fourteenth-century arches that led from the buttery into the hall, now in great part demolished. At the back there are large stables and lofts, a granary and a coach-house, all belonging to the time when Chancellor Pretyman, who held several other preferments, lived at Lincoln in such state that, an old resident told us, a footman stood behind the chair of every guest at dinner. Secularity had been, until the days of Chancellor Massingberd1, whom my father succeeded, almost a note of the office. A former Chancellor had been seen, when in residence, to hurry from the Cathedral after Morning Service, throw his surplice to his valet and drive off in a post-chaise, which would be standing ready, to the Doncaster Races. My father greatly improved the house; he threw two bedrooms together and made a large study which looked out into a little garden with an ivy-clad wall beyond. He filled the lobby windows with stained armorial glass, and he fitted up a room over the porch as a tiny chapel, with some beautiful stained glass windows given by his friend Canon Wickenden, which are now bequeathed to the Library at Lambeth. Here we had prayers morning and evening, using, on Wednesdays and Fridays, a Litany translated by my father himself from the Greek, and in the evenings a simple form of Compline. Behind the house was a small lawn with thickets of elders; but a passage under the granary admits you to a garden about an acre in extent, with a great wealth of flowers and fruit trees. On one side it was skirted by the high ancient Close wall, of stone mingled with brick, thick-set with peaches and apricots, and fringed with wild golden wallflowers at the top; and in two of the corners of the garden were stone towers, belonging to the old fortifications, one of which my father repaired, and made 1 See Addendum, p. 410. it a delicious place to ascend and breathe the summer breezes. A postern below it admits you into streets of blind garden-walls which lead to the quiet Greetwell Fields; and there was another entrance for carriages further down the Close. My father caused to be dug away a great quantity of earth which had accumulated near the house, and found much ancient Roman and mediaeval pottery, coins and tokens; he planted yew hedges and made the place very lovely; but we lived with the utmost simplicity, had no horse or carriage, and only maid-servants. An ornament of the outer garden was a large stone sarcophagus, rudely made, probably British or Roman, which my father bought from some workmen who had found it in the Greetwell Fields in a gravel-pit, and were just going to demolish. It contained the bones of two children, buried together. In the inner garden I have known him walk for hours together in his cassock reading a little volume of Burke, or pondering over the notes of his sermons, which were as a rule extempore. His frequent station was a grassy mound with steep sides that overlooked the whole garden: shaded by a Service tree, and overgrown by many elderbushes. We had at Lincoln an old white Tom-cat, called by my mother Rector, because he lived well and discharged his mousing duties by deputy; he became wild and wicked, and we used to see him, a dingy grey colour, stalking in a melancholy way through the raspberry bushes while we played lawn-tennis. At last he broke his leg, pined away, and was destroyed. He was buried under a pear tree which sprawled over the wall that shaded the lawn. My father wrote the following inscription, had it engraved in capital letters on slate, and put it up in the wall. I believe it has since come to be regarded as a veritable antique : Hic positus Rector bello generosior Hector Sic terrena super stes alba prole superstes. We lived very economically at Lincoln. When lawntennis was invented, my father was much interested in the game, and made us play it. He invented curious wooden bats, I imagine infringing all patents, and we marked out the court with tape fastened down with hairpins, also his device. The one disadvantage was that if one caught one's foot the whole construction was obliterated in a moment. He took a hand himself very often, but was an ineffective player, though exceedingly zealous. My mother was ill at the time we moved, and was much away; I shall never forget a walk which we took with my father when we had got the house fairly straight. He was then suffering from the reaction of the change, regretting that he had ever given up Wellington, feeling that the new surroundings would never suit him, and in deep depression. We went all down the long High Street of Lincoln, with its great stone archways, Bars properly called, across the road, and the quaint towers of its churches, St Peter-at-Arches, St Peter-at-Gowts and the rest. On a hill near Canwick we saw what seemed to be a fountain rising in great jerks into the air; we went off to explore this and found at last that it was the white sails of an unseen windmill. Then we turned, and the glories of Lincoln burst upon us-Castle and Cathedral in all their stately glories above the streaming smoke of myriad chimneys. My father's eyes filled with tears and he said, “Well, we must try to live up to that!" A post-card to his Wife. Sep. 1873. All going well. Boys very industrious and happy. The Precentory a grand refuge. Arrangements are very complete at the Chancery; there is a man to make dust, and a man to burn paint off doors, and a man to make a noise with a hammer, and a man to throw soot at the books, and a man to dig for tobacco pipes in the garden, and a man to splash the paper with paint, and a man to scrape paint off with a knife, and a boy not to fetch or carry, and rods and rings not to fit, and carpets not to fit also, and women to wet the floors, and several men to charge. So we shall not be ready for you till Friday, if then. And yet you see what efforts!—and I fell down yesterday and scratched a shilling's worth of skin off my elbow, and to-day made a two shilling hole in my trouser knee. Baby is splendid and so dirty and so happy. When Beth says she is surprised and asks if he is not he says "No" in a highly concerned manner, and emphatically repeats "No." My best love to Nellie and Maggie and thanks for their letters which were very nice, and to old Fred and Grannie. Beth seems to like everything. To the Rev. J. F. Wickenden. 1874 I am beginning to look on the months hitherto as a sort of illness. So many anxieties, so many uncertainties, so many wonders whether one had done rightly or quixotically. Now as one gets into work, clouds drift away. You must come again for as long as you can and see how we have got over our moping faces and resigned meal-times. If you had not been here we should have petrified. I assure you the renovation of an old house is far newer than a new house, far older than an old one. Its antiquity is developed, you see, and the new is so very new. As for ghosts, they like it-they get bolder-they rap every night while we are all talking and scrummaging in the drawingroom, they notice every coming in and going out. I am at this moment in the ridiculous position of writing at a standing desk, in the presence of a young sculptor who has received a Commission (why capital C ? military association?) from Mr Willett to Bust me. He flung himself with the greatest ardour into the work at Lincoln, and far from finding himself at leisure for literary work, he was busier, he said, than he had ever been before. He started a Theological College, Cancellarii Scholae, where he lectured, assisted by his dear friend, Prebendary Crowfoot'. He caused to be restored a Chapel in the Cathedral where he held a daily early Matins. He had a little Bible-Class of mechanics from Clayton and Shuttleworth's, and Robey's Works. He gave Lenten Lectures on Church History in the Chapter House, and, with some trembling, he started Night Schools in the city; but rough as were many of the students who attended them, his personal ascendency carried all through. Canon Crowfoot writes: The opening of the Night Schools for men and lads in the city was due to a suggestion made by Miss S. Wordsworth. I remember walking down on the first night with the Chancellor and a few students, thinking it possible that we might find sixty pupils. To our astonishment when we came in sight of the Central School in Silver Street we found the street blocked with working men and lads. There were 400 waiting for admittance. As soon as the doors were open the Chancellor mounted the table and in stentorian tones shouted, "All over 40 years old go to such a room," "All over 30 to another," and so in an incredibly short time the mass of men and boys was roughly sorted. Then, thanks to the extremely efficient help of Mr Mantle2, and his son Rev. W. Mantle, simple test papers in writing and arithmetic Classes were soon formed, and order throughout the schools was introduced. Their after success was largely due to the help given by Mr Mantle and his sons. were set. Miss Wordsworth writes: The Chancellor's night schools proved very successful. He enlisted the services and sympathy of many of the residents in support of them. Two old ladies however who were somewhat 1 In July, 1898, upon the death of Canon Clements, Subdean of Lincoln, Canon Leeke, who succeeded my father, accepted the Subdeanery, and Canon Crowfoot was appointed to the vacant Chancellorship. ? Master of the Cathedral School at Lincoln. B. I. 24 |