My grandmother writes to my father, 13 September 1845—“When in Exeter four weeks since, I went to see the trains go off for London: the first time of my seeing anything of the kind.” My grandfather writes to him, 16 May 1852—“I hope we shall have a fine day, as your mother never was at Torquay, and I not for near thirty years.” He was sixty-three then, and she was seventy. Torquay is fifteen miles from here, and neither of them had ever lived more than thirty miles away.
Such immobility seemed strange to me not many years ago, but now I have come down to it myself. I have not been out of Devon since 1914, or rather, I have not been out of Devon ’ceptin’ Axter town, as people used to say. Henry the Eighth took Exeter out of Devon and made it a county by itself. In old conveyances of land in Devon, e.g. of part of Lower Wreyland in 1728, the covenant for Further Assurance often has the words “so as for the doing thereof the persons comprehended within this covenant be not compelled or compellable to travel out of the county of Devon unless it be to the citie of Exon.”
When my grandfather went anywhere, it was to London or abroad. Like everybody else, he went up for the Great Exhibition and thoroughly enjoyed it, but he had grave doubts beforehand. He writes to my father, 3 April 1851—“I see both Houses of Parliament are rather uneasy about so many foreigners being in London. They appear to be of the very worst stamp.... Hope all will go off well, but to my mind an ill-judged thing and not likely to answer any good purpose, this Great Exhibition.” There was plenty of such talk just then, and some little reason for it. England was sheltering a good many foreigners who had rebelled against their governments in 1848, and some of these foreigners had a notion of paying for their shelter by organising a rebellion here, beginning with assassinations at the opening of the Exhibition on May Day. With the wisdom that comes after the event, Punch made fun of it, 10 May, but was not so very sure of it three weeks before.
As a small boy I read Punch diligently, and thereby stocked my memory with facts that history-books ignore. My brother had read it more diligently still; but my grandfather did not see the value of it, though my father did. In a letter of 12 June 1853 my grandfather explains—“My object in giving him the Bible was to get rid of Punch out of his head. Punch may be well enough for grown people, but surely very improper as a foundation for a young child.” But he found that a young child asked more embarrassing questions after studying the Bible than after studying Punch.
In a letter of 17 July 1852 he mentions that my sister had just received a present of a doll “nicely dressed in the Bloomer fashion,” that is, short skirts with trousers underneath, and other male things to match. Without those caricatures of it in Punch few people now would know what Bloomerism was.
Somebody made me a present of an air-ball when I was very young. This was at a house near town; and, as the drawing-room was empty, I took it in there, and was playing with it on the hearth-rug, when a draught caught it away from me and carried it up the chimney. I went out to watch the chimney-top, but was very soon fetched in again to be introduced to some old ladies who had come to call. They found the room a little draughty, so a door was shut, and thereupon the air-ball came down from the chimney, with a layer of soot all over it. It alighted on the hearth-rug, rose again, and made a series of jumps, each lower and shorter than the last, but all in a straight line towards one of those old ladies. I was just reckoning that two more jumps would land it in her lap, when she gave a shriek, upset her chair, and retreated backwards to the draughty door, forgetting that it had been shut. And she came up against the door so hard that she sat down upon the floor, with that little black devil still jumping on towards her.
Another old lady whom we knew, had heaps of very nice lace; and she wore dresses that would make the most of it. Seated in a bergère chair before her drawing-room fire, she was a sight to see. One day she was not in her accustomed place, and she told us what had happened. Her next-door neighbours had not had their kitchen-chimney swept, and it caught fire most alarmingly. It was next to her drawing-room chimney; and in the clouds of smoke the firemen mistook the two, and poured their buckets down hers. A torrent of sooty water burst forth from the fire-place and overwhelmed her in her chair.
I never saw the chimney-sweeping boys go up the chimneys here, though my brother had seen them going up; but he was here a great deal more than I was. There was never any difficulty or danger in going up the chimneys here, as they are big enough for full-grown men: when the Hall House was being renovated seven years ago, some passers-by were much surprised by a mason putting his head out of a chimney-top and asking them to take a message to the village for him. The chimneys are built of unsquared stones held together by cement: the modern sweeping-brushes often bring down bits of the cement, leaving crannies that fill up with soot: some day the soot bursts into flame, and sets fire to the woodwork near the chimney; and that is why so many old houses have been burnt in recent years.
Writing from here on 3 February 1845, my grandfather tells my father that “Mr ***** came on Saturday, his two little dogs with him, which so worried little Gracey that she ran under the clock, and on the dogs approaching, she ran up the chain as far as the works and stopped the clock.” (When the mouse ran up the clock, it probably went up the chain, as Gracey did, not up outside the case, as shown in certain picture-books.) “On taking away the dogs, I opened the door of the clock, and she jumped out and away and would not come near the house for some time.” It was a ‘grandfather’ clock, and Gracey was a cat. There was always a cat called Gracey here. My brother made a pedigree of Gracies, showing the descent in female line with the collateral branches; and this ‘little’ Gracey comes in there as ‘Peter’s niece.’
My sister writes to my grandmother, 29 January 1851, “Brother Henry and I went to a party on Tuesday evening. We danced and saw a magic lantern, and there was a German tree, and many nice things to eat. We enjoyed it all very much, and did not get ill after it.” At that date a Christmas tree was still a novelty, and was called a German tree, as the fashion came from Germany.