another Northumbrian husband, Mr. Orde of Whitfield, and, as daughter of Sir Charles Lorraine, was once thought a great beauty.

Sir Edward drove me to see Aydon, a curious old castle which belongs to him.

"Yesterday I came to Chillingham from Belford, a beautiful drive, over hills first, and then descending into moorland, purple with heather, and bounded by the Cheviots, which rose deep blue against the sunset sky. The castle, which is partly as old as King John, is built round a great courtyard, from which flights of stone steps go up to the princ.i.p.al apartments. On the stairs I found Lord Tankerville, a handsome middle-aged man, with grey hair, romping with his children. He is quite charming, so merry and so courteous.

He took me at once to my room, which is high up in one of the old towers, and at eight we dined. Lady Tankerville is sister of the Duke of Manchester, very pretty, and looks quite a girl, though her three boys must be eight, nine, and ten years old."

"_Chillingham, Sept. 8._--This park is quite as beautiful in its way as any scenery abroad, and much more so, I think, than any in Scotland. It is backed by the Cheviot Hills, and often broken into deep dells, with little streamlets rus.h.i.+ng down them, and weird old oaks whose withered branches are never cut off, sheltering herds of deer. Great herds too of wild cattle, which are milk-white, and have lived here undisturbed from time immemorial, come rus.h.i.+ng every now and then down the hillsides like an army, to seek better pasture in the valley. Deer of every kind are to be seen upon the hills, and Lady Tankerville hunts them furiously, tiring out twelve horses in succession, placed to await her at different points in the park. Nothing can be more lovely than the evening effects each day I have been here, the setting sun pouring streams of golden light into the great grey mysterious basins of the Cheviots, amid which Marmion died and Paulinus baptized the ancient Northumbrians.

"If the place is charming, the people are even more so. The family is the happiest and most united I have ever seen. Lord Tankerville is the best and kindest of human beings. Lady Tankerville, whose spirits are so exuberant she scarcely knows how to get rid of them, dotes on her 'Hossinun,' plays with her children, gallops on her horses, hunts her deer, and manages her household, with equal vivacity. She is the most amusing person possible, is never ill, laughs fine-ladyism to scorn, and scrambles about the park, regardless of colds and crinolines, in all states of the weather.

The three little boys, Charlie, Georgie, and Peddie, are all quite as engaging in their different ways, and the two little girls are lovely little creatures.

"The prettiest story of an acceptance I ever heard of is that of Lord Tankerville. He was playing at billiards with Lady Olivia Montagu when he proposed, but she gave no definite answer. At last she said, 'I think we must go into the drawing-room now; we have been away long enough.'--'But what may I think, what may I say?' he asked in agitation. 'Say that we have played our game, and that you have won,' she answered.

"Yesterday, as soon as luncheon was over, Lady Tankerville and I set off for a regular good sketching, in which she soon outstripped me, for her drawings are first-rate. In some she has been helped by Landseer, who is often here, and who has added beautiful misty backgrounds, and put herds of deer into her fern.

"In the park is a beautiful old Peel tower, the home of the Hepburns."

"_Chillingham, Sept. 10._--Lord Tankerville says, 'I do not see why any one should ever go away from a place as long as he can make himself happy there.' On that principle I should certainly never leave Chillingham, which is the pleasantest place I ever was at. I feel as if I had known Lord and Lady Tankerville all my life, his kindness and her fun make one so entirely at home; and as for Charlie, Georgie, and Peddie, there never were such little boys.

"Yesterday I was awakened by the servant saying that an order had just come out to have breakfast ready in twenty minutes, as we were all going to Dunstanborough for the day. So we hurried down, and as soon as we had eaten our breakfast, set off in two little basket-carriages across the park and up the steep hills to the moors. At the top we found a larger carriage, packed with luncheon, and with plenty of wraps, for the day was most unpromising; but Lady Tankerville had quite made up her mind that it _should_ be fine, and that we _would_ enjoy ourselves; and so we most certainly did. The drive across the moorlands was charming, such sweeps of purple heather, with blue mountain distance. Then, after twelve miles, we descended through the cornland to Dunstanborough, and walked through the sandhills covered with rye-gra.s.s and b.l.o.o.d.y cranesbill to the castle, on a reef of basaltic rocks overhanging the sea, which in one place roars up beneath in a strange cavern, known as the Rumbling Churn. Lady Tankerville and I drew Queen Margaret's Tower, where she was concealed after the battle of Hexham, and then we picnicked and rambled about. Coming home we told stories. A tremendous shower came on, and then the sky cleared for a golden sunset over the mountains, and a splendid descent into the old deer-park."

"_Bamborough Castle, Sept. 12._--Yesterday, at four, we set off on a gipsy picnic from Chillingham--little 'Co' (Corisande) on a pony, with the tea-things in panniers; Lady Tankerville, a fat Mr.

Athelstane from Portugal, Charlie, Georgie, Peddie, and I walking.