On the day of the New Year, which is the day for giving and receiving presents, there was so great an exchange of pretty things that I cannot enumerate them. For everybody gave something, if it were only a little trifle worked by hand. Thus, my lord presented Tom with a hunter, and Tom gave him a fowling-piece which had belonged to his uncle Ferdinando. Though the general joy at the master’s return was so great that the tables groaned beneath the presents offered to him, yet I think he gave far more than he received. That was ever his way —— to give more than he received, whether in friendship, trust, and confidence, or in rich presents, or in love. It is a happy disposition, showing that its owner is already half prepared for heaven. As for myself, I was made nothing short of rich by the many beautiful and costly things that were bestowed upon me. Tom gave me a pair of gloves, the Lady Mary a small parcel of pointlace of Valenciennes, the Lady Katharine a piece of most beautiful brocade, saying that she was too old for such gauds and vanities, which became young and beautiful gentlewomen, and her maid should give me counsel how best to make it up. Mr. Howard gave me a book from the library containing the ‘Meditations’ of Thomas à Kempis. Alas! I paid little heed at the time to the wise and comforting words of that precious book, though now, next to one other, it is my greatest consoler. (I also find some of the ‘Thoughts’ of Monsieur Pascal worthy the attention of those who would seek comfort from religion.) Frank gave me a silver chain —— it had been his grandmother’s —— for hanging keys and what not upon; and Mr. Errington gave me a pretty little ring set with an emerald, saying that he had bought it for the first Dorothy Forster twenty years before, but she would have none of him or of his gifts.
‘Wherefore, my dear,’ he said, ‘although an emerald speaks of love returned, let me bestow it upon one beautiful enough to be Dorothy’s daughter.
‘“O daughter, fairer than thy mother fair,” as says some poet, but I forget which, because it is thirty years since I left off reading verses. Very likely it was Suckling or Waller.’
‘Sir,’ said Mr. Hilyard officiously, ‘your honour does the Latin poet Horace the honour to quote him —— through an unknown translation.’
‘Gad,’ replied Mr. Errington, ‘I knew not I was quoting Latin. I am infinitely obliged to you, sir, for the assistance of your learning. It shall be Horace, since you say so. But much finer things, I doubt not, have been said about beautiful women by our English poets. Can you, sir, who know the poets, as well as everything else’ —— Mr. Errington was one of those gentlemen who regard scholarship as a kind of trade, to be followed by the baser sort, as indeed it chiefly is, and as a means of rising ——‘can you, sir, help us to something from an English poet with which we may compliment the beauty of this young lady?’
‘The language of gallantry,’ said Mr. Hilyard, ‘was not affected by Shakespeare, our greatest poet; yet there is one passage which I submit to your honour. It is in his sonnets, wherein the poet says:
‘“Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her person.’”
‘Very good, sir,’ said Mr. Errington. ‘Fair Dorothy, Shakespeare was a prophet.’
Lord Derwentwater alone gave me nothing, which I thought strange. But presently, when the first business and agitation about the gifts were over, he begged me to examine with him some of the treasures and heirlooms of the house.
The hall was full of strange things and treasures brought together from every part of the world; by Radcliffes who had travelled in far countries, even to Constantinople and the Holy Land; by Radcliffes who had crossed the ocean, and seen the two Americas and the savage Indians; by Radcliffes who had plundered Scottish castles and Scottish towns in the old times; by Radcliffes who had bought beautiful things in Italy, and by those who had bought them in London. The walls were covered with pictures; not only portraits, but also those pictures which men strangely love to paint, of half-clothed shepherdesses, nymphs, satyrs, and so forth; illustrations of stories from Ovid and the ancient poets, some of which Mr. Hilyard had read to me; together with other pictures, to my poor understanding, equally foolish —— to wit, the martyrdom and torture of saints, as the shooting of St. Sebastian with arrows; the roasting of St. Lawrence upon a gridiron (this was very fine and much-praised picture by an Italian master, whose name I have forgotten; but it made your flesh creep ever afterwards even to think of that poor writhing wretch); the angles in heaven, all sitting in a formal circle; the beheading of St. Peter, and so forth. I know not why these things should be portrayed, unless, as is wisely done in Fox’s ‘Book of Martyrs,’ in order to show, by lively pictures of the poor creatures in the flames, what one religion is capable of doing, and the other of enduring. Besides the pictures, there were suits of armour, both chain-armour, very beautifully wrought, and armour of hammered iron, with a whole armoury of weapons hanging like trophies upon the walls, such as pikes, lances, spears, bows and arrows, crossbows, guns and firelocks of all kinds, strange instruments for tearing knights out of their saddles, battleaxes, maces, and swords of every kind. At my request, my lord once dressed himself in one of the suits of chain-armour, and put on his head an iron helmet, with side or cheek pieces, and a machine for protecting the face. With a battleaxe in his hand, he looked most martial and commanding; yet I laughed to see the long wig below the helmet, flowing over the shoulders and the chain-armour. To each age its fashions; since the politeness of the present generation commands gentlemen no longer to wear their own hair, but a full wig, whereby the aged may look young, and the young disguise their youth and inexperience, there must seem something ludicrous when the dress of our ancestors is assumed even for a moment. It was not, however, to see these things, which stood exposed to the view of all who came, that I was asked to accompany my lord. We went to see those treasures which were kept under lock and key in cabinets and cupboards, and even in secret places known only to Mrs. Busby, the housekeeper, who came with us, bearing the keys.
Lady Mary came, too. Her sister, Lady Katharine, the most gentle and pious of women, was in the chapel, where she spent a great part of each day in prayer and meditation. Certainly, if ever there was a saint in the Church of Rome, she was one. Though we are bound not to accept the doctrine of Purgatory (which seems to me the least harmful of human inventions, as regards religion), yet I have always thought, in considering the life of this pious woman, that there could be no fires of Purgatory for her. Her sister was as gentle, but not so pious (yet a good woman, and obedient to the Church).
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘we have many pretty things to show you. No doubt the Forsters have also got together, both at Bamborough and Etherston, things as curious and more valuable, for we are not ignorant that you have been longer in the county. But our collections are allowed to be very fine.’
They were indeed very fine. We have nothing to compare with them, either at Etherston or at Bamborough.
There were old brocades, stiff with gold and silver; gloves set with pearls; shoebuckles with diamonds; embroidered and jewelled garters; damasks, flounced stuffs, rich silks, every kind of woman’s dress from the time of Henry VI., or even older, to the present day. The housekeeper laid them out with pride, saying, ‘This belonged to Lady Radcliffe, your lordship’s grandmother, who was a daughter of Sir William Fenwick; and this was part of the bridal dress of Anne Radcliffe, who married Sir Philip Constable; and these were the late Lady Swinburne’s gloves’—— and so on. She had, besides, a story to tell of every one; how this lady was a widow and a beauty; and this one ran away, and another was married against her will, and another a widow almost as soon as she was a bride; such tales as an old housekeeper loves to gather together and to store up.
‘Women,’ says Mr. Hilyard, ‘are the historians, as they are the guardians of the household.............