CHAPTER X - 1881—1883: Springfield.—Bentley.—Attack on Glasgow University.—The Troad.—School at Athens

Summary

One morning in February, on opening the newspaper he saw the announcement that Dr Swainson was made Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, a fact specially interesting to us, inasmuch as Dr Swainson lived in a house much more suited for a summer residence than our own in St Peter's Terrace. With the remark: “Did grass grow under the feet of the man of toil? it did not”: he turned to his writing-table and wrote straightway a telegram, reply paid, asking for the refusal of the house. We trembled until the reply came back in the affirmative. The house was called Springfield, not from any special relation it held to the pleasant season, but because three springs existed in its grounds. One of these had been led through the cellar and made into a little well by the thoughtfulness of the late occupier. “So useful to cool your champagne,” he told us.

We took possession in July, and soon Springfield became as dear to him as Desmond and Danesfort had been. Some rooms were added later, the chief of which—the largest in the house—became his study. It grew to be, as some rooms do, almost a part of ourselves. He used often to say, “I love my study”; and that its bright look to him when he entered it in the morning was like a living welcome. I am glad to think he had the happiness of it for so many as seventeen years. It was by a fortunate chance that we built it soon after we bought the lease.