We spent an interesting afternoon at Brugg, and drew at Königsfelden, where the Emperor Albert's tomb is left deserted and neglected in a stable, and Queen Agnes's room remains highly picturesque, with many relics of her. In the evening we had a lovely walk through the forest to Hapsburg, where we saw a splendid sunset from the hill of the old castle. With a glimpse at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, we reached Carlsruhe, with which we were very agreeably surprised. The Schloss Garten is really pretty, with fine trees and fountains: the town is bright and clean; and all around is the forest with its endless pleasant paths. We found dear Madame de Bunsen established with her daughters Frances and Emilia in a nice old-fashioned house, 18 Waldhornstrasse, with all their pictures and treasures around them, the fine bust of Mrs. Waddington in itself giving the room a character. Circling round the aunts were Theodora von Ungern Sternberg's five motherless children, a perpetual life-giving influence to the home. We went with them into the forest and to the faisanerie, and picked masses of wild lilies of the valley. In the palace gardens we saw the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, a very handsome couple: she the only daughter of the King of Prussia. At the station also I saw again, and for the last time, the very pleasing Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, and presented the Bunsens to her.[329] On the eve of Trinity Sunday we reached home.
From my JOURNAL.
"July 30, 1866.—Holmhurst.—Another happy summer! How different my grown-up-hood has been to my boyhood: now all sunshine, then all reproach and misery. How strange it is that my dearest mother remembers nothing of those days, nothing of those years of bitter heartache which my uncles' wives cost me. But her present love, her beautiful full heart devotion, are all free-will offering, not sacrifice of atonement. Our little Holmhurst is most lovely and peaceful."
In August we spent a fortnight at the Deanery at Westminster with Arthur and Augusta Stanley, the latter fit les delices of all who came under her influence, and both were most kind in asking every one to meet us that they thought we could be interested to see. To me, however, no one was ever half so interesting as Arthur himself, and his conversation at these small Deanery dinner-parties was most delightful, though, as I have heard another say, and perhaps justly, "it was always versatile rather than accurate, brilliant rather than profound." From London we went to look after our humble friends at Alton, where all the villagers welcomed my mother with a most touching wealth of evergreen love, and where forty old people came to supper by her invitation in the barn. The owls hissed overhead in the oak rafters; the feast was lighted by candles stuck into empty ginger-beer bottles, and in quavering voices they all drank the mother's health. She made them a sweet little speech, praying that all those who were there might meet with her at the great supper of the Lamb. I had much interest at Alton in finding out those particulars which form the account of the place in "Memorials of a Quiet Life." The interest of the people, utterly unspoilt by "civilisation," can hardly be described, or the simplicity of their faith. Speaking of her long troubles and illness, "Betty Smith" said, "I ha' been sorely tried, but it be a' to help I on to thick there place." William Pontyn said, "It just be a comfort to I to know that God Almighty's always at whom: He never goes out on a visit." Their use of fine words is very comical. Old Pontyn said, "My son-in-law need na treat I ill, for I niver gied un no publication for it." He thanked mother for her "respectable gift," and said, "I do thank God ivery morning and ivery night, that I do; and thank un as I may, I niver can thank un enough, He be so awful good to I." He said the noise the threshing-machine made when out of order was "fierly ridic'lous," and that he was "fierly gallered (frightened) at it"—that he was "obliged to flagellate the ducks to get them out of the pond."
I drove with Mr. Pile to see the remains of Wolf Hall, on the edge of Savernake Forest, where Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour. The house, once of immense size, is nearly destroyed. The roof of the banqueting-hall is now the roof of a barn. The beautiful fragment of building remaining was once the laundry. Hard by, at Burbage, is "Jane Seymour's Pool."
After leaving Alton, as if making the round of my mother's old homes, we went to Buntingsdale, Hodnet, and Stoke. While at the former, I remember the Tayleurs being full of the promptitude of old Mrs. Massie (whose son Edward married our cousin Sophy Mytton). When above ninety she had been taken to see the church of Northwich, where some one pointed out to her a gravestone with the epitaph—
"Some have children, and some have none;
Here lies the mother of twenty-one."
Old Mrs. Massie drew herself up to her full height and at once made this impromptu—