CHAPTER XVI. ADDINGTON. "Then said Christian to the Porter, Sir, what house is this?... The Porter answered, This house was built by the Lord of the Hill, and he built it for the relief and security of Pilgrims.” BUNYAN'S Pilgrim's Progress. ABOUT a month before Archbishop Tait's death I went with my father and mother and eldest sister to stay at Addington. Archbishop Tait, who knew himself to be on his death-bed, desired my father's presence because, as afterwards appeared, he had strongly in his mind the belief that the Bishop of Truro would eventually succeed to the Archbishopric; my father and mother saw him once or twice, the rest of us not at all, as he was confined to his bed, but he daily sent us affectionate messages. To my father the visit was like a patriarchal benediction. I do not know why, but it was very strongly borne in upon my mind as by a presentiment, that Addington would be our home, from the first moment we entered the Park gates. One evening in the falling twilight I walked with my father up and down the drive, the breeze blowing very fragrantly out of the wood. My father talked about Addington, and said that no future Archbishop could ever live there; that it was too much in the style of the grand seigneur, and that it was a most unsuitable house both from its size and from the inevitable expenses of such an establishment. Yet later on it became to him a most beloved home; its nearness to London was an immense convenience, and its great seclusion gave the rest after London life which was essential; and from th moment of his appointment he never seriously thought of giving Addington up. The house is a great grey stone building, very ugly in front, rather stately behind: the ground falls so rapidly that the front door is really on the first floor of the house, with a large basement below. It lies in the corner of a park of some 600 acres ; a lovely tract of undulating ground, with every kind of scenery to be found within it. There is a steep heathery valley with pines: there is a great tract of English woodland with beautiful glades and open spaces, a certain amount of pasture land behind the house, and a little farm land as well, very gracefully concealed. There is a small home farm and large gardens. The great beauty of the place is derived from the extreme steepness of the gravel hills, the shoals of some ancient sea, over which the woodland extends. There are traces all over the park of ancient British habitations, curious circular pits of great depth. There was a hunting lodge of Henry VIII. not far from the present house, the site marked by an avenue of elms. The place was bought by a Lord Mayor of London, Barlow Trecothick by name, from an old family of Leighs in the last century. There are Leigh and Trecothick monuments in the Church; the cognisance of the Leighs, a lion, is still to be seen on the gateway of one of the lodges. Lord Mayor Trecothick built the central part of the present house. About the beginning of the century it was purchased for Archbishop Manners Sutton,-the old palace of Croydon, a most interesting place which has passed through many vicissitudes, being almost uninhabitable. Archbishop Howley spent money liberally on Addington, and Mrs Howley, herself a skilful landscape gardener, laid out and cleared a number of beautiful grass rides in the park, which cross and recross each other in the most ingenious way, so that to any one exploring it for the first time the domain seems to be of inexhaustible extent. The house itself was very substantially built. You entered by a large hall which had a collection of ancient weapons on the walls, with the words "Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum" over them, a motto which would seem ironical until the weapons were examined. To the left of the hall was an anteroom, where was a large library of biography and history, neatly arranged by my father on some esoteric plan of his own, which resulted in every book being where you least expected it; for instance, in arranging a work in several volumes, the last volume was always to the left and the first to the right of the set. Over the various bookshelves were ingenious Latin mottoes put up by him. Over the door into the drawing-room, which was covered with bookbacks, he put up "Pervius usus auctorum" parodying it from the lines in the Aeneid-" pervius usus tectorum Priami"; over another bookcase "Nunquamne reponam?" In this room were also my father's large collections of photographs and prints. Another door from the anteroom led into my father's study. He was very sensitive to draughts, and found that people were apt to leave the anteroom doors into the hall open. He therefore put up a notice, sealed with the archiepiscopal seal, between the doors: "To close one of these doors is an act of obligation. To close both is an act of merit." |