"Once, it is true," said the old lady, "he had a pretty _youth_ for a
_page_ with him. The maids declared it was a young woman. But as for me,
I never could verify the fact, and all these servant-girls were jealous,
especially one of them called Lucy. For Lord Byron being kind to her,
and a fortune-teller having predicted a high destiny for her, the poor
little thing dreamed of nothing else but becoming a great lady, and
perhaps of rising to be mistress of the Abbey. Ah, well! but her dreams
came to nothing."[42]

"Lord Byron," added the old lady, "passed the greater part of his time
seated on his sofa reading. Sometimes he had young noblemen of his
acquaintance with him. Then, it is true, they amused themselves in
playing all sorts of tricks--youthful frolics, that was all; they did
nothing improper for young gentlemen, nothing that could harm any
body."[43]

"Lord Byron's only amusements at Newstead," says Mr. Irving, "were
boating, boxing, fencing, and his dogs."

"His constant occupation was to write, and for that he had the habit of
sitting up till two and three in the morning. Thus his life at Newstead
was quite one of seclusion, entirely devoted to poetry."

After having passed a year in this way at Newstead, following on his
college and university life, he left England in order to mature his mind
under other skies, to forget the injustice of man and the hardships of
fortune that had already somewhat tinged his nature with gloom.

Instead of going in quest of emotions, his desire was, on the contrary,
to avoid both those of the heart and of the senses. The admiration felt
by the young traveller for charming Spanish women and beautiful Greeks
did not outstep the limits of the purest poetry. Nevertheless the
stoicism of twenty, with a heart, sensibility and imagination like his,
could not be very firm, nor always secure from danger. He did actually
meet with a formidable enemy at Malta; for he there made acquaintance
with Mrs. Spencer Smith, the daughter of one ambassador and the wife of
another, a woman most fascinating from her youth, beauty, mind, and
character, as well as by her singular position and strange adventures.
Did he avoid her so much as the stanzas addressed to the lovely
Florence, in the first canto of "Childe Harold," would fain imply? This
may be doubted, on account of the ring which they exchanged, and also
from several charming pieces of verse that testify to another sentiment.

In any ca