Excerpt from Macmillan's Magazine, Vol. 20: May, 1869-October, 1869

Charles II. Was said to have taken a royal refection after hunting in the chace which surrounded the property. The younger generation likewise felt aggrieved that on such a beautiful lawn there should be no archery parties (cro quet then was not), and no hope what ever of a ball in the tapestry-chamber, concerning which there were rumours without end; for none of the present generation had ever seen it.

Once things had been very different. While Sir Edward was rebuilding the Hall, he inhabited a house near, and lived in a style suitable to his fortune, while his wife and family mingled in all the best society of the neighbour hood. They were exceedingly popular, being a large merry family - handsome to look at, full of life and strength. Their father was less liked, being rather queer, people said, somewhat unsocial, and always fancying himself a great invalid. But their mother shared in all their youthful enjoyments, and herself shone upon society like a star. - Vanished too, almost as suddenly; for after a certain grand ball - a house-warming which Sir Edward gave - and the splen dours of which the elder generation in the village remembered still, the master of Brierley Hall fell really ill of some mysterious ailment. Something amiss here, folk said, observed my informant, tapping her forehead and after linger ing, unseen by anybody, for many months, died, and was buried in Brierley church yard. His monument, in plain white marble, without any of the fulsomeness common to epitaphs, was over his widow's head every Sunday as she sat in the Hall pew.

There, too, was a second tablet, equally simple in form and inscription, recording the names, ages, and dates of death of her six children. They had every one perished, some abroad, some at home, within a comparatively short space of time - dying off, as some fami lies do die off, when all the probabilities seem in favour of their continuing to remote generations a prosperous, healthy, and honourable race. When I read. The list of names on the whit; tablet.

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