Vestigia, reminiscences of peace and war

Front matter

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Appendix

MEMORANDUM ON INVASION

INDEX .

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(Fron a drawing.)

GENERAL A Court Repincron (of Amington Hall, _ Warwickshire), Colonel-in-Chief 41st Regiment

(From a drawing.) A CURRIE FAMILY GROUP , ‘ ; ;

ELIZABETH HERBERT, afterwards Lady Herbert of Lea . |

WeEst HORSLEY PLACE, SURREY.

Mr. HENRY CURRIE (from a drawing.) 2ND LIEUT. CHARLES A Court, 4th Batt. Rifle Brigade, India, 1878 SIR WILLIAM A Court, BArt., afterwards 1st Lord Heytesbury . : ° ‘ . ° (From a miniature.) BREVET LIEuUT.-COLONEL C. A CourT, D.A.A.G., Egypt, 1898 , : ; ‘ ° .

THE REAL Lapy HAMILTON é : (From a miniature given by her to the author's grandmother.)

THE Rt. Hon. SIDNEY HERBERT, afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea . .

WILHELM II, ° . e ° e ° e (From Laszlo's Portrait, 1909.)

Froniispiece

FACING PAGE 5

MAPS AND SKETCHES

KHAIBAR Pass : : : ; : * FACING PAGE

BATTLE OF THE ATBARA . : ; ; ; MARCH FORMATIONS, ETC.

BATTLE OF OMDURMAN . = . ; ~

THE NATAL CAMPAIGN. 3 ; . S a?

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62 128 132 154

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CHAPTER |] EARLY DAYS

Ir pleases me, for the entertainment of my descendants, to set down in this chapter a few records of my family and of my early days. These family and personal recollections are of no interest to the general reader, whom I recommend to skip and to pass on.

The Repingtons are of Norman descent and settled in Lincolnshire at the Conquest. Simon de Repington was the first of his line in the reign of William the Conqueror. His son Ralph married Audry le Fearne, and their son Roger supported the Empress Maud in her struggle for the throne with Stephen. _ Roger’s son, Sir Richard de Repington, was slain in a joust at Woodstock in the presence of Henry 1, being then seized of Fankingham, Danderbie, and Thorpe-in-the- Willowes in the county of Lincoln. He married Marian, daughter of Sir John Lowther, and their son Thomas was a soldier of note and fought in the French wars. Taken prisoner by the French after the battle of Poictiers, he was compelled to sell part of his lands in Lincolnshire to Sir Henry Marmyon for ransom. He was buried in the monastery of Sempringham.

His son Adam was Custos Rotulorum of the hundreds of Kesceven and Holland in the county of Lincoln, and was Standard Bearer to Richard 11. He took the fighting Abbot of Crowland prisoner in 1397, for which

A service he was rewarded with the crest ever since borne

‘by the Repingtons—‘a demi-antelope Gules, maned, bearded, tusked, and horned Or, and billetted Argent sans nombre to be borne by him and his posterity for ever.’ King Richard gave him the wardship of Marian Lambard, who became his wife, and brought him lands in Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, where she was buried in 1399.

To this period belongs Philip Repington, Bishop of Lincoln and Cardinal, who had a somewhat stormy career. Educated at Oxford, he was, in his salad days, a prominent supporter of Wiclif. Appointed by the Chancellor Robert Rygge to preach at St. Frideswide’s, he defended the Wiclifite doctrine on the sacrament, and is said to have stirred up the people to insurrection, declaring that temporal lords ought to be more commended in sermons than the pope or bishops. A Carmelite, Peter Stokes, ‘ determined ’ against him, and . he was suspended. An appeal to John of Lancaster was unavailing, and on July I, 1382, Repington was condemned and excommunicated.~ The royal letter of - July 13 added that any one harbouring Repington at Oxford was to be expelled from the University. When, some years ago, I was approached to know whether I would become a professor of the art military at Oxford, I answered that I could bear any buffet of fortune

_ except to be called professor, and that as I did not know whether John o’ Gaunt’s letter still had force of law it _was not fair for me to subject Oxford to such perils. -The buffet given to Philip Repington did not injure him much. He made his peace with the Church and became Abbot of St. Mary de Pré at Leicester, which abbey had an ancient connection with the House of Lancaster. This brought the abbot to the notice of

Henry Iv., whose close friendship he long enjoyed. In 1397 he became Chancellor of the University of Oxford, - and held that office again in 1400, 1401, and 1402. Henry Iv., at his accession, made Repington his chaplain and confessor, and in a document of the period the good abbot is described as ‘clericus specialissimus domini regis Henrici.’ He addressed, in 1401, from London, a long letter of expostulation to the King on the unhappy state of the realm. Perhaps the King did not read it; in any case his friendship stood the test, and it was to Repington that the King sent first, post haste, the news of his victory at Shrewsbury on July 21, 1403. In 1404 Repington was papally provided to the bishopric of Lincoln. The temporalities were restored on March 28, 1405, and on the following day Repington was consecrated at Canterbury.

Lollardism was now out for the bishop’s blood. After the manner of a Radical paper which once called me ‘the gorgeous Wreckington,’ one, William Thorpe, a Lollard, in his confession, called the bishop ‘ Philip _ Rampington,’ and cavilled at the manner in which ‘ he pursueth Christ’s people.’ No bishop in this land, he adds, pursueth them more sharply. However, on September 18, 1408, Repington was created a cardinal, under the title of SS. Nereus and Achilleius, by Gregory xu. Up to that date it had been held that a cardinalate and a bishopric could not be held together in England by one and the same person, but the King made his own precedents, and Repington retained his bishopric till 1419 and died about 1424. He wrote many works and sermons, which survive in the Bodleian Librar and in the MS. of various colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. He was a benefactor of the library at Oxford, and is described as ‘ a powerful and God-fearing man, a lover of truth and a hater of avarice.’ He was buried

in Lincoln Cathedral, near the grave of Grosseteste,

another famous Bishop of Lincoln. His tomb bore

At the Cardinal-Bishop’s death, the Repingtons migrated from Lincolnshire to Warwickshire. William Repington then bought the Amington Hall estate, and the connection of the family with Tamworth began. It was destined to be long continued. The family went on from father to son for seven hundred years after the Conquest without a break—vide Burke’s Commoners and The History of Tamworth—and brought connections with the Scropes of Bolton, Poyntzes, Worseleys, Baskervilles, de Rochfords, Peytons, Cottons, Talbots, Littletons, Vavasors, Sebrights, Calthorpes, Cholmleys, - and many others. The earliest authentic portrait of the family which I possess is that, dated 1650, of Dame > Margaret, daughter of Sir Edward Littleton of Pillaton, and wife of Sir John Repington of Amington. Her son married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Sebright, — whose son married a daughter of Sir Thomas Burdett © of Formark, which lady for some inscrutable reason — brought the * Burdett Drummer’ with her to Amington. | Whenever a Burdett has died since 1662 the drummer has announced the death in advance, and to this occur- © rence witness is borne by family tradition and by the record of county history. This curious event last happened only a few years ago when my tenant Mr. Sydney

:) 1 Vide the Dictionary of National Biography.

a

=

GENERAL A Court REPINGTON (of Amington Hall, Warwickshire), Colonel-in-Chief 41st Regiment.

(From a drawing.)

Fisher was awakened one night by the tapping, and several of the cottagers round also heard it. Fisher mentioned it to me as a strange occurrence, and I then told him of the drummer, of whom he had never before heard tell. Sure enough, on this occasion, another Burdett died. I inquired about the drummer from the Burdetts many years ago, but although they knew the story they could not tell me the origin of it.

The Vernon portraits in my collection come from Jane Vernon, daughter of Sir Thomas Vernon, M.P. for the City of London, who married Gilbert Repington early in the eighteenth century, and from marriages between the two daughters and co-heiresses of Thomas Vernon of Twickenham Park with General William a Court and Charles Repington respectively. Portraits of all these people are now in my possession, and the Vandyck of Charles 1. came down from Sir Thomas Vernon, who was a noted Royalist. The Twickenham property came down jointly to my father and the second Lord Heytesbury from these marriages, but early in my father’s life Lord Heytesbury induced him, against his better judgment, to sell the estate, which has, of course, become very valuable since, and I never pass Twickenham without vexation.

The a Courts are Wiltshire folk, and in old days represented Heytesbury in Parliament. When the Isle of Wight property came to them from the Holmes’’ they had more political weight, and the party managers had to look after them. But some of them voted as they pleased, and the General William & Court above mentioned, after a distinguished military career, was deprived of his command of a regiment of the Guards for voting against the Court party and the Royal Warrants in Parliament. His son married Letitia

Wyndham, a Wiltshire lady, descended! through a long line of Howards and Wyndhams from Edward 1. and Margaret of France, daughter of Philip m1. Leetitia’s eldest son married Rebecca Bouverie of Lord Radnor’s family, and became first Sir William a Court, .Envoy Extraordinary to Spain 1822, then Lord Heytesbury, Ambassador to Portugal 1824, Ambassador to Russia 1828 to 1832, and Viceroy of Ireland 1844 to 1846. He was appointed Viceroy of India by Sir Robert Peel’s Government in 1835, but the Government fell before he sailed. He was opposed to the policy of the First Afghan War, and was known as Wellington’s favourite ambassador. By a voyage to Morocco he did much to sustain the army in the Peninsula. He accompanied the Tsar across the Danube in the war against Turkey in 1828. His brother, my grandfather, General Charles Ashe 4 Court, M.P. for Heytesbury, made his home at Heytesbury, and looked after the place while his brother was abroad on diplomatic missions. One of Lord Heytesbury’s daughters married the Hon. Philip Bouverie, youngest son of Lord Radnor, and another married the Hon. William Eliot, afterwards Lord St. Germans. Lord Heytesbury’s other brother, Admiral a Court, was the hero of one of the most famous cuttingout exploits of the great war with France, and the story is told in James’s Naval History. The name of Repington, under the terms of an old will, was assumed by all the 4 Courts in turn as they succeeded to the Amington Estate, and I followed the rule when my father died in 1903.

My mother was Emily Currie, daughter of-Mr. Henry Currie the banker. The family place was East Horsley, but my grandfather’s eldest brother William, who lived

1 See Burke’s History of the Royal Families of Great Britain.

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* x much abroad, sold it to Lord Lovelace about the year 1840, to my grandfather’s extreme annoyance. William Currie was a rich man, handsome and intellectual, but delicate in health. He was a great connoisseur and collector of works of art, and had excellent taste. He left his valuable collection of engraved gems to the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. My grandfather lived at West Horsley, the next large property to East Horsley on the Guildford road, and one of the most delightful places in Surrey. Here we used to meet all the Currie relations and friends, the Campbells, Webbs, Gores, Powyses, Blunts, Knoxes, Fanes, and Blackwoods amongst the relatives, and, amongst the friends and neighbours, the Scotts of Ancrum, the Ellesmeres, Lefevres, Le .Marchants, Sumners, the Hankeys of Fetcham, the Lushingtons, Bonsors, Farquhars, the Evelyns of Wotton, the Drummonds of Albury, the Giffords, Combes, Estcourts, and Kings, besides my father’s relatives. The old house was filled with

' visitors most of the year. At Ockham Park close by,

_ the famous Dr. Lushington collected round him the cleverest folk of the day. Mr. Edward Bray, a typical old-fashioned country squire, with immense knowledge of sporting matters and of natural history, and Colonel Sumner of Hatchlands, who drove a four-in-hand and hunted the old Surrey Union, were figures that particularly appealed to boys. Mr. Bray, I recall, vowed that he had shot snipe in his boyhood over the ground on which our house in Chesham Street stood.

With East Horsley under its-new owners we had a link in the marriage of my mother’s cousin, Wilfrid Blunt of Crabbet Park, with Lady Anne King. Alice Blunt, his sister, was one of my mother’s dearest friends, and was a sweet and attractive woman. Of

8 A NESTIGEA / the Webbs I remember Godfrey best. He was one of

the most amusing men of his day, and a delightful companion, with a rare and cultured wit, and not without fame in versifying. Francis Currie, formerly of the 79th, was an extremely handsome man and was our great Crimean hero.~ Philip, afterwards Lord Currie, was constantly at Horsley. He became Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and was afterwards Ambassador at Constantinople and at Rome. My mother’s mother was a Knox of the Ranfurly family, granddaughter of John, brother of the first Lord Northland. ‘Curly’ Knox of the Scots Guards was of the same family. He was a mighty hunter, and gave me the benefit of his advice when I first fitted myself out for India. My mother always declared that I was a true Knox, and when I saw the Ranfurly family portraits at Northland House, in County Tyrone, I was inclined to agree with her.

I was born in Chesham Street on January 29, 1858, and look back to my early days with very happy memories. I had the best mother in the world. We were devoted to each other, and she was to the last my firmest partisan. My father spent the whole of his life in doing kindnesses for other people, and was the only man I have ever known who would have died for the Church of England. He was a Peelite in politics, and was M.P. for Wilton. Until the death of my grandfather we were a great deal at Amington. The old Tudor house, built on the site of an old abbey and surrounded by stews, had been converted into the home farm early in the eighteenth century, and my cousin, Edward Repington, had in 1838 built a comfortable house on the slope of the hill to the north of the park, surrounded by pleasant gardens and grounds. When

ELIZABETH HERBERT, Afterwards Lady Herbert of

Lea.

my father took a Government post in London he let Amington to the Henry Leighs, who lived there for many years. Occasionally I went down there, and I recall particularly the consecration of Amington Church, which, with the schools, was built by my father on ground which he presented for the purpose. The shell of the church cost £10,000. My father was patron of the living of Tamworth, and was indefatigable in doing everything that he could for the Church and the estate. 3

Gerry, Bunny, Evey, Cecil, and Alice were the Leigh children. Gerry was afterwards in the Life Guards. Bunny became a great racing man, and was always very popular. Evey married Lord Alington, and Alice married my Eton and Sandhurst contemporary, Dick Fort of King’s Standing, and afterwards Master of the Meynell. They were all very nice people, and Henry Leigh was an excellent tenant. When he died he had 1700 dozen of choice wines in our cellars... The Robert Peels at Drayton, the Inges of Thorpe, and the Wolferstans of Statfold were our nearest neighbours. It is to the great Sir Robert Peel, whem he was Prime Minister, that we owe, I believe, the tracing of the London and North-Western Railway through Tamworth and the Amington estate. It suited Drayton, and what suited Drayton suited us. It was from Drayton that Sidney Herbert rode over one day to Amington to propose for the hand of my father’s beautiful and only sister Elizabeth, better known afterwards as Lady Herbert of Lea. Her sons George and Sidney became the 13th and 14th Earls of Pembroke.

When Amington was let we lived in London and at Horsley. Our house in London, No. 15 Chesham Street, was Cubitt-built and was very comfortable, but there was no bathroom, and no hot water laid on upstairs, so the maids had to lug up the bath water from the kitchen every morning, I forget up how many flights of stairs. We had an extraordinary number of male and female servants. I recall that the hall table used to be completely covered by visiting-cards every day, a dreadful social infliction from which we have happily broken free. Everybody seemed to know everybody else in those days in London, and there seemed to be only one society. Then I was away soldiering for a quarter of a century, and when I came back to live in London all was changed, and society was broken up into a great number of sets, cliques, and parties, smart and unsmart, gay and stupid, intellectual and the reverse. America, the cosmopolitans, the growth of population, and the restaurants had greatly altered London.

My sister Margey, afterwards Lady Wodehouse, and I used to ride in the Park. I recall being run away with on one occasion and thrown into the mud. I was picked up and scraped by a kindly sweep, who left me blacker than before. After I left Eton, I rode in tight blue overalls strapped over Wellington patent-leather boots, with boxspurs, a tight black coat, and a tall hat, not forgetting the then inevitable gardenia. How we could have borne it I cannot imagine now when all is for comfort. I went to a day school first at the Miss Leeches’. They were sisters of John Leech, the famous Punch artist, and most of the boys there came on with me to Eton. It was, I think, a very good school. One of our chief houses of call in London was in Halkin | Street, where my father’s mother lived. She was a delightful old lady, of remarkable character, very clever and sympathetic, full of recollections, skilled in all

EARLY DAYS II woman’s work, and kindness itself. Her house was always full of her old friends, and my father and aunt were both unremitting in their care of her. She was Mary Gibbs, of the family of Lord Aldenham. Her grandfather was Sir James Douglas, who held some diplomatic post in Italy and married a noted Spanish beauty. My grandmother had lived much abroad at Palermo, where her father had a house at the time of the battle of the Nile. At Palermo she was brought into touch with Nelson, who once took her to England in his flagship, and also with Lady Hamilton. My three-cornered locket with Nelson’s hair in it, the powder still adhering to the crystal, and a miniature of Lady Hamilton by an Italian artist, were both presents to her from the hero and his Emma. The miniature is not like Romney’s fictions, but it answers most faithfully to contemporary descriptions of Lady Hamilton, and I believe it to be probably the most lifelike portrait extant. In fact, it explains Emma as no Romney portrait does. My grandfather served in Sicily under Lord Henry Bentinck at the time of the British occupation, and there met his future wife. He gained renown in many battles and sieges, and when Sicily was invaded by Murat he drove the enemy into the sea, captured one thousand prisoners, and took the enemy’s standard with his own hand. He was afterwards Colonel-in-Chief of the 41st Regiment.

Our chief cronies in London were the Herbert, Campbell, Daly, Sullivan, Currie, and other children of relatives. My mother’s sister had married an Irish baronet, Sir Edward Sullivan, a wit, a yachtsman, and a man of the world, who was a fascinating conversationalist, and was always very kind to me. Gladstone was his béte noire, and Uncle Teddy’s fulminations against him in the Morning Post were a great feature in the polemics of the time. Their daughter Maud was a great ally of mine. My Herbert contemporaries were the two youngest children, Mungo, who became Sir Michael Herbert and Ambassador at Washington, and Gladys, who married first Lord Lonsdale, and afterwards Lord de Grey, subsequently Marquess of Ripon. Mungo and I went to Brighton to a school kept by a famous Mrs. Walker at Connaught House, Montpelier Road, and here we had with us a quantity of Lytteltons, Portals, Fortescues, Wallops, Somers-Cocks’s, Steeles, Boroughs, Fanes, Noels, Northcotes, Drummonds, Mostyns, Barclays, Alexanders, and others, most of whom came on to Eton. The old lady, naturally known to us as Hookey Walker, was a striking character, but the teaching of the masters was not particularly good. We had to walk a longish way to our _playground, where, as Alfred Lyttelton has left on record, there was a very rough pitch. We learned to swim at Brill’s Baths, and we attended a good gymnasium. We also learnt dancing, and quite abominably. I fancy that Walker’s was at this time one of the most fashionable preparatory schools of the day, but I am not sure that it deserved the distinction from the scholastic point of view. However, it is curious, as Sir Seymour Fortescue has often reminded me, that most of our contemporaries at Hookey’s lived to a ripe age and distinguished themselves in various walks of life.

In the holidays we paid visits at Heytesbury, Wilton, and other houses of relatives and friends, but after we left Amington my most vivid boyish recollections are of dear Horsley. West Horsley Place is a fine old Elizabethan house, of soft-toned red brick and tiles, test HorRSLEY PLACE, SURREY.

with good gardens and extensive grounds and park. The rooms are large, there is a beautiful oak staircase rising from the stone-paved hall, and portraits of the best-known men and women of the time of Charles 1., Charles 11., and James 11. hung upon the walls. Here once lived the son and the widow of Sir Walter Ralegh, and a full-length portrait of him hung upon the stairs. The Raleghs formerly owned both West Horsley Place and East Horsley. I found Sir Walter’s history absorbing, and his attempts at colonisation fired my im-

agination. Two noble deerhounds, Dersy and Dermid, --tenanted the two kennels in front of the house. At Horsley I had my own pony, my own garden, and my _ own pack of beagles, not to speak of rabbits and other pets. John Arthur, the coachman, taught me to ride almost as soon as I could walk, and my sister was a good horsewoman. John Merritt, the keeper, always in velveteens and leggings, and with his keen, honest face beaming good nature, taught me all the field-lore that I ever knew. I remember going into the servants’ hall on one occasion and finding John Merritt paying the farm hands, and keeping the tally with rats’ tails, for he ‘wur no scholard, Master Charlie!’ Rumsey, the head gardener, was also a character. He stuffed birds and animals beautifully, and in glass cases he had the whole tale of poor Cock-robin. Cardy, the butler, was an excellent servant of the old type. His silver was always a joy to see. When he brought round the coffee his sepulchral warning ‘Water in the cup,’ uttered in a deep bass voice, made many a guest jump. His relays of fresh toast during breakfast were an institution, and why more houses do not imitate it I cannot think.

My mother and her father never walked if they could ride. They lived on horseback, and always rode beautiful thoroughbred animals, and were great horse lovers. My grandfather used to ride up to London, changing horses on the way, and ride back in the evening after doing his work. It was a matter of fifty miles to London and back, and he went at a hand gallop all the way on the grass which at that time bordered the roads. He was a big, powerful man of wonderful physique, and was a great hunting man in Northamptonshire in his youth. From Horsley we rode up over the sheep-leas to the North Downs without leaving the estate, and thence along the hills and into every cranny and cornet of them. We had a house on the top of the hills called Hillside, and my grandfather used to move to this hill station in the hot weather. The Horsley gardens, wer famous for their fruit and vegetables, and I have neve tasted better grapes than the Muscat, Sweet Water, an Black Hamburg varieties which filled the greenhouses, nor did I ever see better herbaceous borders, filled wit such a variety of old-fashioned flowers, as those whic bordered the broad grass path which ran down th centre of the kitchen garden past the old sundial.

My grandfather farmed a good deal of ground an had some splendid cart-horses, a fine herd of Alderneys “South Down sheep, and black Berkshire pigs. Whe the beechmasts fell in the woods round the sheep-lea the pigs of all ages and sizes were driven up by a bo to the feeding-ground, and when they had gorged them selves they raced down hill again for water at full gallo reminding me of the Galilean swine, and then raced ba again. The Horsley straw was much in request fof making straw hats, and when the barns were being emptied we had some quite grand ratting. The wintef ferreting was also a delight, but it was just about th

Mr. HENRY CURRIE.

(From a drawing.)

coldest sport in the world, and I was often so numb with cold that I could not feel the trigger. My grandfather was impervious to cold, and careless of comforts for himself. He never had a fire in his room, and wished us to become as hardened as he was. The cold at Horsley in the winter was simply awful.

In Surrey my grandfather was known as the Tsar. He liked to have his own way. Many people were terribly afraid of him, and when he began to storm it was time to clear out, but he was the kindest and most generous of men, and we boys were perfectly devoted to him. He was a Tory of the old school. He hated

_ railways as much as my mother afterwards hated motor cars, and he horse-whipped off the estate the first railway surveyors who came our way to prospect for a line. He kept the railway away from Horsley to the day of his death. The farmers were even more conservative than he was, and when he tried to introduce some new machinery from Scotland they would have nothing to

-do with it. “He was M.P. for Guildford, the terror of evil-doers, and loved best a poaching affray. There was a good county society in this part of Surrey in my early days. Wehad archery meetings, croquet matches, which_ I detested because the curates always won them, and ploughing matches. In the mornings the poor people came in numbers and were given milk, and heaps of faggots were stored for them in Horsley village. We

also used to carry puddings, port wine, grapes, and so on to the old people when they were ill. Asa boy I spent as much time as I could in riding, shooting, and in hunting the beagles on foot. The great house, with its mysteries, odd corners, and secret rooms, made an ideal playground in wet weather. The daffodils and ~ cowslips in the park were of uncommon excellence, while we found some rare wild flowers in the sequestered parts of the sheep-leas. My Currie grandfather died in 1875, and was buried on the hill near Guildford at St. Martha’s, which he had helped to restore. Godfrey Webb wrote the following lines in memory of him :—

No hearse, no nodding plumes around, ~ Nothing of pomp to tell,

But village men who toiled the ground He knew and loved so well.

There on the sunny slope They followed his behest,

There full of loving hope They left him to his rest.

If not without a fault Thro’ life he bore his part Yet know we well that vault _Closed on the noblest heart.

Words sometimes hard, deeds ever kind, Heart tender at the core;

So brightest gems we often find Crusted in roughest ore.

Wilton is one of the noblest and the homeiest of the great houses in England, and we were always made very welcome there. I can just remember Sidney Herbert meeting us in the cloisters on our arrival, throwing me up in the air, and catching me again with the lighthearted laughter that was always so irresistible. When he died, my father and Lord de Vesci managed the Pembroke estates in Wiltshire and in Ireland, and a fairly heavy task it must have been during George Pembroke’s long minority. Occasionally I visited

Ireland with Mungo and Gladys Herbert, and we stayed | at Mount Merrion, the Pembrokes’ place near Dublin. We used to lead our servants, and our tutor who came ie te lt to us for the day, a rare dance. I remember Gladys, one pouring wet day, standing under a spout and allowing her hair and clothes to be absolutely drenched. Then she presented herself meekly for lessons, trying to look good,-and of course our tutor sent her away to put on dry things, and so she escaped the lesson. If only he could have seen the gleam of triumph which she shot back at us out of her violet eyes as she went out! Wealso used to lock the park gates and hide the key so that the tutor could not get in, and then we went off to shoot the deer in the park with bows and arrows. Gladys was the soul of all fun and frolic, and grew up the most beautiful woman imaginable. Her brilliance and vivacity were remarkable, and her vitality knew no limits. From Mount Merrion we made many excursions in Ireland and visited the de Vescis at Abbeyleix.