The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6

by Augustus J. C. Hare

“I spent the last three days of my absence with Hugh Pearson in his canonry at Windsor, a delightful old house overlooking the steep ascent of the hill, where different members of the royal family are constantly dropping in to visit the dearest man in the world, as the princesses of George III.’s time did to visit Mrs. Delany—and no wonder!

“Willie Stephens[325] and I had much interesting talk with the beloved H. Pearson; after being with other people, there is an ease in talking to him which is like exchanging a frock-coat for a shooting-coat.

“On Friday poor Prince Alemayu of Abyssinia (King Theodore’s son) was buried in Windsor Castle. After he came from Abyssinia the Queen adopted him, and he had no one else to look to, for his mother died of consumption on her way to England, and his only other near relation, his uncle, the present King, would certainly have cut his head off at once if he had returned to Abyssinia. He was at Rugby at Jex Blake’s house, and then at a private tutor’s to prepare him for the army, but he always passed his holidays in the castle with Lady Biddulph, and was like a younger brother to Victor Biddulph, her son. Every one liked him. Lately he had been at a tutor’s near Leeds, where he became ill of inflammation of the lungs, probably rapid consumption. Lady Biddulph did not believe in the danger, but Mrs. Jex Blake went to him, and her account of his last hours was most touching. He said to her, ‘No doubts: no doubts at all,’ and then he died.

“On Thursday he was brought to Windsor, and we went to look at his coffin in the little mortuary chapel, draped with black and white, in front of Princess Charlotte’s monument.

“The funeral was at twelve on Friday. The chapel was full. Most exquisitely beautiful was the singing—the gradual swell of ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’ as the procession formed at the west door and moved slowly up the nave into the choir. The coffin was piled with flowers upon a violet and white pall. Lady Biddulph and her children knelt on one side. Prince Christian, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (as guardian of the Prince), and Mr. Lowe were amongst the mourners. The Dead March was played most grandly as the procession moved out again to the little graveyard by the west door, where the snow had fallen thick upon the flowers by which the newly-made grave was surrounded.

“I have heard a very eerie story from Lady Waterford:—There is a place in Scotland called Longmacfergus. Mr. and Mrs. Spottiswoode lived there, who were the father and mother of Lady John Scott, and they vouched for the story. The villagers of Longmacfergus are in the habit of going to do their marketing at the little town of Dunse, and though their nearest way home would be by crossing the burn at a point called ‘the Foul Ford,’ they always choose another and longer way by preference, for the Foul Ford is always looked upon as haunted. There was a farmer who lived in Longmacfergus, and who was highly respected, and very well-to-do. One night his wife was expecting him back from the market at Dunse, and he did not appear. Late and long she waited and he did not come, but at last, after midnight, when she was very seriously alarmed, he knocked violently at the door and she let him in. She was horrified to see his wild and agonised expression, and the awful change which had taken place in his whole aspect since they parted. He told her that he had come home by the Foul Ford, and that he must rue the day and the way, for he must die before morning. He begged her to send for the minister, for he must see him at once. She was terrified at his state, and implored him rather to send for the doctor, but he said, ‘No, the minister—the minister was the only person who could do him any good.’ However, being a wise woman, she sent for both minister and doctor. When the doctor came, he said he could do nothing for the man, the case was past his cure, but the minister spent several hours with the farmer. Before morning he died, and what he said that night to the minister never was told till many years after.

“Naturally the circumstances of the farmer’s, death made the inhabitants of Longmacfergus regard the Foul Ford with greater terror than before, and for a few years no one attempted to use it. At last, however, there came a day when the son of the dead farmer was persuaded to linger longer than usual drinking at Dunse, and after being twitted by his comrades for cowardice in not returning the shortest way, he determined to risk it, and set out with a brave heart. That night his wife sat watching in vain for his return, and she watched in vain till morning, for he never came back. In the morning the neighbours went to search for him, and he was found lying dead on the bank above the Foul Ford, and—it is a foolish fact perhaps, but it has always been narrated as a fact incidental to the story, that—though there were no marks of violence upon his person, and though his coat was on, his waistcoat was off and lying by the side of his body upon the grass; his watch and his money were left intact in his pockets.

“After his funeral the minister said to the assembled mourners and parishioners, that now that the second death had occurred of the son, he thought that he should be justified in revealing the substance of the strange confession which the father had made on the night he died. He said that he had crossed the wooden bridge of the Foul Ford, and was coming up the brae on the other side, when he met a procession of horsemen dressed in black, riding two and two upon black horses. As they came up, he saw amongst them, to his horror, every one he had known amongst his neighbours of Longmacfergus, and who were already dead. But the man who rode last—the last man who had died—was leading a riderless horse. As he came up, he dismounted by the farmer’s side, and said that the horse was for him. The farmer refused to mount, and all his former neighbours tried to force him on to the horse. They had a deadly struggle, in which at last the farmer seemed to get the better, for the horseman rode away, leading the riderless horse, but he said, ‘Never mind, you will want it before morning.’ And before morning he was dead.”

It was with a feeling of strangeness that, in the autumn of 1879, I felt that my royal duties were over. I did not see the Prince of Sweden again after his return from Scotland.