“I give in,” he wrote to his “venerated” friend. “Never again will I address myself to the ignorant. . . . I will content myself with being the cause of an effect which will manifest itself years after I myself am dust.”
Harriet packed up all the remaining pamphlets and forwarded them to Miss Kitchener, who could have very well done without this “inflammable matter.”
Eliza folded up the crimson cloak, and the three apostles took the boat back to England.
⁂
The second part of their programme was now to be carried out, the house in Wales, where the “spiritual flock” could be brought together, and all problems solved. They thought they had found just the very thing, in the district where Shelley had stayed before his marriage. The wildness and beauty of the country attracted him. Near the house a mountain torrent brawled over the stones, and formed pools on which he had floated a little boat a foot long. His sail had been a £5 note: a terrified cat his passenger. He hoped that Miss Hitchener would persuade her father to come and farm the property of one hundred and thirty acres.
But the affair hung fire. The house was too dear. Mr. Hitchener, indignant at the Cuckfield slanders concerning Shelley and his daughter, refused to let her go to Nantgwillt. The school-teacher, proud of the invitation she had received, had very imprudently boasted of it to every one, and every one, led by Aunt Pilford, construed it in the worst possible way.
Once again was Shelley astounded by the world’s malignancy. He, who had run away with his wife, and made a Scotch love-marriage, how could anyone suppose he would be unfaithful to Harriet! The idea caused him such an overwhelming surprise that a less virtuous woman than Miss Hitchener might have been offended by it.
As for Mr. Hitchener, he got the treatment he merited. He, too, was a retired public-house keeper, for the gods seemed to delight in putting the crystalline Shelley in connection with “the trade.” “Sir,” he wrote to the lady’s father, “I have some difficulty in repressing my indignant astonishment on hearing that you refuse my invitation to your daughter. By what right? Who made you her master? . . . Neither the laws of Nature nor yet those of England have put children on the footing of personal property. . . . Adieu. When next I hear from you I hope that time will have liberalized your sentiments.”
⁂
As the Shelleys were going to leave Wales, Godwin mentioned to them a most desirable cottage which one of his friends wanted to let. His advice was always respected. Shelley and Harriet went to see the cottage and found it hopeless. The house was commonplace, scarcely finished and far too small for them. But, on their way back from this useless journey, they discovered a very picturesque village. Thirty cottages with thatched roofs covered with climbing roses and myrtles, formed the delightful hamlet of Lynmouth. By a miracle, one of the cottages was to let. It was the best situated, above a wooded gorge. From the windows you looked down upon the sea, three hundred feet below. They instantly decided to settle there “for ever.”