“In returning home, I lingered one day with my kind friend E. Mathews at Sonning. I had often longed to go there on a pilgrimage to dear Hugh Pearson’s grave, and never before been able. What a lovely village it is, with its old red roofs nestling under tufted trees, and how fragrant is the beloved memory of the true pastor who gave himself so royally for his people. ‘Go and break it to my family,’ were his first words when told he could not live, meaning by his family his parishioners, the people in the village, who loved him so, and amongst whom he was almost ideally happy, for he was not only always striving to do good for the poor and helpless, but was successful in doing it.
‘His virtues walked their humble round,
Nor knew a pause, nor felt a void,
And sure the Eternal Master found
His single talent well employ’d.’[592]
“My volume on ‘Shropshire’ has come out—another book-child launched into public life.”
To W. H. Milligan, and Journal.
“Belvoir Castle, Nov. 18, 1898.—I have been with my dear Lowthers at Campsea Ashe, enjoying their large party of pleasant musicianers, Countess Valda Gleichen, radiant Mrs. Arkwright of the lovely voice, &c., but enjoying much more two quiet days with the family when the others were gone. Mrs. L. took me to Crowe Hall, a moated house with a delightful old lady-farmeress, of the hard-working high-thinking type, so familiar in my boyhood, but almost extinct in these days of over-dressed, gig-driving, pianoforte-strumming minxes.
“One of those kind and characteristic telegrams of the Duchess of Rutland, extending over a whole page, has brought me here, where there is a large party too, almost entirely composed of the Duke’s innumerable nephews and nieces. As I do not either shoot or care for the regular evening ball in the gallery, what I like best is the daily walk with the Duke and Duchess, meeting them in the hall as the clock strikes 12.15, and wandering in the wood walks or on the nearer terraces, already fragrant with violets, listening to the Duke’s reminiscences of his own past and Belvoir’s past, always of endless interest. How I pity my host and hostess in their over-anxious cares about their immense estates; but they must be comforted themselves by the pleasure they are able to give. Sightseers are admitted always, and the great Midland towns daily pour their legions into these beautiful woods: they do no harm and behave wonderfully well, but one almost feels as if the public, who most enjoy it, ought to help to keep up the place. In the case of Belvoir, the scourge of the death-duties affects what is the pleasaunce of thousands.
“I went with Mrs. G. Drummond to Bottesford, where there is such a grand series of monuments of the Earls of Rutland and their families, including one of some children who died by witchcraft. Their nurse was condemned to be burnt for it, but said, ‘If I am guilty, may this bit of bread choke me,’ and it did! The Duchess Elizabeth, who made all the charming walks here, moved all the Dukes to her new mausoleum in the Belvoir woods, but she left the Earls at Bottesford.
“Hearing of her again here has recalled much that Lady Waterford used to tell me of the Duchess Isabella, who was called ‘Was a bella’ in her later years. She used to describe the painting of her fine portrait by Sir Joshua, how he would rush forward and look closely into her eyes, take her well in, and then go as far back as possible and look at the general effect in a distant glass, chiefly making his picture from that. Lady Adeliza Manners once met a very beautiful peasant girl near Belvoir, very beautiful except that she had lost one of her best front teeth. ‘What a misfortune,’ said Lady A.; ‘how could it have happened?’—‘Oh, the Duchess (Isabella) had lost one of her front teeth, so she forced me to have mine taken out to replace it.’
“I wonder if you went to Harlaxton when you were here—the immense modern house by Blomfield, of which a most pleasant Mr. Pearson Gregory suddenly found himself the heir from a godfather. He was staying at the castle and took me there. When the Empress Frederick was here, she admired it beyond words, but I did not: it is magnificent, but too heavy, and the staircase very dark. Outside there are garden-staircases and fountains, which are really beautiful, almost worthy of the Villa Aldobrandini. There is a picture of a De Ligne baby, the heir of the place, whose cradle was put too close to the fire: a coal flew out, and it was burnt to death. The village is rendered infinitely picturesque by stone wells and portals made from fragments of a recently destroyed moated manor-house, of which only the gateway is left.
“There is a great charm in being made a sharer in what Disraeli called ‘the sustained splendour of a stately life,’ but much of the pleasure of a great country-house depends upon whom it falls to your lot to take down to dinner, and the Duchess attends to this with careful cleverness. I was especially amused by one sentence in that delightful ‘Isabel Carnaby’—‘There is one good thing in getting married. You know then that, whatever happens, there is one woman you will never have to take in to dinner again as long as you live.’