Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/41

 THE ANCESTOR 17 Once, indeed, placed in a conspicuous and responsible situation. . . the strongest incentive I had to exert myself was in the satisfaction I knew he would derive from any credit I might acquire, and the many and distinguished honours I have since received have suffered a great diminution in my estima- tion from his being no longer a witness to them. It may be wondered that no direct mention has been so far made as to where the Harrises lived at the moment when James Harris and his wife are first introduced to the reader. The headquarters of the family were at Salisbury, in the old house which they had long ' held under the Church/ but they also had a small property and manor house situated on the river Avon, called Great Durnford, about eight miles from the cathedral city, a small remnant of which estate still remains in the hands of the writer of these pages, as well as owning another small house and property in Hampshire,^ which had likewise been theirs for several generations. It was not until after he had entered Parliament and when their children were growing up that James and Mrs. Harris are to be found year after year regularly settled in London ; but even then they still spent a good portion of the twelve months at their various country residences, more especially at Salisbury. It is difficult for us who live in these days thoroughly to picture to ourselves the appalling discomforts and endless fatigues to which our ancestors were subject each time they took a long journey in the 'good old coaching days,' when famous country inns with historic signboards drove a brisk trade — these inns which can now scarce boast a decent coffee- room, whose great stables are tenanted by a few lean and jaded nags, and where space, empty, yawning, desolate space, reigns supreme. Would that such old places as these could speak, and many a tale they would tell us of gallant gentleman and high-born dame primly paying one another polite compli- ments after the fashion of our forefathers, of swaggering grooms and buxom lasses taking advantage of the halt to flirt together in their own rude way, while ' canary-vested,' bare- armed ostlers led oiF the wearied steaming horses to fodder and to rest. 1 Not Heron Court, which came to the first Lord Malmesbury from his cousin, Mr. Hooper, M.P. Lord Malmesbury greatly enlarged and almost entirely rebuilt it, transforming it from an Elizabethan-shaped manor house into a fine country seat.