Dr. Mitford had gone before, leaving the little party to travel post in a hack chaise. The journey was full of discomfort to the distressed women. At Dorchester, where they had hoped to stay the night, they found the town so full of soldiers, breaking camp, that there was no accommodation for them, nor was there chaise or horses wherewith to pursue the journey. Finally, after searching all over the place, they were able to obtain a lift in a rough tilted cart without springs which bumped and jolted them over eight rough miles to a small place whence they might hope to proceed in the morning.
“It was my mother’s first touch of poverty; it seemed like a final parting from all the elegances and all the accommodations to which she had been used. I never shall forget her heart-broken look when she took her little girl upon her lap in that jolting caravan, nor how the tears stood in her eyes when we were turned altogether into our miserable bed-room when we reached the roadside ale-house where we were to pass the night, and found ourselves, instead of the tea we so much needed, condemned to sup on stale bread and cheese.”
The next day they resumed their journey, and at length reached a dingy comfortless lodging on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, where, with the cause of all the trouble, they found a refuge from pressing creditors within the rules of the King’s Bench. Here, like a certain historic figure whose exploits were to be inimitably recorded later, Dr. Mitford waited for something to turn up, beguiling the time by visits to Guy’s Hospital, where his friend and fellow-pupil, Dr. Babington, was one of the physicians, and by performing odd jobs for, and being generally useful to the notorious “Dr. Graham”—a famous quack who throve amazingly at the expense of a gullible and doubtless sensually-minded public.[5]
With her fortune gone and with only the tattered but eloquent remnants of respectability left to her, can we wonder that the educated and refined daughter of an eminent divine should wear a heart-broken look and weep bitter tears? Her spirit was broken, and even Hope seemed to have deserted her!
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The only two entries in the rate-books of Alresford, relating to payments made by “George Mitford—Surgeon,” are, under an assessment at 9d. in the pound, made in 1787—7s.; and, under an assessment at 4½d. in the pound, made in 1790—5s.
[5] Dr. Graham’s “Celestial Bed” for sterile couples is numbered among the astounding frauds of the early nineteenth century. To his “Temple”—first in the Adelphi and later, as he grew wealthy and more daring, to Schomberg House in Pall Mall—there thronged a heterogeneous mass of people, some taking him and his nostrums seriously, while others—the bulk, it is suggested—paid large sums for admission to view Emma Lyon, afterwards Lady Hamilton, pose, in scant drapery, as the Goddess of Hygiene. Not the least of this charlatan’s astounding achievements are his obscene and blasphemous pamphlets on the most delicate subjects, which he circulated broadcast among the class to which he knew they would appeal.
CHAPTER III
READING AND SCHOOL DAYS AT CHELSEA
Dr. Mitford’s spirit was a sanguine one; he could not believe that Dame Fortune intended to frown on him and his for ever. With much to commend it in a general way, the possession of such a spirit may yet be a menace, a positive danger. To a man of Dr. Mitford’s character it was a danger. It led him into the rashest of speculations; it launched him upon the wildest of wild schemes and left him, nearly always, a loser.
On one occasion, however, Fortune smiled on him in so dramatic a fashion that thereafter his belief in himself could never be shaken.