WELCOME TO FRED COOPER'S HISTORY WEBSITE

(This is a recollection of Seaham in 1808 by Elizabeth Grant, a Highland

Lady who stayed at the Inn in the hamlet of Old Seaham:

Fred Cooper)

MEMOIRS OF A
HIGHLAND LADY
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ELIZABETH GRANT
OF ROTHIEMURCHUS AFTERWARDS
MRS. SMITH OF BALTIBOYS
1797-1830
EDITED BY
LADY STRACHEY
SECOND IMPRESSION
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1898'
PREFACE
THESE Memoirs were written by Mrs. Smith for her own
children, and the daughter of her sister Mrs. Gardiner, with no
thought but to interest them in those scenes of her early life
which she recalled so vividly, and has narrated with such lively
simplicity. They were privately printed by subscription in
order to make them more accessible to those whose interest in
the actors and the deeds of that past time is a personal one;
and in this form they have proved so attractive that the writer's
daughter, Mrs. King, has consented to publish them. The fact
that their issue was at first a private one will account for the
closeness of the printed text; which is, however, so clear that it
is hoped the reader will not be deterred by it from a perusal of
the volume.
Mrs. Smith began writing her recollections in 1845, during
a visit of some length to Avranches, and concluded the portion
here printed in 1867

CHAPTER IV

Early in the summer of 1808, we all started together for the
Highlands. The greater part of the furniture had been sent
from Twyford to the Doune, where, truth to say, it was very
much wanted. The servants all went north with it by sea, excepting
those in immediate attendance on ourselves. A new
barouche landau was started this season, which served for many
a year, and was a great improvement upon either the old heavy
close coach or the leather-curtained sociable. Four bays in
hand conducted us to Houghton, where after a visit of a few
days my father proceeded on his circuit, and my mother removed
with the children to Seaham, a little bathing hamlet on
the coast of Durham, hardly six miles from Houghton. She had
often passed an autumn there when a child, with some of her
numerous brothers and sisters, and she said it made her feel
young again to find herself there once more, wandering over all
the ground she knew so well. She was indeed in charming
spirits during the whole of our sojourn at this pretty place. We
lived entirely with her, she bathed with us, walked with us, we
gladly drove in turn with her. We took our meals with her,
and she taught us how to make necklaces of the seaweed and
the small shells we found, and how to clean and polish the large
shells for fancy works she had done in her own childhood, when
she, our grave, distant mother, had run about and laughed like
us. How very happy parents have it in their power to make
their children! We grew fat and rosy, required no punishments,
hardly indeed a reprimand; but then Mrs. Millar had
left us, she had gone on a visit to her friends at Stockton, taking
the baby with her, for as far as care of him was concerned she
was quite to be trusted.
We lived in a little public-house, the only inn in the place.
We entered at once into the kitchen, bright and clean, and full
of cottage valuables; a bright "sea-coal" fire burned always
cheerily in the grate, and on the settle at one side generally sat
the old grandfather of the family, with his pipe, or an old worn
newspaper, or a friend. The daughter, who was mistress of the
house, kept bustling about in the back kitchen where all the
business went on, which was quite as clean, though not so
handsomely furnished, as the one where the old man sat. There
was a scullery besides for dirty work, such as baking, brewing,
washing, and preparing the cookery. A yard behind held a
large water-butt and several outhouses; a neatly-kept flower-garden,
a mere strip, lay beneath the windows in the front, opening
into a large kitchen garden on one side. The sea, though
not distant, could only be seen from the upper windows; for
this and other reasons we generally sat upstairs. Roses and
woodbine clustered round the lattices, the sun shone in, the
scent of the flowers, and the hum of the bees and the chirp of the
birds, all entered the open casements freely; and the polished
floors and furniture, and the clean white dimity hangings, added
to the cheerfulness of our suite of small attics. The parlour
below was dull by comparison. It could only be reached
through the front kitchen; tall shrubs overshaded the window,
it had green walls, hair-bottomed chairs set all round by them;
one round table in the middle of the room oiled till it was nearly
black, and rubbed till it shone like a mirror; a patch of carpet
was spread beneath this table, and a paper net for catching flies
hung from the ceiling over it; a corner cupboard full of tall
glasses and real old china tea-cups, and a large china punchbowl
on the top, and a corner-set arm-chair with a patch-work
cover on the cushion, are all the extras I remember. We were
very little in this "guest-chamber," only at our meals or on
rainy days. We were for ever on the beach, strolling along the
sands, which were beautiful; sitting on the rocks or in the caves,
penetrating as far into them as we dared. When we bathed we
undressed in a cave and then walked into the sea, generally
hand in hand, my mother heading us. How we used to laugh
and dance, and splash, and push, anything but dip, we avoided
that as much as possible; then in consideration of our cold bath
we had a warm tea breakfast and felt so light. It was a very
happy time at Seaham. Some of the Houghton cousins were
often with us, Kate and Eliza constantly. We had all straw
bonnets alike, coarse dunstables lined and trimmed with green,
with deep curtains on the neck, pink gingham frocks and holland
pinafores, baskets in our hands, and gloves in our pockets. We
did enjoy the seashore scrambles. On Sundays we were what
we thought very fine, white frocks all of us; the cousins had
white cambric bonnets and tippets, and long kid gloves to meet
the short sleeves. We had fine straw bonnets trimmed with
white, and black silk spencers. My mother wore gipsy hats, in
which she looked beautiful; they were tied on with half-handkerchiefs
of various colours, and had a single sprig of artificial
flowers inside over one eye. We went to church either at Sea-ham
or Houghton, the four bays carrying us quickly to my
uncle Ironside's, when we spent the remainder of the day there
always, our own feet bearing us to the little church on the cliffs
when it suited my mother to stay at home.
The name of the old Rector of Seaham I cannot recollect; he
was a nice kind old man, who most good-naturedly, when we
drank tea at the parsonage, played chess with me, and once or
twice let me beat him. He had a kind homely wife too, our
great ally. She had many housekeeping ways of pleasing
children. The family, a son and two or three daughters, were
more aspiring; they had annual opportunities of seeing the
ways of more fashionable people, and so tried a little finery at
home, in particular drilling an awkward lout of a servant boy
into a caricature of a lady's page. One evening, in the drawing-room,
the old quiet mamma observing that she had left her knitting
in the parlour, the sprucest of the daughters immediately
rose and rang the bell and desired this attendant to fetch it,
which he did upon a silver salver; the thick grey woollen stocking
for the parson's winter wear, presented with a bow — such a
bow! to his mistress. No comments that I heard were made
upon this scene, but it haunted me as in some way incongruous.
Next day, when we were at our work in the parlour, I
came out with, "Mamma, wouldn't you rather have run down
yourself and brought up that knitting?" "You would, I hope,
my dear," answered she with her smile — she had such a sweet
smile when she was pleased — "you would any of you." How
merrily we worked on, though our work was most particularly
disagreeable, an economical invention of our aunt Mary's. She
had counselled my mother to cut up some fine old cambric petticoats
into pocket-handkerchiefs for us, thus giving us four hems
to each, so that they were very long in hand. Jane never got
through one during the whole time we were at Seaham; it was
so dragged, and so wetted with tears, and so dirtied from being
often begun and ripped and begun again, I believe at last it went
into the rag bag, while I, in time, finished the set for both, not,
however, without a little private grudge against the excellent
management of aunt Mary. Aunt Mary was then living at
Houghton with her maiden aunt, Miss Jane Nesham. She and
aunt Fanny had been there for some months, but aunt Mary
was to go on to the Highlands with us whenever my father
returned from circuit, and in the meantime she often came over
for a day or two to Seaham.
Except the clergyman's family there was none of gentle
degree in the village, it was the most primitive hamlet ever met
with, a dozen or so of cottages, no trade, no manufacture, no
business doing that we could see: the owners were mostly servants
of Sir Ralph Milbanke's. He had a pretty villa on the
cliff surrounded by well-kept grounds, where Lady Milbanke
liked very much to retire in the autumn with her little
daughter, the unfortunate child granted to her after eighteen
years of childless married life. She generally lived quite
privately here, seeing only the Rector's family, when his daughters
took their lessons in high breeding; and for a companion for
the future Lady Byron at these times she selected the
daughter of our landlady, a pretty, quiet, elegant-looking girl,
who bore very ill with the public-house ways after living for
weeks in Miss Milbanke's apartments. I have often wondered
since what became of little Bessy. She liked being with us. She
was in her element only with refined people, and unless Lady
Milbanke took her entirely and provided for her, she had done
her irremediable injury by raising her ideas beyond her home.
Her mother seemed to feel this, but they were dependants, and
did not like to refuse "my lady." Surely it could not have been
that modest graceful girl, who was " born in the garret, in the
kitchen bred"? I remember her mother and herself washing
their hands in a tub in the back-yard after some work they had
been engaged in, and noticing sadly, I know not why, the
bustling hurry with which one pair of red, rough hands was
yellow-soaped, well plunged, and then dried off on a dish-cloth;
and the other pale, thin delicate pair was gently soaped and
slowly rinsed, and softly wiped on a towel brought down for the
purpose. What strangely curious incidents make an impression
upon some minds! Bessy could make seaweed necklaces and
shell bags and work very neatly. She could understand our
books too, and was very grateful for having them lent to her.
My mother never objected to her being with us, but our Houghton
cousins did not like playing with her, their father and mother,
they thought, would not approve of it; so when they were with
us our more humble companion retired out of sight, giving us a
melancholy smile if we chanced to meet her. My mother had
no finery. She often let us, when at Houghton, drink tea with
an old Nanny Appleby, who had been their nursery-maid. She
lived in a very clean house with a niece, an eight-day clock, a
chest of drawers, a corner-set chair, and a quantity of bright
pewter. The niece had twelve caps, all beautifully done up,
though of various degrees of rank; one was on her head, the other
eleven in one of the drawers of this chest, as we counted, for we
were taken to inspect them. The aunt gave us girdle cakes,
some plain, some spiced, and plenty of tea, Jane getting hers in
a real china cup, which was afterwards given to her on account
of her possessing the virtue of being named after my mother.
There were grander parties, too, at Houghton, among the aunts
and the uncles and the cousins. At these gayer meetings my great-aunts
Peggy and Elsie appeared in the very handsome headgear
my mother had brought them from London, which particularly
impressed me as I watched the old ladies bowing and jingling
at the tea-table night after night. They were called dress
turbans, and were made alike of rolls of muslin folded round a
catgut headpiece and festooned with large loops of large beads
ending in bead tassels, after the most approved prints of Tippoo
Sahib. They were considered extremely beautiful as well as
fashionable, and were much admired. We also drove in the
mornings to visit different connections, on one occasion going
as far as Sunderland, where the iron bridges so delighted Jane
and me, and the shipping and the busy quays, that we were
reproved afterwards for a state of over-excitement that prevented
our responding properly to the attentions of our great-aunt
Blackburn, a remarkably handsome woman, though then upwards
of eighty.
It was almost with sorrow that we heard circuit was over;
whether sufficient business had been done on it to pay the
travelling expenses, no one ever heard, or I believe inquired, for
my father was not communicative upon his business matters;
he returned in his usual good spirits. Mrs. Millar and Johnnie
also reappeared; aunt Mary packed up; she took rather a doleful
leave of all and started. There had been a great many mysterious
conversations of late between my mother and aunt Mary,
and as they had begun to suspect the old how-vus do-vus
language was become in some degree comprehensible to us, they
had substituted a more difficult style of disguised English. This
took us a much longer time to translate into common sense.
"Herethegee isthegee athegee letthegee terthegee fromthegee," etc. I
often wondered how with words of many syllables they managed
to make out such a puzzle, or even to speak it themselves. It
baffled us for several days; at last we discovered the key, or the
clue, and then we found a marriage was preparing — whose,
never struck us — it was merely a marriage in which my mother
and my aunts were interested, the arrangements for which were
nearly completed, so that the event itself was certain to take
place in the course of the summer. We were very indifferent
about it, almost grudging the pains we had taken to master the
gibberish that concealed the parties from us, no fragment of a
name having ever been uttered in our hearing.
At Edinburgh, of course, my father's affairs detained him as
usual; this time my mother had something to do there. Aunt
Mary had been so long rusticating at Houghton — four months, I
think — that her wardrobe had become very old-fashioned, and
as there was always a great deal of company in the Highlands
during the shooting season, it was necessary for her to add considerably
to it. Dressmakers consequently came to fit on dresses,
and we went to silk mercers, linen-drapers, haberdashers, etc.
Very amusing indeed, and no way extraordinary; and so we
proceeded to Perth, where, for the last time, we met our great-uncle
Sandy. This meeting made the more impression on me,
not because of his death soon after, for we did not much care for
him, but for his openly expressed disappointment at my changed
looks. I had given promise of resembling his handsome mother,
the Lady Jean Gordon, with her fair oval face, her golden hair,
and brilliant skin; I had grown into a Raper, to his dismay,
and he was so ungallant as to enter into particulars — yellow,
peaky, skinny, drawn up, lengthened out, everything disparaging;
true enough, I believe, for I was not strong, and many a
long year had to pass before a gleam of the Gordon beauty
settled on me again. It passed whole and entire to Mary, who
grew up an embodiment of all the perfection of the old family
portraits. Jane was a true Ironside then and ever, William
ditto, John like me, a cross between Grant and Raper.
They did not understand me, and they did not use me well.
The physical constitution of children nobody thought it necessary
to attend to then, the disposition was equally neglected, no
peculiarities were ever studied; how many early graves were the
consequence! I know now that my constitution was eminently
nervous; this extreme susceptibility went by many names in
my childhood, and all were linked with evil. I was affected, sly,
sullen, insolent, everything but what I really was, nervously shy
when noticed. Jealous too, they called me, jealous of dear good
Jane, because her fearless nature, fine healthy temperament,
as shown in her general activity, her bright eyes and rosy cheeks,
made her a much more satisfactory plaything than her timid
sister. Her mind, too, was precocious; she loved poetry, understood
it, learned it by heart, and expressed it with the feeling of
a much older mind, acting bits from her favourite Shakespeare
like another Roscius. These exhibitions and her dancing made
her quite a little show, while I, called up on second thoughts to
avoid distinctions, cut but a sorry figure beside her; this
inferiority I felt, and felt it still further paralyse me. Then
came the unkind, cutting rebuke, which my loving heart could
ill bear with. I have been taunted with affectation when my
fault was ignorance, called sulky when I have been spirit-crushed.
I have been sent supperless to bed for not, as Cassius, giving the
cue to Brutus, whipped by my father at my mother's representation
of the insolence of my silence, or the impudence of the pert
reply I was goaded on to make; jeered at as the would-be
modest, flouted as envious. How little they guessed the depth
of the affection thus tortured. They did it ignorantly, but how
much after-grief this want of wisdom caused; a very unfavourable
effect on my temper was the immediate result, and health
and temper go together