Volume Ii Part 27 (1/2)

[Sidenote: Mr. Walter Thornbury.]

OFFICE OF ”ALL THE YEAR ROUND,”

_Friday, April 18th, 1862._

MY DEAR THORNBURY,

The Bow Street runners ceased out of the land soon after the introduction of the new police. I remember them very well as standing about the door of the office in Bow Street. They had no other uniform than a blue dress-coat, bra.s.s b.u.t.tons (I am not even now sure that that was necessary), and a bright red cloth waistcoat. The waistcoat was indispensable, and the slang name for them was ”redb.r.e.a.s.t.s,” in consequence.

They kept company with thieves and the like, much more than the detective police do. I don't know what their pay was, but I have no doubt their princ.i.p.al complements were got under the rose. It was a very slack inst.i.tution, and its head-quarters were The Brown Bear, in Bow Street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the police-office; and either the house which is now the theatrical costume maker's, or the next door to it.

Field, who advertises the Secret Enquiry Office, was a Bow Street runner, and can tell you all about it; G.o.ddard, who also advertises an enquiry office, was another of the fraternity. They are the only two I know of as yet existing in a ”questionable shape.”

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mr. Baylis.]

GAD'S HILL, ETC., _Wednesday, July 2nd, 1862._

MY DEAR MR. BAYLIS,

I have been in France, and in London, and in other parts of Kent than this, and everywhere but here, for weeks and weeks. Pray excuse my not having (for this reason specially) answered your kind note sooner.

After carefully cross-examining my daughter, I do NOT believe her to be worthy of the fernery. Last autumn we transplanted into the shrubbery a quant.i.ty of evergreens previously cl.u.s.tered close to the front of the house, and trained more ivy about the wall and the like. When I ask her where she would have the fernery and what she would do with it, the witness falters, turns pale, becomes confused, and says: ”Perhaps it would be better not to have it at all.” I am quite confident that the constancy of the young person is not to be trusted, and that she had better attach her fernery to one of her chateaux in Spain, or one of her English castles in the air. None the less do I thank you for your more than kind proposal.

We have been in great anxiety respecting Miss Hogarth, the sudden decline of whose health and spirits has greatly distressed us. Although she is better than she was, and the doctors are, on the whole, cheerful, she requires great care, and fills us with apprehension. The necessity of providing change for her will probably take us across the water very early in the autumn; and this again unsettles home schemes here, and withers many kinds of fern. If they knew (by ”they” I mean my daughter and Miss Hogarth) that I was writing to you, they would charge me with many messages of regard. But as I am shut up in my room in a ferocious and unapproachable condition, owing to the great acc.u.mulation of letters I have to answer, I will tell them at lunch that I have antic.i.p.ated their wish. As I know they have bills for me to pay, and are at present shy of producing them, I wish to preserve a gloomy and repellent reputation.

My dear Mr. Baylis, faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Henry Austin.]

GAD'S HILL, _Tuesday, Oct. 7th, 1862._

I do not preach consolation because I am unwilling to preach at any time, and know my own weakness too well. But in this world there is no stay but the hope of a better, and no reliance but on the mercy and goodness of G.o.d. Through those two harbours of a s.h.i.+pwrecked heart, I fully believe that you will, in time, find a peaceful resting-place even on this careworn earth. Heaven speed the time, and do you try hard to help it on! It is impossible to say but that our prolonged grief for the beloved dead may grieve them in their unknown abiding-place, and give them trouble. The one influencing consideration in all you do as to your disposition of yourself (coupled, of course, with a real earnest strenuous endeavour to recover the lost tone of spirit) is, that you think and feel you _can_ do. I do not in the least regard your change of course in going to Havre as any evidence of instability. But I rather hope it is likely that through such restlessness you will come to a far quieter frame of mind. The disturbed mind and affections, like the tossed sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion and trouble.

But nothing is to be attained without striving. In a determined effort to settle the thoughts, to parcel out the day, to find occupation regularly or to make it, to be up and doing something, are chiefly to be found the mere mechanical means which must come to the aid of the best mental efforts.

It is a wilderness of a day, here, in the way of blowing and raining, and as darkly dismal, at four o'clock, as need be. My head is but just now raised from a day's writing, but I will not lose the post without sending you a word.

Katie was here yesterday, just come back from Clara White's (that was), in Scotland. In the midst of her brilliant fortune, it is too clear to me that she is already beckoned away to follow her dead sisters.

Macready was here from Sat.u.r.day evening to yesterday morning, older but looking wonderfully well, and (what is very rare in these times) with the old thick sweep of hair upon his head. Georgina being left alone here the other day, was done no good to by a great consternation among the servants. On going downstairs, she found Marsh (the stableman) seated with great dignity and anguish in an arm-chair, and incessantly crying out: ”I am dead.” To which the women servants said with great pathos (and with some appearance of reason): ”No, you ain't, Mars.h.!.+” And to which he persisted in replying: ”Yes, I am; I am dead!” Some neighbouring vagabond was impressed to drive a cart over to Rochester and fetch the doctor, who said (the patient and his consolers being all very anxious that the heart should be the scene of affliction): ”Stomach.”

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Tuesday Night, Oct. 14th, 1862._