“S. Nectaire le Haut, June 28.—It was dark and raining in torrents before we arrived here, and the driver suddenly announced not only that he had lost his way, but that one of our wheels was likely to come off! We were skirting a precipice by a rocky road without any parapet, and at last, by holding the carriage lamps low, found that we had somehow got into a very ancient churchyard, where stone coffins were strewn all about. At last we knocked up a woman at a farmhouse, who guided us back to the hotel, which we had long passed in the dark. This is an enchanting place, beautifully situated in a wooded gorge below the old romanesque church, where the Sunday congregation—from many far-away villages—winding up the hill with baskets of food for the day, has been most picturesque. There are lovely walks in all directions, and Switzerland at its best never had more beautiful flowers, fields covered with lilies, orchis, narcissus, globe ranunculus, pansies, pinks, &c.”
“Le Croisic, July 17.—At this little fishing-town there is no fine scenery, but it is most artistically lovely, with wide views over the grey reaches of sea and yellow sandy flats to the soft hills, and endless fishing-boats with red sails and nets.
“Yesterday we spent the day at La Guerande, a little unaltered mediaeval town above the salt-flats; a very superior Winchelsea, described in Balzac’s wonderful novel of ‘Beatrix.’”
I returned to England on August 7th, just in time to attend Alwyne Greville’s wedding in London. In September I paid the Eustace Cecils a visit, and then went to the Spencer Smiths at Kingston near Wareham.
To Miss Leycester.
“Sept. 17.—It was a great pleasure to find Sir Howard and Lady Elphinstone at the Eustace Cecils’. I like them both so very much. They say the Queen is much occupied in learning Hindustanee and speaks it now quite well—a great delight to her Indian subjects. She has three Indian servants in constant attendance, and converses fluently with them. This afternoon has been delightful, with Mrs. Spencer Smith and her children, at St. Alban’s (St. Aldhelm’s) Head. In the little hollow with stone cottages on the way thither a boy opened a gate for us whose name was Sagittary Clump. The name came from his parents’ lodger, but it must have had its origin in Sagittarius. Mrs. Spencer Smith spoke to the boy’s father about his daughter’s misconduct. ‘I can’t help it,’ he said; ‘I’d given her her documents,’ meaning that he had spoken to her seriously: Shakspeare uses ‘documents’ in the same sense. Walking up the hill, we were terribly bitten by harvest-bugs, which little Michael Smith poetically called ‘Ces petites bêtes rouges dans les fleurs bleues’ (harebells). Close to the coastguard station, near the edge of the cliff, is a tiny chapel, perfectly square, supported by a single pillar, and with only one wee romanesque window, so that almost all the light comes from the open door: however, there is only service here in summer. A monk of Sherborne Abbey was always kept here to toll a bell to warn off ships, whilst he prayed for the shipwrecked. Seven little children aged from three to four came up to us while we were drawing. ‘We be going to throw ourselves over the cliff, we be: we be going to smash ourselves quite up, we be,’ the little monsters announced to their mothers, as they all seven marched away arm-in-arm to the edge of the cliff. Then ‘little sister’ made ‘Ernest’ sit down upon a thistle, at which ‘Ernest’ roared; and finally the mother caught up Ernest and carried it off, ‘little sister’ whacking its little naked behind with a stick all the way as they went. Then a young Palgrave appeared, who took the Spencer Smith children down to a wreck in Chapman’s (Shipman’s) Bay, to their great delight. There were seven parrots saved from that ship, but one was lost which was prepared for death by being able to say the Lord’s Prayer straight through. We went afterwards to the desolate village of Worth, where, in the wind-stricken rectory, the clergyman and his wife see no one for five months of the year, and have to shout into each other’s ears to be audible in the roaring winter blast. The church has a Saxon arch, and in its graveyard two stone sarcophagi, one that of a child-abbot, with an incised crosier lying upon it; also the gravestone, of Mr. ‘Jessy,’ ‘who, by his great courage, innoculated his wife and two sons from the (cow)’—sic. He rode up to London with saddle-bags to give his experience to the Government. The Dorsetshire here is pure Anglo-Saxon: King Alfred spoke Dorsetshire. The people are very long-lived; at Steeple in Purbeck there have only been four rectors since the time of Charles I. Three Messrs. Bond have lasted 160 years, and an old Mrs. Ross of 101 drives up this hill in a dogcart to visit her old servant of ninety-four in the village. In church the clerk said ‘Stand in a wee (awe) and sin not!’”