Strange Pages from Family Papers Part 15

Some men, again, have owed their success to the accidents of others. A notable instance was that of Baron Ward, the well-known minister of the Duke of Parma. After working some time as a stable-boy in Howden, he went to London, where he had the good luck to come to the Duke of Parma's a.s.sistance after a fall from his horse in Rotten Row. The Duke took him back to Lucca as his groom, and ere long Ward made the ducal stud the envy of Italy. He soon rose to a higher position, and became the minister and confidential friend of the Duke of Parma, with whom he escaped in the year 1848 to Dresden, and for whom he succeeded in recovering Parma and Placenza. Indeed, Lord Palmerston once remarked, "Baron Ward was one of the most remarkable men I ever met with."

It was through witnessing an accident that Sir Astley Cooper made up his final decision to take up surgery as his profession. A young man, having been run over by a cart, was in danger of dying from loss of blood, when young Cooper lost no time in tying his handkerchief about the wounded limb so as to stop the hemorrhage. It was this incident which a.s.sured him of his taste for surgery. In the same way, the story is quoted of the eminent French surgeon, Ambrose Pare. It is stated that he was acting as stable-boy to an abbe at Laval when a surgical operation was about to be performed on one of the brethren of the monastery. On being called in to a.s.sist, Ambrose Pare not only proved so useful, but was so fascinated with the operation that he made up his mind to devote his life to the study and practice of surgery.

Instances of this kind might be enumerated, being of frequent occurrence in biographical literature, and showing to what unforeseen circ.u.mstances men have occasionally owed their greatness.

A romance which, had it lacked corroborative evidence, would have seemed highly improbable, is told of the two Countesses of Kellie. In the latter half of the last century, Mr Gordon, the proprietor of Ardoch Castle--situated upon a high rock, overlooking the sea--was one evening aroused by the firing of a gun evidently from a vessel in distress near the sh.o.r.e. Hastening down to the beach, with the servants of the Castle, it was evident that the distressed vessel had gone down, as the floating spars but too clearly indicated. After looking out in vain for some time, in the hope of recovering some of the pa.s.sengers--either dead or alive--he found a sort of crib, which had been washed ash.o.r.e, containing a live infant. The little creature proved to be a female child, but beyond the fact that its wrappings pointed to its being the offspring of persons in no mean condition, there was no trace as to who these were.

The little foundling was brought up with Mr. Gordon's own daughters, and when she had attained to womanhood, by an inexplicable coincidence, a storm similar to that just mentioned occurred. An alarm-gun was fired, and this time Mr. Gordon had the satisfaction of receiving a shipwrecked party, whom he at once made his guests at the Castle. Amongst them was one gentleman pa.s.senger, who after a comfortable night spent in the Castle, was surprised at breakfast by the entrance of a troop of blooming girls, the daughters of his host, as he understood, but one of whom specially attracted his attention.

"Is this young lady your daughter, too?" he inquired of Mr. Gordon.

"No," replied his host, "but she is as dear to me as if she were."

He then related her history, to which the stranger listened with eager interest, and at its close he not a little surprised Mr. Gordon by remarking that he "had reason to believe that the young lady was his own niece." He then gave a detailed account of his sister's return from India, corresponding to the time of the shipwreck, and added, "she is now an orphan, but if I am not mistaken in my supposition, she is ent.i.tled to a handsome provision which her father bequeathed to her in the hope of her yet being found."

Before many days had elapsed, sufficient evidence was forthcoming to prove that by this strange, but lucky, accident of the shipwreck, the long lost niece was found. The young heiress keenly felt leaving the old castle, but to soften the wrench it was arranged that one of the Misses Gordon should accompany her to Gottenburg, where her uncle had long been settled as a merchant.

The sequel of this romance, as it is pointed out in the "Book of Days,"[55] is equally astonishing. It seems that among the Scotch merchants settled in the Swedish port, was Mr. Thomas Erskine--a younger son of a younger brother of Sir William Erskine, of Cambo, in Fife--an offshoot of the family of the Earl of Kellie--to whom Miss Anne Gordon was married in the year 1771. A younger brother, named Methven, ten years later married Joanna, a sister of Miss Gordon. It was never contemplated that these two brothers would ever come near to the peerage of their family--there being at one time seventeen persons between them and the family t.i.tles; but in the year 1797 the baronet of Cambo became Earl of Kellie, and two years later the t.i.tle came to the husband of Anne Gordon. In short, "these two daughters of Mr.

Gordon, of Ardoch, became in succession Countesses of Kellie in consequence of the incident of the shipwrecked foundling, whom their father's humanity had rescued from the waves."

FOOTNOTES:

[54] See "Dictionary of National Biography," xix., 242.

[55] "The Two Countesses of Kellie," ii. 41, 42.

CHAPTER XVII.

FATAL Pa.s.sION.

What dreadful havoc in the human breast The pa.s.sions make, when, unconfined and mad, They burst, unguided by the mental eye, The light of reason, which, in various ways, Points them to good, or turns them back from ill!

THOMSON.

The annals of some of our old and respected families have occasionally been sadly stained "by hideous exhibitions of cruelty and l.u.s.t," in certain instances the result of an unscrupulous disregard of moral duty and of a vindictive fierceness in avenging injury. It has been oftentimes remarked that few tragedies which the brain of the novelist has depicted have surpa.s.sed in their unnatural and horrible details those enacted in real life, for

When headstrong pa.s.sion gets the reins of reason, The force of Nature, like too strong a gale, For want of ballast, oversets the vessel.

Love, indeed, which has been proverbially said to lead to as much evil as any impulse that agitates the human bosom, must be held responsible for only too many of those crimes which from time to time outrage society, for, as the authors of "Guesses at Truth" have remarked, "jealousy is said to be the offspring of love, yet, unless the parent make haste to strangle the child, the child will not rest till it has poisoned the parent." Thus, a tragedy which made the Castle of Corstorphine the scene of a terrible crime and scandal in the year 1679, may be said to have originated in an unhallowed pa.s.sion.

George, first Lord Forrester, having no male issue, made an arrangement whereby his son-in-law, James Baillie, was to succeed him as second Lord Forrester and proprietor of the estate of Corstorphine.

Just four years after this compact was made, Lord Forrester died, and James Baillie, a young man of twenty-five, succeeded to the t.i.tle and property. But this arrangement did not meet with the approval of Lord Forrester's daughters, who regarded it as a manifest injustice that the honours of their ancient family should devolve on an alien--a feeling of dissatisfaction which was more particularly nourished by the third daughter, Lady Hamilton, whose husband was far from wealthy.

It so happened that Lady Hamilton had a daughter, Christian, who was noted for her rare beauty and high spirit. But, unfortunately, she was a girl of strong pa.s.sion, which, added to her self-will, caused her, when she had barely arrived at a marriageable age, to engage herself to one James Nimmo, the son of an Edinburgh merchant. Before many weeks had elapsed, the young couple were married, and the handsome young wife was settled in her new home in Edinburgh. Time wore on, the novelty of marriage died away, and as Mrs. Nimmo dwelt on her mercantile surroundings, she recognised more and more what an ill-a.s.sorted match she had made, and in her excitable mind, "she cursed the bond which connected her with a man whose social position she despised, and whose occupations she scorned." The report, however, of her uncommon beauty, could not fail to reach the ears of young Lord Forrester, who on the score of relationship was often attracted to Mrs. Nimmo's house. At first he was received with coldness, but, by flattering and appealing to her vanity, he gradually "accomplished the ruin of this unhappy young woman," and made her the victim of his licentious and unprincipled designs.

But no long time had elapsed when this shameful intrigue became the subject of common talk, and public indignation took the side of the injured woman, when Lord Forrester, after getting tired of her, "was so cruel and base as to speak of her openly in the most opprobrious manner," even alluding to her criminal connection with him. In so doing, however, he had not taken into consideration the violent character of the woman he had wronged, nor thought he of her jealousy, wounded pride, and despair. In his haste, also, to rid himself of the woman who no longer fascinated him, he paid no heed to the pa.s.sion that was lurking in her inflamed bosom, nor counted on her _spretae injuria formae_.

On the other hand, whilst he was forgetting the past in his orgies, Mrs. Nimmo--whose love for him was turned to the bitterest hate--was hourly reproaching him, and at last the fatal moment arrived when she felt bound to proceed to Corstorphine Castle, and confront her evil-doer. At the time, Lord Forrester was drinking at the village tavern, and, when the infuriated woman demanded to see him, he was flushed with claret, and himself in no amiable mood. The altercation, naturally, "soon became violent, bitter reproaches were uttered on the one side, and contemptuous sneers on the other." Goaded to frenzy, the unhappy woman stabbed her paramour to the heart, killing him instantly.

When taken before the sheriff of Edinburgh, she confessed her crime, and, although she told the court in the most pathetic manner how basely she had been wronged by one who should have supported rather than ruined her, sentence of death was pa.s.sed upon her. She managed, writes Sir Bernard Burke,[56] to postpone the execution of her sentence by declaring that she was with child by her seducer, and during her imprisonment succeeded in escaping in the disguise of a young man. But she was captured, and on the 12th November, 1679, paid the penalty of her rash act, appearing at her execution attired in deep mourning, covered with a large veil.

Radcliffe to this day possesses the tradition of a terrible tragedy of which there are several versions. It appears that one Sir William de Radclyffe had a very beautiful daughter whose mother died in giving her birth. After a time he married again, and the step-mother, actuated by feeling of jealousy, conceived a violent hatred to the girl, which ere long prompted her to be guilty of the most insane cruelty. One day, runs the story, when Sir William was out hunting, she sent the unsuspecting girl into the kitchen with a message to the cook that he was to dress the white doe. But the cook professing ignorance of the particular white doe he was to dress, a.s.serted, to the young lady's intense horror, that he had received orders to kill her, which there and then he did, afterwards making her into a pie.

On Sir William's return from hunting, he made inquiries for his daughter, but his wife informed him that she had taken the opportunity in his absence of going into a nunnery. Suspicious, however, of the truth of her story--for her jealous hatred of his daughter had not escaped his notice--he flew into a pa.s.sion, and demanded in the most peremptory manner where his daughter was, whereupon the scullion boy denounced the step-mother, and warned Sir William against eating the pie.

The whole truth was soon revealed, and the diabolic wickedness of Lady William did not pa.s.s unpunished, for she was burnt, and the cook was condemned to stand in boiling lead. A ballad in the Pepys' collection, ent.i.tled, "The Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or the Step-mother's Cruelty,"

records this horrible barbarity; and in a Lancashire ballad, called "Fair Ellen of Radcliffe", it is thus graphically told:--

She straighte into the kitchen went, Her message for to tell; And then she spied the master cook, Who did with malice swell.

"Nowe, master cooke, it must be soe, Do that which I thee tell; You needs must dress the milk-white doe, You which do knowe full well."

Then straight his cruel, b.l.o.o.d.y hands, He on the ladye laid, Who, quivering and ghastly, stands While thus to her he sayd:

"Thou art the doe that I must dress; See here! behold, my knife!

For it is pointed, presentli To rid thee of thy life."

O then, cryed out the scullion boye, As loud as loud might be, "O save her life, good master cook, And make your pyes of me."

The tradition adds that Sir William was not unmindful of the scullion boy's heroic conduct, for he made him heir to his possessions.

Another cruel case of woman's jealousy, which, happily, was not so disastrous in its result as the former, relates to Maria, daughter of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, second son of Kenneth, Earl of Seaforth, who was Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline. Report goes that between this young lady, who was one of the greatest beauties about the Court, and a Mr. Price, an admired man about town, there subsisted a strong attachment. Unfortunately for Miss Mackenzie, Mr. Price was an especial favourite of the celebrated Countess of Deloraine, who, to get rid of her rival in beauty, poisoned her.

But this crime was discovered in time, antidotes were administered with success, and the girl's life was saved; although her lovely complexion is said to have been ruined, ever after continuing of a lemon tint. Queen Caroline, desirous of shielding the Countess of Deloraine from the consequences of her act, persuaded "the poisoned beauty" to appear, as soon as she was sufficiently recovered, at a supper, given either by the Countess of Deloraine or where she was to be present. Accordingly, on the night arranged, some excitement was caused by the arrival of Miss Mackenzie, for as she entered the room, someone exclaimed, "How entirely changed!"

But Mr. Price, who was seated by Lady Deloraine remarked, "In my eyes she is more beautiful than ever," and it only remains to add that they were married next morning.

Like jealousy, thwarted love has often been cause of the most unnatural crimes, and a tragic story is told of the untimely death of Mr Blandy, of Henley, in Oxfordshire, who, by practice as an attorney, had acc.u.mulated a large fortune. He had an only child, Mary, who was regarded as an heiress, and consequently had suitors many. On one occasion, it happened that William Cranstoun, brother of Lord Cranstoun, being upon a recruiting party in Oxfordshire, and hearing of Miss Blandy's "great expectations," found an opportunity of introducing himself to the family.

The Captain's attentions, however, to Miss Blandy met with the strong disapproval of her father, for he had ascertained that this suitor for his daughter's hand had been privately married in Scotland. But against this objection Captain Cranstoun replied that he hoped to get this marriage speedily set aside by a decree of the Supreme Court of Session. And when the Court refused to annul the marriage, Mr. Blandy absolutely refused to allow his daughter to have any further communications with so dishonourable a man; a resolution to which he remained inexorable.

Intrigue between the two was the result, for it seems that Miss Blandy's affection for this profligate man--almost double her age--was violent. As might be expected, Captain Cranstoun not only worked upon her feelings, but imposed on her credulity. He sent her from Scotland a pretended love powder, which he enjoined her to administer to her father, in order to gain his affection and procure his consent. This injunction she did not carry out, on account of a frightful dream, in which she saw her father fall from a precipice into the ocean.

Thereupon the Captain wrote a second time, and told her in words somewhat enigmatical, but easily understood by her, his design.

Horrible to relate, the wicked girl was so elated with the idea of removing her father, that she was heard to exclaim before the servants, "who would not send an old fellow to h.e.l.l for thirty thousand pounds?"

The fatal die was cast. The deadly powder was mixed and given to him in a cup of tea, after drinking which he soon began to swell enormously.

"What have you given me, Mary?" asked the unhappy dying man. "You have murdered me; of this I was warned, but, alas! I thought it was a false alarm. O, fly; take care of the Captain!"

Thus Mr. Blandy died of poison, but his daughter was captured whilst attempting to escape, and was conveyed to Oxford Castle, where she was imprisoned till the a.s.sizes, when she was tried for parricide, was found guilty, and executed. Captain Cranstoun managed to effect his escape, and went abroad, where he died soon afterwards in a deplorable state of mind, brought about by remorse for the evil and misery he had caused.

Almost equally tragic was the fatal pa.s.sion of Sir William Kyte, forming another strange domestic drama in real life. Possessed of considerable fortune, and of ancient family, Sir William was deemed a very desirable match, and when he offered his hand to a young lady of n.o.ble rank, and of great beauty, he was at once accepted. The marriage for the first few years turned out happily, but the crisis came when Sir William was nominated, at a contested election, to represent the borough of Warwick, in which county lay the bulk of his estate. After the election was over, Lady Kyte, by way of recompensing a zealous partisan of her husband, took an innkeeper's daughter, Molly Jones, for her maid; "a tall, genteel girl, with a fine complexion, and seemingly very modest and innocent." But before many months had elapsed, Sir William was attracted by the girl, and, eventually, became so infatuated by her charms, that, casting aside all restraints of shame or fear, he agreed to a separation between his wife and himself. Accordingly, Sir William left Lady Kyte, with the two younger children, in possession of the mansion-house in Warwickshire, and retired with his mistress and his two eldest sons to a farmhouse on the Cotswold hills. Charmed with the situation, he was soon tempted to build a handsome house here, to which were added two large side-fronts, for no better reason than that Molly Jones, one day, happened to say, "What is a Kite without wings." But the expense of completing this establishment, amounting to at least 10,000, soon involved Sir William in financial difficulties, which caused him to drown his worries in drink.

At this juncture, Molly Jones, forgetting her own past, was injudicious enough to engage a fresh coloured country girl--who was scarcely twenty--as dairymaid, for whom Sir William quickly conceived an amorous regard. Actuated by jealousy or disgust, Molly Jones threatened to leave Sir William, a resolution which she soon carried out, retiring to Cambden, a neighbouring market town, where she was reduced to keep a small sewing school as a means of livelihood.