Some Memories of Charles Darwin [pp. 404-408]

Some M1Iemories of Chliarles Darwzin.[
SOME MEMORIES OF CHARLES DARWIN.
WE had the happy fortune to be near
neighbors of Mr. Darwin for about four
years,- living at one end of the village
of Down, while his house and grounds
were at the other end. Between, the village street seemed to crawl its lazy
length,- never any bustle or stir, save
when the little ones turned out of school
twice a day, or on Sunday when the villagers walked to and from the old parish
church.
The neat little houses, no two or
three alike, stood near together, but with
trim gardens fronting the clean street,
each with picket fence and wicket gate,
and gay with old-fashioned flowers all
the summer time. Some of these cottages were old-time houses, built of
unbaked clay bricks, set in transverse
frames of timber, which had held up the
old thatched roofs for hundreds of years.
Within might be still seen the great
square fireplace, with its chimney corners, or ingle nooks, where the old folks
had sat and kept warm for generations,
while the hams and sides of bacon were
hung high up in the wide chimney to
smoke.
But these old whitewashed houses
had mostly given place to the warm red
brick, with slate roofs that brighten and
silver in the sunshine. Three little
stores had been made, by the enterprising tradesman building out over his
front garden to the village street. At
the head of the village it branched out
into two more roads, widening at the
branching point into an open space. On
one side of this stood the old parish
church, and had stood for eight hundred
years,-restored, as the parson called it,
spoiled as some of the rest of us thought,
at a recent date. Still the solitary yew
tree stood its sentinel at the churchyard
gate, and had stood for the same eight
hundred years, -fit emblem, our forefathers called the yew, of the immortality of the soul, while they laid the body
to rest in God's acre by its side.
There were several breaks in the rows
of cottages as you passed up the street.
The trim little houses gave place to low
flint stone walls, with trees peering over
from the inner side. Open iron gateways (that had taken the place of the old
oak doors) revealed a large house within, where the "great folks" dwelt. In
one of these lived Miss Elizabeth Wedgwood, Mrs. Darwin's eldest sister. In
another such house lived Doctor Frank
Darwin, the helper and colaborer with
his father through his latter years. And
in the largest of these houses, at the end
of the village, as I have said, lived then,
and had lived for thirty years, the great
naturalist himself.
These larger houses all open out at the
back on their lawns, gardens, meadows,
and little farmsteads, with a gardener's
cottage scattered here and there.
So do the well-to-do English people
live, side by side, and often heart to
heart, with their poorer brethren, going
in and out among them, ministering to
their wants, and sympathizing with their
joys. Ah! the happy, simple life of the
English village is a sweet picture that
does not find its counterpart on this side
of the water, and that few Americans
have seen, and consequently few appreciate.
Such was the little Kentish village,
eighteen miles from busy London, and
at the time the Darwins chose it for
their home, fully twelve miles from a
railroad. But then the roads were so
made and kept that a lady could walk on
them or drive a two-wheeled cart all the
year round, except when the snow might
fall and hide the road a little while. The
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[October,