Hugh | Page 9

sort of tough fibrous
plaster. He was told that it was made of "a composition."
We used to play many rhyming games at that time; and Hugh at the age
of eight wrote a poem about a swarm of gnats dancing in the sun,
which ended:
"And when they see their comrades laid In thousands round the garden
glade, They know they were not really made To live for evermore."
In one of these games, each player wrote a question which was to be
answered by some other player in a poem; Hugh, who had been talked
to about the necessity of overcoming some besetting sin in Lent, wrote
with perfect good faith as his question, "What is your sin for Lent?"
As a child, and always throughout his life, he was absolutely free from
any touch of priggishness or precocious piety. He complained once to
my sister that when he was taken out walks by his elders, he heard
about nothing but "poetry and civilisation." In a friendly little memoir
of him, which I have been sent, I find the following passage: "In his
early childhood, when reason was just beginning to ponder over the
meaning of things, he was so won to enthusiastic admiration of the
heroes and heroines of the Catholic Church that he decided he would
probe for himself the Catholic claims, and the child would say to the
father, 'Father, if there be such a sacrament as Penance, can I go?' And
the good Archbishop, being evasive in his answers, the young boy
found himself emerging more and more in a woeful Nemesis of faith."
It would be literally impossible, I think, to construct a story less
characteristic both of Hugh's own attitude of mind as well as of the
atmosphere of our family and household life than this!
He was always very sensitive to pain and discomfort. On one occasion,
when his hair was going to be cut, he said to my mother: "Mayn't I
have chloroform for it?"
And my mother has described to me a journey which she once took

with him abroad when he was a small boy. He was very ill on the
crossing, and they had only just time to catch the train. She had some
luncheon with her, but he said that the very mention of food made him
sick. She suggested that she should sit at the far end of the carriage and
eat her own lunch, while he shut his eyes; but he said that the mere
sound of crumpled paper made him ill, and then that the very idea that
there was food in the carriage upset him; so that my mother had to get
out on the first stop and bolt her food on the platform.
One feat of Hugh's I well remember. Sir James McGarel Hogg,
afterwards Lord Magheramorne, was at the time member for Truro. He
was a stately and kindly old gentleman, pale-faced and white-bearded,
with formal and dignified manners. He was lunching with us one day,
and gave his arm to my mother to conduct her to the dining-room.
Hugh, for some reason best known to himself, selected that day to
secrete himself in the dining-room beforehand, and burst out upon Sir
James with a wild howl, intended to create consternation. Neither then
nor ever was he embarrassed by inconvenient shyness.
The Bishop's house at Truro, Lis Escop, had been the rectory of the rich
living of Kenwyn; it was bought for the see and added to. It was a
charming house about a mile out of Truro above a sequestered valley,
with a far-off view of the little town lying among hills, with the smoke
going up, and the gleaming waters of the estuary enfolded in the
uplands beyond. The house had some acres of pasture-land about it and
some fine trees; with a big garden and shrubberies, an orchard and a
wood. We were all very happy there, save for the shadow of my eldest
brother's death as a Winchester boy in 1878. I was an Eton boy myself
and thus was only there in the holidays; we lived a very quiet life, with
few visitors; and my recollection of the time there is one of endless
games and schemes and amusements. We had writing games and
drawing games, and acted little plays.
We children had a mysterious secret society, with titles and offices and
ceremonies: an old alcoved arbour in the garden, with a seat running
round it, and rough panelling behind, was the chapter-house of the
order. There were robes and initiations and a book of proceedings.

Hugh held the undistinguished office of Servitor, and his duties were
mainly those of a kind of acolyte. I think he somewhat enjoyed the
meetings, though the difficulty was always to