28 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



one. John Luckett is now remembered chiefly for a 

 widely circulated print of Old Swindon Church which he 

 drew, with his uncle's mill-pond thereby, and in it he has 

 put three horses cooling their feet ; for in those days the 

 postillions alighting at ' The Goddard Arms ' took their 

 horses to this pond. He was ' a youth of rare promise — 

 developed into an artist of no mean powers ; architecture, 

 music, and singing held great charms for him, and he 

 excelled in all. Many are the choice little pencil sketches, 

 fine-line drawings, and water-colours treasured by the 

 family, together with his guitar, and many volumes of 

 music copied with a skilful pen.'* It is said that Richard 

 took after him. His sisters were * exceptionally educated 

 women for the time '; rumour, insisting on the eccen- 

 tricity of the family, says that one of them spent a year 

 in bed in the misery arising from a love-affair. 



James Luckett Jefferies, the father of Richard, was bom 

 in London in 1816. He was a dark-haired, intensely 

 bright-blue-eyed man of about five feet ten inches in 

 height, with fine hands and feet. He is said to have 

 worked his passage out to America in 1837, ^^id there, in 

 Canada, and up the Hudson River, he stayed a year or 

 two, and moved about a good deal, working, I have heard, 

 as a farm-labourer. In 1844 he married Elizabeth Gyde, 

 daughter of Charles Gyde of Islington, who was a book- 

 binder at 7I, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, and had been 

 a ' colleague of his father's at Taylor's. 'f Another Miss 

 Gyde married Thomas Harrild, a letterpress and litho- 

 graphic printer in Shoe Lane, Fleet Street ; this aunt was 

 Richard's kindest friend. As a child, Jefferies also visited 

 the workshops of another uncle, Robert Harrild, variously 

 described as printer, manufacturer of printing materials, 

 publisher and bookseller, in Farringdon Street and in 

 Great Eastcheap. Frederick Gyde, her brother, was an 

 engraver on wood of some note, and a delicate artist with 



* ' Forbears of Richard Jefferies,' Country Life, March 14, 1908. 

 t Ibid. 



