I always found the Shropshire lanes infinitely more amusing than those at Hurstmonceaux. Beyond the dirty village where we used to go to visit "Molly Latham and Hannah Berry" was a picturesque old water-mill, of which Grandpapa had many sketches. Then out of the hedge came two streamlets through pipes, which to me had all the beauty of waterfalls. Close to the Terne stood a beautiful old black and white farmhouse called Petsey. The Hodnet Lane (delightfully productive of wool), which ran in front of it, led also to Cotton, a farmhouse on a hill, whither my mother often went to visit "Anne Beacoll," and which was infinitely amusing to me. At the corner of the farmyard was a gigantic stone, of which I wonder to this day how it got there, which Grandpapa always told me to put in my pocket. But I liked best of all to beguile my mother in another direction through a muddy lane, in which we were half swamped, to Helshore, for there, on a promontory above the little river, where she remembered an old house in her childhood, the crocuses and polyanthuses of the deserted garden were still to be found in spring under the moss-grown apple-trees.
My grandparents and my mother dined at six. The dining-room had two pillars, and I was allowed to remain in the room and play behind them noiselessly: generally acting knights and heroes out of my ballad-books. At Hurstmonceaux I should have been punished at once if I ever made a noise, but at Stoke, if I was betrayed into doing so, which was not very often, Grannie would say, "Never mind the child, Maria, it is only innocent play." I can hear her tone now. Sometimes when "Uncle Ned" (the Bishop of Norwich) came, he used to tell me the story of Mrs. Yellowly, cutting an orange like an old lady's face, and "how Mrs. Yellowly went to sea," with results quite shocking—which may be better imagined than described. In the dining-room were two framed prints of the death of Lord Chatham (from Copley's picture) and of Lord Nelson, in which the multitude of figures always left something to be discovered. At the end of the room was a "horse"—a sort of stilted chair on high springs, for exercise on wet days.
In the evenings my mother used to read aloud to her old parents. Miss Strickland's "Queens of England" came out then, and were all read aloud in turn. If I found the book beyond my comprehension, I was allowed, till about six years old, to amuse myself with some ivory fish, which I believe were intended for card-markers. Occasionally Margaret, the housemaid, read aloud, and very well too. She also sang beautifully, having been thoroughly well trained by Mrs. Leycester, and I never hear the Collect "Lord of all power and might" without thinking of her. Grannie was herself celebrated for reading aloud, having been taught by Mrs. Siddons, with whom her family were very intimate, and she gave me the lessons she had received, making me repeat the single line, "The quality of Mercy is not strained," fifty or sixty times over, till I had exactly the right amount of intonation on each syllable, her delicate ear detecting the slightest fault. Afterwards I was allowed to read—to devour—an old brown copy of "Percy's Reliques," and much have I learnt from those noble old ballads. How cordially I agree with Professor Shairp, who said that if any one made serious study of only two books—Percy's "Reliques" and Scott's "Minstrelsy"—he would "give himself the finest, freshest, most inspiring poetic education that is possible in our age."
My mother's "religion" made her think reading any novel, or any kind of work of fiction, absolutely wicked at this time, but Grannie took in "Pickwick," which was coming out in numbers. She read it by her dressing-room fire with closed doors, and her old maid, Cowbourne, well on the watch against intruders—"elle prenait la peine de s'en divertir avec tout le respect du monde;" and I used to pick the fragments out of the waste-paper basket, piece them together, and read them too.
Sundays were far less horrid at Stoke than at home, for Grannie generally found something for me to do. Most primitive were the church services, very different indeed from the ritualism which has reigned at Stoke since, and which is sufficient to bring the old grandparents out of their graves. In our day the Rectory-pew bore a carved inscription—
God prosper ye Kynge long in thys lande
And grant that Papystrie never have ye vper hande,
but the present Rector has removed it.
I can see the congregation still in imagination, the old women in their red cloaks and large black bonnets; the old men with their glistening brass buttons, and each with his bunch of southern-wood—"old man"—to snuff at. In my childhood the tunes of the hymns were always given with a pitch-pipe. "Dame Dutton's School" used to be ranged round the altar, and the grand old alabaster tomb of Sir Reginald Corbet, and if any of the children behaved ill during the service, they were turned up and soundly whipped then and there, their outcries mingling oddly with the responses of the congregation. But in those days, now considered so benighted, there was sometimes real devotion. People sometimes said real prayers even in church, before the times since which the poor in village churches are so frequently compelled to say their prayers to music. The curates always came to luncheon at the Rectory on Sundays. They were always compelled to come in ignominiously at the back door, lest they should dirty the entrance: only Mr. Egerton was allowed to come in at the front door, because he was "a gentleman born." How Grannie used to bully the curates! They were expected not to talk at luncheon, if they did they were soon put down. "Tea-table theology" was unknown in those days. As soon as the curates had swallowed a proper amount of cold veal, they were called upon to "give an account to Mrs. Leycester" of all that they had done in the week in the four quarters of the parish—Eton, Ollerton, Wistanswick, and Stoke—and soundly were they rated if their actions did not correspond with her intentions. After the curates, came the school-girls to practise their singing, and my mother was set down to strum the piano by the hour together as an accompaniment, while Grannie occupied herself in seeing that they opened their mouths wide enough, dragging the mouths open by force, and, if they would not sing properly, putting her fingers so far down their throats that she made them sick. One day, when she was doing this, Margaret Beeston bit her violently. Mr. Egerton was desired to talk to her afterwards about the wickedness of her conduct. "How could you be such a naughty girl, Margaret, as to bite Mrs. Leycester?"—"What'n her put her fingers down my throat for? oi'll boite she harder next time," replied the impenitent Margaret.
Grannie used to talk of chaney (china), laylocks (lilacs), and gould (gold): of the Prooshians and the Rooshians: of things being "plaguey dear" or "plaguey bad." In my childhood, however, half my elders used such expressions, which now seem to be almost extinct. "Obleege me by passing the cowcumber," Uncle Julius always used to say.