“Lord Strafford was here because he borrowed the house of Sir Arthur Ingram as the largest to which to summon the Cavaliers. Sir Arthur was rewarded by Charles II. for his devotion to the Stuarts by being made Viscount Irvine.”
“Ripley Castle, Dec. 12.—In this pleasant hospitable house I greatly miss the gentle presence of the beloved Lady Ingilby, who was so long a kind and warm-hearted friend; but it is pleasant to find her cordial welcome still living in that of her son, Sir Henry, and her pretty graceful daughter-in-law, who is a daughter of Lord Marjoribanks of Ladykirk.
“I found here Count and Countess Bathyany, people I was very glad to see. They retain their old castle in Hungary, where they are magnates of the first rank, but for some years they have lived chiefly in England, at Eaglehurst on the Solent, and receive there during the yachting season. The Countess has remains of great beauty and is wonderfully agreeable. As I sat by her at dinner, she talked much of Lady William Russell,[157] and told me the story of Lord Moira’s appearance, which she had heard from her own lips. “Lady William was at Brighton, where her friend Lady Betty—— was also staying. One day when Lady Betty went to her, she found her excessively upset and discomposed, and she said it was on account of a dream that she had had of her uncle, who, as Lord Moira, had brought her up, and who was then Governor of Malta. She said that she had seen a very long hall, and at the end of the hall a couch with a number of female figures in different attitudes of grief and despair bending over it, as if they were holding up or attending to some sick person. On the couch she saw no one, but immediately afterwards she seemed to meet her Uncle Moira and embraced him, but said, with a start, ‘Uncle, how terribly cold you are!’ He replied, ‘Bessie, did you not know that I am dead?’ She recollected herself instantly and said, ‘Oh, Uncle, how does it look on the other side?’—‘Quite different from what we have imagined, and far, far more beautiful,’ he replied with a radiant smile, and she awoke. Her dream occurred just when Lord Hastings[158] (formerly Lord Moira) died on a couch in a hall at Malta; but she told the circumstances to Lady Betty long before the news came.[159]
“Another story which Countess Bathyany told from personal knowledge was that of Sir Samuel Romilly.
“Lord Grey[160] and his son-in-law, Sir Charles Wood, were walking on the ramparts of Carlisle. The rampart is there still. It is very narrow, and there is only one exit; so if you walk there, you must return as you came. While they were walking, a man passed them, returned, passed them again, and then disappeared in front of them over the parapet, where there was really no means of exit. There was a red scarf round his throat. ‘How very extraordinary! and how exactly like Sir Samuel Romilly!’ they both exclaimed. At that moment Sir Samuel Romilly had cut his throat in a distant part of England.
“We have tea in the evening in the oak room in the tower, where Miss Ingilby has often had much to say that is interesting, especially this story.[161]
“A regiment was lately passing through Derbyshire on its way to fresh quarters in the North. The Colonel, as they stayed for the night in one of the country towns, was invited to dine at a country-house in the neighbourhood, and to bring any one he liked with him. Consequently he took with him a young ensign for whom he had taken a great fancy. They arrived, and it was a large party, but the lady of the house did not appear till just as they were going in to dinner, and, when she appeared, was so strangely distraite and preoccupied that she scarcely attended to anything that was said to her. At dinner, the Colonel observed that his young companion scarcely ever took his eyes off the lady of the house, staring at her in a way which seemed at once rude and unaccountable. It made him observe the lady herself, and he saw that she scarcely seemed to attend to anything said by her neighbours on either side of her, but rather seemed, in a manner quite unaccountable, to be listening to some one or something behind her. As soon as dinner was over, the young ensign came to the Colonel and said, ‘Oh, do take me away: I entreat you to take me away from this place.’ The Colonel said, ‘Indeed your conduct is so very extraordinary and unpleasant, that I quite agree with you that the best thing we can do is to go away;’ and he made the excuse of his young friend being ill, and ordered their carriage. When they had driven some distance the Colonel asked the ensign for an explanation of his conduct. He said that he could not help it: during the whole of dinner he had seen a terrible black shadowy figure standing behind the chair of the lady of the house, and it had seemed to whisper to her, and she to listen to it. He had scarcely told this, when a man on horseback rode rapidly past the carriage, and the Colonel, recognising one of the servants of the house they had just left, called out to know if anything was the matter. ‘Oh, don’t stop me, sir,’ he shouted; ‘I am going for the doctor: my lady has just cut her throat.’
“I may mention here a very odd adventure which the other day befell my cousin Eliot Yorke. He had been dining with the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace, in company with Captain Fane, commander of H.M.S. Bellerophon on the Australian Station, who had been well known to the Duke and Eliot when the former was in the South Pacific in command of the Galatea. At a late hour Eliot and Captain Fane left the Palace to go to their club. The night was cold and wet, and, at a crossing in Pall-Mall, their attention was attracted by a miserable-looking little boy, ragged and shoeless, who, even in the middle of the night, was still plying his broom and imploring a trifle from the passers-by. Eliot, according to his usual custom, stopped to talk to the boy before relieving him. The child told him he was a stranger in London, that he had walked there to seek his fortune from some place on the south-west coast, that he was friendless, homeless, and penniless. The proprietor of the crossing had lent it to him, with his broom, for that day only: he had earned very little, but Eliot’s gift would secure him a lodging for that night, and then—he supposed there was nothing for him but starvation or the workhouse. ‘And have you really no friends or relations in the world?’ said Eliot. ‘Well, sir, it’s the same as if I had none; I’ve one brother, but I shall never see him again: I don’t even know if he is alive.’—‘What is your brother’s name?’—‘He is—— a signalman on board the Bellerophon, and he’s been away so long, he must have forgotten me.’—‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Captain Fane; ‘that is the name of my signalman, and a very smart fellow he is, and I see a strong likeness between him and the boy.’ The end of the story was, that the two gentlemen secured a lodging for the boy, bought him some clothes, and, through Captain Fane’s influence, he has been placed on board one of the training vessels, the Dreadnought, for the merchant service, to become a good sailor like his brother. But the combination of coincidences is most striking and providential. The boy only had the crossing for that one night. Captain Fane, almost the only person in the world who could testify to the truth of the story, was only in London for two nights; and he chanced to be walking with Eliot, probably the only person who would have thought of stopping to talk to a crossing-sweeper.”
“Hickledon, Dec. 12.—I came here yesterday, cordially welcomed by Lord and Lady Halifax, and was glad to find the John Greys here. In the evening my dear Charlie and Lady Agnes came, but our meeting was sadly clouded by the terrible news of poor George Grey’s[162] death at Sandringham. Charlie had brought back many stories from Bedgebury. Mr. Beresford Hope told him that:—
“His