Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/383

 Mablethorpe as a young fellow, and how he would spend whole nights on the shore, and wander as far as Donna Nook, without sufficient care to prevent immersion by incoming tides. These protracted absences sometimes provoked anxiety, and search parties were sent out.

Above is a portrait of the Laureate in his youth. The original engraving by J. C. Armytage, from a crayon drawing by Samuel Lawrence, was first published in R. H. Horne's New Spirit of the Age. The villagers of Somersby and neighbourhood recognise in it a likeness to Dr. Tennyson, the poet's father.

Numbers of pilgrims have put on record their impressions of the neighbourhood where the Laureate first saw the light. The church of Bag Enderby, one of the livings held by Dr. Tennyson, is a quaint structure. The exterior is given on page 384.

Votaries of "the localising craze" say that Stockworth Mill was the home of "The Miller's Daughter." See the mill, page 384.

Somersby should be seen during each of the various seasons of the year in order to come into close sympathy with the moods of various local references in the poems. The last time we were there was early in February, when Holywell Glen was sheeted in snow-drops. Mrs. Thackeray-Ritchie says, "Lord Tennyson sometimes speaks of this glen." The same writer gives us a glimpse of the happy "circle" referred to in lxxxix., "In Memoriam":—

"Dean Garden was one of those friends sometimes spoken of who, with Arthur Hallam, the reader of the Tuscan poets, and James Spedding and others, used to gather upon the lawn at Somersby—the young men and women in the light of their youth and high spirits, the widowed mother leading her quiet life within the rectory walls."

Old retainers of the Tennyson family still survive. Here is the portrait of an old dame who now sits in her chimney-corner and says, "Poet or no poet, I carried him on my back when he was a baby." This is the old servant, to whom the Laureate wrote so pleasantly in response to her congratulations on his becoming a peer. She remembers Arthur Hallam visiting the Rectory, and the distress occasioned there on the receipt of the news of his death. Although quite blind, the old lady is sprightly and cheerful, notwithstanding her extremely humble circumstances.

Another resident in the neighbourhood remembers being in service at Somersby Rectory—"a vast o' years sin'," she says. She tells us that "Master Alfred" always had a book in his hand, and that he once gave her two volumes of his poems. She does not remember the Laureate's brothers writing poetry, but "Arthur learned it after." This worthy dame remembers Dr. Tennyson as a good preacher. She has occupied her present snug cottage more than half a century. The few shillings she receives weekly is but a meagre subsistence, but she says, "I hate to be in the grumbling club."

Visitors to the locality may expect to encounter this retired