Too fond of play.
The first stanza with its pathetic little picture is genuine enough, but the second was manifestly dictated by her elders.
SAXON ORNAMENT
Among the treasures long preserved at Nocton was an Anglo-Saxon ornament of great beauty ([see illustration, Chap. XXII]) in which three discs of silver with a raised pattern of dragons, &c., and with pins four inches long are connected by silver links so as to form a cloak-chain to fasten the garment across the breast. The pins have shoulders an inch from the sharp points to prevent their shaking loose. This for a time was in a museum at Lincoln, and on the dispersal of the collection was bought and presented to the British Museum, and is in the Anglo-Saxon room. In the same room are kept the very interesting finds from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sleaford, consisting mainly of bronze ornaments and coloured beads. The cloak-chain was found in the Witham at Fiskerton, four miles from Lincoln, when the river was deepened in 1826.
THE MASQUERADE
Sir Charles Anderson, in his excellent Lincoln pocket guide, gives some notion of the gaiety which distinguished Nocton in the eighteenth century by quoting an account of a masquerade held there on December 29, 1767, which begins:—
“Met at the door by a Turk, in a white Bearskin, who took our tickets.”
It is curious to note the use of the word Turk for any dark-skinned person in a turban, for later in the list of dresses we have: “Mr. Amcotts, a Turk, his turban ornamented with diamonds. Mr. Cust, a Turk; scarlet and ermine; turban and collar very rich with diamonds. He represented the Great Mogul,” who would have been little pleased to be called a Turk, I imagine. Amongst more than seventy other dresses which are described we find: “Lady Betty Chaplin: a Chinese Lady, in a long robe of yellow taffety; the petticoat painted taffety. Her neck and hair richly ornamented with diamonds.”
But rich jewellery was the order of the night whether it was proper to the costume or not, so we find “Lady Buck: a Grecian Lady, scarlet satin and silver gauze; her neck and head adorned with diamonds and pearls.”
The host and hostess are thus described:—