26 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



him ; but he never returned to it, and never entered a 

 railway-train, against which he had a strong prejudice. 

 Life was made none the easier for him by the presence of 

 his elder brother, James Luckett, and of a maiden aunt 

 in the same house with himself and his children, who 

 reached the number of eight. About the house his old 

 father had hidden much money, out of a dislike for banks. 

 He was a good, even if an unwilling, baker, and he is still 

 remembered as the maker of excellent lardy cakes at 

 three-halfpence each : sugar and lard were not stinted ; 

 the caraway of his rivals was left out ; and the cakes col- 

 lected the subtlest goodness from all the joints of meat, 

 the loaves, cakes, and tarts, which were baked in the same 

 oven. From the lardy cakes he could retire to his books. 

 Among his other activities was the investment of some of 

 his father's money in the building of two houses at Swin- 

 don. And he was a lover of the country, fond of driving 

 through the corn-land, and ' at an age of much over 

 seventy would climb up two flights of stairs ... to sit 

 at an upper window and gaze his fill at the swelling undu- 

 lations . . . which extended for miles across a fertile 

 green valley to an answering chalk ridge.' He is said to 

 have had the warm temper of the family, but also much 

 generosity and kindliness 'under the crust of reserve.'* 

 ' When he disliked he did it thoroughly ; but he was a 

 conscientious upholder of Church and State.' His wife, 

 ' a bright, handsome, amiable woman,' died in 1858 ; he 

 himself in 1868. 



John Jefferies' elder brother, James Luckett, never 

 married. His oddities were put down to something like 

 madness. He had a great distaste for braces, and pre- 

 ferred an old clock-chain wound about his waist ; when his 

 brother's wife stitched the braces to his breeches, he 

 allowed them to hang unused, and still wore the chain, 

 which clanked terribly on the footpaths at night. He 

 would often walk thus from Swindon to Coate with a 



* « 



Forbears of Richard Jefferies,' Country Lifoy March 14, 1908. 



