gination was mainly
confined to the hours in his study; and while there, if he had his
"_beaux moments_," he had also his "_mauvais quarts d'heure_."

Perhaps if he had brought a little imagination to bear upon his
relations with Muston and Allington, Crabbe would not have deserted his
people so soon after coming among them. The stop made him many enemies.
For here was no case of a poor curate accepting, for his family's sake,
a more lucrative post. Crabbe was leaving the Vale of Belvoir because an
accession of fortune had befallen the family, and it was pleasanter to
live in his native county and in a better house. So, at least, his
action was interpreted at the time, and Crabbe's son takes no very
different view. "Though tastes and affections, as well as worldly
interests, prompted this return to native scenes and early
acquaintances, it was a step reluctantly taken, and I believe, sincerely
repented of. The beginning was ominous. As we were slowly quitting the
place preceded by our furniture, a stranger, though one who knew my
father's circumstances, called out in an impressive tone, 'You are
wrong, you are wrong!'" The sound, he afterwards admitted, found an echo
in his own conscience, and during the whole journey seemed to ring in
his ears "like a supernatural voice."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: See a pleasant paper on Crabbe at Muston and Allington by
the Rev. W.H. Hutton of St John's College, Oxford, in the _Cornhill
Magazine_ for June 1901.]

CHAPTER V

IN SUFFOLK AGAIN

(1792-1805)

On the arrival of the family at Parham, poor Crabbe discovered that even
an accession of fortune had its attendant drawbacks. His son, George,
records his own recollections (he was then a child of seven years) of
the scene that met their view on their alighting at Parham Lodge. "As I
got out of the chaise, I remember jumping for very joy, and exclaiming,
'Here we are, here we are--little Willy and all!'"--(his parents'
seventh and youngest child, then only a few weeks old)--"but my spirits
sunk into dismay when, on entering the well-known kitchen, all there
seemed desolate, dreary, and silent. Mrs. Tovell and her sister-in-law,
sitting by the fireside weeping, did not even rise up to welcome my
parents, but uttered a few chilling words and wept again. All this
appeared to me as inexplicable as forbidding. How little do children
dream of the alterations that older people's feelings towards each other
undergo, when dea