“Next day Mr. Husband told the landlord of the hotel what had happened, when he said, ‘Your story is very extraordinary, because a young man, who was staying here for some time, and was treated by a doctor for a very slight ailment, died in that bed under very suspicious circumstances; and, as long as he was about, that young man was never seen out of lawn-tennis dress.’
“Afterwards Mr. Husband heard of that young Mr. Hyndeman from other people in Madeira. They remembered him perfectly. He was very silent and shunned all society, and he was never out of lawn-tennis dress.”
“Sept. 16.—A happy visit at cheerful merry Hardwick, which unites the charms of an interesting house, of exquisite gardens, and most varied and amusing society. There is a curious picture there of Elizabeth Drury reclining on her side with her hand under her head, which perhaps led to the story that she died of a box on the ear. She was a great friend of Wotton and of Donne, who wrote verses to her, and also her epitaph.”
“Sept. 19.—A visit to the Ordes at Hopton, in the flat marshy country near Yarmouth—a happy united family, with a very beautiful eldest daughter, Evelyn. Hopton village is the Blunderstone of ‘David Copperfield.’ Charlie Orde took me to Caister, the grandest fragment of a castle I ever saw—so very lofty a tower rising abruptly from the edge of a very wide moat. On Sunday we saw the great low-lying lake of Flitton, which belongs to one of the Buxtons.”
To Miss Leycester.
“Sept. 22.—On Monday I went to Sculthorpe, near Fakenham, where I saw the site of the old manor-house, part of the property which came to Bishop Hare through his marriage with Mary-Margaret Alston. It has the odd name of Hos Tendis. Only the foundation-walls exist now, with remains of the moat, overhung with old apple-trees. The church is a very fine one, and the existing manor-house, Cranmer, is an exceedingly handsome, pleasant house inside. Sir Laurence Jones, who lives there, had brought out quantities of old Hare and Alston deeds to show me: it was odd to see them there, but they had been sold with the property.
“My kind host, the Rector, Herbert Jones, the squire’s uncle, was the picture of old-fashioned courtesy. His wife, a Gurney, sister of Mrs. Orde at Hopton, is well known for her archaeological writings. They took me, with their niece Miss Laura Troubridge and her betrothed, Adrian Hope, to the beautiful old brick and terra-cotta house of Wolterton, with a very fine gateway.
“Yesterday we went to Houghton, in a well-timbered park—a house full of stately magnificence. The present Lord Cholmondeley has sold many of its treasures, but, though much has been taken away, it is especially interesting because nothing has been added since the time of Sir Robert Walpole. George, Lord Walpole, destroyed the grand staircase of the house, so that you now have to enter through the basement, instead of in state by the grand hall on the first floor, where Sir Robert and his companions used to carouse, and where the chairs which they used still remain, with the rings in the ceiling which supported the scales for weighing deer. The pictures are interesting—Sir Robert over and over again, with his beloved first wife, Catherine Shorter, and his inferior second wife Maria Skerret; his daughter and heiress, who brought the place to the Cholmondeleys; and his sister Dorothy, who still walks as a ghost at Rainham, where she was the wife of Lord Townshend, who is said to have walled her up in a spot where bones have been found, supposed to be hers.
“In one of the drawing-rooms is a glorious picture of the Duchess of Ancaster, who was sent to bring Princess Charlotte of Mecklenbourg-Strelitz to England when she came to marry George III. ‘Pug, pug, pug!’ cried the people when they saw her appearance as she was entering London. ‘Vat is dat they do say—poog?’ said the Princess, ‘vat means poog?’—‘Oh, that means, God bless your Majesty,’ promptly replied the Duchess, without the slightest hesitation. The pictures which are not portraits are wretched, chiefly bad copies.
“In the grounds is the little garden of Catherine, Lady Walpole, which in her time was surrounded by a yew hedge. Now the yews have grown into tall trees and are interweaving overhead above the little grassy circle.