Our childhood was varied by a good deal of migration. We were regularly taken each year about May to our father’s London house, 37 Portman Square, where we entertained our various cousins at tea-parties and visited them in return. We were generally taken in the autumn to some seaside place such as Brighton, Hastings, Rhyl, or the Isle of Wight. We estimated the merits of each resort largely according to the amount of sand which it afforded us to dig in, and I think Shanklin in the Isle of Wight took the foremost place in our affections.

A NARROW ESCAPE

Two years, however, had specially delightful autumns, for in each of these our father took a moor in Scotland—once Kingairloch and the second time Strontian. On each occasion I accompanied my parents; to Kingairloch, Gilbert (Gilly he was always called) came also—the second year he spent half the time with us and then returned to his tutor and Agnes, and Dudley took his place for the remainder of our stay. How we enjoyed the fishing, bathing in the loch, and paddling in the burns! Everyone who has spent the shooting season in Scotland knows all about it, and our experiences, though absolutely delightful, did not differ much from other people’s. These visits were about 1860 and 1861. The railroad did not extend nearly so far as at present and the big travelling-carriage again came into play. One day it had with considerable risk to be conveyed over four ferries and ultimately to be driven along a mountainous road after dark. As far as I remember we had postilions—certainly the charioteer or charioteers had had as much whisky as was good for them, with the result that the back wheels of the heavy carriage went right over the edge of a precipice. The servants seated behind the carriage gave themselves over for lost—we children were half-asleep inside and unconscious of our peril, when the horses made a desperate bound forward and dragged the carriage back on to the road. We were taken later to see the place with the marks of the wheels still plain on the rocky edge—and young as we were could quite realise what we had escaped. Both shooting lodges were situated in the midst of the lovely mountain scenery of North Argyllshire, possibly Kingairloch was the more beautiful of the two. One day from dawn to eve the mountains echoed and re-echoed with the plaintive bleating of flocks, and we were told that it was because the lambs were taken from their mothers. I still possess some verses which my mother wrote on that occasion, and transcribe them to show that she had a strong poetic as well as artistic vein:

“Far over the mountains and over the corries
Echoed loud wailings and bleatings the day
When from the side of the mothers that loved them
The lambs at Kingairloch were taken away.
“Vainly, poor mothers, ye watch in the valley
The nook where your little ones gambolled before,
Vainly ye climb to the heights of the mountains—
They answer you not, and shall answer no more!
“Never again from that stream-silvered hill-side,
Seeking fresh grass betwixt harebell and heather,
Shall you and your lambkins look back on Loch Corry,
Watching the flight of the sea-bird together.
“No more, when the storm, striking chords on the mountains,
Drives down the thick mists their tall summits to hide,
Shall you give the sweet gift of a mother’s protection
To the soft little creatures crouched down by your side.

“Past the sweet peril! and gone the sweet pleasure!—
Well might the echoes tell sadly that day
The plaint of the mothers that cried at Kingairloch
The day that the lambs were taken away.”

Visits to Scotland included sojourns at Ardgowan, the home of our uncle and aunt Sir Michael and Lady Octavia Shaw-Stewart on the Clyde. Aunt Occy, as we called her, was probably my mother’s favourite sister—in any case her children were our favourite cousins on the Grosvenor side, and we loved our many visits to Ardgowan both when we went to the moors and in after years. There were excursions on the hills and bathing in the salt-water of the Clyde, fishing from boats, and shells to be collected on the beach. Also my uncle had a beautiful yacht in which he took us expeditions towards Arran and to Loch Long from which we were able to go across the mountain pass to Loch Lomond.

My grandmother Lady Leigh died in 1860, before which time she used to pay lengthened visits to Stoneleigh accompanied by three or four unmarried daughters. She was a fine handsome old lady. Her hair had turned white when she was about thirty-two, but, as old ladies did in those days, she wore a brown front with a black velvet band. She had a masterful temper and held her daughters in considerable awe, but, after the manner of grandparents, was very kind to us. I fancy that so many unmarried sisters-in-law may have been a slight trial to my mother, but we regarded our aunts as additional playfellows bound to provide us with some kind of amusement. The favourite was certainly “Aunt Georgy,” the youngest daughter but one. She had an unfailing flow of spirits, could tell stories and join in games, and never objected to our invasion of her room at any time. Poor “Aunt Gussie” (Augusta) was less fortunate: she had bad health and would scold us to make us affectionate—an unsuccessful method to say the least of it—the natural result was, I fear, that we teased her whenever opportunity offered. Aunt Georgie was very good-looking and I believe much admired. She did not, however, marry till she was about forty. A Colonel Newdigate, whose runaway horse she had stopped when quite a girl, had fallen in love with her and wanted to marry her. She persistently refused and he married someone else. When his wife died, he returned to his first affection and ultimately melted my Aunt’s heart. She had no children of her own, but was a good stepmother to his only son—now Sir Frank Newdegate, Governor of West Australia.

LIFE AT STONELEIGH

Stoneleigh offered every possible amusement to children—long galleries and passages to race up and down, a large hall for battledore and shuttlecock and other games, parks and lawns for riding and cricket, and the River Avon at the bottom of the garden for fishing and boating, not to mention skating in hard winters. People are apt to talk and write as if “Early Victorian” and “Mid-Victorian” children were kept under strict control and made to treat their elders with respectful awe. I cannot recall any undue restraint in our case. As I have already said, our mother was an influence which no one would have attempted to resist, but she never interfered with any reasonable happiness or amusement. Our father was the most cheerful of companions, loving to take us about to any kind of sights or entertainments which offered, and buying us toys and presents on every possible occasion. The only constraint put upon us, which is not often used with the modern child, concerned religious observance. We had to come in to daily Prayers at 10 o’clock even if it interfered with working in our gardens or other out-door amusement—and church twice on Sundays was the invariable rule as soon as we were old enough to walk to the neighbouring villages of Stoneleigh and Ashow, or to attend the ministrations of the chaplain who generally officiated once each Sunday in the chapel in the house. We had to learn some “Scripture lesson” every day and two or three on Sundays, and I being the eldest had not only to repeat these Sunday lessons to my mother, but also to see in a general way that my younger brothers and sisters knew theirs. I was made to learn any number of chapters and hymns, and Scripture catechisms—not to speak of the Thirty-nine Articles! At last when mother and governess failed to find something more to learn by heart I was told to commit portions of Thomas à Kempis to memory. Here, I grieve to confess, I struck—that is to say, I did not venture actually to refuse, but I repeated the good brother’s words in such a disagreeable and discontented tone of voice that no one could stand it, and the attempt to improve me in this way was tacitly abandoned.

STONELEIGH ABBEY.