But he never recovered entirely from the shock. More than a year later he writes: “It is remarkable that my watch (a special chronometer) has never gone quite correctly since, and to this day there sometimes comes over me, on a railway and in a hansom-cab, or any sort of conveyance, for a few seconds,
a vague sense of dread that I have no power to check. It comes and passes, but I cannot prevent its coming.”
I have often seen this dread come upon him, and on one occasion, which I especially recall, while we were on our way from London to our little country station “Higham,” where the carriage was to meet us, my father suddenly clutched the arms of the railway carriage seat, while his face grew ashy pale, and great drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead, and though he tried hard to master the dread, it was so strong that he had to leave the train at the next station. The accident had left its impression upon the memory, and it was destined never to be effaced. The hours spent upon railroads were thereafter often hours of pain to him. I realized this often while travelling with him, and no amount of assurance could dispel the feeling.
Early in May of 1868, we had him safely back with us, greatly strengthened and invigorated
by his ocean journey home, and I think he was never happier at “Gad’s Hill” than during his last two years there.
During that time he had a succession of guests, and none were more honored, nor more heartily welcomed, than his American friends. The first of these to come, if I remember rightly, was Mr. Longfellow, with his daughters. My father writes describing a picnic which he gave them; “I turned out a couple of postilions in the old red jacket of the old Royal red for our ride, and it was like a holiday ride in England fifty years ago. Of course we went to look at the old houses in Rochester, and the old Cathedral, and the old castle, and the house for the six poor travellers.
“Nothing can surpass the respect paid to Longfellow here, from the Queen downward. He is everywhere received and courted, and finds the working men at least as well acquainted with his books as the classes socially above them.”
Between the comings and goings of visitors there were delightfully quiet evenings at home, spent during the summer in our lovely porch, or walking about the garden, until “tray time,” ten o’clock. When the cooler nights came we had music in the drawing-room, and it is my happiness now to remember on how many evenings I played and sang all his favorite songs and tunes to my father during these last winters while he would listen while he smoked or read, or, in his more usual fashion, paced up and down the room. I never saw him more peacefully contented than at these times.
There were always “improvements”—as my father used to call his alterations—being made at “Gad’s Hill,” and each improvement was supposed to be the last. As each was completed, my sister—who was always a constant visitor, and an exceptionally dear one to my father—would have to come down and inspect, and as each was displayed, my father would say to her most solemnly:
“Now, Katie, you behold your parent’s latest and last achievement.” These “last improvements” became quite a joke between them. I remember so well, on one such occasion, after the walls and doors of the drawing-room had been lined with mirrors, my sister’s laughing speech to “the master”: “I believe papa, that when you become an angel your wings will be made of looking-glass and your crown of scarlet geraniums.”