1896] Auberon Herbert at Oldhouse 235 



the subject of his biography, and Manning had given him some sort of 

 verbal promise about it and had shown him where his diaries were kept, 

 and one day he came to the house when the Cardinal was out and per- 

 suaded the servant to let him have them, saying that the Cardinal had 

 told him to call and take them away, he knew where they were, and 

 had authority, etc. But it was a pure theft and Manning had begun 

 legal proceedings for their recovery when he died." 



I went on the same afternoon and camped on Goodwood Down, and 

 on the next day through Chichester 'to Fareham and Southampton, and 

 camped again in the evening at the edge of the New Forest, the im- 

 mediate object of my journey being to pay Auberon Herbert a visit at 

 Oldhouse. Of this I write : 



" 12th Aug. — Oldhouse lies pre'tty well in the heart of the Forest. 

 One descends to it from the high road by a grass track of a mile and a 

 half. It is a freehold of half-a-dozen acres, recently purchased by 

 Auberon of its owner, and there he has made his hermitage. The old 

 cottage he has pulled down and in its place has built up a number of 

 cheap buildings of brick and wood devoid of architecture. Fortunately 

 they lie in a hollow and so are invisible un'cil one is close by. Auberorj 

 has done so much for the Forest, and fought so many battles to preserve 

 it from the Crown officers, that he must be forgiven this one lapse. I 

 found him with Stafford Howard, the Crown Commissioner, and Es- 

 dale, a local squire and verderer of the Forest, Auberon's ally in the 

 Forest battle. I had much talk with them about this. The chief diffi- 

 culty is what to do with the great fir enclosures, the firs ought to be cut 

 down, but there is nobody to buy them, and an ugly growth of them is 

 creeping over the open spaces, self-sown. It ought 'to be put a stop to, 

 or in fifty years' time the Forest will be like Woking cemetery. 



" Auberon is much aged since I saw him last, and more flighty than 

 he used to be. He is beset with a double mania, a craving for fresh air 

 and in contradiction a terror of draughts, so that he is always shifting 

 from in to out of doors and putting on or taking off extra clothing. 

 His two children, Bron and Nan, wait on him with angelic devotion. 

 They do all the work of the house. When I arrived Nan was in the 

 ki'tchen up to her elbows in flour, making bread. She is a great strong 

 girl of sixteen, the picture of health, with limbs like a boy's, great 

 honest grey eyes, good complexion, and good teeth. Auberon and I 

 have talked a great deal on politics, Eastern and Western, he, as his 

 way is, asking innumerable questions. We agree on most subjects, but 

 he is too 'tender to his countrymen's sins, excusing them and comparing 

 them favourably with the French. He has become an entire vegetarian, 

 as is his daughter, and for the most part his son. Their way of life is 

 the most uncomfortable imaginable. They have no fixed hours for 

 meals, or for getting up in the morning, or for going to bed. The first 



