Part 2 (2/2)

Andre's fantastic and graceful ill.u.s.trations to the verses when they came out as a book, gave her full satisfaction and delight.

In June 1865 she contributed a short parochial tale, ”The Yew Lane Ghosts,” to the _Monthly Packet_, and during the same year she gave a somewhat sensational story, called ”The Mystery of the b.l.o.o.d.y Hand,”[8] to _London Society_. Julie found no real satisfaction in writing this kind of literature, and she soon discarded it; but her first attempt showed some promise of the prolific power of her imagination, for Mr. s.h.i.+rley Brooks, who read the tale impartially, not knowing who had written it, wrote the following criticism: ”If the author has leisure and inclination to make a picture instead of a sketch, the material, judiciously treated, would make a novel, and I especially see in the character and sufferings of the Quaker, previous to his crime, matter for effective psychological treatment.

The contrast between the semi-insane nature and that of the hypocrite might be powerfully worked up; but these are mere suggestions from an old craftsman, who never expects younger ones to see things as veterans do.”

[Footnote 8: Vol. xvii. ”Miscellanea.”]

In May 1866 my Mother started _Aunt Judy's Magazine for Children_, and she called it by this t.i.tle because ”Aunt Judy” was the nickname we had given to Julie whilst she was yet our nursery story-teller, and it had been previously used in the t.i.tles of two of my Mother's most popular books, ”Aunt Judy's Tales” and ”Aunt Judy's Letters.”

After my sister grew up, and began to publish stories of her own, many mistakes occurred as to the authors.h.i.+p of these books. It was supposed that the Tales and Letters were really written by Julie, and the introductory portions that strung them together by my Mother. This was a complete mistake; the only bits that Julie wrote in either of the books were three brief tales, in imitation of Andersen, called [9]”The s.m.u.t,” ”The Crick,” and ”The Brothers,” which were included in ”The Black Bag” in ”Aunt Judy's Letters.”

[Footnote 9: These have now been reprinted in vol. xvii.

”Miscellanea.”]

Julie's first contribution to _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ was ”Mrs.

Overtheway's Remembrances,” and between May 1866 and May 1867 the three first portions of ”Ida,” ”Mrs. Moss,” and ”The Snoring Ghosts,”

came out. In these stories I can trace many of the influences which surrounded my sister whilst she was still the ”always cayling Miss Julie,” suffering from constant attacks of quinsy, and in the intervals, reviving from them with the vivacity of Madam Liberality, and frequently going away to pay visits to her friends for change of air.

We had one great friend to whom Julie often went, as she lived within a mile of our home, but on a perfectly different soil to ours.

Ecclesfield stands on clay; but Grenoside, the village where our friend lived, is on sand, and much higher in alt.i.tude. From it we have often looked down at Ecclesfield lying in fog, whilst at Grenoside the air was clear and the sun s.h.i.+ning. Here my sister loved to go, and from the home where she was so welcome and tenderly cared for, she drew (though no _facts_) yet much of the colouring which is seen in Mrs. Overtheway--a solitary life lived in the fear of G.o.d; enjoyment of the delights of a garden; with tender treasuring of dainty china and household goods for the sake of those to whom such relics had once belonged.

Years after our friend had followed her loved ones to their better home, and had bequeathed her egg-sh.e.l.l brocade to my sister, Julie had another resting-place in Grenoside, to which she was as warmly welcomed as to the old one, during days of weakness and convalescence.

Here, in an atmosphere of cultivated tastes and loving appreciation, she spent many happy hours, sketching some of the villagers at their picturesque occupations of carpet-weaving and clog-making, or amusing herself in other ways. [10]This home, too, was broken up by Death, but Mrs. Ewing looked back to it with great affection, and when, at the beginning of her last illness, whilst she still expected to recover, she was planning a visit to her Yorks.h.i.+re home, she sighed to think that Grenoside was no longer open to her.

[Footnote 10: Letters, Advent Sunday, 1881, 25th November, 1881, January 18, 1884.]

On June 1, 1867, my sister was married to Alexander Ewing, A.P.D., son of the late Alexander Ewing, M.D., of Aberdeen, and a week afterwards they sailed for Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he was to be stationed.

A gap now occurred in the continuation of ”Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances.” The first contributions that Julie sent from her new home were, ”An Idyl of the Wood,” and ”The Three Christmas Trees.”[11]

In these tales the experiences of her voyage and fresh surroundings became apparent; but in June 1868, ”Mrs. Overtheway” was continued by the story of ”Reka Dom.”

[Footnote 11: Letter, 19th Sunday after Trinity, 1867.]

In this Julie reverted to the scenery of another English home where she had spent a good deal of time during her girlhood. The winter of 1862-3 was pa.s.sed by her at Clyst St. George, near Topsham, with the family of her kind friend, Rev. H.T. Ellacombe, and she evolved Mrs.

Overtheway's ”River House”[12] out of the romance roused by the sight of quaint old houses, with quainter gardens, and strange names that seemed to show traces of foreign residents in days gone by. ”Reka Dom”

was actually the name of a house in Topsham, where a Russian family had once lived. Speaking of this house, Major Ewing said:--On the evening of our arrival at Fredericton, New Brunswick, which stands on the river St. John, we strolled down, out of the princ.i.p.al street, and wandered on the river sh.o.r.e. We stopped to rest opposite to a large old house, then in the hands of workmen. There was only the road between this house and the river, and, on the banks, one or two old willows. We said we should like to make our first home in some such spot. Ere many weeks were over, we were established in that very house, where we spent the first year, or more, of our time in Fredericton. We _called_ it ”Reka Dom,” the River House.

[Footnote 12: Letter, February 3, 1868.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RIVER HOUSE.

VIEW FROM THE WINDOW OF REKA DOM.]

For the descriptions of Father and Mother Albatross and their island home, in the last and most beautiful tale of ”Kerguelen's Land,” she was indebted to her husband, a wide traveller and very accurate observer of nature.

To the volume of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_ for 1869 she only sent ”The Land of Lost Toys,”[13] a short but very brilliant domestic story, the wood described in it being the ”Upper Shroggs,” near Ecclesfield, which had been a very favourite haunt in her childhood. In October 1869, she and Major Ewing returned to England, and from this time until May 1877, he was stationed at Aldershot.

[Footnote 13: Letter, December 8, 1868.]

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