Untitled - Electric Scotland

1842-50] MARRIAGE TO CATHARINE SPOONER 123
been harsh in his judgments of the good men from whom on
principle
he differed." *
It is a fact that among the many
reminiscences of
those Rugby days which have been furnished by pupils
and friends, there is not one which does not record the
deep impression which seems to have been made, even
o.i the least susceptible, by the bright presence of the
beautiful young wife who presided
over the school-house
hospitality, and entered with the keenest zest into Rugby interest, great and small.
every
She had been brought up in the quietest of country
homes till she was twenty-one years old she had never
seen the sea and though her mind was richly stored with
English literature of every kind, she had few friends
beyond the rather wide circle of her family, and she knew
little of the world outside. To show her so much that
was new when the successive school holidays came round,
was to her husband a very keen enjoyment.
In the summer of 1845 they undertook a journey which
must have tested severely even her untiring strength.
Leaving England on the last day of June, in company
with his two brothers and a nephew, they posted through
France and Italy, and in perhaps the seven hottest weeks
of an exceptionally hot summer they drove from Paris,
over Mont Cenis, to Genoa. Sailing thence, they dis
embarked their carriage at Naples, and after visiting
Sorrento and Vesuvius then in eruption they drove by
Rome, where they spent six days, to Perugia, Florence,
Bologna, and Milan. Thence over the Splugen into
Switzerland, and back to Calais.
The rough journal which Dr. Tait kept throughout
this remarkable tour tells of the many difficulties which
they encountered on the journey, due in part to the
1
Catharine and Craufuni Tait, p. 6.