self or his exiled fathers, bought some land in this county,
in which the ancestral possessions had once been large, and built the
present house, of a size suited to the altered fortunes of a race that
in a former age had manned castles with retainers. The baptismal name
of the soldier who thus partially refounded the old line in England was
that now borne by your cousin, Guy,--a name always favoured by Fortune
in the family annals; for in Elizabeth's time, from the rank of small
gentry, to which their fortune alone lifted them since their return to
their native land, the Darrells rose once more into wealth and eminence
under a handsome young Sir Guy,--we have his picture in black flowered
velvet,--who married the heiress of the Haughtons, a family that
had grown rich under the Tudors, and was in high favour with the
Maiden-Queen. This Sir Guy was befriended by Essex and knighted by
Elizabeth herself. Their old house was then abandoned for the larger
mansion of the Haughtons, which had also the advantage of being nearer
to the Court, The renewed prosperity of the Darrells was of short
duration. The Civil Wars came on, and Sir John Darrell took the losing
side. He escaped to France with his only son. He is said to have been
an accomplished, melancholy man; and my belief is, that he composed that
air which you justly admire for its mournful sweetness. He turned Roman
Catholic and died in a convent. But the son, Ralph, was brought up in
France with Charles II, and other gay roisterers. On the return of the
Stuart, Ralph ran off with the daughter of the Roundhead to whom his
estates had been given, and, after getting them back, left his wife
in the country, and made love to other men's wives in town. Shocking
profligate! no fruit could thrive upon such a branch. He squandered all
he could squander, and would have left his children beggars, but that
he was providentially slain in a tavern brawl for boasting of a lady's
favours to her husband's face. The husband suddenly stabbed him,--no
fair duello, for Sir Ralph was invincible with the small sword. Still
the family fortune was much dilapidated, yet still the Darrells lived
in the fine house of the Haughtons, and left Fawley to the owls. But Sir
Ralph's son, in his old age, married a second time, a young lady of high
rank, an earl's daughter. He must have been very much in love with her,
despite his age, for to win her consent or her father's he agreed to
settle all the Haught