Part 7 (1/2)

I put together here a few brief extracts fro's letters, none very i up a pleasant picture of the father with his sons

'_Jan_ 15_th_, 1875-Frewen conte soap bubbles by silk threads for experie that

Bernard' [the youngest] 'volunteered to blow the bubbles with enthusiasreat deal of electrostatics in consequence of the perpetual cross-exa for you on ed to deliver a running lecture on abstract points of science, subject to cross-examination by two acute students Bernie does not cross-exahs a sort of little silver-whistle giggle, which is trying to the unhappy blunderer'

'_May_ 9_th_-Frewen is deep in parachutes I beg hi'

'_June_ 6_th_, 1876-Frewen's crank axle is a failure just at present-but he bears up'

'_June_ 14_th_-The boys enjoy their riding It gets the off is htful reminiscences; and when a horse breaks his step, the occurrence becoe as they talk it over Austin, with quiet confidence, speaks of the greater pleasure in riding a spirited horse, even if he does give a little trouble It is the stolid brute that he dislikes (NB You can still see six inches between him and the saddle when his pony trots) I listen and sympathise and throw out no hint that their achievereat'

'_June_ 18_th_-Bernard is much impressed by the fact that I can be useful to Frewen about the stea] 'He says quite with awe, ”He would not have got on nearly so well if you had not helped him”'

'_June_ 27_th_-I do not see what I could do without Austin He talks so pleasantly and is so truly good all through'

'_June_ 27_th_-My chief difficulty with Austin is to get him measured for a pair of trousers Hitherto I have failed, but I keep a stout heart andthe paces of two horses, says, ”Polly takes twenty-seven steps to get round the school I couldn't count Sophy, but she takes more than a hundred”'

'_Feb_ 18_th_, 1877-We all feel very lonely without you Frewen had to coht and I actually kissed hi that has not occurred for years Jack, poor fellow, bears it as well as he can, and has taken the opportunity of having a fester on his foot, so he is laood deal'

'_Feb_ 19_th_-As to Mill, Austin has not got the list yet I think it will prejudice hiainst Mill-but that is not my affair

Education of that kind!I would as soon cram my boys with food and boast of the pounds they had eaten, as cra was an anxious father, he did not suffer his anxiety to prevent the boys froht occur to them to try, he would carefully show them how to do it, explain the risks, and then either share the danger himself or, if that were not possible, stand aside and wait the event with that unhappy courage of the looker-on He was a good swihly loved alltheir holidays, and principally in the Highlands, helped and encouraged them to excel in as many as possible: to shoot, to fish, to walk, to pull an oar, to hand, reef and steer, and to run a steahland life, he shared delightedly He ell on to forty when he took once , he was forty-three when he killed his first salle- love for the Highland character, perhaps also a sense of the difficulty of the task, led him to take up at forty-one the study of Gaelic; in which he ress, but notto the last their independence At the house of his friend Mrs Blackburn, who plays the part of a Highland lady as to the htful custom of kitchen dances, which becaht hihbours And thus at forty-two, he began to learn the reel; a study, to which he brought his usual srammatically represented by his own hand, are before me as I write

It was in 1879 that a new feature was added to the Highland life: a steale_, the Styrian corruption of Walpurga, after a friend to be hereafterwrote 'I wish you had been present to describe two scenes of which she has been the occasion already: one during which the population of Ullapool, to a baby, was harnessed to her hurrahing-and the other in which the sa Frewen and Bernie getting up steaot with educational intent; and it served its purpose so well, and the boys knew their business so practically, that when the suineer, Bernard the stoker, and Kenneth Robertson a Highland seae south The first ot from Loch Broom into Gruinard bay, where they lunched upon an island; but the wind blowing up in the afternoon, with sheets of rain, it was found impossible to beat to sea; and very much in the situation of castaways upon an unknown coast, the party landed at thethe trees; there Fleeh the h the two Jenkin boys were of course as black as colliers, and all the castaways so wetted through that, as they stood in the passage, pools formed about their feet and ran before them into the house, yet Mrs Murray kindly entertained theht On the morroever, visitors were to arrive; there would be no room and, in so out-of-the-way a spot, le_; and on the morrow about noon, with the bay white with spindrift and the wind so strong that one could scarcely stand against it, they got up steam and skulked under the land as far as Sanda Bay Here they crept into a seaside cave, and cooked soale, it was plain they must moor the launch where she was, and find their way overland to soe froy was blown so far to leeward every trip, that theythe beach But this once hbourhood, they were able to spend the night in a pot-house on Ault Bea Next day, the sea was unapproachable; but the next they had a pleasant passage to Poolewe, hugging the cliffs, the falling swell bursting close by theullies, and the black scarts that sat like orna down into the _Purgle_ as she passed

The climate of Scotland had not done with them yet: for three days they lay stor of the fourth, the sailors prayed the out was indeed one too far to return, and found themselves committed to double Rhu Reay with a foul wind and a cross sea Froht, they were in ier Upon the least le_ ed upon the cliffs of that rude headland

Flee; Mrs Jenkin, so violent was the commotion of the boat, held on with both hands; Frewen, by Robertson's direction, ran the engine, slacking and pressing her to meet the seas; and Bernard, only twelve years old, deadly sea-sick, and continually thrown against the boiler, so that he was found next day to be covered with burns, yet kept an even fire It was a very thankful party that sat down that evening towas new in the farace over that meal Thenceforward he continued to observe the forratefulof theto escape death, but a beco to run the risk of it; and what is rarer, that which he thought for hiht for his family also In spite of the terrors of Rhu Reay, the cruise was persevered in and brought to an end under happier conditions

One year, instead of the Highlands, Alt Aussee, in the Steiermark, was chosen for the holidays; and the place, the people, and the life delighted Fleeotten since he was a boy; and what is highly characteristic, equally hard at the patois, in which he learned to excel He won a prize at a Schutzen-fest; and though he hunted chaame in the shape of the Styrian peasants, and in particular of his gillie, Joseph This Joseph washave a fine note of their own The bringing up of the boys he deigned to approve of: '_fast so gut wie ein bauer_,' was his trenchant criticis surrounded his wife, was soillie; he announced in the village that Mrs Jenkin-_die silberne Frau_, as the folk had prettily naeborene Grafin_' who hadexplained what he called the English theory (though indeed it was quite his own) ofbut unconvinced, avowed it was '_gar schon_' Joseph's cousin, Walpurga Moser, to an orchestra of clarionet and zither, taught the faained their hearts during the lessons Her sister Loys, too, as up at the Alp with the cattle, came down to church on Sundays, made acquaintance with the Jenkins, and must have them up to see the sunrise from her house upon the Loser, where they had supper and all slept in the loft aa still corresponds with Mrs

Jenkin, and it was a late pleasure of Flee present for his little ht to an end by a ball in the big inn parlour; the refreshuests drawn up, by Joseph; the best uests in their best clothes The ball was opened by Mrs Jenkin dancing Steierisch with a lordly Bauer, in gray and silver and with a plua Moser

There ran a principle through all these holiday pleasures In Styria as in the Highlands, the sa threw himself as fully as he could into the life and occupations of the native people, studying everywhere their dances and their language, and confor, alith pleasure, to their rustic etiquette Just as the ball at Alt Aussee was designed for the taste of Joseph, the parting feast at Attadale was ordered in every particular to the taste of Murdoch the Keeper Fleeentlemen, who take the tricks of their own coterie to be eternal principles of taste

He are, on the other hand, that rustic people dwelling in their own places, follow ancient rules with fastidious precision, and are easily shocked and embarrassed by what (if they used the word) they would have to call the vulgarity of visitors from town And he, as so cavalier with men of his own class, was sedulous to shi+eld the s of the peasant; he, who could be so trying in a drawing-rooe It was in all respects a happy virtue It renewed his life, during these holidays, in all particulars

It often entertained hie survivals; as when, by the orders of Murdoch, Mrs Jenkin must publicly taste of every dish before it was set before her guests And thus to throw hirateful exercise of Flee's mimetic instinct; and to the pleasures of the open air, of hardshi+ps supported, of dexterities iant society, added a spice of dra was all his life a lover of the play and all that belonged to it Dramatic literature he knew fully He was one of the not very numerous people who can read a play: a knack, the fruit of ination, co score Few men better understood the artificial principles on which a play is good or bad; few more unaffectedly enjoyed a piece of any merit of construction

His own play was conceived with a double design; for he had long been filled with his theory of the true story of Griselda; used to gird at Father Chaucer for his misconception; and was, perhaps first of all, moved by the desire to do justice to the Marquis of Saluces, and perhaps only in the second place, by the wish to treat a story (as he phrased it) like a sum in arithmetic I do not think he quite succeeded; but Iand I were teacher and taught as to the principles, disputatious rivals in the practice, of dra had always, ever since Rachel and the Marseillaise, a particular power on him 'If I do not cry at the play,' he used to say, 'I want to have my money back' Even from a poor play with poor actors, he could draw pleasure 'Giaco, 'fetched the house vastly Poor Queen Elizabeth! And yet it was a little good'

And again, after a night of Salvini: 'I do not suppose any one with feelings could sit out _Othello_, if Iago and Desdereatest actor he had seen We were all indeed moved and bettered by the visit of that wonderful man-'I declare I feel as if I could pray!' cried one of us, on the return fro W B Hole and I, in a fine enthusiasratitude, determined to draw up an address to Salvini, did so, and carried it to Fleeet hat coldness he heard and deleted the eloquence of our draft, nor hat spirit (our vanities once properlysignatures It was his part, on the ground of his Italian, to see and arrange with the actor; it was mine to write in the _Acade opened the paper, read so far, and flung it on the floor 'No,' he cried, 'that won't do You were thinking of yourself, not of Salvini!'

The criticisnorance; it was not of , but of the difficulties of my trade which I had not welland I shared the year of the Paris Exposition, was the _Marquis de Villemer_, that blameless play, performed by Madeleine Brohan, Delaunay, Worms, and Broisat-an actress, in such parts at least, to whom I have never seen full justice rendered He had his fill of weeping on that occasion; and when the piece was at an end, in front of a cafe, in the ht air, we had our fill of talk about the art of acting