The War Office never tempted Sir Charles as did the Admiralty, where, he wrote to Lord Granville in 1885, 'I fear I should be extravagant.' III. A holiday home in the South of France had ceased to be easily accessible to the 'most hard-worked member of the Government.' Though for many years he retained his little villa of 'La Sainte Campagne' near Toulon, nestling in its olive groves with, from windows and cliff, the view of the red porphyry rocks across the deep blue of the bay, he had for some time been negotiating for the purchase of strips of land by the riverside near Shepperton, and among the pines at Pyrford. In 1883 the building of the cottage at Dockett Eddy was begun, over the door of which he set this inscription: "Parva sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non Sordida, parta meo sed tamen aere, domus." [Footnote: Thus rendered in English by the Rev. W. Tuckwell: ''Tis tiny, but it suits me quite, Invades no jealous neighbour's right; 'Tis neat and clean, and--pleasant thought-- I earned the cash with which 'twas bought.' (It was bought out of his official salary.)] This was to be always his riverside home, and in it he always slept, even after the larger house had been built near by. There he was one of the river's most jealous guardians, and in this year notes that he 'gave evidence before the Select Committee on the River Thames, and was instrumental in securing the insertion of a clause in the Bill, afterwards produced by the Committee, which put an end to shooting on the Thames, and did a great deal to protect the quiet of the river.' The Dockett cottage was not finished till 1885, and: 'On Saturday, March 21st, I took a holiday on the river, starting down with my punt from Taplow Court, and bringing her down to Dockett Eddy, of which I now took possession, the little house being now finished.' On May 22nd, 1884, 'I settled to go on Whitsun Tuesday to look at Lord Onslow's land at Pyrford, for a winter house. I had forgotten that my ancestor Sir R. Parkhurst had been Lord of the Manor of Pyrford, and that my ancestor Sir Edward Zouche had lived even nearer to my new purchase, at old Woking St. Peter, whence I hear his bells.' Late in the year 'I settled on my motto for my cottage at Pyrford--a line of Ruskin, "This is the true nature of Home,--it is the place of Peace." 'The selection meant in my mind that home was about to exist once more for me.' 'In July, 1884, Mrs. Mark Pattison had been left a widow by the death of the Rector of Lincoln College. She went to live at The Lodge, Headington, near Oxford.