“Men some to business, some to pleasure take,
But every woman is at heart a rake.”
The Squire had been jilted, and breathing such an atmosphere, no wonder he cast lingering looks to the time
“Ere one to one was cursedly confined,”
or that he never married. It is fortunate he did not, for Venus herself, we fancy, could not have kept him by her side. His amours were notorious, and some of his mistresses were rare specimens of rustic beauty. Two daring spirits who followed the hounds were regular Dianas in their way, and he spent much of his time in the rural little cottages of these and others which were dotted over the estate at no great distance from the Hall. As rare Ben Jonson has it:—
“When some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluction all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour.”
Such a humour the old Squire had. Towards the last he found that some of his mistresses gave him a good deal of trouble; for in carrying out his desire to leave them comfortably provided for, his best intentions created jealousy, and he found it difficult to adjust their claims as regarded matters of income, Phœbe Higgs, who survived the Squire many years, and lived in a cottage with land attached, on the Willey side of the Shirlot, being the most clamorous. She set out one night with the intention of shooting the Squire, but was unnerved by her favourite monkey, who had stealthily gone on before, and jumped unobserved on her shoulder as she opened a gate. On another occasion she succeeded in surprising the Squire by forcing her way into his room and pointing a loaded pistol at him across the table, vowing she would shoot him unless he promised to make the sum left for her maintenance equal to that of Miss Cal—t. He had his children educated; they frequently visited at the Hall, and some married well. He speaks of them as his children and grandchildren in his letters, and manifested the greatest anxiety that everything should be done that could be done, by provisions in his will for those he was about to leave behind him. Indeed the same characteristics which gave a colouring to his life distinguished him to the last; and if the old fires burnt less brightly, the same inner sense and outward manifestations were evident in all he did.
One thing which troubled him was the chancel of Barrow Church, as will be seen by the following characteristic letter to his agent, Mr. Pritchard, asking him to procure a legal opinion about certain encroachments upon what he conceived to be his rights, and those of the parishioners:—
“Dear Sir,—
“You must remember Parson Jones has oft been talking to me about the pews put up, unfairly, I think, in the chancel of Barrow church. The whole of the chancel is mine as patron, and I am always obliged to do all the repairs to it, whenever wanted. There is a little small pew in it of very ancient date, besides these other two; in this, I suppose, it is intended to thrust poor me, the patron, into; humble and meek, and deprived of every comfort on my own spot, the chancel. The parson, you know, has been saucy on the occasion, as you know all black Toms are, and therefore I’ll now know my power from Mr. Mytton, and set the matter straight somehow or other. I can safely swear at this minute a dozen people of this parish (crowd as they will) can’t receive the Sacrament together, and therefore, instead of there being pews of any kind therein, there ought to be none at all, but a free unencumbered chancel at this hour. Rather than be as it is, I’ll be at the expense of pulling the present chancel down, rebuilding and enlarging it, so as to make all convenient and clever, before I’ll suffer these encroachments attended with every insult upon earth. Surely upon a representation to the bishop that the present chancel is much too small, and that the patron, at his own expense, wishes to enlarge it, I cannot think but it will be comply’d with. If this is not Mr. Mytton’s opinion as the best way, what is? and how am I to manage these encroaches?
“Yours ever,
—“P.S.—If the old chancel is taken down, I’ll take care that no pew shall stand in the new one. Mr. Mytton will properly turn this in his mind, and I’ll then face the old kit of them boldly. The old pew I spoke of, besides the other two in the chancel (mean and dirty as it is to a degree), yet the parson wants to let, if he does not do so now, to any person that comes to church, no matter who, so long as he gets the cash. It’s so small no one can sit with bended knees in it; and, in short, the whole chancel is not more than one-half as big as the little room I am now seated in; which must apparently show you, and, on your representation, Mr. Mytton likewise, how much too small it must be for so large a parish as Barrow, and with the addition of three pews—one very large indeed, the next to hold two or three people abreast, and the latter about three sideways, always standing, and totally unable to kneel in the least comfort.”
Years were beginning to tell upon the old sportsman, reminding him that his career was drawing to a close, and he appeared to apprehend the truth Sir Thomas Brown embodied in the remark, that every hour adds to the current arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment; and since “the longest sun sets at right declensions,” he looked forward to that setting and made arrangements accordingly, which were in perfect keeping with the character of the man. He felt that his day was done, that night was coming on; and it was his wish that those who knew him best should be those chosen to attend his funeral, that his domestics and servants who had experienced his kindness should carry him to the tomb. And let it be when the sun goes down, when the work of the day is done; let each have a guinea, that he may meet his neighbour afterwards and talk over, if he likes, the merits and demerits of his old master, as none—next to his Maker—know them better. The provisions in the will of the old Squire, in which he left his estates to his cousin Cecil, afterwards Lord Forester, father of the present Right Hon. Lord Forester, made about five years before his death, were evidently made in this spirit.
He became ill at one of his cottages on Shirlot, was taken home, attended by Dr. Thursfield (grandfather of the present Greville Thursfield, M.D.), and died whilst the doctor was still with him, on the 13th of July, 1811, in the seventy-third year of his age.