Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/317

Rh the late Dr. Sutherland was one of the authorities consulted. It ceased only because his mother intensely disliked it. The family now lived at Red-Coat's Green, near Hitchen, in the house where the hermit afterward lived and died. He hunted occasionally with a gentleman of the neighborhood. He rode either with his shirt outside, or in a nankeen suit, barefooted, with a small cap, or bareheaded, his longhair streaming in the wind. He bestrode a high-peaked saddle, and used a rope for his bridle and stirrups. Sometimes, he would ride in a carriage, his hair done up in curl-papers. He became attentive to a young lady, to whom he sent a pair of doves in a cage, but she returned the present. He persecuted her sadly, by prowling around the house. His mother died in 1849. He was then the eldest surviving son, but a younger one was left executor. A fatal objection to his acting in that capacity was, that he would not sign his name to any paper bearing her Majesty's stamp. He held that she was not the rightful heir to the throne, and would not use a postage or receipt stamp lest he should seem to admit her supremacy. But he did not scruple to use a coin bearing her image.

He kept his mother's body in the house from the 24th of October, 1849, to January, 1850, promising each day to let her be buried "tomorrow." The greater part of his time was spent beside the corpse. At length his brother interfered and buried the body. It has been published that he was heart-broken at his mother's death. His relatives doubt the depth of this attachment. He, indeed, expressed himself as much attached to her, and intimated that he would die with her; but she often said that he never showed his affection by gratifying one of her wishes. However, he may have felt real sorrow at her death, and this seems to be implied by the fact that he allowed things in the house to remain just as they were when she died; her letters and money untouched, and the beds as they were then made. In fact, his distress seemed genuine. He often told a neighbor that he would willingly have died for her, and he would weep bitterly at the mention of her name.

His life as a hermit now began, but, however great his distress, we cannot attribute to it his strange mode of life. His brother believes that he afterward appeared worse only because all restraint was removed. His brother and sisters could not now live with him. I believe he never saw the latter again, while he became estranged from the former because of his interference about the interment. Lucas spoke in the bitterest terms of his brother, and even left a hay-stack untouched, all his life alleging that he would hold him responsible for it. Still, his brother visited him several times, and was received. It is important to observe that he made a will a few years after his mother's death, wherein he evinced no animosity toward his brother, nor displayed any eccentricity in the disposition of his property. The appearance of the house bespoke the character of the occupant.