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“Ay, sir, save for the Norman!  But I would not, if I could, meddle with thee, my young lord, though thou dost look at me askance, spite of having learnt of me to ride and use thy lance.  I am the last of the English line of old Sigfrid the Wormbane, and a childless man, and I trust the land and the serfs will be well with thee, who art English born, and son to Wulfrida of Lexden.  And I trust that thou, my sweet Lady Mabel, will be a happy bride and wife.  All I look for is to end my days under the Cross, in the cause of the Holy Sepulchre, whether as warrior or lay brother.  Yes, dear lady, that is enough for old Sigbert.”

And Mabel had to acquiesce and believe that her old friend found peace and gladness beneath the eight-pointed Cross, when she and her brother sailed for England, where she would behold the green fields and purple heather of which he had told her amid the rocks of Palestine.

Moreover, she thought of him when on her way through France, she heard the young monk Bernard, then rising into fame, preach on the beleaguered city, saved by the poor wise man; and tell how, when the city was safe, none remembered the poor man.  True, the preacher gave it a mystic meaning, and interpreted it as meaning the emphatically Poor Man by Whom Salvation came, and Whom too few bear in mind.  Yet such a higher meaning did not exclude the thought of one whose deserts surpassed his honours here on earth.

THE BEGGAR’S LEGACY

An Alderman bold, Henry Smith was enrolled,   Of the Silversmiths’ Company;Highly praised was his name, his skill had high fame,   And a prosperous man was he.Knights drank to his health, and lauded his wealth;   Sailors came from the Western Main,Their prizes they sold, of ingots of gold,   Or plate from the galleys of Spain.Then beakers full fine, to hold the red wine,   Were cast in his furnace’s mould,Or tankards rich chased, in intricate taste,   Gimmal rings of the purest gold.On each New Year’s morn, no man thought it scorn—   Whether statesman, or warrior brave—The choicest device, of costliest price,   For a royal off’ring to crave.“Bring here such a toy as the most may joy   The eyes of our gracious Queen,Rows of orient pearls, gold pins for her curls,   Silver network, all glistening sheen.”Each buyer who came—lord, squire, or dame—   Behaved in most courteous guise,Showing honour due, as to one they knew   To be at once wealthy and wise.In London Guild Hall, the citizens all,   Esteemed him their future Lord Mayor;Not one did he meet, in market or street,   But made him a reverence fair.“Ho,” said Master Smith, “I will try the pith   Of this smooth-faced courtesy;Do they prize myself, do they prize my pelf,   Do they value what’s mine or me?”His gold chain of pride he hath laid aside,   And furred gown of the scarlet red;He set on his back a fardel and pack,   And a hood on his grizzled head.His ’prentices all he hath left in stall,   But running right close by his side,In spite of his rags, guarding well his bags,   His small Messan dog would abide.So thus, up and down, through village and town,   In rain or in sunny weather,Through Surrey’s fair land, his staff in his hand,   Went he and the dog together.“Good folk, hear my prayer, of your bounty spare,   Help a wanderer in his need;Better days I have seen, a rich man I have been,   Esteemed both in word and deed.”In the first long street, certain forms he did meet,   But scarce might behold their faces;From matted elf-locks eyes stared like an ox,   And shambling were their paces!Not one gave him cheer, nor would one come near,   As he turned him away to go,Then a heavy stone at the dog was thrown,   To deal a right cowardly blow.In Mitcham’s fair vale, the men ’gan to rail,   “Not a vagabond may come near;”Each mother’s son ran, each boy and each man,   To summon the constable here.The cart’s tail behind, the beggar they bind,   They flogged him full long and full sore;They hunted him out, did that rabble rout,   And bade him come thither no more!All weary and bruised, and scurvily used,   He went trudging along his track;The lesson was stern he had come to learn,   And yet he disdained to turn back.Where Walton-on-Thames gleams fair through the stems   Of its tufted willow palms,There were loitering folk who most vilely spoke,   Nor would give him one groat in alms.“Dog Smith,” was the cry, “behold him go by,   The fool who hath lost all he had!”For only to tease can delight and can please   The ill-nurtured village lad.Behold, in Betchworth was a blazing hearth   With a hospitable door.“Thou art tired and lame,” quoth a kindly dame,   “Come taste of our humble store.“Though scant be our fare, thou art welcome to share;   We rejoice to give thee our best;Come sit by our fire, thou weary old sire,   Come in, little doggie, and rest.”And where Mole the slow doth by Cobham go,   He beheld a small village maiden;Of loose flocks of wool her lap was quite full,   With a bundle her arms were laden.“What seekest thou, child, ’mid the bushes wild,   Thy face and thine arms that thus tear?”“The wool the sheep leave, to spin and to weave;   It makes us our clothes to wear.”Then she led him in, where her mother did spin,   And make barley bannocks to eat;They gave him enough, though the food was rough—   The kindliness made it most sweet.Many years had past, report ran at last,   The rich Alderman Smith was dead.Then each knight and dame, and each merchant came,   To hear his last testament read.I, Harry Smith, found of mind clear and sound,   Thus make and devise my last will:While England shall stand, I bequeath my land,   My last legacies to fulfil.“To the muddy spot, where they cleaned them not,   When amongst their fields I did roam;To every one there with the unkempt hair   I bequeath a small-toothed comb.“Next, to Mitcham proud, and the gaping crowd,   Who for nobody’s sorrows grieve;With a lash double-thong, plaited firm and strong,   A horsewhip full stout do I leave.“To Walton-on-Thames, where, ’mid willow stems,   The lads and the lasses idle;To restrain their tongues, and breath of their lungs,   I bequeath a bit and a bridle.“To Betchworth so fair, and the households there   Who so well did the stranger cheer,I leave as my doles to the pious souls,   Full seventy pounds by the year.“To Cobham the thrifty I leave a good fifty,   To be laid out in cloth dyed dark;On Sabbath-day to be given away,   And known by Smith’s badge and mark.“To Leatherhead too my gratitude’s due,   For a welcome most freely given;Let my bounty remain, for each village to gain,   Whence the poor man was never driven.”So in each sweet dale, and bright sunny vale,   In the garden of England blest;Those have found a friend, whose gifts do not end,   Who gave to that stranger a rest!

Henry Smith’s history is literally true.  He was a silversmith of immense wealth in London in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but in his later years he chose to perambulate the county of Surrey as a beggar, and was known as ‘Dog Smith.’  He met with various fortune in different parishes, and at Mitcham was flogged at the cart’s tail.  On his death, apparently in 1627, he was found to have left bequests to almost every place in Surrey, according to the manners of the inhabitants—to Mitcham a horsewhip, to Walton-on-Thames a bridle, to Betchworth, Leatherhead, and many more, endowments which produce from £50 to £75 a year, and to Cobham a sum to be spent annually in woollen cloth of a uniform colour, bearing Smith’s badge, to be given away in church to the poor and impotent, as the following tablet still records:—

1627

Item—That the Gift to the impotent and aged poor people, shall be bestowed in Apparell of one Coulour, with some Badge or other Mark, that it may be known to be the Gift of the said Henry Smith, or else in Bread, flesh, or fish on the Sabbath-day publickly in the Church.  In Witness whereof the said Henry Smith did put to his Hand and seal the Twenty-first day of January in the Second Year of the Reign of our most gracious Sovereign Lord King Charles the First.

A REVIEW OF NIECES

GENERAL SIR EDWARD FULFORD, K.G.C., to his sister MISS FULFORD

UNITED SERVICE CLUB, 29th June.

My Dear Charlotte,—I find I shall need at least a month to get through the necessary business; so that I shall only have a week at last for my dear mother and the party collected at New Cove.  You will have ample time to decide which of the nieces shall be asked to accompany us, but you had better give no hint of the plan till you have studied them thoroughly.  After all the years that you have accompanied me on all my stations, you know how much depends on the young lady of our house being one able to make things pleasant to the strange varieties who will claim our hospitality in a place like Malta, yet not likely to flag if left in solitude with you.  She must be used enough to society to do the honours genially and gracefully, and not have her head turned by being the chief young lady in the place.  She ought to be well bred, if not high bred, enough to give a tone to the society of her contemporaries, and above all she must not flirt.  If I found flirtation going on with the officers, I should send her home on the spot.  Of course, all this means that she must have the only real spring of good breeding, and be a thoroughly good, religious, unselfish, right-minded girl; otherwise we should have to rue our scheme.  In spite of all you would do towards moulding and training a young maiden, there will be so many distractions and unavoidable counter-influences that the experiment would be too hazardous, unless there were a character and manners ready formed.  There ought likewise to be cultivation and intelligence to profit by the opportunities she will have.  I should not like Greece and Italy, to say nothing of Egypt and Palestine, to be only so much gape seed.  You must have an eye likewise to good temper, equal to cope with the various emergencies of travelling.  N.B.  You should have more than one in your eye, for probably the first choice will be of some one too precious to be attainable.—Your affectionate brother,

EDWARD FULFORD.

MISS FULFORD to SIR EDWARD FULFORD

1 SHINGLE COTTAGES, NEW COVE, S. CLEMENTS, 30th June.

My Dear Edward,—When Sydney Smith led Perfection to the Pea because the Pea would not come to Perfection, he could hardly have had such an ideal as yours.  Your intended niece is much like the ‘not impossible she’ of a youth under twenty.  One comfort is that such is the blindness of your kind that you will imagine all these charms in whatever good, ladylike, simple-hearted girl I pitch upon, and such I am sure I shall find all my nieces.  The only difficulty will be in deciding, and that will be fixed by details of style, and the parents’ willingness to spare their child.

This is an excellent plan of yours for bringing the whole family together round our dear old mother and her home daughter.  This is the end house of three on a little promontory, and has a charming view—of the sea in the first place, and then on the one side of what is called by courtesy the parade, on the top of the sea wall where there is a broad walk leading to S. Clements, nearly two miles off.  There are not above a dozen houses altogether, and the hotel is taken for the two families from London and Oxford, while the Druces are to be in the house but one next to us, the middle one being unluckily let off to various inhabitants.  We have one bedroom free where we may lodge some of the overflowings, and I believe the whole party are to take their chief meals together in the large room at the hotel.  The houses are mostly scattered, being such as fortunate skippers build as an investment, and that their wives may amuse themselves with lodgers in their absence.  The church is the weakest point in this otherwise charming place.  The nearest, and actually the parish church, is a hideous compo structure, built in the worst of times as a chapel of ease to S. Clements.  I am afraid my mother’s loyalty to the parochial system will make her secure a pew there, though at the farther end of the town there is a new church which is all that can be wished, and about a mile and a half inland there is a village church called Hollyford, held, I believe, by a former fellow-curate of Horace Druce.  Perhaps they will exchange duties, if Horace can be persuaded to take a longer holiday than merely for the three weeks he has provided for at Bourne Parva.  They cannot come till Monday week, but our Oxford professor and his party come on Thursday, and Edith will bring her girls the next day.  Her husband, our Q.C., cannot come till his circuit is over, but of course you know more about his movements than I do.  I wonder you have never said anything about those girls of his, but I suppose you class them as unattainable.  I have said nothing to my mother or Emily of our plans, as I wish to be perfectly unbiased, and as I have seen none of the nieces for five years, and am prepared to delight in them all, I may be reckoned as a blank sheet as to their merits.—Your affectionate sister,

CHARLOTTE FULFORD.

July 4.—By noon to-day arrived Martyn,1 with Mary his wife, Margaret and Avice their daughters, Uchtred their second son, and poor Harry Fulford’s orphan, Isabel, who has had a home with them ever since she left school.  Though she is only a cousin once removed, she seems to fall into the category of eligible nieces, and indeed she seems the obvious companion for us, as she has no home, and seems to me rather set aside among the others.  I hope there is no jealousy, for she is much better looking than her cousins, with gentle, liquid eyes, a pretty complexion, and a wistful expression.  Moreover, she is dressed in a quiet ladylike way, whereas grandmamma looked out just now in the twilight and said, “My dear Martyn, have you brought three boys down?”  It was a showery, chilly evening, and they were all out admiring the waves.  Ulsters and sailor hats were appropriate enough then, but the genders were not easy to distinguish, especially as the elder girl wears her hair short—no improvement to a keen face which needs softening.  She is much too like a callow undergraduate altogether, and her sister follows suit, though perhaps with more refinement of feature—indeed she looks delicate, and was soon called in.  They are in slight mourning, and appear in gray serges.  They left a strap of books on the sofa, of somewhat alarming light literature for the seaside.  Bacon’s Essays and Elements of Logic were the first Emily beheld, and while she stood regarding them with mingled horror and respect, in ran Avice to fetch them, as the two sisters are reading up for the Oxford exam—‘ination’ she added when she saw her two feeble-minded aunts looking for the rest of the word.  However, she says it is only Pica who is going up for it this time.  She herself was not considered strong enough.  Yet there have those two set themselves down with their books under the rocks, blind to all the glory of sea and shore, deaf to the dash and ripple of the waves!  I long to go and shout Wordsworth’s warning about ‘growing double’ to them.  I am glad to say that Uchtred has come and fetched Avice away.  I can hardly believe Martyn and Mary parents to this grown-up family.  They look as youthful as ever, and are as active and vigorous, and full of their jokes with one another and their children.  They are now gone out to the point of the rocks at the end of our promontory, fishing for microscopical monsters, and comporting themselves boy and girl fashion.

Isabel has meantime been chatting very pleasantly with grandmamma, and trying to extricate us from our bewilderment as to names and nicknames.  My poor mother, after strenuously preventing abbreviations in her own family, has to endure them in her descendants, and as every one names a daughter after her, there is some excuse!  This Oxford Margaret goes by the name of Pie or Pica, apparently because it is the remotest portion of Magpie, and her London cousin is universally known as Metelill—the Danish form, I believe; but in the Bourne Parva family the young Margaret Druce is nothing worse than Meg, and her elder sister remains Jane.  “Nobody would dare to call her anything else,” says Isa.  Avice cannot but be sometimes translated into the Bird; while my poor name, in my second London niece, has become the masculine Charley.  “I shall know why when I see her,” says Isa laughing.  This good-natured damsel is coming out walking with us old folks, and will walk on with me, when grandmamma turns back with Emily.  Her great desire is to find the whereabouts of a convalescent home in which she and her cousins have subscribed to place a poor young dressmaker for a six weeks’ rest; but I am afraid it is on the opposite side of S. Clements, too far for a walk.

July 5.—Why did you never tell me how charming Metelill is?  I never supposed the Fulford features capable of so much beauty, and the whole manner and address are so delightful that I do not wonder that all her cousins are devoted to her; Uchtred, or Butts, as they are pleased to name him, has brightened into another creature since she came, and she seems like sunshine to us all.  As to my namesake, I am sorry to say that I perceive the appropriateness of Charley; but I suppose it is style, for the masculine dress which in Pica and Avice has an air of being worn for mere convenience’ sake, and is quite ladylike, especially on Avice, has in her an appearance of defiance and coquetry.  Her fox-terrier always shares her room, which therefore is eschewed by her sister, and this has made a change in our arrangements.  We had thought the room in our house, which it seems is an object of competition, would suit best for Jane Druce and one of her little sisters; but a hint was given by either Pica or her mother that it would be a great boon to let Jane and Avice share it, as they are very great friends, and we had the latter there installed.  However, this fox-terrier made Metelill protest against sleeping at the hotel with her sister, and her mother begged us to take her in.  Thereupon, Emily saw Isa looking annoyed, and on inquiry she replied sweetly, “Oh, never mind, aunty dear; I daresay Wasp won’t be so bad as he looks; and I’ll try not to be silly, and then I daresay Charley will not tease me!  Only I had hoped to be with dear Metelill; but no doubt she will prefer her Bird—people always do.”  So they were going to make that poor child the victim!  For it seems Pica has a room to herself, and will not give it up or take in any one.  Emily went at once to Avice and asked whether she would mind going to the hotel, and letting Isa be with Metelill, and this she agreed to at once.  I don’t know why I tell you all these details, except that they are straws to show the way of the wind, and you will see how Isabel is always the sacrifice, unless some one stands up for her.  Here comes Martyn to beguile me out to the beach.

July 6 (Sunday).—My mother drove to church and took Edith, who was glad neither to walk nor to have to skirmish for a seat.  Isa walked with Emily and me, and so we made up our five for our seat, which, to our dismay, is in the gallery, but, happily for my mother, the stairs are easy.  The pews there are not quite so close to one’s nose as those in the body of the church; they are a little wider, and are furnished with hassocks instead of traps to prevent kneeling, so that we think ourselves well off, and we were agreeably surprised at the service.  There is a new incumbent who is striving to modify things as well as his people and their architecture permit, and who preached an excellent sermon.  So we triumph over the young folk, who try to persuade us that the gallery is a judgment on us for giving in to the hired pew system.  They may banter me as much as they like, but I don’t like to see them jest with grandmamma about it, as if they were on equal terms, and she does not understand it either.  “My dear,” she gravely says, “your grandpapa always said it was a duty to support the parish church.”  “Nothing will do but the Congregational system in these days; don’t you think so?” began Pica dogmatically, when her father called her off.  Martyn cannot bear to see his mother teased.  He and his wife, with the young ones, made their way to Hollyford, where they found a primitive old church and a service to match, but were terribly late, and had to sit in worm-eaten pews near the door, amid scents of peppermint and southernwood.  On the way back, Martyn fraternised with a Mr. Methuen, a Cambridge tutor with a reading party, who has, I am sorry to say, arrived at the house vis-à-vis to ours, on the other side of the cove.  Our Oxford young ladies turn up their noses at the light blue, and say the men have not the finish of the dark; but Charley is in wild spirits.  I heard her announcing the arrival thus: “I say, Isa, what a stunning lark!  Not but that I was up to it all the time, or else I should have skedaddled; for this place was bound to be as dull as ditchwater.”  “But how did you know?” asked Isa.  “Why, Bertie Elwood tipped me a line that he was coming down here with his coach, or else I should have told the mater I couldn’t stand it and gone to stay with some one.”  This Bertie Elwood is, it seems, one of the many London acquaintance.  He looks inoffensive, and so do the others, but I wish they had chosen some other spot for their studies, and so perhaps does their tutor, though he is now smoking very happily under a rock with Martyn.

July 7.—Such a delightful evening walk with Metelill and Isa as Emily and I had last night, going to evensong in our despised church!  The others said they could stand no more walking and heat, and yet we met Martyn and Mary out upon the rocks when we were coming home, after being, I must confess, nearly fried to death by the gas and bad air.  They laughed at us and our exertions, all in the way of good humour, but it was not wholesome from parents.  Mary tried to make me confess that we were coming home in a self-complacent fakir state of triumph in our headaches, much inferior to her humble revelling in cool sea, sky, and moonlight.  It was like the difference between the Benedicite and the Te Deum, I could not help thinking; while Emily said a few words to Martyn as to how mamma would be disappointed at his absenting himself from Church, and was answered, “Ah!  Emily, you are still the good home child of the primitive era,” which she did not understand; but I faced about and asked if it were not what we all should be.  He answered rather sadly, “If we could’; and his wife shrugged her shoulders.  Alas! I fear the nineteenth century tone has penetrated them, and do not wonder that this poor Isabel does not seem happy in her home.

9.—What a delightful sight is a large family of young things together!  The party is complete, for the Druces arrived yesterday evening in full force, torn from their bucolic life, as Martyn tells them.  My poor dear old Margaret!  She does indeed look worn and aged, dragged by cares like a colonist’s wife, and her husband is quite bald, and as spare as a hermit.  It is hard to believe him younger than Martyn; but then his whole soul is set on Bourne Parva, and hers on him, on the children, on the work, and on making both ends meet; and they toil five times more severely in one month than the professor and his lady in a year, besides having just twice as many children, all of whom are here except the schoolboys.  Margaret declares that the entire rest, and the talking to something not entirely rural, will wind her husband up for the year; and it is good to see her sitting in a basket-chair by my mother, knitting indeed, but they both do that like breathing, while they purr away to one another in a state of perfect repose and felicity.  Meantime her husband talks Oxford with Martyn and Mary.  Their daughter Jane seems to be a most valuable helper to both, but she too has a worn, anxious countenance, and I fear she may be getting less rest than her parents, as they have brought only one young nursemaid with them, and seem to depend on her and Meg for keeping the middle-sized children in order.  She seems to have all the cares of the world on her young brow, and is much exercised about one of the boxes which has gone astray on the railway.  What do you think she did this morning?  She started off with Avice at eight o’clock for the S. Clements station to see if the telegram was answered, and they went on to the Convalescent Home and saw the Oxford dressmaker.  It seems that Avice had taken Uchtred with her on Sunday evening, made out the place, and gone to church at S. Clements close by—a very long walk; but it seems that those foolish girls thought me too fine a lady to like to be seen with her in her round hat on a Sunday.  I wish they could understand what it is that I dislike.  If I objected to appearances, I am afraid the poor Druces would fare ill.  Margaret’s girls cannot help being essentially ladies, but they have not much beauty to begin with—and their dress!  It was chiefly made by their own sewing machine, with the assistance of the Bourne Parva mantua-maker, superintended by Jane, ‘to prevent her from making it foolish’; and the effect, I grieve to say, is ill-fitting dowdiness, which becomes grotesque from their self-complacent belief that it displays the only graceful and sensible fashion in the place.  It was laughable to hear them criticising every hat or costume they have seen, quite unaware that they were stared at themselves, till Charley told them people thought they had come fresh out of Lady Bountiful’s goody-box, which piece of impertinence they took as a great compliment to their wisdom and excellence.  To be sure, the fashions are distressing enough, but Metelill shows that they can be treated gracefully and becomingly, and even Avice makes her serge and hat look fresh and ladylike.  Spite of contrast, Avice and Jane seem to be much devoted to each other.  Pica and Charley are another pair, and Isa and Metelill—though Metelill is the universal favourite, and there is always competition for her.  In early morning I see the brown heads and blue bathing-dresses, a-mermaiding, as they call it, in the cove below, and they come in all glowing, with the floating tresses that make Metelill look so charming, and full of merry adventures at breakfast.  We all meet in the great room at the hotel for a substantial meal at half-past one, and again (most of us at least) at eight; but it is a moot point which of these meals we call dinner.  Very merry both of them are; Martyn and Horace Druce are like boys together, and the girls scream with laughter, rather too much so sometimes.  Charley is very noisy, and so is Meg Druce, when not overpowered by shyness.  She will not exchange a sentence with any of the elders, but in the general laugh she chuckles and shrieks like a young Cochin-Chinese chicken learning to crow; and I hear her squealing like a maniac while she is shrimping with the younger ones and Charley.  I must except those two young ladies from the unconscious competition, for one has no manners at all, and the other affects those of a man; but as to the rest, they are all as nice as possible, and I can only say, “How happy could I be with either.”  Isa, poor girl, seems to need our care most, and would be the most obliging and attentive.  Metelill would be the prettiest and sweetest ornament of our drawing-room, and would amuse you the most; Pica, with her scholarly tastes, would be the best and most appreciative fellow-traveller; and Jane, if she could or would go, would perhaps benefit the most by being freed from a heavy strain, and having her views enlarged.