An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY This year my history of Cromer came out, and on 28th February, 1889, my youngest daughter, Barbara Cath. Valentine Rye was born at Putney. She was due on the 14th, but we called her after that day after all. In the spring various journeys took me to Orde House, Norham, Cromer, Scoulton Mere (for the first time) and Aylsham, to see the celebrated "Aylsham Derby." On the 18th May my wife showed the first serious symptons of the disease which ultimately killed her, and was under charge of Dr. Grun at at Ramsgate very ill and delirious, but better when I went down. During the spring Dr. Grun caused a scare about J. B. Rye having spinal curvature, and he was hung up and put into plaster. This turned an expensive mares– nest for his round back was only the "student's back" inherited from his grandfather and father. In May I did what my friends with complete unanimity declared to be the most foolish of the many foolish things I ever did, for when old Webster retired from the " Maid's Head," at Norwich, where I bad stayed since 1867, I took a long lease of the house, and knowing the possibilities of what could be done in the way of restoration, threw myself into it with vehemence. Some of my innovations in management were startling in their novelty, and I will quote from a brochure handed to visitors. " For a London lawyer, whose chief connection with the county has been through his dabbling somewhat in its antiquities, to take a lease of au inn, however ol<l and inter– esting it might be, and to try to manage it from a distance of r20 miles, is a thing which is so unprecedented, and has so greatly excited the curiosity of local busybodies, that I have thought it best to issue this little book asa sort of" apologia pro publica mea," and satisfy everybody's curiosity. My motives were surprisingly simple. I had been my– self a customer of the house for twenty years and more, and some of the most pleasant parts of my life had been spent in and about it. It was rumoured that when Mr. Webster (who and whose wife had been rather the personal friends of his guests than ordinary innkeepers) left the "Maid's Head," the whole scope of the old Tory house– the nearest approach to the typical oltl hostel that I ever saw-was going to be changed ; that it was to be let to a big brewer, and be turned into a commercial inn, with coloured glass bar, a billiard-room, and the rest of it ; and, in fact, that the whole place was to be spoiled, and no longer be a refnge for those who like peace and quiet and old surround– ings. I heard what the new rent was to be, and took upon myself the burden.