“June 17.—To Lady Airlie to meet Miss Farrer and Emmeline Erskine—a long talk quietly about spirituality and the Quietists. Miss Farrer told me first-hand a story I have often heard before:—
“Her brother knew well a shopkeeper in Plymouth, who felt one day, he could not tell why, that he must go to Bodmin. To get there, it was necessary that he should cross a ferry. It was late at night, and he expected to have great difficulty in getting across, but, to his amazement, he found the boat ready for him. The ferryman said, ‘I am ready, because you called me an hour ago.’
“When the shopkeeper reached Bodmin, the town was full of crowds and confusion; the assizes were going on. He made his way to the court. A man was being tried for murder, and likely to be condemned. He protested his innocence in vain, and in an agony was just saying, ‘I was in Plymouth at the time, if I could only prove it.’ The shopkeeper was just in time to hear him, and exclaim, ‘I can prove it, my Lord; I remember the prisoner perfectly: he came into my shop at the very time in question.’ And it saved the man’s life.
“Emmeline told of Mr. Richmond’s little children, who, playing in a long almost dark gallery, saw their dead mother standing at the end, and went to their father and told him, ‘Mama is come back.’ An open cistern was found at the spot where they had seen her.”
“June 18.—Dined with the Owen Grants. At ninety-three old Lord Kilmorey is dying. He took his immense drives as usual till a few days ago. Then, returning from one of them, he sent for George Higginson and Owen Grant, and said, ‘Now I am going to die; I think it is time, and I wish you to stay with me to the end.’ They sent for the doctor, who persistently declared that Lord Kilmorey had nothing whatever the matter with him. They remonstrated as to the pain it would give to many. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘yes, my sister Georgiana, perhaps she will feel it; I will wait till I have seen her.’ And he waited till he had seen old Lady Georgiana, talked to her very affectionately, took leave of her, and since then has eaten nothing.”
“June 20.—Lord Kilmorey died to-day.”
“June 24.—With the Mark Woods to Charlton, the fine old house of Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, near Greenwich. It was built by James I. for his son Prince Henry, and is in wonderful keeping with its surroundings of broad terraces, old pine-trees, &c. In the richly polished chimney-piece of one of the rooms, a lady while dressing is said to have seen a murder reflected while it was being committed in the park, and her evidence to have found the man guilty.”
“June 26.—In the evening I was at the Speaker’s party. His beautiful rooms were additionally illuminated by the glare from a great fire on the opposite bank of the river. The bridge, and the chain of omnibuses and cabs, with their roofs crowded with the black figures of spectators, and the background of flames, gave the whole scene the aspect of the Devil’s funeral with appropriate fireworks. In a great hooded car, nodding against the flame, the Devil’s widow seemed to follow. We watched from the windows for nearly two hours—inside, bright uniforms, low dresses, glistening diamonds: outside, flames and a black shimmering river. At last the fire-engines got the victory, a roof fell in, the glare began to fade, the bereaved demons returned from the ceremony, and the illuminations were extinguished. No human life was lost, only the two great bloodhounds which were the guards of the timber-yard, and which for years have gained the prize in every dog-show.”
“June 29.—Lady Lucy Grant had a pleasant party in her pretty garden. Old Madame Mohl was there, a wreck, but a curious reminiscence of the past. In the little garden-studio Miss Grant’s reredos for Edinburgh Cathedral was lighted up. In the main features it is fine, but the women are all exactly the same height as the men, and all the figures stand in a line, with an equal amount of individuality, too little occupied with each other.”
“July 7.—Dinner at Lord Ducie’s. I was delighted to sit once more by Madame de Riaño[348] and enjoy the flow of her ever-fresh originality.”