[20]. Rev. George Bridgeman married, in 1792, Lady Lucy Boyle, only daughter of Edmund, seventh Earl of Cork. She died in 1801, and he married in 1809, Charlotte Louisa, daughter of William Poyntz of Midgham.

But the most beautiful and the favourite of our many homes was Cowdray Park, close to Midhurst in Sussex, which had come into possession of my mother’s only surviving brother, William Poyntz, by his marriage with Elizabeth Browne, sister and sole heiress of Viscount Montague of that name. Respecting this family and property, there is a most tragical history. To the best of my belief, it was the father of Mrs Poyntz, née Browne, who seceded from the Roman Catholic Church, and was in consequence excommunicated. The ban included fire and water, and the fulfilment was most terrible. My aunt’s brother—of whom I have spoken as the last Lord Montague—was travelling on the Continent with his friend Major Burdett, when the two travellers meditated the mad scheme of shooting the falls of Schaffhausen. In vain did Lord Montague’s old servant expostulate and implore; in vain did the innkeeper assure the English gentlemen that the enterprise would be one of simple insanity; in vain was every obstacle thrown in their way by boatmen in the neighbourhood, none of whom cared to venture his life in so wild an undertaking. Obstinate and persevering, they secured the services of two boatmen, and achieved the result anticipated by all. The boat capsized, and all the men were drowned. The catastrophe happened in 1800, and I believe it to have been the next day, or at least within the space of a very few days afterwards, that an express arrived from England, stating that Lord Montague’s magnificent house of Cowdray was almost entirely destroyed by fire. This fine structure was a splendid example of Elizabethan architecture. Even now, partially covered as it is by ivy, the ruins present a most picturesque aspect, and attract numbers of visitors in the summer season from all quarters of the county.

COWDRAY—THE POYNTZ FAMILY

My uncle and aunt lived about a mile from the ruins, in a house which had originally been the gamekeeper’s lodge, with low, small rooms in the cottage style, but constant additions and improvements had converted it into a pretty dwelling-house. A beautiful wood, with winding paths and natural terraces, skirted the lodge on one side. In my eye that wood was a primeval forest, and in the summer and autumn, when the leaves were still on the trees, I used to snatch a fearful joy by losing myself in its depths. In those, as it appeared to me, vast recesses, was pointed out the “Priest’s Walk,” named after that stern ecclesiastic who, according to tradition, had been instrumental in bringing about the curse pronounced upon the family. There is, indeed, an earlier tradition of a curse overhanging the fortunes of the possessors of Cowdray, on which I never laid much stress, as the malediction never appeared to have been carried out until after the secession from the Roman Catholic faith of the last Lord Montague but one. On the other side of the house the park stretched away for many miles with broken ground, swelling uplands and large clumps of timber trees of all kinds, one of the most beautiful parks in England. Close to the ruined house are some Spanish chestnuts, among the loftiest I have ever seen, and I believe they were the first that were planted in this country.

Mr and Mrs Poyntz had originally a family of five children, but in the year 1815 the catastrophe occurred which carried out to the full the anathema already alluded to.

The family were spending some time at Bognor, during the bathing season, and one fatal day Mr Poyntz, accompanied by his two sons, two young lady visitors, and three boatmen, went out in a so-called pleasure boat, leaving the youngest daughter, Isabella Poyntz,[[21]] in tears because she was not permitted to accompany them. From the windows, which gave upon the beach, the agonised mother saw that boat capsize, and as far as I remember what I have been told, one boatman and my uncle were the only survivors. The latter was brought to shore in an insensible state, and it was some time before he recovered consciousness. By these two accidents of drowning, both families of Browne-Montague and Poyntz became extinct in the male line.

[21]. Afterwards wife of second Marquess of Exeter.

The tragedy occurred when I was a child, and while we were yet at Sheerness, but I can still recall my mother’s piercing shriek when the awful intelligence was broken to her. By this means Mr Poyntz’s daughters became co-heiresses, and at the death of their father his property and estates were sold, and Cowdray passed into the hands of strangers.

I cannot refrain from mentioning a circumstance which interested me at the time very much, having always entertained a great predilection for “ghost stories.” I had a pretty, quaint, low-roofed room at Cowdray, opening into the common passage on one side, and to a narrow little winding staircase, leading to the garden, on the other. I was constantly attracted by knocks at that door, and in the frequent practice of saying “Come in” to some imaginary person. I had not the slightest fear, but was, of course, laughed at for my ridiculous fancies. I therefore found some consolation (although I was very wrong to do so) when informed that on certain improvements being made, and the little staircase done away with, the skeleton of a child was discovered lying at the bottom of the steps leading from my room; but who does not love to exclaim “I told you so!”

COWDRAY—THE POYNTZ FAMILY