I must now make a break in the regular line of narrative, to interpolate a chapter, without specifying any particular dates, as the visits of which this portion of my story treats were spread over a large space of time, and intersected many of the different passages of the life I have hitherto recorded.

To begin with Marston, the property of my uncle Lord Cork, and the early home of my dear father. Marston Bigot was a pretty place and had been purchased by our direct ancestor, Richard Boyle (surnamed the “great Earl of Cork”) from Sir John Ippisley, the representative of an old Somersetshire family in the neighbourhood. This ancestor of ours had a very large family, of whom four were sons, and every one created a peer, with the exception of the youngest, Robert, who declined the honour, and whose name is immortalised as the “Divine Philosopher of the World.” To Roger Boyle, his second son, Lord Cork gave an estate in Somersetshire; this gallant soldier and loyalist was first created Baron Broghill and afterwards Earl of Orrery. He was much attached to the royal cause, but during the Protectorate, Oliver Cromwell, who had a great admiration for his military genius, sent for him one day and placed two alternatives before him, namely, the command of an expedition against the Irish rebels, or a lodging in the Tower of London. “The choice is open to you,” he said; “in serving in this campaign you will be acting the part of a patriot, but if you prefer the walls of a prison, I have no more to say.”

A long discussion ensued. Lord Broghill demurred, Cromwell insisted, and at length the former acquiesced in the Protector’s offer, with the proviso that he would never be called upon to lift his sword against his sovereign master. It is a matter of history what a distinguished part Lord Broghill played in this Irish campaign.

In the pleasure ground not far from Marston there stood a quaint little cottage, one room of which had been fitted up by my uncle for his favourite daughter, Louisa, a beautiful, blooming girl, and my chosen friend, who was cut off by smallpox a few years later, at the early age of nineteen. The little cot served as a summer, or pleasure, house; we children were allowed to have tea in it, and to dig and delve in the small garden before it to our heart’s content. There was an historical interest connected with this small dwelling which enhanced its merit in my eyes.

On quitting the service of the Parliament, Lord Orrery, as he then was, retired to his seat at Marston Bigot, and went on Sunday, as was his custom, to the small church adjoining the house. There he sat for some time awaiting the arrival of the usual clergyman, and his patience being exhausted, he rose to return home. His steward, who was in the congregation, told him there was a minister present who offered his services both as reader and preacher. Lord Orrery expressed his gratitude, “and was never more edified than he was on that day by the sense, learning and piety of the discourse.” He waylaid the clergyman, complimented him on his sermon, and invited him to dinner at the house. When seated at table, his lordship enquired of his new friend every particular of his life and fortune.

“My lord,” was the reply, “my name is Asberry. I am a clergyman of the Church of England, and a devoted subject to the king. I and my son have lived for a long time within a few paces of your lordship’s house, in fact, under the garden wall, in a poor cottage. I have a little money, and some few books, and my boy and I dig and read by turns, submitting ourselves cheerfully to the will of Providence.”

Lord Orrery was much pleased with the conversation and manner of this learned and worthy man, and obtained for him a small annual income without the obligation of taking the Covenant, and was in other ways beneficial to him. Mr Asberry lived for some years longer at Marston, and died, worthily lamented. It is easy to believe that this historical incident made Asberry Cottage doubly interesting to our young imaginations. Marston, which has been much enlarged and improved by the present owner, did not lay claim to the title of a fine house and property, more especially when placed in contrast with the “most august house in England”—for Longleat^[17] could be seen from the windows, and is within a walk. The park also is but small, though, in my eyes, remarkable for containing a Glastonbury Thorn. The legend is well known—that Joseph of ArimathÆa (how he came to England it would be difficult to imagine) planted the staff which he held in his hand in the soil (ever afterwards considered sacred) of Glastonbury, and the staff blossomed. Certain it is that when every other tree in the surrounding woods is bare at Christmas, the hawthorn at the entrance of Marston park is oftentime in flower! I have seen it with my own eyes, and always looked upon it as a real miracle. The house is charmingly situated on a slope, and commands a beautiful view, with hills in the distance, and the tower of Stourhead, where King Alfred unfurled his standard against the Danes. Stourhead was once the property of the ancient family of the Stourtons, who bear as their coat-of-arms six fountains, in remembrance of the six springs which rise thereabouts in the valley of the Stour—a fact in heraldry that I doubt not is well known to the head of that noble house.

The house at Marston is a perfect sun-trap, and although the building could lay no claim to architectural beauty, yet as the birthplace of my father and of many of my ancestors, whose portraits adorn the walls, I dearly loved the place, where so many of our Christmasses were spent with innumerable cousins of different ages. Cousins we were indeed, for the master and mistress of that house were cousins themselves, and my father’s brother had married my mother’s sister.

The country round Marston affords a charming type of home English scenery, being almost entirely pasture land, embellished with very pretty woodlands and several country seats of great beauty, especially Longleat and Mells Park. Walks, rides, and drives are all varied in their character, and the road to Bath (in those days there was no short-cut by rail) was essentially picturesque, and as full of ups and downs as life itself!

Another house^[18] was in Hertfordshire, close, indeed, to the town of Hertford itself. It is a quaint, old, red brick building with charming rooms, and a gallery that in my early childhood I considered interminable as to length; it was the property of my uncle by marriage, Lord John Townshend. He was indeed a link with the past, having been the friend of Fox and Sheridan, and having sat to Sir Joshua Reynolds. His wife^[19] was my mother’s sister (her elder by nearly twenty years), who retained till an advanced age the traces of that beauty which was immortalised by Hoppner in one of his most delightful portraits, still hanging on the walls in the dear old dwelling. When very young, she had united herself to a man whose cruelty and immorality made her life miserable. The marriage was dissolved, and Lord John Townshend, as her second husband, did all in his power to make her forget the sorrows which had clouded her early years. But long before I knew of this sad passage in her history, I had observed the shade of melancholy and mystery which hung over my dear aunt’s aspect and manner.

Balls Park was a typical English house, birds, bees, butterflies, honeysuckle, roses. Our visits there were almost always in the “sweete season that budde and blossom brings,” and my remembrance of the place is invariably connected with summer. Here were cousins too, and many of them to whom I was very much attached, though they were greatly my seniors; no one ever was so rich in cousins. I remember once meeting the late Lord Carlisle at dinner at Charles Dickens’. “Mary Boyle is a cousin of mine,” said Lord Carlisle. “I suppose so,” replied Dickens; “I have never yet met any one who was not her cousin.”

Another house was Wigan Rectory, in Lancashire, a very different locality indeed. A frightful, black, manufacturing town, but we loved to go there, for my uncle George Bridgeman and his wife were most indulgent to us children.^[20] Mr Bridgeman had first married my father’s, and after her death my mother’s, sister, and both husband and wife were our kind playfellows, taking an interest in all our little pastimes, and rich in that quality, so dear to childish hearts, of genuine fun. My aunt Louisa was devoted to gardening, and although her pleasure grounds were circumscribed, she took the greatest delight therein. I fear I wounded her horticultural nature on one occasion, when I complained that the rose I had just picked smelt of soot, and blacked my nose when raised thereto! In the backyard of the Rectory a magnificent wolf-dog lived in the kennel, the object of universal terror among the servants and gardeners. But I believed in and trusted dogs, and my firm conviction was that Lupus was misunderstood. I bribed the servants to let me feed him, which I did first at a respectful distance, advancing nearer and nearer each day as I presented him with his dinner. At length I deemed him tamed, and, not without slight trepidation, I approached, let slip his collar, and opened the garden gate. Never shall I forget the consternation which the apparition of girl and dog caused in my aunt’s little sitting-room which opened on the lawn. She was talking to my mother in this sanctum when she saw Lupus bounding over the grass, and standing on the threshold of her boudoir. With a loud cry the Rector’s wife jumped upon the chair, gathering her skirts around her, and summoning her juvenile protectress to call off the dog! But Lupus did no harm; he was only elated by his new-born freedom, and he became from that day the constant companion of the daily walks I took with my youngest brother and our nurse.

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.

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.

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!”

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.

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.