HISTORY OF HARTING. 177 



following Madam huff'd (I believe), for she went away 

 to Barnard's and wou'd not so much as see the desert 

 (dessert) ; however I don't repent it, he has been here 

 at all the merryment, and I believe you'll find it better 

 to keep them at a civill distance than other ways, for 

 she seems a high dame and not very good humoured, 

 for she has been sick ever since of the Mulygrubes, 

 and I hear, by-the-bye, she depended upon being my 



companion Tarquin, your good gun-dog, went 



melancholy mad last week, and was obliged to be 

 killed yesterday. I sent all the rest to sea, for fear 

 they should have been bitt." * 



It is plain that Lady Mary was a formidable cha- 

 racter, and would share her throne with no daughter- 

 in-law. Therefore, no doubt at his bride Dolly's 

 request, Caryll had the old house at Harting Place 

 surveyed in May 1738, as a second residence, by 

 " Mr. Minchin, of Petersfield." The roof had given 

 away, but if it were restored at a cost of 1,200, and 

 some useless parts pulled down, the surveyor reported 

 that there would be a fine uniform shell of ninety-six 

 feet in length, two fine fronts, and fifty feet broad, 

 giving much more room than at Lady Holt, and a 

 house as good as one that might cost 6,000, while 

 sufficient materials would be left to build another. 

 " This my Lord," writes his brother-in-law, A. Goolde, 

 " is a true state of the case, and without any un- 

 certainty or post expence the whole can be com- 

 pleated in four or five months time, or six at most, 

 with good weather, and provided with submission, 

 you dont consult too many people, which occasions 

 strange interruptions like the breaking the thread 

 of a man's discourse, or the chain of his thought tho' 

 before ever so well formed." It does not seem, how- 

 ever, that the young Squire took this hint or repaired 

 the old house. Its sole occupants after this time 



* Caryll Correspondence 28,229, p. 187. 



N 



