“Nay! nay!” he cried to me, “you mustn’t carry white hawthorn into the house. You might go to sleep where it is, and then would come great misfortune.” He looked very differently on a handful of rosemary. “That is all right, is all right,” he said. “Rosemary stands for success in everything.” In the very centre of the garden he had a little bed of grass, and he would not suffer tool of any kind to touch it. He called it “good man’s croft,” and told me that in order “to bring luck, we must always leave a bit of land unplanted for the fairies.”

After I had been about a month at the farm, Mr. Richmond said to me one wet day, “Milly, I have had all my grandfather’s books taken into the library. I want you to sort and shelve them for me. Would you like to do that?”

I knew of nothing I would like half as much, for, as soon as I was well, the thought of books was again a joy to me. We went to the library together, and men were unpacking large boxes of books, and bringing a long table on which to sort them, and a set of library steps, pens, ink, pencils, paper, and so forth. I promised only to sort the books in the afternoon, or when too wet to take my usual morning ride with him about the farm. Then he gave me the key of the room, and left me among a thousand books.

I was so happy! I was so happy! So peacefully, innocently happy! I read more than I sorted; I found so many wonderful books, that it was impossible to pass over. I met Ivanhoe first in that room, and Little Nell, and Pamela, and the Scottish Chiefs, and in a pile of unbound Family Heralds I made acquaintance with the short love story. Never shall I forget what thrilling hours I spent in that room with the “Children of the Abbey.” A year or two ago a lady to whom I named this book, said she had a copy, and would send it to me. I sat down, full of expectation, but alas! though the book was there, I could not summon back the child heart to read it. The tale that stole my heart away when I was eleven years old had nothing to say to me when I was seventy-seven. Yet I touched it tenderly as I whispered, “It charmed me once – I will not spoil that memory,” and so closed it forever.

I thank God that ere any change came over days so beautiful and blessed, they ceased. The library was scarce finished, when I had to leave it; the farm life was just as happy and desirable, when I tearfully bade it good-bye forever. The pretty, clever Mary loved me well, and I had become a real companion to my affectionate friend, who liked me to call him “Uncle Thomas.” It was well to part ere any desire for parting came. Mr. Richmond said he would come for me the following summer, but I knew he would not. I felt sure he would marry Mary, and other interests would occupy him. I said good-bye to Richmond Farm in a fortunate hour. Its memory has sweetened my long, long life, and what I learned in its pleasant rooms, its hay fields, and wheat fields, and cool, sweet dairy, has helped me in many a stress of life, that I then never dreamed of.

The inevitable has always found me ready and hopeful, and I was glad we were going to the Isle of Man. I had never consciously seen the sea, but its tides were surely in my blood. I was much excited at the prospect, and Father was as eager and restless as a boy. It called him now, as it had called his fathers before him, and he was impatient of delay. We went in a little steamer called The King Orry, sailing from Liverpool. And, as I walked with him about the deck, we were both silent with emotion. But I felt quite at home. The motion of the boat was natural, and, when I walked to the wheel, I could scarcely keep my hands off it. I knew I could manage it. The salt breeze, and the smell of the sea, went to my head like wine.

“Oh, Father!” I cried. “I wish that I might live always on the tide-top.”

“The tide-top!” he echoed. “Who taught you those words, Milly?”

“Nobody,” I answered. “They just came to me. Are they not right words, Father?”

“Yes,” he answered slowly. “Your grandfather used them frequently. The last words he said to my mother were, ‘Fear not, Milly! I shall try to keep my ship on the tide-top.’”

“But he did not, Father.”

“No – no! He found a sailor’s grave. I will go and bring John here.”

In a few minutes he returned with an armful of pillows, and then he carried my brother in his arms to the deck. I have never seen since such a transfiguration of Joy. The boy clapped his thin, white hands, and cried out, “The Sea! The Sea! The Sea!” His face glowed and shone, and he took deep breaths of the salt air. So he sat all day, feeding his heart on the sight of the blue, tossing waves, and some wild pageant of memories far far off, and hardly to be caught, as they threw the accumulated past upon his consciousness, very much as that last vision clangs and flashes for a drowning man.

A never-to-be-forgotten, quiet, thoughtful day, and in the autumn gloaming we landed at Douglas, and the next morning took a carriage for the ten-mile ride, which would take us to Castletown, then the capital of Man, and the place of our destination. With a lavish hand Nature has beautified this wonderful little island, thirty-three miles long, by thirteen miles wide, with the most exquisite scenes of sylvan loveliness, while the Gulf Stream laves all its rocky shores, giving it a climate such as we may have in Paradise. In the hottest month of the year the temperature is a little below sixty degrees, in the coldest month it is a little above forty-one.

Our ride to Castletown was an enchanting one. It was on a day at the end of August, sunny and pleasantly warm. Such wealth of flowers! such multitudes of singing birds! I had never before seen or heard. And the sea was on every side of us! As we approached the capital we saw first the noble old fortress of the Lords of Man, lifting its huge bulk in the very centre of the town. It was but a small place, built of gray stone, in narrow winding streets, and so old that its very origin is lost in the mists of antiquity. Certainly it is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, town in Great Britain. It looked to me as if it had always existed.

As we passed through the square of which the castle forms one side, we saw a fine regiment of Highlanders, in their picturesque costume, drilling, and a few ladies and some old gentlemen were sauntering along, stopping occasionally to watch some manœuver that interested them. An air of the utmost serenity pervaded the place, as we turned into a long crooked street called Malew Street, and stopped finally at a house whose door stood open to receive us. It was a large-roomed, sunny house, of three stories, and had a fine garden at the back, stretching almost to the river side. The rooms were comfortably furnished, and full of peace, and I caught and answered my mother’s look of pleasure and satisfaction. In a few days all was in order, and we settled down to what promised to be three years of delightful life.

For two years all our hopes were amply satisfied. I was at a good school: I was in the fishers’ cottages. I was in a boat with John and my father, or I was off with Father to the preachings at Ballasalla, or Ballabeg. I had many friends, and among them was Chrisna, the daughter of the master of Rushen Castle. With her I wandered about the wonderful old palace, learning its history in the very rooms wherein that history was made. The whole huge fabric was an historical romance written in stone. Chrisna was a Manx girl, of long Manx descent, and she knew all the traditions and superstitions of her people. She believed in fairies as firmly as she believed in the Gospels, and indeed I never met either a Manx man or a Manx woman who did not believe in fairies. Chrisna told me with perfect honesty that she had seen them often, and heard their music, and she quite convinced me that she had.

Seventy years ago the Isle of Man was little more than a name to the average Briton. It had its own government, its own laws, and its own House of Parliament, which was called the “House of Keys.” There were no Custom Houses, and no duties. There were no Poor Laws. When I was there those in need were empowered to knock at the door of every householder, once a week, and receive what could be given. There was no stipulated sum, but a penny and a few groceries, or a little clothing, was cheerfully spared. The number of such callers were few, and they were kindly treated.

The small sum it cost then to live in the Isle of Man was a great temptation to retired army and naval officers, and Castletown was full of these interesting gentry. They gave to the place an air of refinement, which was still further increased by the professors and students of King William’s College. I saw this college burned to the ground on the second of January, A.D. 1844, and I remember well that I had no wrap on, and the night was so warm I did not miss it. Yet January is the coldest month in the mild Manx winter.

We went to Castletown in the autumn, and the following spring two events happened affecting our household. My mother had another daughter, whom Father christened Alethia Mona. Alethia being, with Jane or Joan, and Isabel, the three prominent names of the Huddleston women, just as William, John, Thomas, and Henry are the family names of the men. Mona was added, because it was the ancient name of the island of her birth.

Soon after this event Ann Oddy left us. I am rather ashamed to say that we were all privately very glad. She had become a kind of household tyrant, whom we had to constantly conciliate, and we had long ago discovered that the old family servant was just as serious a problem as the modern monthly one. Our emancipation from Ann’s rule came very unexpectedly. She entered the parlor one afternoon, with a letter in her hand, and, with great excitement, said: “Mrs. Huddleston, I am sorry, but I must go back to England at once.”

Mother told her she was not out of England, and asked why she must go in such a hurry, and Ann answered:

“You see, ma’am, Adam Bradley wants me. We were to have been wed ten years ago, but one night Adam he walked home from chapel with Sarah Sykes, and I had words with him about Sarah, so he married Sarah to spite me. But she’s dead now, and Adam wants me. I think it is best to go to him, Mrs. Huddleston.”

So Ann went. We hardly said to each other how glad we were, and we all pressed any gift we could spare on her. Mother even gave her one of her silk gowns, which I am pretty sure she missed a little later. But, until we knew Ann was safely away in the Douglas coach, we did not talk about her; then I shall never forget Mother’s smile, and sigh of relief, and Jane’s neatly expressed opinion, that “the Irish Sea was always rough with the wind in the present direction.” Jane had never liked Ann; and she knew Ann was both sick and terrified, when at the mercy of wind and waves. A middle-aged Manx woman was easily found to take Ann’s place, and Jane, who was now well grown and womanly, took charge of many things relating to the household.

It was about this time I began to seriously try to write. I commenced a tragedy which I called “Seneca.” I do not remember anything about the work, except that it was laid in ancient Rome, and that Seneca was a philosopher and a senator. I showed the first act to Father, and he gave it back to me with a smile, and the opinion that “it might have been worse.” I used to take pencil and paper and go out to Scarlet Stack, and there alone, with the sun and the wind and the sea and the sky, try to reconstruct the men and women and life of ancient Rome. It was a presumptuous effort, but perhaps the gain to myself was in the effort; for I had become very ambitious. I had abandoned the missionary idea, and longed to write books, and to travel and to see the great cities and the strange peoples I had read about.

We had fully expected to remain at Castletown for three years, but, at the end of the second year, my Father was removed to the Whitehaven Circuit. I shall never forget the morning the news came to us. Mother was making sandwiches for Father, John and I were going to row as far as Ballasalla, then land, and go to the Silverburn River for trout. But Father was so shocked, he put off the trip. I wondered that he should do so, and said:

“Whitehaven is your birthplace, Father; it will surely please you to go there.”

“I would rather go to the most desolate spot on the earth,” he answered with a passion that silenced me.

“It is a much larger circuit, William,” said Mother, “and your income will be larger, and you will have an assistant – a very popular young man, your letter says.”

“I have heard of him, Mary. Popular young men are not always nice young men. He is a nephew of Sir William Morley, and his name is William Morley Punshon.”

Then I took an instant dislike to the popular young man called Punshon. “Such a name!” I ejaculated.

That afternoon Father called Mother in a strange, thick voice of alarm, and she found him looking ill and terrified. “I have had a singular sensation all down my right side, Mary,” he said. “It frightens me.” And my brave little mother said, “Nonsense, William! As we grow old, we have such sensations. I have them myself now and then; my father had them often. Come down and talk with me and the girls,” and she laughed softly and took his arm. But I am sure she knew that this “sensation” was the first touch of a hand that would finally prevail.

As for me, I threw off the thought of trouble by a conscious effort, just as I would throw off my clothes; for I was yet an easy-hearted child, who could say to sorrow, “Let it go.”