Beautiful Cowdray! How many happy days rise before me as I write the name! How many delightful walks in that enchanted wood, especially when escorted by “Courage,” the gigantic St Bernard. Him I was allowed to take with me in my walks abroad, on condition that I led him by a chain, as he was a decidedly sporting character. Well do I remember one such walk with him. I had fastened his chain round my waist, to leave my hands free, when lo! the game was afoot, and off started Courage, carrying me with him in a wild and impetuous course. Every moment I expected to be dashed to pieces against a root, or to be thrown down and dragged at his heels; but gathering up my strength, and calling up all the presence of mind that was left me, I encircled the trunk of one of the smaller trees in a frenzied embrace, and contrived to arrest the headlong career of Courage, in time to avoid a catastrophe to both of us.
I revelled in the gallops in the park with my uncle (whom I simply adored), my sister, and our cousins, for we one and all loved horses and rode well, and to some extent justified an answer made to me by a farmer’s wife, when I asked her one day for the loan of her horse for a ride.
“Certainly, Miss Mary,” she said, “with great pleasure. The farmer will always lend you or your sister his best horse, for he well knows what capital horse-ladies you are.”
I would fain make my readers acquainted with some of the characteristics of a beloved member of our family, who exercised a wonderful influence on all who surrounded him. Yet when I say that my uncle Poyntz was of a genial humour, a man of the world, a citizen of the world popular among all classes, all ages and both sexes, ever welcome abroad and adored at home, I am but too well aware that I fail in conveying any idea of his especial individuality.
POLITICS
Possessed with deep feeling and deep thought, there was a constant ripple on the surface. What in those days was called “persiflage,” and bears but a faint resemblance to the modern “chaff,” was in him a science, and no way like the constrained attempt at wit, from which every point is excluded, that but too often makes the “fun” of the practised joker. How often he put the respect and reticence of his servants to the test. I have seen them compelled to busy themselves with the plate on the sideboard, turning their backs on the dinner-table, while their shoulders shook with uncontrollable laughter. For us young ones there was usually a challenge for some playful encounter, and we were obliged to keep our wits sharpened in order to meet the attack and reply to the sally. He was a Liberal in politics, as were all the men of our family on both sides. The term Liberal was then accepted in its literal sense, and did not mean blind devotion to a revolutionary ideal. My father’s views, as far as I can remember them, were inclined to be ultra, but I am grateful to record that in so burning a question as that of Catholic Emancipation, both my uncles and my father strongly advocated the redress of grievances which had long been a blot on our nation. For myself, I scarcely troubled my little head about politics, and when election time came round, I always voted in my heart for the man who was my friend, and up to a very late period in my existence, “men and not measures,” was my shibboleth. But, like many others, in my late years “J’ai changé tout cela,” and the man I love best in the world, whomsoever that might be, would carry my worst wishes with him to the poll, if he assisted the Gladstonians in undermining the constitution of England and imperilling the safety of the throne; for I can never forget that in the times of the Civil Wars my great ancestor, Lord Cork, with his four sons fought at the battle of Bandon Bridge, on the side of the Cavaliers, and that one of the gallant brothers sealed his loyalty with his blood and left his life upon the field.
CHAPTER VII
MY GRANDMOTHER’S MAID
I must now devote a short chapter to a record of a faithful friend and retainer of my mother’s family, whose sterling worth and amusing peculiarities deserve especial mention.
When my uncle, Mr Poyntz, married, he went to live at his wife’s beautiful estate of Cowdray Park, and his ancestral home of Midgham was let to strangers. It had not been long in the family. Anna Maria Mordaunt, first cousin to the “great Earl of Peterborough,” was maid of honour to Queen Caroline, wife of George II., who is said to have made Midgham, with the adjacent park and grounds, a wedding present to the said Maid of Honour on her marriage with Stephen Poyntz, a distinguished diplomatist, and minister at Stockholm and other foreign courts. There was a whisper that Her Majesty’s kind intention was never fulfilled in a pecuniary point of view, and that the purchase money came out of the bridegroom’s pocket. But whether this be a fact or not, I am unable to state. It is certain, however, that the Queen retained a great friendship for Mrs Poyntz, whom she appointed governess (as it was termed) to her son, William, Duke of Cumberland. A very large painting recorded this event, and was a great object of interest to me in my young days. I do not know the name of the artist, but well remember the peculiar group of three personages—Queen Caroline, in regal purple and ermine, presenting her eight-year-old son, in square cut coat, short breeches, and dainty silk stockings, to my great-grandmother, who figured as Minerva in full panoply.