On their way home they stopped at Düsseldorf. The ten years which had gone by since they had visited the Orphan Asylum at Düsselthal, near this town, had wrought a great change in the physical condition of Count Von der Recke. He looked worn and ill, the effect of care and anxiety for his numerous adopted family; but he evinced a spirit of pious resignation, and had a hearty welcome ready for his visitors. They returned to England through Belgium, and arrived in London on the 8th of the Eighth Month.
They did not at once return to their home at Scarborough, but spent a month in Hertford, Oxford and Buckinghamshire, attending the meetings of Friends in these counties, and visiting that of Berkhamstead several times.
CHAPTER XVI.
REMOVAL TO STAMFORD-HILL, AND COMMENCEMENT OF THE FIFTH CONTINENTAL JOURNEY.
1843-48.
The tour which John and Martha Yeardley made in and around Buckinghamshire, and which is mentioned at the conclusion of the last chapter, was undertaken in quest of a new place of abode. In a letter from Martha Yeardley to her sister, Mary Tylor, written on the 3rd of the Eleventh Month, she says:--
Thou art aware that we have thought, if way should open of going nearer to you, and of pitching our tent within the Quarterly Meeting of Buckinghamstead. We offered to purchase a cottage at Berkhamstead, but for the present that has quite fallen through: we therefore intend to rest quietly here for the winter, in hopes that in the spring or summer something may offer, either at B. or in that quarter, to which we feel attracted; yet desiring to commit this and all that concerns us into the all-directing hand of our great Lord and Master, who has a right to do with us what seemeth him good.
Not long afterwards they purchased a house at Berkhamstead, called Gossom Lodge, to which they removed in the Fourth Month, 1844.
Very soon after they had taken possession of their new dwelling, they made a circuit through the meetings of Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, holding a few public meetings by the way: and the next summer they undertook a more extensive religious visit--viz., to the six northern counties of England.
In the course of the same year we find them meditating a further removal, into the immediate vicinity of London. One of the few entries in his Diary which were made by John Yeardley during this period, speaks of the apprehension of duty under which they contemplated this change: it was written after their removal.