During our visit at Guernsey, the Charles Keans came over with a Dramatic Company, and gave several performances at the theatre, at each of which the Governor, his family and suite, regularly attended.

The plays selected were for the most part genteel comedies, in which branch of the Drama I, for one, considered that these two clever artistes shone most conspicuously. They were our constant guests at dinner, the hour of which our courteous host always arranged with a view to the convenience of Mr and Mrs Kean.

They were cheerful and delightful companions, and from that day we contracted habits of friendship which ended only with their lives. I had an especial admiration for Mrs Kean, and took a deep interest in her love story—of how she and her husband had trodden the same stage in her early youth, when, as he himself informed me, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen; of how he flirted, and she loved; of how they parted, and did not meet again for many years; of how destiny once more brought them together in the respective characters of the hero and heroine of The Honeymoon. Was not that a prophetic title? The joy, the uncertainty, the excitement, the brilliant acting on both sides, in which nature was so closely entwined with art, all combined to throw Ellen Tree into a state of nervous agitation, and brought on an attack of brain-fever, so that her life was despaired of. But she recovered, and while still in the first stage of convalescence, the one most deeply interested in her restoration to health came to assist in that work.

During the course of their conversation he told her playfully that she was one of the best friends he had ever had, and as such he had come to ask her advice, with regard to a subject whereon his whole future happiness depended. “Do you consider,” he said, “that if I could gain her consent, Ellen Tree would make me a good wife?” “I know,” was the reply, “that she has long loved you better than any one else in the world, and I do not believe that any one else could love you better.” And so it was settled, and a happier or more suitable union could scarcely be imagined. They were helpmeets for each other, in professional, in domestic, and in social life, and this is the verdict of one, who never lost any opportunity she had of enjoying their society, whether at their pleasant little home in Hampshire, or in any part of the world where it was possible to meet them.

But I must return from a long digression to report our further movements. In a flying visit to the queer little island of Sark, we explored its curious caves, and were shown the churchyard, “where the women and children were all buried.” “And the men?” I enquired. “Ah! mademoiselle, they are always drowned.” Added to this encouraging intelligence, I was assured that the “Seigneur of Sark” (the chief man in the island bears this title) would consider it a degradation to die in his bed, as it was looked upon as a hereditary privilege to find a grave in the ocean; and certainly on those terrible coasts, with their perpendicular cliffs, shoals and quicksands, such a contingency was not to be wondered at.

We then proceeded to Alderney, where we were received, on disembarking, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Captain Alexander, and his daughter Rose, the betrothed of my brother Cavendish. He placed my hand in hers, and since that day, now so many years ago, she and I have walked hand-in-hand through many a chequered path of life, through gloom and sunshine, and, blessed be God, at this present time of which I am writing, are still spared to speak together of the days that are no more. The projected marriage was one that could give nothing but satisfaction to the members of both families, with the single drawback of slender means. In circumstances of this nature, there arises usually much discussion as to pros and cons, even among outsiders, and we often hear the question asked “What will they make up?” On this point Cavendish was beforehand with the world, when he said to me one day: “If any one asks you what we make up, be so good as to say, we have made up—our minds,” and I can safely affirm that, from the day of their marriage, no one who loved either had ever cause to regret the step.

Moreover, between Cavendish and his father-in-law there existed a great similarity of tastes, pursuits, and moral qualities—both soldiers in heart, as well as calling, both men of cultivated and refined taste, with a keen appreciation of all that was good, beautiful, and humorous in life.

Captain, afterwards Colonel, Alexander amused me one day with an anecdote he told me of himself. He was in Paris with his wife and children at the time of the Revolution in 1830, when the English were very unpopular among the lower classes. Captain Alexander had occasion one day to pass a guard-house, round which some ill-conditioned soldiers were lounging and idling; the passer-by attracted their attention. One of the men said to the others in an irritable and irritating tone: “VoilÀ Monsieur Goddam.” “Qui s’en va,” retorted our Englishman, “Au diable,” says another soldier. Captain Alexander turned round, and taking off his hat with a sweeping bow, said “Donc, Monsieur, au plaisir de vous revoir!”

The Channel Islands appeared to me to be peopled with lovers. One of Sir William Napier’s beautiful daughters had just married that gallant soldier, Colonel MacDougall. At Guernsey, I had left the General’s only son engaging himself to pretty Bessie Alexander, whom we called the “white-heart cherry,” on account of her pink and white, rarely-blent complexion, and here, at Alderney, I found her sister preparing to become mine. We spent a short but pleasant time with Captain Alexander and his wife. Before leaving Alderney, let me say a complimentary word in favour of the garden which surrounded the house, and confess that, even at the interval of forty years, the recollection of its peaches, apricots, and, above all, its pears, makes the “mouth of my memory” water.

Rose became an inmate of Millard’s Hill, paying occasional visits to the pretty Rectory of our cousin, Richard Boyle, the Incumbent of Marston, whose unbounded hospitality became a proverb with all who knew him. The year after Cavendish’s marriage this favourite cousin of ours followed the example thus set him, and gave a charming mistress to his charming home. Eleanor Gordon, known in the literary and artistic world as E. V. B., was young, lovely, and loveable. Her great talent for drawing had already attracted much admiration whilst she was still a girl, and, after her marriage, the beautiful illustrations which she designed of “Nursery Rhymes,” “A Children’s Summer,” “The Story Without an End,” and many others too numerous to mention, acquired for her the fame she deserved. She put out her talents, indeed, to interest in a good cause, realising by the sale of her works sufficient sums to enable her to do good work in the parish. “Eleanor’s Well,” for that was the grateful name bestowed on it, supplied the “water,” of which the villagers had long stood in need; while two beautiful windows—designed by herself—embellished her husband’s lately-restored church, without mentioning the complete new roofing and a new set of Sacramental Plate—all were the proceeds of her labour. It is not often that talents are turned to so good and so unselfish account.

The erection of the little “Well” was commemorated by a friend and neighbour in the following graceful lines:—

Eleanor is now the inmate of another home in a distant county, but her name is still cherished and remembered, in connection with that of the husband she mourns, among the survivors of the rural population of Marston Bigot.

The poet in question was a near neighbour, and became a constant visitor both at the Rectory and Millard’s Hill. On the marriage of my brother Charles, and the prolonged absence of Cavendish and his wife in the West Indies, this friend, whom we named “Alastor,” on account of his predilection for solitude, became the almost daily companion in my long walks. In the summer time we would usually take a volume of some favourite author with us, Shelley, Goethe, or Jean Paul being often selected; of the latter we were both ardent admirers. Then, choosing some grassy knoll in one of the pretty fields which surrounded us, or some tempting shade in one of our numerous wayside woods, we would rest and read awhile. We had tastes and thoughts in common, and many were the pleasant hours thus beguiled, which are, I am well assured, forgotten by neither of us.