A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Jane Austen’s Letters 53
but the surgeon will not declare him to be in no danger. 1 Mr.
Heathcote° met with a genteel little accident the other day in
hunting. He got off to lead his horse over a hedge, or a house, or
something, and his horse in his haste trod upon his leg, or rather
ancle, I believe, and it is not certain whether the small bone is
not broke. Martha has accepted Mary’s invitation for Lord
Portsmouth’s ball.° He has not yet sent out his own invitations,
but that does not signify; Martha comes, and a ball there is to be. I
think it will be too early in her mother’s absence for me to return
with her.
‘Sunday Evening.–– We have had a dreadful storm of wind in
the fore part of this day, which has done a great deal of mischief
among our trees. I was sitting alone in the dining-room when an
odd kind of crash startled me–– in a moment afterwards it was
repeated. I then went to the window, which I reached just in time
to see the last of our two highly valued elms descend into the
Sweep!!!!!° The other, which had fallen, I suppose, in the first
crash, and which was the nearest to the pond, taking a more
easterly direction, sunk among our screen of chestnuts and firs,
knocking down one spruce-fir, beating off the head of another,
and stripping the two corner chestnuts of several branches in its
fall. This is not all. One large elm out of the two on the left-hand
side as you enter what I call the elm walk, was likewise blown
down; the maple° bearing the weathercock was broke in two, and
what I regret more than all the rest is, that all the three elms
which grew in Hall’s meadow, and gave such ornament to it, are
gone; two were blown down, and the other so much injured that it
cannot stand. I am happy to add, however, that no greater evil
than the loss of trees has been the consequence of the storm
in this place, or in our immediate neighbourhood. We grieve,
therefore, in some comfort.
‘I am yours ever, ‘J.A.’
The next letter, written four days later than the former, was
addressed to Miss Lloyd,° an intimate friend, whose sister (my
mother) was married to Jane’s eldest brother:––
1 The limb was saved.