'-'/ 
 
 ir^
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 BY 
 
 MORTIMER COLLINS 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1871. 
 
 The rujht of Translatinu ts reserved.
 
 LONUON : 
 PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHKIJW HOfSB, 
 RT^ENH£m BTREET, OXFORU &THKKT.
 
 ^^ 
 
 i;^ 
 
 
 TO 
 
 THE HONOURABLE 
 
 GRANTLEY FITZ-HARDINGE BERKELEY, 
 
 WHO, 
 BOTH IN LIFE AND LITERATURE, 
 
 (^' SHOWS THE TRUE MEANING OF THE ADAGE — 
 
 -^^ 
 
 
 C3^ 
 
 WHOM THE GODS LOVE, DIE YOUNG.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MARQUIS. 
 
 pREAKFAST at Ashridge Manor. Four 
 -■-^ persons were present in the spacious 
 breakfast-room, which overlooked Ashridge 
 Park and the river Ashe below. The old 
 Elizabethan house, built as an hypEethral 
 quadrangle with cloisters, all of red brick, 
 save the white marble mullions of the win- 
 dows, stands on a hill looking southward. 
 Two rivers ran through the park, neither of 
 them streams of the first force, though very 
 charming as ornamenting an aristocratic de- 
 
 VOL. 1. B
 
 2 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 mesne. The Ashe is the wider : you can 
 get a punt or a boat upon it, and enjoy a 
 little fishing^ or flirtation. The Petteril 
 might be considered a mere brook : but it 
 comes leaping from the hills above Ashridge 
 with such untireable vivacity that its volume 
 is forgotten in its vigour. And the two 
 streams (neither quite a Mississippi, or even 
 a Thames) combine to form a delightful 
 lakelet in the park of Ashridge Manor, the 
 heritage from time immemorial of the great 
 family of Waynfiete. 
 
 It was the fourteenth of February — a day 
 consecrated to a somewhat mischievous 
 saint. The post had just arrived at Ash- 
 ridge, and at least one person of the four 
 at table was full of delight. She looked at 
 the unaccustomed pile of letters by her 
 plate — one or two of them quite vast pack- 
 ages to come by post, while others were 
 tiny dainty missives — with exquisite antici-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 3 
 
 pations of pleasure. She forgot her break- 
 fast in the thought. She was a charming 
 child of eight, this recipient of roguish cor- 
 respondence, with plenteous fair hair and 
 wondrous blue eyes, and the patrician arch 
 of the upper lip, and the aristocratic slen- 
 derness of foot and of hand. She was Lady 
 Mary Waynflete, daughter of the Marquis of 
 Wraysbury, by his second Marchioness, nee 
 Vallance de Vere. And the first letter she 
 opened began : 
 
 " Sweet Lady Mary, Empress and fairy !" 
 
 with much more of the same sort. The 
 Marquis had a poet among his friends ; and, 
 though he lived in the nineteenth century, 
 had sufficient goodness of heart to play the 
 part of Maecenas. I don't think he lost 
 thereby. His poet cost him considerably 
 less than his friend Lord Cheviot paid the 
 trainer of his horses, and gave him consider- 
 
 B 2
 
 4 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 ably more pleasure. And possibly the 
 world in general derived some benefit from 
 this eccentricity of his. 
 
 I have begun with the youngest member 
 of the party — this pretty piquant little Lady 
 Mary. There was present also the Marquis, 
 a handsome dark-bearded man in the prime 
 of life, with a careless insouciant air in his 
 dark languid eyes and indolent lips. Also 
 was present his son by his first marriage, 
 Adrian Lord Waynflete, like his father, but 
 an inch or so taller, and inheriting all his 
 father's indolent careless power. Both 
 father and son gave you the idea of men 
 who could do anything under strong im- 
 pulse, but to whom continuous exertion 
 would be a bore. 
 
 The Marchioness of Wraysbury has been 
 left to the last, simply because she is the 
 most difficult to describe. Indeed, she is 
 indescribable. Her blue-eyed fair-haired
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. O 
 
 little daughter is her miniature present- 
 ment : and there are just twenty years be^ 
 tween the twain. And there are almost 
 twenty years between her and Lord Wrays- 
 bury ; notwithstanding which, she married 
 her Marquis for love. This indeed is quite 
 credible to anyone who regards her husband 
 in the very prime of his life, with an air of 
 repose about him which gives the idea of a 
 vast reserve of poTver. 
 
 Lord Waynflete, let me remark, was rather 
 an exceptional young fellow. He had chosen 
 the middle path. He was neither viveur 
 nor pedant. Never had it occurred to him 
 that it was necessary to have hrule-gueule per- 
 petually singeing his moustache, and searing 
 his throat — or to be always drinking, or to 
 frequent casinoes, in order to enjoy life. 
 Small blame to him herein. He was a man 
 of tastes far too fastidious to tolerate the vile 
 dissipations which other men found delici-
 
 h MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 ous. It was no virtue with Waynflete : it 
 was simply taste. He liked other things. At 
 Eton and Christchurch he had done very well, 
 but he w^ent into no extremes. He was a 
 good scholar; but his reading was rather 
 desultory and eccentric, and he did not at- 
 tempt to take honours. He was a splendid 
 oarsman ; but could not be persuaded to be 
 one of the University eight. When he left 
 Oxford his father had rather a fancy that he 
 should become a cornet in the Guards ; Ad- 
 rian, expressing perfect willingness to make 
 any such slight sacrifice to please the Mar- 
 quis, at the same time argued that the 
 Guards were rather for show than use, that 
 he did not care for evening parties in Lon- 
 don, that he should like to be down at Ash- 
 ridge, looking after matters agricultural, 
 arboricultural, ornithological. 
 
 Adrian, Lord Waynflete, was an oddity. 
 There was never a man wdio more thorough-
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 7 
 
 ly enjoyed pleasant converse with a pretty 
 girl ; but he hated, with bitter hatred, 
 the hot unpleasant unfragrant assemblages, 
 wherein London compels one to practise 
 flirtation. He loved all living creatures. 
 He loved dogs and horses, trees and flowers. 
 Love creates skill. He knew more of such 
 things than you would conceive possible, in 
 the case of a young gentleman just fresh 
 from Oxford. 
 
 So he told his father that he would rather 
 remain at Oxford than enter the Guards : 
 and the Marquis, a man wise enough to 
 know that everybody should be allowed to 
 do what he likes, if it does not interfere 
 with anybody else, surrendered his crotchet 
 at once. Indeed, he was rather glad to get 
 his son at home with him. He saw his own 
 youth absolutely reflected in Adrian. The 
 Marquis had only two faults: he was haughty 
 and he was idle; and he flattered himself that,
 
 8 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 in his son's case, these faults would become 
 virtues. All philos-ophers are aware that 
 virtue and vice are convertible terms. 
 
 " Upon my honour," said Lord Wrays- 
 bury, after reading the first letter he had 
 opened, " one's lawyers and agents are the 
 most stupid people in the world — and the 
 most expensive. What do you think, Alice ? 
 You know how I wanted to buy that Linde- 
 say estate. They have had orders about it 
 for years past. And now I find the old 
 man is dead — and somebody has bought it 
 —a Mr. Mowbray." 
 
 '' How very annoying !" said the Mar- 
 chioness. 
 
 " I don't care so very much about it," said 
 Lord Wraysbury, "though it has always 
 cut an awkward cantle out of my property 
 here. But those fellows, Woolmer and 
 Wood, make a thousand a year out of me 
 at least — and so I think they might attend to
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. \) 
 
 their duties. And perhaps the man who 
 has bought the place may be a nuisance." 
 
 ^' On the other hand," remarked Lord 
 Waynilete, "he may be an acquisition, in 
 which event we need not make ourselves 
 uncomfortable in anticipation. At the same 
 time, father," he went on to say, " I think 
 we trust too much to agents and attorneys. 
 This Mowbray looked after the matter for 
 himself, depend upon it." 
 
 " But if you pay people to do your 
 work, they ought to do it," said the Mar- 
 quis. 
 
 *' True ; but they don't," replied his son. 
 " Few things are well done unless you do 
 them yourself I find I have to look after 
 my own horses and dogs, if they are to be 
 properly looked after. It's just the same 
 with your estates, and with the people on 
 your estates " 
 
 " Papa, papa ! look at my valentines,"
 
 10 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 interrupted Lacly Mary, '' Such a lot, and so 
 pretty ! Adrian, ain't tliey pretty ? Did 
 you send me one ? Which was yours ? Do 
 tell me." 
 
 So an examination of the pretty little 
 girl's valentines interrupted the conversation. 
 They were dainty and delicate productions, 
 of course : who would send anything ugly or 
 stupid to a Marquis's daughter. 
 
 But, in the midst thereof, Lord Wrays- 
 bury could not help reverting to the annoy- 
 ance he had suffered. It is confoundedly 
 unpleasant, without question, to find your 
 pet scheme frustrated by some blundering 
 stranger, who comes upsetting your arrange- 
 ments like a hornet through a spider's web. 
 
 " Who is this Mowbray, I wonder ?" said 
 the Marquis. 
 
 "A Manchester man, I fancy," replied 
 his son. ^'I rather think Mowbray and 
 Co. had a representative at Eton. They
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 1 1 
 
 do tread on one's kibes, those fellows." 
 
 " I wish it hadn't happened," said Lord 
 Wraysbury. " I was quite willing to give a 
 hundred and thirty thousand for the Lindesay 
 estate — and I believe that is more than it's 
 worth." 
 
 "The Manchester men have more money 
 than we have," said his son ; " or if they 
 have not more, it is more easily com eatable. 
 Besides w^hich, they are more wideawake. 
 They look after their own affairs." 
 
 " Yes," said Lord Wraysbury, " that is 
 very true, and is, of course, the reason why 
 they win so many battles from us. But I 
 would rather be foiled now and then by my 
 agent's stupidity or slowness than do my 
 agent's work." 
 
 " Quite true, all that," said Lord Wayn- 
 flete. " At the same time it may be doubted 
 whether we don't leave too much to agents. 
 This is a time of conflictj and I certainly
 
 12 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 think we might do a world of good by acting 
 more for ourselves. Agents and stewards 
 and bailiffs have their own fortunes to make, 
 and will certainly take care of that business 
 first. And of course it is their interest to 
 keep the landowner apart from his tenants 
 and dependents — to make themselves indis- 
 pensable to their employer, while they make 
 him something terrible to his own people." 
 
 " You talk like a Radical, Adrian," said 
 the Marquis, laughing. ^' But you talk very 
 good sense, for all that. And I think the 
 people in these parts know you pretty well, 
 and don't make any mistake about your 
 feeling towards them. At the same time I 
 don't think we take as much trouble as we 
 ought to keep up a good understanding with 
 the lower classes." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by that," 
 interrupted the Marchioness. ^' I like your 
 lower classes. I think I am on visiting
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 13 
 
 terms with everybody in the village. " 
 " Ah ! but it is such a small village, 
 mamma," said Lord Waynflete. He always 
 called his step-mother " mamma ;" and in- 
 deed at the date of his father's marriage — 
 when she was the undoubted belle of the 
 season, and he was in the fifth form at Eton 
 — there was a marvellous distance between 
 them. 
 
 It was a difficult relation at first, of course ; 
 it gradually became an easy one, though not 
 without its occasional awkwardnesses. There 
 cannot be a doubt that anybody who mar- 
 ries twice is likely to produce queer com- 
 plications. Few men, and far fewer women, 
 can pardon the children of their antecessors 
 for daring to exist. It would probably be 
 a great blessing to society if women were 
 not allowed to marry more than once : 
 whereas a widower might be encouraged 
 to marry a second time by the remission of
 
 14 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 his income-tax, or by making him a colonel 
 of volunteers. 
 
 In the present instance the awkwardness 
 of the relation was destroyed by the humour 
 and tact of those most concerned. The 
 Marchioness of Wraysbury, a girl fresh 
 from school, found herself the stepmother 
 of a daring and dauntless young Etonian. 
 She accepted the situation. She treated 
 him as if she were his elder sister. They 
 were good friends at once. Of course they 
 saw little of eacli other, and with long 
 intervals, for the Marquis was in love with 
 his wife, and took her from place to place 
 with infinite enjoyment, and left his son to 
 work his way through the formal grooves of 
 Eton and Oxford. But, when they met, 
 the Marchioness, through all the young 
 fellow's changes from year to year, from 
 Eton to Oxford, from Oxford to the world, 
 suited herself to his gradual development.
 
 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 15 
 
 She became his friend, his crony. She sym- 
 pathized with him when he came home 
 during the University vocations : she flirted 
 with him when he came home altogether, 
 and accepted his manhood. Much did she 
 resemble the lady of whom Steele said — 
 '' to love her is a liberal education." She 
 completed Lord Waynflete's education — in a 
 style beyond the reach of Eton and Oxford. 
 It need hardly be said that Lady Mary 
 Waynflete contributed largely to the friendly 
 relations which existed between the Mar- 
 chioness and her stepson. A young fellow 
 sees his father marry again. He remembers 
 his own mother, and is prepared to recalci- 
 trate. AYho can blame him for revering his 
 mother's memory ? — for thinking that no 
 other woman can fitly occupy her place? 
 Without such noble prejudices the human 
 race would very soon deteriorate. But a 
 brief time passes — and a child is born.
 
 16 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " Unto us a child is born " is the key-note 
 of Christianity : it is the key-note to human- 
 ity also. The moment the Marchioness had 
 a baby-girl to show to her stepson, there 
 was no danger of feud between them. The 
 Marchioness herself was a mere girl. Adrian 
 was a generous boy, full of boyhood's im- 
 practicable aspirations. But he had always 
 loved dogs and flowers, and everything that 
 was fresh and pleasant : how in the world 
 could he help liking babies ? He loved his 
 little sister Amy with a love beyond de- 
 scription: and so there gradually faded 
 from his brain that jealousy of Mary's mother 
 which was prompted by a vague recollection 
 of his own mother. 
 
 Very quietly, perhaps unconsciously, the 
 Marchioness undertook this young Adrian's 
 education. Let me be understood. Homer 
 is a fine writer ; Horace is useful for quota 
 tions : Euclid for calculations. But the best
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 17 
 
 education of a young man is neither Greek 
 nor Latin nor geometry ; it has nothing to 
 do with the siege of windy Troy, nor with 
 the 
 
 Persicos ode, puer, apparatus, 
 
 Bring me a chop and a couple of potatoes ; 
 
 nor with that long-legged isosceles triangle 
 that bumptiously bestrides the asses' bridge. 
 It is what a woman gives him. Sometimes 
 it is the mother — always would it be so if 
 mothers were not so terribly like hens with 
 broods of ducklings — so frightfully afraid of 
 the young gentleman's taking to bad prac- 
 tices without giving anybody notice. Some- 
 times sisters — elder sisters, I mean — are of 
 some service : but they are too often occu- 
 pied with their own troubles, and with 
 deciding whether they will be sisters of 
 mercy or girls of the period. Cousins are 
 better : one's cousins, strangely enough, 
 seem seldom such fools as one's sisters. 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
 .^
 
 18 . MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 But sweethearts without kmship are best of 
 all. No man finishes his education until he 
 falls in love. 
 
 Let us return to the breakfast-table. 
 
 " Yes," said the Marchioness, " it is a 
 small village. But it is quite a model place 
 — an English village on a diminutive scale. 
 We've an inn, you know, Adrian — the 
 ' Waynflete Arms ' — with a landlord who 
 weighs something tremendous . . . what is 
 it?" 
 
 *' Twenty-two stone one pound, mamma," 
 said Lord Waynflete. 
 
 " Yes. And a blacksmith, who also 
 fights, I think you told me, and an old 
 maid who keeps a general shop, and the 
 parish clerk and schoolmaster. Marshal — 
 and who else ? Why, I had almost forgot- 
 ten Mr. Rosvere !" 
 
 '' Forgotten the parson, mamnja ! How 
 shocking ! Well, Rosvere is a good fellow,'
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 19 
 
 and not too clever, which I think is an im- 
 mense recommendation. As to the other 
 inhabitants of the model village — what shall 
 I say? The big inn-keeper, Burton, is a 
 very good fellow in his way ; and I like to 
 hear him talk, when he has energy enough 
 to do it. Crawford the blacksmith is not a 
 bad sort ; he shoes a horse capitally, and 
 knows how to use his fist." 
 
 "What a recommendation!" said the 
 Marchioness. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Lord Waynflete, " you 
 prefer Miss Avery's — she knows how to use 
 her tongue. It is a far more effective 
 weapon." 
 
 "She is very amusing," replied Lady 
 Wraysbury. " When I feel rather dull — 
 and one can't help feeling rather dull now 
 and then " 
 
 " In the country," said Adrian. 
 
 "Anywhere," she replied. "I am just 
 
 c 2
 
 20 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 as dull in Park Lane. Dulness is in one- 
 self, and not in surrounding circumstances. 
 Well, when I ain dull down here, Miss 
 Avery is as good as a number of Punch — 
 indeed, she is much better, for that journal 
 is sometimes tedious." 
 
 ^' And Miss Avery is not ?" he said. 
 
 '' Oh ! yes, she is — very tedious indeed 
 sometimes. But it is not the same sort of 
 tediousness. And she tells me all the scan- 
 dal of the neighbourhood in a mild form ; 
 for hers is a regular scandal-shop, and you 
 can't enter it without hearing some ridicu- 
 lous story of somebody." 
 
 *' I suspect," said Lord Wraysbury, who 
 had just finished his Glohe^ " that there is a 
 shop of the same sort in every village in 
 England." 
 
 Quoth Adrian : 
 
 '' Where'er to God they raise a house of prayer, 
 The devil always builds a chapel there."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 21 
 
 "That," said the Marquis, "means pub- 
 lic-houses. I don't quite see what the au- 
 thor of evil has to do with them, except 
 that he prompts the mixture of villanous 
 poison with wholesome beverage. But the 
 gossip- shop, where people's characters are 
 abominably used, is quite the diabolic chapel 
 of the poet. I fear women can't be pre- 
 vented from telling stories by Act of Par- 
 liament." 
 
 " I think not," said the Marchioness, witli 
 a gay laugh. "You will not so easily de- 
 prive us of our prerogative. We are the 
 story-tellers. Your Acts of Parliament, 
 you know, of which you talk so much, are 
 not exactly omnipotent. They cannot de- 
 stroy the eternal laws." 
 
 " Of gossip ?" said the Marquis. 
 
 "Yes, of gossip," she said. "Gossip is 
 older than your Acts of Parliament, and 
 will last longer than any of them."
 
 22 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " And so, hurrah for Miss Avery !" said 
 Lord Waynflete. " She's a delightful crea- 
 ture, to my mind. I have always loved 
 •her, since she sold me surreptitious gun- 
 powder.'' 
 
 " But in enumerating our chief charac- 
 ters," said the Marchioness, '' I positively 
 omitted the Hermit. He is the oddest of 
 them all, I think." 
 
 " Ah !" said the Marquis, who had been in 
 a meditative mood while this conversation 
 flowed on, " there is another reason why I 
 regret that this Mowbray, whoever he is, has 
 bought Lindesay. There is the common." 
 
 Now the catenation of thought in Lord 
 Wraysbury's mind requires an explanatory 
 word. The hermit whom he mentioned 
 lived on the borders of Ashridge Common, 
 in a quaint little dwelling called the Hut. 
 This same common is a fine wide expanse, 
 with groups of trees upon it, and short
 
 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 23 
 
 smooth turf where the young people of the 
 neighbourhood play cricket. Although called 
 Ashridge Common, it is in the Manor of 
 Lindesay — as indeed is part of Ashridge vil- 
 la(?e or hamlet : and for a lonsj series of 
 years it had been much neglected, turf being 
 cut by people without rights of turbary, and 
 trees recklessly destroyed, and quarries form- 
 ed by digging for sand and gravel. It had 
 been one reason why Lord Wraysbury wished 
 to buy Lindesay, that it would give him 
 manorial rights over the common, and enable 
 him to preserve it from further injury. A 
 beautiful bit of wild land, with the River 
 Ashe bounding^ it on one side, with some 
 clear ponds in its midst, like sheets of silver 
 in an expanse of emerald, with irregular 
 various clumps of trees — oak, elm, ash and 
 mountain ash, birch, fir, chestnut — grouped 
 by happy accident, with yellow tracts of 
 gorse and purple tracts of heather, it is the
 
 24 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 most delightful place in the world for a stroll 
 or a canter. The Marquis was disgusted at 
 the state into which the neglect of the late 
 lord of the manor had allowed it to fall : 
 and his desire to buy Lindesay had been in 
 a great measure due to his wish that Ash- 
 ridge Common should be brought back to its 
 proper condition. His son wholly sympa- 
 thised with him. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " that is the worst of it. 
 But perhaps Mr. Mowbray will do what we 
 wished to do. Manchester men like to main- 
 tain their rights. I daresay he will make 
 short work of the turf-cutters and gravel- 
 diggers and gipsies." 
 
 " Oh ! I hope he will let the gipsies stay," 
 said the Marchioness. ''They cannot do 
 much harm, can they? And they are so 
 picturesque." 
 
 "I don't think a Manchester man is likely
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 25 
 
 to tolerate gipsies," said Lord Waynflete. 
 " The two races represent contrary ideas. 
 Manchester settles down, and sells : Bohemia 
 wanders, and steals." 
 
 ''Well," said Lord Wraysbury, "we may 
 as well dismiss the subject. Mowbray will 
 appear on the scene, and then we shall see. 
 If he is going to live at Lindesay, he'll have 
 to build. Come, Mary, my darling, let me 
 look at your valentines." 
 
 Little Lady Mary, the pet of Ashridge 
 Manor, seldom found herself so long ne- 
 glected. But she had been occupied with 
 her valentines, and so had not interrupted 
 the sage confabulations of her elders. Still 
 she was very glad to welcome papa as a 
 reader of her various valentines. It is only 
 very little ladies who deign to receive valen- 
 tines now. As I remember writing long 
 ago, to Somebody^ in the Pall Mall Gazette :
 
 26 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Such follies perchance were the fashion at 
 
 Eleven, when your charms were at school : 
 But the love-passion now is not passionate, 
 
 And the warmest adorer is cool. 
 And you have adorers in plenty. 
 
 And very soft nothings they say, 
 But nobody says, " Sweet and twenty, 
 
 I love you !" on Valentine's Day. 
 
 To wed's an affair of statistics, 
 
 Of so many thousands a year. 
 And nobody plagues you with distichs. 
 
 And nobody costs you a tear : 
 And the prospect around you is sunny, 
 
 And your smile is delightfully gay, 
 Though poor Charley, who'd not enough money, 
 
 Went to India last Valentine's Day. 
 
 Whoever should lovers gone by count 
 
 Would be a ridiculous girl : 
 You, fair one, have landed your Viscount, 
 
 And enchanted his father, the Earl. 
 'Tis your privilege, lady, to treat hearts 
 
 In a haughty indifferent way — 
 Let milkmaids remember their sweethearts 
 
 On the morning of Valentine's Day. 
 
 But Lady Mary Waynflete, being only eight 
 years old, enjoyed her valentines — enjoyed 
 showing them to her papa and mamma, and 
 to her brother Adrian. Lady Mary will 
 have other ideas at eighteen.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 27 
 
 When this pleasant inspection of fantastic 
 frivolities was over, guesses having been 
 made at the authors or senders of each, the 
 party dispersed. The Marquis went to his 
 library, where he was wont to pass an hour 
 or two dailv on a translation of Catullus, 
 which he hoped at some future time to 
 finish and publish. The Marchioness, with 
 'her merry little girl, went to her own 
 especial morning room, there to occupy her- 
 self with some feminine occupation till 
 luncheon. Lord Waynflete, followed by an 
 enormous Pyrenean wolf-hound, who was 
 his constant companion, and on whom he 
 had conferred the expressive if inelegant 
 name of Big Dog, descended to the hall, 
 lighted a cigar, and strolled out into the 
 grounds. 
 
 It was a chilly morning, yet not entirely 
 unpleasant. In the valleys there still rested 
 a silvery mist, which had risen from the
 
 28 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 river Ashe. The temperature was warm ; 
 the damp in the atmosphere just suggested 
 a cigar; Lord Waynflete, as I have said, 
 lighted one, and then walked round to the 
 stables to look at the horses and dogs, and 
 then farther a field to see the growth of 
 some young trees of his own planting. 
 
 By-and-by he found his way to the vil- 
 lage. Like his father, Lord Waynflete was- 
 haughty, but not to his dependents and 
 inferiors. He was on perfectly easy terras 
 with Burton, at the Waynflete Arms — with 
 the loquacious unveracious old lady at the 
 village shop — with Crawford, the stalwart 
 disciple of Hephaistos. He met the vicar 
 on perfectly equal terms ; but he could not 
 stand the sclioolm aster, who was an ill- 
 tempered plausible fellow. 
 
 Lord Waynflete entered the little shop. 
 It smelt horribly of tallow candles and 
 corduroy trowsers. The parson was there,
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 29 
 
 talking to Miss Avery. Rosvere, a Cam- 
 bridge man, not too clever, not too eagerly 
 pugnacious in the battles of the Church 
 Militant, was rather a favourite with Adrian. 
 There was one drawback only : you couldn't 
 talk with Rosvere for more than ten minutes. 
 By that time he had exhausted all his ideas, 
 and longed to escape ; but, being a shy 
 man, he found closing a conversation even 
 more difficult than opening it. 
 
 The subject of converse in this centre of 
 Ashridge gossip, was the purchase of Linde- 
 say, by Mr. Mowbray. Ill news travels 
 apace. Miss Avery knew it, and told the 
 parson, who had come in a great hurry to 
 tell her. They were gravely discussing the 
 matter when Lord Waynflete entered. They 
 suddenly stopped, and he at once divined 
 the reason. 
 
 " Good morning, Rosvere," he said. "You 
 have heard the news, 1 see. My father's
 
 30 JMARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 agents have let Lindesay slip through their 
 fingers. Very stupid of them : he had 
 ordered them to offer a fancy price for it. 
 Come up to luncheon presently, and try to 
 console him." 
 
 " I am afraid I have hardly time to-day, 
 my lord," said the Vicar. 
 
 ^' Nonsense," interposed Miss Avery, who 
 was always delightfully impertinent ; " you 
 must do your duty to your principal parish- 
 ioners, Mr. Rosvere. If he wants consola- 
 tion in his troubles, you mustn't neglect him 
 because he's a rich lord." 
 
 "■ Excellent doctrine !" said Lord Wayn- 
 flete, laughing. "You must come, Rosvere, 
 after that. Do you know that what annoys 
 my father most is about Ash ridge Common ? 
 He wanted to stop the depredations, and 
 preserve it from being utterly spoilt. But 
 I daresay Mr. Mowbray, who I hear is a 
 Manchester man, will take the same view
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 31 
 
 of it. Do you know any thing about liim, 
 Rosvere ?" 
 
 " I don't know him personally, though I 
 have heard much of him. He is enormous- 
 ly rich, very energetic and impulsive, an ad- 
 vanced Liberal, and a sound Churchman. 
 He is a widower — with one daughter, about 
 eight years old. His father left him at the 
 head of a great firm, and he has doubled or 
 trebled its importance. I have friends at Man- 
 chester, you know : and from what I have 
 heard them say, John Mowbray's peculiar 
 characteristic is an absolute determination to 
 carry out any plan on which he has set his 
 heart." 
 
 " A charming neighbour," said Lord 
 Waynflete. " However, as his father made 
 the money, I suppose he is a gentleman by 
 education." 
 
 "Not a scholar," said the Vicar. "His 
 father regarded Greek and Latin as abomin-
 
 32 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 ations, and wouldn't let his son learn a word 
 of them. But I hear that he is a man of 
 ability, and has rather a considerable know- 
 ledge of our own literature." 
 
 "And an excellent thing," said Lord 
 Waynflete. " I wish people knew how to 
 teach English in schools. It is the thing 
 most to be desired in the present day." 
 
 " No," said Miss Avery ; " there are two 
 things more necessary than that." 
 
 "What are they?" 
 
 "That the rich should help the poor — 
 and that all the parsons should agree." 
 
 " I think we may as well go," said Adrian 
 to the Vicar, laughing. " Come up to 
 luncheon, won't you ? I am going across to 
 drink a glass of Burton's home-brewed ale, 
 and to hear if he has any brilliant ideas on 
 the great news of the day ?" 
 
 Mr. Rosvere promised to come to lun- 
 cheon, and Adrian, with Big Dog at his
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 33 
 
 heels, crossed to the Waynflete Arms. The 
 village street at this point was intersected by 
 a brook, a tributary of the Ashe : Big Dog 
 rushed to bathe in the rapid water, while 
 his master crossed the wooden bridge. 
 Burton, five feet nine in height, four feet 
 nine round the chest, one foot nine 
 around the calf of the leg, was standing 
 at his door. 
 
 " Fine morning, my lord," said this burly 
 and genial giant. 
 
 " Very pleasant," said Adrian, walking 
 into the bar. " Give me a tankard of your 
 home-brewed ale, Burton." 
 
 He was quickly supplied with that foam- 
 ing liquor. At this point I should much 
 like to enter into a dissertation upon ale. 
 Esquiros, I think it is, who says — "The 
 Latin races eat bread, the Saxon races drink 
 bread." The author of that antithesis touched 
 the truth about ale. You, my good friend 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 and comrades, would rather have a bottle 
 of the finest Chateau Yquem that the vine- 
 yards of the Marquis de Lur Saluces can 
 produce, than an equal quantity of the finest 
 ale that Bass or Allsopp can brew for you. 
 I don't object. The man who doesn't wor- 
 ship the Lady of Sauternes is simply an idiot ; 
 neither more nor less. But if you had a hard 
 day's work to do, mental or physical — if you . 
 had to keep your brain clear, and your loins 
 steadfast through a dozen hours of invention, 
 calculation, mountaineering, rowing, cricket- 
 ing, which would you prefer, Bass or the 
 Marquis? I know well which is the 
 better. 
 
 Here's the report (in French) of a Vene- 
 tian ambassador in England, when Henry 
 Vni. — a man who would (Mr. Froude says) 
 have been perfect if there were no women 
 in the vv^orld — was King of England : 
 
 " Si Dieu parfait et magnanime s'est mon-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 35 
 
 tre prodigue de taat de bienfaits a leur 
 egard, il ne leur a du raoins accorde m 
 I'olivier ni la vi^ne. lis out lome fermen- 
 tee et la cervoise ; ce sont la les boissons du 
 pays, et ils les appellent biere, ale ou goclale^ 
 selon la bonte ou la forces des ingredients." 
 
 I fear Daniele Barbaro did not encounter 
 any really good samples of English ale, for 
 he goes on to state that it was made from 
 apples and turnips — notwithstanding which 
 it was as intoxicatinsf as the strongest wine. 
 However, though neither the olive nor the 
 vine bears perfect fruit within our limits, w(^ 
 can manage malt and hops — and the result is 
 not to be despised. 
 
 While I am among ambassadors from 
 Venice — a city which for a long time lived 
 by its diplomacy — I cannot resist quoting 
 what Barbaro's successor, Soranzo, says of 
 English appetite. It has nothing to do with 
 this story, which is an additional reason for 
 
 D 2
 
 36 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 the quotation ; " Les Anglais ne se plaisent 
 pas beaucoup au metier des armes, n'ayant 
 aucun moyen de s'y exercer, sauf en temps 
 de guerre ; la guerre finie, ils oublient ma- 
 noeuvres et discipline. II faut cependant 
 dire que dans tons les combats ils montrent 
 un grand courage et dans les dangers beau- 
 coup de presence d'esprit, mais il faut quih 
 soient accompagnes cTun grand nombre de 
 vivresy That is to say — give Englishmen 
 enough to eat and drink, and they'll beat 
 the world. This is no news, in the nine- 
 teenth century, of course : but that a Vene- 
 tian of the sixteenth should have seen it so 
 clearly, is very much to his credit But they 
 educated their diplomatists in Venice : they 
 did not consider them born to the career — 
 like Mr. Austen Layard. 
 
 " Well, Barton," said Lord Waynflete to 
 the mighty innkeeper, "what's the news in 
 the village?"
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 37 
 
 " There's nothing talked about except the 
 Lindesay business, my lord. Everybody's 
 very sorry about that. We did hope my 
 lord would have had it." 
 
 "You know he always intended to, Barton. 
 Indeed, my father is very much annoyed 
 that his agent did not attend to it. But I 
 don't much care about it myself; in fact, I 
 am rather pleased than otherwise." 
 
 " Why so, my lord ?" asked Barton, 
 greatly astonished. 
 
 " My good fellow, I am not certain that I 
 can explain it to you. Look here. Just 
 now, my father has everything his own way. 
 You daren't say a word against anything he 
 wishes." 
 
 " Well, my lord, you don't suppose any- 
 body would go against him — and the kindest 
 gentleman — leastways nobleman — I ever 
 knew." 
 
 " Exactly, Barton. That's the very thing.
 
 38 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 My father is one of the best of men — and I 
 have excellent reason to know it : but if he 
 were one of the worst you'd obey hira just 
 the same. Now here's this Mr. Mowbray 
 coming. He'll wake you up a little. He'll 
 prove to you that a man may be good for 
 something without having a title. He'll 
 freshen the place, and be of considerable 
 advantage to all of us. But I am going 
 across the common to Mr. Metivier. Good- 
 bye, Barton." 
 
 Away strode Lord Waynflete, at an easy 
 five miles an hour : long in limb, strong in 
 lung, light in weight, he got over the ground 
 without exertion. As he passed out of the 
 village street on to the common, Barton 
 began to soliloquise : 
 
 " Well, he's a nice gentleman, but he's 
 very odd, he is. He's just like anybody else 
 on the road. He'd rather talk to me or 
 old Crawford — or that there gossiping Eliza
 
 MARQUIS XND MERCHANT. 39 
 
 — than he would to the Queen or the Prince 
 of Wales, I do believe. He is an odd gentle- 
 man. Says Bill Mitchell to me the other 
 day, says he — ' yes, that's what you Tories 
 calls a nobleman.' ^ Yes,' says I, 'and he is 
 a noble man : don't you remember when he 
 jumped into the Ashe to save that little girl 
 of Wilmot's that had tumbled in ? You were 
 there: why didn't y(9W jump in?' I fancy 
 Bill Mitchell was shut up, rather." 
 
 The subject of this laudatory soliloquy 
 was by this time out of sight. He had 
 passed beyond the village street, which 
 ended with a mill turned by the river Ashe, 
 and was out upon the common. It was in- 
 vigorating to get upon that connnon, so 
 elastic was the turf, so pure the air, so 
 beautiful the windings of Ashe river thereby. 
 Adrian may be forgiven for feeling annoyed 
 that the manorial rights over this beautiful 
 open land had escaped his father's hands.
 
 40 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Theirs was the river Ashe, a glorious trout- 
 stream, which bounded the common on the 
 north : but beyond this they had no property 
 or jurisdiction. Optimist though he was, 
 he felt somewhat angry that his father and 
 he were unexpectedly foiled. But he had 
 made up his mind, like Voltaire's hero, that 
 this is the best of all possible worlds ; and 
 he resolutely adhered to the idea. 
 
 " Old Burton croaks like a raven," he 
 said to himself, as he strode away from 
 the Waynflete Arms. " Why shouldn't this 
 Mowbray come among us and enliven us, if 
 it suits him ? We are too exclusive. The 
 Manchester millionaire will come alongside 
 of us ; manage the Lindesay estate better 
 than we manage ours ; teach us a thing or 
 two, and raise the condition of the poor. 
 Why shouldn't he ? I don't see why lie 
 shouldn't . . . ." 
 
 At this point Lord Waynflete had stood
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 41 
 
 still, and was reflectively boring a hole in 
 the grass with his stick — while Big Dog, 
 sitting on his haunches, looked gravely on, 
 and attempted to decide in his own mind 
 whether his master was or was not a lunatic. 
 I fear the dear old boy was prejudiced, for 
 he ultimately gave a verdict in the negative. 
 And, when Adrian strode forward again, 
 after poking many meditative holes in the 
 turf, Big Dog rejoicingly rushed at him from 
 a distance, and could have knocked him 
 down had he been knockdownable. 
 
 " But still, I'd much rather he didn't," 
 continued Lord Waynflete. 
 
 Having given his canine companion a 
 warning to behave properly, with a hazel 
 switch which he had cut on his way, he 
 walked across the common to the hermit's 
 hut. The hut in question stood in about 
 half an acre of ground, close to the river 
 Ashe ; it was just a cottage of four rooms.
 
 42 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 but those rooms were picturesque. In one 
 of them, low, dark, wainscoted, lived the 
 hermit — he even slept in it ; he gave up the 
 rest of the place to his sole servant, an 
 ancient woman, who was horribly deaf, and 
 whose sole idea of food was eggs and bacon 
 and mutton chops. 
 
 However, she found the limits of her ideal 
 cookery enlarged. When George Metivier 
 took the place, he found his servant there 
 already. He instracted her. All cooks are 
 or ought to be poets: Metivier was both poet 
 and cook. This bucolic housekeeper soon 
 caught a glimpse of his genius : he taught 
 her to make toast, to boil potatoes, to roast 
 a leg of mutton to the very instant of per- 
 fection. Trivial things, say you ? — far more 
 important are they than the preparation of 
 mixed messes which are styled entrees and 
 entremets. 
 
 The Marquis of Wraj^sbury heard of Me-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 43 
 
 tivier, discovered that with all his eccentri- 
 cities he was a gentleman, sent him a 
 courteous permission to fish the river Ashe, 
 which is carefully preserved, and is perhaps 
 the finest trout stream in Eni]^land. Mr. 
 Metivier did not object. He was, either by 
 preference or necessity, frugal ; and an 
 occasional dish of trout from the river w^as a 
 satisfactory addition to his commissariat. 
 
 There was no mystery at all about our 
 hermit, nor even any romance. A cadet of 
 the Norman family, whose name he bore, 
 he had early in life selected an eccentric and 
 independent course. He had a passion for 
 philology. Men look at language in different 
 ways. One uses it to conceal his thoughts ; 
 another to disclose and perpetuate them. 
 To one it is given to discover and reveal the 
 strength of language ; to another its music. 
 But Metivier looked at a language as a 
 geographic adventurer looks at the estuary
 
 44 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 of a great river: he longed to find its 
 source. And so he had settled himself 
 down to his favourite study, and had spent 
 his life in elaborating philogical theories, to 
 be ultimately embodied in a mighty work— 
 a thesaurus of languages. Whether his 
 theories were scientific or arbitrary I cannot 
 pretend to say : he had wonderful capacity 
 for mastering languages, and could read, 
 speak, and write, more than Mezzofanti. I 
 have seen excellent good poetry of his in a 
 dozen languages at least. For he was no 
 ordinary Dryasdust : he could use language 
 as well as analyse it. 
 
 The family at Ashridge Manor had got 
 on perfectly facile terms with this Norman 
 gentleman, and Lord Waynflete used often 
 to call at the Hut for a chat. Mr. Metivier 
 had courteously declined formal hospitality, 
 but was heartily glad to accept Lord Wrays- 
 bury's offer of free entrance to the magnifi-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 45 
 
 cent library at Ashridge. The old gentle- 
 man — he was about seventy, but full of vig- 
 our and freshness — often spent a morning 
 there, and had been of some service to the 
 Marquis by discovering certain rare folios 
 and scarce manuscripts, which had been cast 
 aside as rubbish, and neglected by many 
 generations of Waynfletes. They were 
 priceless. 
 
 Metivier had lived in many parts of Eng- 
 land — for one of his subsidiary studies was 
 that of dialect. So he had tried all, or 
 nearly all, our shires, and knew the tho- 
 rouofh indiojenous vernacular English better 
 than almost any Englishman. The difficulty 
 of attaining such knowledge is to be esti- 
 mated by the rarity of its manifestation in 
 our literature. Mr. Barnes can write the 
 language of Dorset, and Mr. Blackmore the 
 language of Devon : but have we a third 
 contemporary author who dare trust him-
 
 46 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 self with a Doric variety of English ? 
 Metivier's settlement at the Hut had been 
 accidental ; it was situated in a district 
 whose dialect he desired to studv, and its 
 picturesque solitude pleased him. He re- 
 mained far longer than he had anticipated, 
 from two causes. Of these one was the 
 courtesy of the Waynflete family, which 
 placed at his command one of the noblest 
 libraries in England ; but another and 
 stronger one was the fact that at certain 
 times of the year Ashridge Common became 
 populous with gipsies. Their quaint travel- 
 ling mansions gave life to the great waste of 
 furze and heather; their fires were lighted, 
 and their cauldrons set smoking, and anyone 
 whom they invited to dinner would say the 
 mixture of broth was right excellent, even 
 though hedgehog and squirrel contributed 
 to give it flavour. Metivier was delighted 
 when he found this Bohemian invasion, for 
 
 /
 
 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 47 
 
 he held that the gipsy language — the Ro- 
 many speech — was intimately connected 
 with many others, and itself undiluted by 
 alien admixture. So he soon made friends 
 with the wandering tribes, and delighted 
 the chals with tobacco and the chies with 
 gossip, and made, as he conceived, vast dis- 
 coveries in philology. AVhen his great work 
 is published, we may guess at their worth. 
 
 The gipsies bought Ashridge Common be- 
 cause it was a wild wide place, where they 
 met with no interference. Neglected by the 
 lord of the manor, an invalid who lived 
 at Rome, for a great number of years, it 
 had become in some degree public property. 
 About eight miles to the north-east there is 
 a town — or rather a big village — called 
 Rothcastle ; at Avhich place once a year is 
 held a mighty horse and cattle and sheep 
 fair, lasting four days. The muddy, miser- 
 able village is as populous as Manchester
 
 48 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 for the time : farmers come from a dozen 
 counties to buy and sell cattle and sheep ; 
 horse-breeders bring their stock, and great 
 London buyers come down to speculate, 
 buying sometimes for a ten-pound note 
 one of those beautiful carriage-horses which, 
 when brought into condition, are cheap at. 
 three hundred guineas the pair. Of course 
 this is a place where gipsies congregate : 
 and so, w^hen Roth castle Fair is approach- 
 ing, those wanderers have for years been 
 wont to pitch their tents a day or two before 
 on Ashridge Common. 
 
 When Lord Waynflete arrived at the Hut, 
 he found the Hermit in dressing-gown and 
 slippers, leaning over his gate, puffing at a 
 short pipe, and of course reading. Never 
 would you find Metivier without a book in 
 his hand, and his pipe in his mouth. When 
 he saw Adrian, he said, 
 
 " Ah, my lord, I have got a new book—
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 49 
 
 that is, I mean, a very old book. Poole 
 sent it to me to-day. He is a wonderful 
 man, Poole." 
 
 •^ Poole!" said Adrian. ^'What, the 
 tailor ?" 
 
 " Tailor. Much I want of your sartor, 
 with this old gown to wear." And he ex- 
 hibited the rags thereof with much gusto. 
 " No, no, no ! the bibliopole in the street of 
 the Sacred Well — the only man in London 
 who exactly knows where to find any book 
 to be anywhere found. He is my best help 
 — except a gipsy that I have lately made ac- 
 quaintance with." 
 
 "You've some odd acquaintances," said 
 Lord Waynflete, laughing. 
 
 "Yes, I like odd people — I like you. 
 But look now, can you read this book ? " 
 
 He thrust into Adrian's hands the quaint 
 old volume, whose binding and leaves were 
 in a tattered condition. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 "Not I," said Waynflete. "I don't go 
 in for such mystical literature. What is 
 it?" 
 
 " An ancient Basque liturgy — a wonder- 
 ful thing — full of poetry. It confirms an 
 old theory of mine. The people of the 
 Basque provinces were Manichasans, you 
 know: they worshipped the Devil. They 
 thought there was nothing to be feared from 
 the Supreme Power of Good, so they made 
 things safe with the Monarch of Evil." 
 " Rather ingenious," said Adrian. 
 " Did you ever swear hy Jingo when you 
 were a boy ?" 
 
 " Possibly. I remember the oath. But 
 boys generally swear hy Jove /" 
 
 "Paganism is the religion of boyhood, 
 and of the world's boyhood. When life 
 grows serious, Olympus gives way to Cal- 
 vary. But you remember the oath hy Jin- 
 go I It is Basque, pure Basque, and a
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 51 
 
 relic of their diabolic creed. Jenko is 
 their name for the devil, whom they wor- 
 ship." 
 
 " You'll have to write a book about this," 
 said Adrian. 
 
 " I don't know. I have more to do than 
 I am likely to achieve. But will you have 
 some luncheon ? You like my old Su- 
 sanna's cookery, I know. There's some fish 
 and wild rabbits." 
 
 " No, thanks. I have asked the parson 
 to come up and lunch with us at Ashridge. 
 But I'll go in and have a glass of your 
 wine." 
 
 Metivier got some friend at Bordeaux to 
 send him over claret in the wood : this was 
 his only beverage, and it was always sound 
 and good. 
 
 "Have you heard the news?" asked 
 Adrian, as he drank his tumbler of claret. 
 
 "What news?" 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 "The Lindesay Manor, which my father 
 wanted to buy, has been bought by a rich 
 Manchester man. By the way, he will be 
 your landlord. I hope he won't turn you 
 out — or even raise your rent." 
 
 "I hope not," said Metivier, with a smile ; 
 " but I have stayed here longer than is my 
 habit, and it would perhaps do me good to 
 move. This is quite certain ?" 
 
 " yes. My father had given orders to 
 buy the estate at a very high price, princi- 
 pally because he wished to get the Common 
 into better order. But his attorneys ne- 
 glected their business, and so this Mr. Mow- 
 bray stepped in. However, we may find 
 him a very pleasant neighbour." 
 
 "It seems a pity," said Metivier, reflectively. 
 " The Marquis ought to have had that estate; 
 and this beautiful common would soon have 
 been restored to order in his hands. Your 
 Manchester men have such grotesque ideas."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 53 
 
 " Ah ! we are la nation boutiquiere,^^ said 
 Waynflete, laughing. " Good-bye, my dear 
 friend — I must stride across the common, or 
 I shall keep lunch waiting, and poor Rosvere 
 will be unhappy. Come along, Big Dog, 
 and leave the rabbits alone." 
 
 Thus taking farewell of the philologist. 
 Lord Waynflete started homewards at a 
 quick pace, much to the delight of Big Dog, 
 who loved the excitement of rapid motion.
 
 54 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE MERCHANT. 
 
 MANCHESTER is most unluckily situate 
 in reference to suburbs. In this re- 
 spect London is certainly the most fortunate 
 of modern cities. When one thinks of 
 Hampstead, Harrow, Richmond, Greenwich, 
 one at once remembers that such pleasant 
 outlying districts have no parallel elsewhere. 
 Hapless Manchester is jammed into the midst 
 of minor Manchesters like Stockport and 
 Rochdale, and you must leave it many miles 
 behind to get a breath of fresh air. The 
 nearest place that is healthy and picturesque 
 is Alderley Edge, in the County of Chester:
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 55 
 
 there many Manchester men congregate : 
 there Mr. jMowbray had what he called a 
 " nice little place." It loas a nice little place ; 
 but he had only ten acres of ground, and 
 the billiard-room was too small — it would 
 contain only three tables. So, as Mowbray 
 and Co. were millionaires of the first force, 
 the head of the firm Avas naturally some- 
 what disgusted with so small an establish- 
 ment. Hence he had been looking around 
 him for a satisfactory investment. And at 
 last he thought he had found the very 
 thiuGj. 
 
 Edward Mowbray was a widower of forty, 
 with one daughter, who bore the romantic 
 name of Ethel Evelyn. She was eight years 
 old ; a queer little creature with an oUvatre 
 complexion, with the darkest of eyes, with 
 the loncrest and softest of evelashes. Her 
 mother had been half a Spaniard : the mer- 
 chant married her for love, I verilv believe,
 
 56 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 but it turned out that she possessed multi- 
 tudinous moidores. Mowbra}^ and Co., hither- 
 to fortunate, soon became more fortunate 
 than ever. They beat all their competitors. 
 The chief of the firm went on what is called 
 the "junior partner " principle. His clerks 
 became in time his partners, with au- 
 thority and interest in the business, though 
 of course their shares were small. This plan 
 had been originated by Edward Mowbray's 
 father, and was found to answer admirably. 
 The firm of Mowbray and Co. was registered 
 as Mowbray, Smith, Brown, Robertson, Le- 
 strange, and Jenkins ; but if you had multi- 
 plied by twenty the amount drawn annually 
 by the five junior partners, you would pro- 
 bably not have reached Mr. Mowbray's yearly 
 income. 
 
 A broad-shouldered man, not unlike John 
 Brisjht in stature and build, but with a finer 
 figure, Mr. Mowbray was one of the plea-
 
 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 57 
 
 santest fellows in the world, if he always had 
 his own way. His favourite virtue was 
 obstinacy. Now this is really an excellent 
 thing, if you are the head of a great firm, or 
 chief of a great army, or leader of a ministry. 
 A man who will have his own way, and dis- 
 regards all consequences, is generally suc- 
 cessful — vacillation is ruin. Better be reso- 
 lutely wrong than intermittently right. Mow- 
 bray in matters of business always *' backed 
 his own opinion," and his success astonished 
 the world. Those who have studied mathe- 
 matical metaphysics are well aware that this 
 is a safe thing to do ... if you can do it. 
 Mowbray could not help doing it. 
 
 Accident of travel had once brought him 
 to the village of Ashridge, where at the 
 Waynflete Arms he got excellent midday re- 
 freshment in the form of home-made bread 
 and double Gloucester cheese, and home- 
 brewed ale. The massive landlord. Burton,
 
 58 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 had told him some of the news of the neigh- 
 bourhood — among it that the manor and 
 estate of Lindesay would be sold when the 
 last Squire Lindesay, at that time eighty-five, 
 departed this life. Mr. Mowbray turned out 
 for a walk into the Lindesay woods. They 
 pleased him much. He selected a site for a 
 fine mansion. He decided where he would 
 have conservatories, hothouses, melon-pits, 
 mushroom-beds. He wrote to his confi- 
 dential agent in London from the village inn 
 that very day. 
 
 Mowbray's confidential agent, in matters 
 of this kind, was a briefless barrister of six 
 years' standing, named Terrell. This gen- 
 tleman had but one fault — he was too clever 
 by half. His agile brain was not without 
 its value when controlled by an astute and 
 serious brain like Mowbray's ; and Mr. 
 Mowbray found Terrell of immense value 
 when certain difiicult things were to be
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 59 
 
 done, or certain delicate inquiries to be 
 made. 
 
 In this case it was so. Terrell knew 
 where information about the Lindesay estate 
 was to be obtained. There was no pride 
 about this Bohemian barrister. He went 
 and ate tripe with an attorney's managing 
 clerk, and sang a comic song for that cad's 
 delectation, in order to get at the facts. He 
 got at the facts. He kept Mr. Mowbray so 
 promptly informed of everything which oc- 
 curred, that the merchant was able to fore- 
 stall Lord Wraysbury. 
 
 This very fact, of which he soon became 
 aware, gave Mowbray an intense relish for 
 his bargain. The man, you see, is a Radi- 
 cal. He hates and despises aristocrats. He 
 has no reason in the world for disliking the 
 Marquis of Wraysbury .... except that 
 he is a marquis, which is surely reason 
 enough. What right has any fellow to be a
 
 60 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 marquis ? The title may have meant some- 
 thing once, when there were marches to 
 guard : now it is merely a feather in the 
 cap of a fool. So thought Mr. Mowbray, 
 who knew well that he could never by any 
 possibility become a marquis. If it had 
 been possible, his opinion might have been 
 modified. 
 
 On the very day when Lord Wraysbury 
 received the news that Lindesay had passed 
 into other hands, its owner put in an appear- 
 ance at Ashridge. A gig from the nearest 
 station deposited him at the Waynflete Arms; 
 and Burton, whose memory was not very 
 clear, had not the slightest recollection of 
 his previous guest. Mrs. Burton, the most 
 notable of housewifes, had an excellent bed- 
 room to offer, with linen lavender-scented 
 over a bed of down : so Mr. Mowbray took 
 it at once, and was perfectly satisfied with 
 his quarters. If you want to live in clover.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 61 
 
 try a village inn situate in some unsophisti- 
 cated part of the country. 
 
 The arrival of this stranger in the village 
 caused a considerable sensation. Burton, 
 who liked the open air, sat outside on a 
 bench the whole day, and told everybody, 
 with an air of intense mystery, that there 
 was a gentleman staying with him. Of 
 course Crawford turned up in the after- 
 noon, and heard the news, and barbarously 
 maintained that the new comer was a de- 
 tective come to raise the taxes. Having 
 made Burton unhappy with this theory, he 
 set sedulously to work to intoxicate himself 
 with fourpenny ale. I fear he failed. 
 
 Mr. Mowbray spent a few days at the 
 Waynflete Arms without anybody's suspect- 
 ing who he was. He walked all over the 
 Lindesay estate, and formed a pretty accu- 
 rate notion of the value of its woods and 
 fields. There was a grand site for a man-
 
 62 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 sion; lower, certainly, than Ashridge Manor, 
 but still finely situate. There he would 
 build. You looked over a wide plain be- 
 yond the river Ashe, and many hamlets 
 brown and dim -discovered spires, and a 
 mighty river in the distance. 
 
 There was much discussion as to who he 
 might be during the commencement of his 
 stay at the Waynflete Arms, but nobody 
 could find out. Miss Avery and Burton 
 happened to be in a state of acute enmity at 
 this period : yet she came over to pump the 
 colossal innkeeper, being resolved to get 
 information, if there were any to be got. 
 However, he had nothing to tell her. The 
 stranger was a mysterious stranger, unques- 
 tionably ; he went wandering about the 
 woods this dreadfully chilly weather; it 
 seemed likely that he might be a magic- 
 man, looking for treasure. Having com- 
 municated this information to Miss Avery,
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 63 
 
 the elephantine Burton retired to his pri- 
 vate room, leaving her to digest it as she 
 might. 
 
 The man who had puzzled these simple 
 gossip-loving villagers was a man of action. 
 Soon did they find out who he was. With- 
 in a week there was an encampment of 
 builders^ — for the village had no accommo- 
 dation, so Mowbray put them under canvas. 
 It was a pretty big encampment, too ; for 
 Mowbray had determined to build a splen- 
 did mansion, and to build it fast. And this 
 is a world wherein anything can be done 
 fast . . . loith money. 
 
 Money, however, is not the only thing. 
 There are multitudes of weak people in the 
 world who fancy that if they had money 
 they could do wonders. They are quite 
 wrong. If they could do wonders they 
 would make money. The man who knows 
 how to use money knows how to obtain it.
 
 64 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Put into the hands of these feeble folk the 
 wealth they pine for, and they will fritter 
 it away. Mowbray knew how to make 
 money, and knew how to use it. He had 
 resolved to build a perfect mansion on the 
 Lindesay estate, and he went to work for 
 this purpose in the straightforward fashion 
 of a thorough man of business. The quiet- 
 ude of Ashridge suffered sudden revolution. 
 Since the days when Beckford was build- 
 ing Fonthill Abbey, and George the Magni- 
 ficent could not get a mason to work at 
 Windsor, nothing had been done faster than 
 Mr. Mowbray's building. It seemed to rise 
 like an exhalation. The villagers thought 
 it almost a magical business ; the dwellers 
 at Ashridge Manor, who looked down 
 upon the Lindesay estate from their lofty 
 windows, could actually see the mansion 
 grow, day after day. It was of the whitest 
 possible stone, and quite dazzled the eyes
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. Q5 
 
 of the Marchioness. It amused her to 
 watch it growing, as if it were a living crea- 
 ture ; to notice from the windows of the 
 breakfast-room the heightening and widen- 
 ing process. Always on the spot — for his 
 Manchester business went by itself, and he 
 could afford to ride his hobby — Mr. Mow- 
 bray kept matters going at a rate that 
 amazed the bystanders. Begun in February, 
 the great house was actually furnished and 
 inhabited before the end of August. 
 
 Lord Waynflete, who, as w^e have seen, 
 was in the habit of pervagating the neigh- 
 bourhood, and talking to everybody he met, 
 of course came across Mr. Mowbray soon 
 after that gentleman's advent. The mer- 
 chant settled himself at the " Wayntlete 
 Arms," and seemed quite contented with his 
 quarters. He ate Mrs. Burton's scraggy 
 chops, and drank the big landlord's beer, as 
 if he had never tasted venison or claret. In 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 truth, like many other men who have de- 
 voted their youth to business — the hottest 
 passion of the Enghsh — Mr. Mowbray had no 
 palate. He kept a French chef^ and gave good 
 dinners, because it was a mark of opulence ; 
 and for the same reason he would sign a 
 cheque for a few thousands to purchase a 
 picture by some great artist : but in his in- 
 most heart he wondered why people cared 
 for the dinner or the landscape. A sensible 
 man in his own groove, he could not under- 
 stand other people's preferences, and was 
 apt to despise what he could not under- 
 stand. The first time he saw young Lord 
 Waynflete swinging gaily down the village 
 street, with Big Dog boisterously bounding 
 from side to side thereof, Mr. Mowbray was 
 simply cynical in his soliloquy. 
 
 " What good in the world is that young 
 fellow ?" he said to himself, looking through 
 the window of Burton's parlour. " He came
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 67 
 
 in with the Conqueror, I suppose, but he'll 
 go out when we tradesmen conquer Eng- 
 land. Look at him ! He thinks the place 
 belongs to him. He thinks all the people 
 are his serf's. I've no doubt he cares more 
 for that great hound than for all the pea- 
 sants on his father's estate. I wonder what ■ 
 his father is like ?" 
 
 Not a sensible soliloquy for a man of 
 Mowbray's intellect and experience. No ; 
 but unluckily some of the most sagacious 
 men of Mowbray's class are weak on this 
 one point. The thing is lamentable, yet ex- 
 plicable. They are the direct growth of 
 commerce. Buying and selling has made 
 them what they are. In their own narrow 
 groove they are admirable, inimitable. But 
 they understand nothing beyond that. Es- 
 pecially are they ignorant of the history oi" 
 the land wherein they live — of the race 
 whereof they are members. One of the 
 
 f2
 
 68 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 most enlightened of them published his pre- 
 ference for the Times newspaper over Thu- 
 cydides. He saw the power of the Present, 
 but could not understand that it was the 
 Child of the Past. Perhaps, had he been 
 asked to consider what relations the Present 
 might have to the Future, he would have 
 reconsidered his theory. If the Times of 
 the day had lessons for his children, the 
 chronicles of our forefathers have lessons 
 for us. But, if you tell a man of business 
 in a chief thoroughfare of a great nine- 
 teenth century city that the city and its wide 
 street and its superb shop would not have 
 existed — that the race of which he is an 
 independent member would have been a 
 servile race — but for what was wrought a 
 thousand years ago, by Kings and Bishops 
 and Earls — he will think you are talking 
 nonsense. Yet he would probably be 
 offended if you told him that his own exer-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 69 
 
 tions would have no effect on posterity. 
 
 Scarcely had Mr. Mowbray finished his 
 contemptuous soliloquy, when Adrian enter- 
 ed, having told Burton, who was blocking 
 up the passage, to bring him a tankard of 
 ale. He knew who Mowbray was, and saw 
 no reason to conceal his knowledge. He 
 spoke to him at once. 
 
 " Mr. Mowbray, I believe," he said. " I 
 am Lord Waynflete. We are to have you 
 for a neighbour, I hear. I am quite glad of 
 it." 
 
 " Glad !" said Mowbray, in a tone of un- 
 mistakable surprise. 
 
 " Why, yes, I think so. My father wanted 
 to buy the property, for two or three rea- 
 sons ; but he will soon get over his disap- 
 pointment. You are going to build ; you 
 will set the people's blood circulating ; you 
 will do good among them, and stimulate 
 others to do good."
 
 70 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 The giant landlord brought in the ale, 
 and Adrian took a mighty draught. 
 
 "You are quite a Liberal, iny lord," said 
 Mowbray. 
 
 " A Liberal I Of course I am. So is every- 
 body with any common-sense." 
 
 " Why, I thought yours was a Tory 
 family. It is^ surely ?" 
 
 " Of course it is," replied Adrian, with a 
 laugh, " and I am a Tory. In politics, as 
 in everything else, discussion depends on 
 definitions, Mr. Mowbray. What do you call 
 a Liberal or a Tory ?" 
 
 Mowbray was rather taken aback. This 
 young man's easy style of conversation was 
 new to him. To tell the honest truth, having 
 had little intercourse with the folk whom 
 Lodge delights to chronicle, he was surprised 
 to find this future Marquis with a prodigious 
 rent-roll so frank and unaffected. As I have
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 7 1 
 
 said, Adrian was as haughty as his father; but 
 he met everybody on equal terms, for all that. 
 
 Mowbray began to talk about free-trade, 
 Church and State, the ballot, et cetera, in a 
 fluent but extremely vague style. 
 
 Lord Waynflete listened attentively, and 
 finished his ale. 
 
 " A Tory," said Adrian, when the disser- 
 tation was ended, " is a man who believes 
 that England should be governed by gen- 
 tlemen. A Liberal is a man who believes 
 that any Englishman may become a gentle- 
 man if he likes. I am both. But why 
 should two strangers talk politics the first 
 time they meet? We shall be good ac- 
 quaintances, I hope, Mr. Mowbray. In- 
 deed, if you will come up and make our 
 acquaintance at any time you like, I am sure 
 my father and the Marchioness will be de- 
 lighted. There's always some luncheon at
 
 72 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 one. I slioald like to show you over the 
 old house, though your own will of course 
 make it look very small." 
 
 Mowbray somehow seemed to grow more 
 stiff and shy as Adrian grew more frank. 
 He could not make out this perfectly natural 
 young noble. He suspected a dodge. He 
 positively thought that the Marquis wanted 
 in some way to take advantage of him, and 
 had sent his son to open the campaign. So 
 he grew short and dry in his answers, and 
 couldn't promise to come to luncheon, and 
 altogether gave Lord Waynflete an unsatis- 
 factory impression of him. 
 
 " The man's a prejudiced ass," thought 
 Adrian, as he and Big Dog made their way 
 toward the common. " And yet he looks 
 as if he liad brain. That broad forehead 
 and that quick dark eye can hardly belong 
 to a fool. He has been brought up among 
 absurd mercantile prejudices, I suppose. He
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 73 
 
 evidently has a fine strong hatred for the 
 peerage. Poor fellow !" 
 
 Mr. Mowbray after this interview kept 
 ver}^ much out of Adrian's way. He had 
 formed the idea that the young lord must 
 have had some interested motive in being 
 courteous towards him. Adrian did not 
 trouble himself much about it : besides, he 
 was away a good deal, for the Marchioness 
 must have her London, and the Royal 
 Academy and the Opera were not to be 
 neglected — though Lord Waynflete preferred 
 a real sunset to a Turner, preferred the song 
 of a thrush to that of Tietjens or Patti. So 
 Waynflete House in Park Lane was in- 
 habited, and was one of the most attractive 
 exclusive houses in London. Happy the 
 man who was admitted to the Marchioness's 
 Fridays. Why Friday, askest thou, reader? 
 Dies Veneris. 
 
 So, while they were in town, Mowbray
 
 74 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 mansion grew. For the merchant actually 
 called it Mowbray Mansion, after the fashion 
 of Brighton lodging-letters. It grew. Why, 
 Jack's beanstalk was nothing to it. Beyond 
 the house itself, which was beginning to look 
 like Buckingham Palace, with an eruption of 
 towers and turrets, there were the stables — 
 which were about the size of the Charing 
 Cross railway station. And then on the 
 other side stretched acres of glass — conser- 
 vatories, hothouses, pineries, orchard houses 
 — ^ which seemed intended to supply Covent 
 Garden with all the flowers and fruit that 
 all London could use. Mowbray Mansion 
 became a splendid place, unique, unequalled, 
 the priceless bagatelle of a millionaire. And, 
 as I have already said, it was finished and 
 inhabited by August. 
 
 Not till September did the Waynfletes 
 leave London for Ashridge. Their party 
 was increased. The Marchioness had brought
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 75 
 
 with her her great friend, Miss Lechmere — 
 her cousin, coeval, schoolfellow. They had 
 been belles the same year, and led the gay 
 round of the London season together. But 
 Miss Lechmere hadn't married. She rather 
 looked down on the whole race of men, 
 and at any rate contrived to appal the 
 marrying ones. She was a handsome girl 
 and a wealthy one ; but, unluckily for her- 
 self, she set up for being a " superior 
 woman." She had begun very early. Being 
 the only child of a very rich man, who 
 died in her infancy, she was quite a little 
 queen of gold when she was in short frocks 
 and frilled trousers. Her mother, a foolish 
 pretty woman, much younger than the hus- 
 band she had survived, married again, there- 
 by forfeiting a few thousands a year, and 
 the guardianship of Jabez Lechmere's daugh- 
 ter. Certain appointed guardians and trus- 
 tees took immediate possession of her, under
 
 76 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 the sanction of the Court of Chancery ; and 
 she was sent for education to a famous 
 "seminary" at Blackheath, where likewise 
 her Cousin Ahce (a second or third cousin, 
 I fancy) was receiving instruction. So soon 
 as this Lily Lechmere [yes, she was baptised 
 Lily, though she was more in the dahlia 
 style] had been a year or two at this same 
 seminary, she was everybody's mistress. 
 Partly through the fame of her money, 
 partly through her own singular self-confi- 
 dence and conceit, she was able to subju- 
 gate her schoolfellows, the governesses, and 
 finally the serene and austere and rigorous 
 mistress of the establishment. Miss Lech- 
 mere was such "a superior young lady." 
 She quite enslaved her pretty cousin Alice 
 — who, however, was by good fortune re- 
 moved from the school at an early age. 
 They did not meet again till their collision in 
 their first season. Alice, Avho was a pauper
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 77 
 
 — that is to say, her father could not give 
 her above seven thousand pounds — was so 
 pretty, so witty, so gentle, so fascinating, 
 that she actually divided the Empire of the 
 West with " that wonderfully handsome 
 girl " — '^ that uncommonly clever girl " — 
 " that temptingly rich girl " — Miss Lech- 
 mere. The Lily had forty thousand a year, 
 yet found no mate. Alice, the pretty little 
 pauper, won her Marquis the first time they 
 met. 
 
 Li truth, Miss Lechmere was difficult from 
 two causes. First and foremost, wealth 
 made her mistrust her wooers. She natu- 
 rally fancied that her many admirers were 
 thinking of her property rather than of her- 
 self. She formed wild schemes of getting 
 out of her own circle, and playing Incognita 
 somewhere — a penniless Incognita. There 
 was a touch of romance in that " superior " 
 head of hers : and she thought that if she
 
 78 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 could disguise herself as a governess or a 
 maidservant, and be wooed and won in such 
 a condition, she might be sure of true love. 
 But unluckily she could not hit upon any 
 device for carrying out such a scheme. 
 
 However, the second cause of her being 
 still in her virginity was almost, if not quite, 
 as effectual as the first. She was so very 
 superior. She looked down upon most 
 women . . . and upon all men. She took 
 no part in the great Amazonian movement 
 for reducing men to their proper secondary 
 place, simply because she had a contempt for 
 her own sex. It was almost equal to Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu's, who said that the 
 only thing which reconciled her to being a 
 woman was, that she should not have to 
 marry one. 
 
 Even " superior women " find their 
 opinions slightly modified by time : and, 
 when Lily Lechmere found her cousin Alice
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 79 
 
 a Marchioness and a mother, she began to 
 think that she had wasted time. Alice had 
 the noblest of husbands and the prettiest of 
 little daughters. Miss Lechmere was envi- 
 ous. The cousins, after some years' sever- 
 ance, had met this season by accident ; Miss 
 Lechmere patronized the Marchioness, be- 
 came her intimate companion, and made her 
 invite her to Ashridge. Miss Lechmere had 
 formed a great scheme : she would marry 
 Lord Waynflete. He was a few years her 
 junior — but that was just what she liked. 
 He would be a nice obedient husband. 
 Everybody said he was such a good young 
 man — and yet so clever. Lily Lechmere 
 decided that he was just the kind of person 
 for a superior woman like herself to marry 
 and educate. With this intent had she made 
 the Marchioness bring her to Ashridge. 
 
 Poor Adrian ! How little did he know 
 the terrible future designed for him !
 
 80 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 He, like his stepmother, had brought a 
 friend — Harry Fane, a cornet in the Guards ; 
 and in this case, also, it was an old school- 
 fellow. They had been at Eton together ; 
 and Waynflete had saved Fane from drown- 
 ing, and had loved him like a brother ever 
 since. Yet you would hardly predicate much 
 sympathy between them. Lord Waynflete 
 I have introduced to you. Fane may be 
 briefly described as a man of immeasurable 
 indolence, chequered with sudden short 
 bursts of impulse. Adrian found him at his 
 rooms in the Albany, and brought him 
 down by main force. Fane subsided into 
 the apartment allotted to him ; went to 
 bed early, and breakfasted there ; and occu- 
 pied the remainder of the day in dressing 
 for dinner. 
 
 So he was not one of the breakfast 
 party on the morning after their arrival — 
 which bad occurred late at night, when a
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 81 
 
 jolly hasty supper of devilled turkey and 
 broiled game had been their welcome. It 
 was a fine misty September morning, pro- 
 mising a sultry day. The scene from those 
 breakfast-room windows was somewhat 
 changed ; across the Ashe, amid the woods 
 of Lindesay, Mowbray Mansion glared 
 white, with a supplementary establishment 
 of conservatories flashing in the morning sun. 
 
 " Dear me, Alice," said Miss Lechmere to 
 the Marchioness, " what a splendid place 
 that seems to be ! Who lives there ? Why, 
 it is almost as fine as Chats worth ?" 
 
 The Marchioness told her friend the his- 
 tory of Mowbray Mansion; and how Mr. 
 Mowbray was a widower and a millionaire ; 
 and more of the same kind. And Miss Lech- 
 mere at once began to weigh the difference 
 between having a marquis or a millionaire 
 for a husband. 
 
 " Mowbray seems to have been making 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 progress," said Lord Wraysbury, after he 
 had glanced at his correspondence. "That's 
 a tremendous place of his, Adrian : we 
 should be nowhere, if we hadn't the good 
 fortune to be on the top of a hill." 
 
 " I suspect he would say that Providence 
 unfairly favours the Tories," said his son. 
 " What right have we to our hill ?" he 
 would argue. " Why isn't there at least as 
 high a hill ready for a Manchester man with 
 a miUion ?" 
 
 " Is that the sort of fellow, do you think ?" 
 asked the Marquis. 
 
 " I fancy so. I met him once, and have 
 heard much about him in town which con- 
 firms my impression of him. He belongs 
 to the class who talk about ' bloated aristo- 
 crats.' " 
 
 "Well, I regret that," remarked Lord 
 Wraysbury. " I don't at all want a neigh- 
 bour who insists on quarrelling with me."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 83 
 
 "But," interposed Miss Lechmere, "he 
 may not be so very shocking. I have 
 known one or two very charming million- 
 aires." 
 
 " The magic million covers many sins/* 
 said the Marchioness, laughing. 
 
 "It does, indeed, mamma," responded 
 Adrian ; " and I am afraid that in this man's 
 case it will have to cover an unusual num- 
 ber. I had a colloquy with him once, you 
 know ; I tried to be civil ; he showed him- 
 self a churl. I have heard a good deal of 
 his doings since. I fear from report that he 
 will take delight in being what is called 
 nasty to a neighbour who is so wicked as to 
 be a Marquis." 
 
 " Shall we survive, do you think, Adri- 
 an ?" asked Lord Wraysbury. 
 
 " I hope so, sir ; but from all I hear, this 
 is the temper of the man. And I fear 
 we may find that he takes pleasure in that 
 
 g2
 
 84 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 style of petty annoyance which is always in 
 a neighbour's power." 
 
 " I fear you are prejudiced, Lord Wayn- 
 flete," said Miss Lechmere. *' Surely very few 
 men would condescend to such conduct." 
 
 ^*I heartily hope not, Miss Lechmere," 
 said the Marquis. " I most earnestly hope 
 that the rumours Adrian has heard are un- 
 founded. But the truth is that in these 
 days there is a great deal of silly prejudice, 
 even among men of Mr. Mowbray's class: 
 and I can quite understand his disliking, and 
 even despising me, because I happen to be a 
 peer. Himself all his life a tradesman, he 
 has had no opportunity of learning that if 
 there had been no peers in England long 
 ago, there would be no millionaires to-day. 
 Admitting that I am no use in the world, 
 the stout old Baron, my forefather, who 
 helped to bully King John into signing the 
 Great Charter, was some use in his time."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 85 
 
 " You don't often make so long a speech," 
 said the Marchioness. " We are all con- 
 vinced and converted — even this Radical, 
 Lily. Are you gentlemen going to shoot to- 
 day ? And, 0, Adrian, where is Mr. Fane ?" 
 
 " Fane !" said Lord Waynflete : " why, he 
 is enjoying his beauty-sleep just now. I 
 dare say we shall see him at dinner. We 
 must make our arrangements without him." 
 
 " Well, what are those arrangements to 
 be ? If you mean to shoot, we might meet 
 you somewhere, and have an out-door lun- 
 cheon. What do you think, Lily?" 
 
 " Very pleasant indeed," replied Miss 
 Lechmere, graciously, " on such a beautiful 
 day as this." 
 
 " Ralph tells me there are a good many 
 coveys of birds on Ashdown Hill," said Lord 
 Wraysbury. "Shall we try that, Adrian ?" 
 
 "I'll meet you there, sir," said his son. 
 " I'll just take my gun down through the
 
 86 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 lower fields, for I should like to reconnoitre 
 the village, and see a little of what Mr. Mow- 
 bray has been doing." 
 
 "A good idea," said the Marquis, who 
 was very seldom seen in the village himself. 
 The church was in his park, and when the 
 hounds met in the neighbourhood, they met 
 on his lawn, and there was seldom occasion 
 for him to go beyond the limits of his own 
 demesne. He was less likely to do it now, 
 when there was a foe on his frontier. His 
 estates stretched for miles away behind the 
 hill towards Rothcastle: indeed he could 
 ride right into that town without leaving his 
 own land. 
 
 "Very good," said the Marchioness. "Then 
 I shall order luncheon to be taken up to 
 that pretty clump of trees in the glen below 
 Ashdown. It is a charming spot, Lily : there 
 is a beautiful clear well, the source of a 
 brook we call the Petteril."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 87 
 
 So it was settled. The Marquis, with a 
 couple of setters, and Ralph, the head keeper, 
 went towards Ashdown. His son, followed 
 by Big Dog (who was always a grave spec- 
 tator of sport) and a favourite Clumber 
 spaniel called Flora, clever as she was 
 beautiful, strode down the hill. His leading 
 idea was certainly not sport ; he was curious 
 to see how things had been going in his 
 absence from home ; but he made his way 
 out of the park into some promising turnips 
 (or turmuts, which is it?), where Flora put 
 up a covey, and he brought down two with 
 the promptitude of a good shot. Flora re- 
 trieved them, and he tied them together, and 
 gave them to Big Dog to carry. That canine 
 celebrity was never more happy than when 
 he had something in charge. 
 
 Adrian did not follow his covey, but 
 struck across to the village. Burton was 
 standing before his door, and a good many
 
 88 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 people were drinking their ale outside. It 
 is picturesque to see the thirsty Briton drink- 
 ing great draughts beneath the big tree that 
 stands — or ought to stand — in front of every 
 village hostelry: but unluckily those draughts 
 are too often poisonous. 
 
 "Well, Burton," said Lord Waynflete, 
 " I am glad to see you look as well as ever. 
 Here are the first birds I have killed this 
 year. I know you like 'em." 
 
 " Very much obliged indeed, my lord. I 
 haven't a very strong appetite, and a little 
 bit of game seems to do me good. We shall 
 all be glad to have you back again, my lord." 
 
 " I'm very glad to come, for I'm tired of 
 London. I suppose there's no news." 
 
 " News I my lord. I should think there 
 was. Why, Ashridge is quite a different 
 place from what it used to be. You won't 
 know it. It's put my head in a regular 
 muzzle."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 89 
 
 Perhaps the worthy landlord meant 
 muddle, 
 
 " I hope it hasn't muzzled your ale, Bur- 
 ton. I'll come into the bar and taste it, and 
 then you can tell me the story." 
 
 ** I can't think of half, my lord — not half. 
 Have you heard tell of the Mowbray Hotel ?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Why, the new Squire have built quite a 
 grand inn at the top of the street, just on the 
 common — and there's a landlord, a Mr. 
 Flanagan, that looks just like a squire him- 
 self, and rides a chestnut cob they say he 
 gave a hundred and fifty for — and there's a 
 billiard-room, and a coffee-room, though I 
 can't see the good of a room for nothing 
 but coffee, and twenty bedrooms, and 
 stabling and loose boxes for no end of 
 horses." 
 
 Burton paused for absolute lack of breath. 
 
 " By Jove !" said Adrian, with such em-
 
 90 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 phasis that Big Dog jumped up and barked 
 — a bark you could hear a mile off — " the 
 man must be mad. What in the world is 
 another inn wanted here for ? What custom 
 can this new place get ?" 
 
 " It gets some custom, my lord. Squire 
 Mowbray has lots of people come to stay 
 with him, and their servants and horses and 
 traps goes to the Mowbray Hotel. But it 
 wouldn't much matter to him if there weren't 
 no custom worth mentioning." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " Don't you see, my lord, this here house 
 is the Waynflete Arms. The Squire thinks 
 he'll be a bigger man than your lordship's 
 father, so he builds a bigger place than Ash- 
 ridge Manor, and calls it Mowbray Mansion 
 — and a sight bigger inn than the Waynflete 
 Arms, and calls it the Mowbray Hotel. 
 That's how I take it. But I likes my own 
 old place better than his."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 91 
 
 Well he might, for the inn was an old- 
 timbered house, which had been a monastic 
 grange : its picturesque gables and quaint 
 casements and raftered rooms were in toler- 
 ably strong contrast to the commonplace 
 architecture of the new hotel. And the 
 monks had evidently stored away good 
 liquor, for there were deep cool dry cellars, 
 too vast for Burton s need. 
 
 Lord Waynflete was taken aback by this 
 intelligence. He sat down in a huge carved 
 chair which was the pride of the bar, took 
 a cigar from his case, lighted it, and then 
 said, 
 
 " Now, Burton, give me some more ale 
 and take some yourself. Then you can tell 
 me any other news you've got. I've a good 
 two hours to spare." 
 
 Burton obeyed orders as to the ale. After 
 a long draught, he replied, 
 
 " You'll have to ask Eliza, my lord. She
 
 92 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 can tell you everything, and what she can't 
 tell she can invent. My head's in a muzzle." 
 
 " Have a cigar — that's the best cure," said 
 Adrian, offering him his case. 
 
 ** No, thank ye, my lord, not one of yours. 
 You were so good as to give me one once, 
 and before it was half finished I felt so dizzy 
 like that I had to go to bed. But by your 
 lordship's leave I'll smoke a pickwick." 
 
 He took one of those penny cylinders 
 from a box on the shelf, and began smoking 
 as if he enjoyed it. And why should he 
 not ? The peasant prefers his fourpenny ale 
 to the finest claret. I once gave an old lady 
 who kept a village shop a glass of excellent 
 Sauterne, and she stoutly maintained it was 
 cider. 
 
 '*Now, Burton," said Lord Waynflete, 
 after a pause, '^ you can think of some 
 more news to tell me by this time. Let's 
 have it."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 93 
 
 "Well, my lord, there's the common." 
 
 " Ah, what about the common ? I hope 
 Mr. Mowbray is getting it into better order." 
 
 "He's been main strict," said Burton. 
 " He's put on a lot of men to watch, and 
 brought a lot of people up before the magis- 
 trates for cutting turf and furze, and digging 
 sand. He got young Lane sent to prison 
 because his terrier bitch killed a rabbit 
 there. He won't let the old women pick 
 up sticks, as they always used to, and he's 
 warned off all the gipsies." 
 
 " Indeed ! What do the gipsies say to 
 that?" 
 
 "You know Black Jack Johnson, my 
 lord?" 
 
 Adrian knew that worthy well, having 
 often talked to him on the common. He 
 was a singularly dark man, about seven feet 
 high, about thirty years old, wonderfully 
 lithe and active. Of pure gipsy blood, he
 
 94 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 was reckoned a chief among them, and was 
 always at the head of rather a numerous 
 following. He dealt largely in horses, and 
 was of course a constant attendant at Roth- 
 castle Fair. 
 
 " Yes," said Adrian, " I know him." 
 " He was through here the other day, 
 not with his people, but alone, going after 
 a horse, he told me. However, I don't be- 
 lieve all that he says. He was drinkiilg gin 
 and ale in the tap — I never saw such a man 
 for gin and ale — when somebody told him 
 about Squire Mowbray's orders. Well, he 
 did swear ; and then he was quiet for ever 
 so long, and drank a lot more gin and ale. 
 But he stayed after all the others, for he 
 was to sleep in my tallat — he never will 
 sleep on a bed, like a Christian. And the 
 last thing he said to me was, * Look here. 
 Burton, we Romans ' (that's what he said) 
 * have had Ashridge Common for our camps
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 95 
 
 before this newfangled Squire's grandfather 
 was born, if he ever had one. We mean to 
 keep it. You come out on the heath the 
 week before Rothcastle Fair, and you'll see 
 more of our chimneys smoking than you 
 ever saw before, or ever will again.' And 
 up he got and went out to the loft, and I 
 haven't seen him since." 
 
 "Thank you. Burton," said Lord Wayn- 
 flete, at the close of this narrative. " I 
 think you have told me quite enough news 
 for one morning. And I haven't time now 
 to go and see Eliza, who I dare say would 
 tell me at least twice as much. Good-bye. 
 I must be off to luncheon." 
 
 He walked up the street of the little vil- 
 lage, just to see the new inn. There it was, 
 a square edifice in the reddest brick, with 
 ample stabling. Adrian noticed among the 
 group outside a person who answered Bur- 
 ton's description of the landlord : his com-
 
 96 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 panions, four or five in number, were coach- 
 men and grooms. The place was quite in 
 the style of a railway hotel in a hunting 
 country : in this quiet vicinage, far from a 
 railway and from anything like a populous 
 town, it looked ridiculous. Even at Roth- 
 castle, famous for its fair and its bribery 
 (for it returns one member to Parliament), 
 the Mowbray Hotel would have been too 
 large for the place. 
 
 Lord Waynflete, who was almost equally 
 annoyed and amused, turned back, recrossed 
 the Ashe, and went up the hill to luncheon.
 
 97 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FOUNDER OF THE FIRM. 
 
 TpDWARD MOWBRAY was one of the 
 -*-^ best fellows that ever sprang from 
 Manchester, a city where good fellows are 
 not few. He was courteous and genial with 
 his equals, and very generous to his infe- 
 riors ; he acknowledged no superior. Ra- 
 ther illogically, he thought it right to be 
 loyal to the Sovereign ; but he regarded 
 the House of Lords with supreme contempt, 
 end bitterly detested any individual member 
 of the peerage with whom he came into 
 contact. That anybody should be proud of 
 his ancestors seemed to him immeasurably 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 absurd : yet it was pretty clear that but for 
 his immediate ancestor, his father, he would 
 never have been about the richest man in 
 Lancashire. Of course he respected his sire 
 accordingly : but he could not understand 
 why men should venerate the remote sire 
 of their sires, who had founded their family 
 at the date of the Conquest or earlier. This 
 he regarded as the climax of imbecility. 
 
 What man was there in England better 
 than himself, Edward Mowbray ? He was 
 conscious of a fine physical organization, so 
 sound that he never dreamt of illness ; of a 
 brain clear and strong and prompt, whose 
 previsions and decisions were the envy of his 
 brother merchants ; of stored funds so vast 
 that he could indulge almost any caprice 
 with impunity, even though it were to 
 manage an opera-house or start a daily 
 newspaper ; of a great business, that went 
 on producing money like a mighty machine,
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 99 
 
 with the very slightest supervision on his 
 part. A man must have a strong, a well- 
 balanced mind to see clearly and act wisely 
 in such a position. Edward Mowbray would 
 have done better than most men, but for a 
 fierce dislike for the hereditary nobility, 
 which some of his facetions friends at- 
 tributed to his having been refused by an 
 Earl's daughter in the days of his hot youth. 
 This was Manchester chaff, no doubt : Mow- 
 bray, even when young, must have had too 
 great a contempt for the peerage to desire 
 an alliance with it. However, the fact re- 
 mained — he detested and despised the aris- 
 tocracy. 
 
 His father, also Edward Mowbray, was 
 the founder of the great firm of Mowbray, l tt ^ ^7 
 Smith, Brown, Rogerson, Lestrange, and tu^-iA^uy^ 
 Jenkins. His grandfather was the earliest '>a^'<aMk yj 
 ancestor of whom he had any knowledge. ^^ 
 
 Old Reuben Mowbray had an excellent sur- <7«^m«i^ 
 
 h2
 
 100 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 name or sirename ; but how he got it was 
 quite a mystery to himself and to the vil- 
 lagers of Rington-in-the-Clay, where he was 
 supposed to have been born, and where he 
 lived a long and singularly happy and use- 
 less life. No registry of his birth could be 
 found: and, as he was unquestionably the 
 oldest inhabitant, nobody could well be ex- 
 pected to remember it. People calculated 
 that he was a hundred and ten when he 
 died. He was what the villagers called 
 " half-saved ;" not absolutely imbecile, and 
 capable in his prime of doing a good day's 
 work, he was at the same time eccentric 
 upon occasion, and not always to be relied 
 upon. As he grew older, he grew shrewder : 
 and his quaint sayings passed into village 
 praverbs. He was probably about fifty 
 when somebody made up her mind to marry 
 him. 
 
 This was one Martha Kane, a young
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 101 
 
 woman of about forty, who had come into 
 Rington-in-the-Clay a good many years be- 
 fore, as lady'smaid at Rington Park. She 
 came from the far North somewhere. When 
 the family at the Park went abroad, she 
 decided not to go : she rented a small cot- 
 tage, and did needlework for anybody who 
 would employ her ; but she evidently had 
 saved some money in her occupation as 
 lady'smaid. She lived very fairly, for her 
 position ; had a bit of meat for dinner twice 
 a week ; kept poultry and bees, and made 
 a little money by them ; and alwa3^s seemed 
 cheerful. 
 
 Reuben, who knew everybody in the vil- 
 lage — which contained about seventy houses 
 — liked nothing better than to talk to any- 
 body who would talk in return to him. He 
 talked with an inconsecutive quaintness 
 which it is impossible to represent. His 
 addled old brain produced, from the revolu-
 
 102 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 tion whicli had taken place within it, notions 
 which never would have occurred to him in 
 a sane state. Even the parson used to say 
 that he sometimes got a new idea from 
 Reuben. 
 
 A new idea Martha Kane got, at any 
 rate — namely, that she would marry him. 
 She was forty : at twenty, it was reported, 
 the little lady'smaid had been pretty, with 
 lots of gay gold ringlets, and an alto relievo 
 style. That was over. Martha's somewhat 
 scanty hair was iron-grey, and she was de- 
 cidedly scraggy, when she ordered Reuben 
 to marry her. Reuben obeyed. 
 
 The parish laughed. Would that parish 
 have dared to smile if it could have foreseen 
 the great result . . . Mowbray the million- 
 aire ? 
 
 By-and-by a boy arrived, Edward Mow- 
 bray the elder. He had more steadfast 
 brains than his father. He liked work. The
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 103 
 
 village schoolmaster was delighted with him ; 
 he was first in everything, but beat the 
 master himself in figures. His mother died 
 when he was about twelve, and left nothing 
 behind her except some quaint old frag- 
 ments of silver and lace and brocade, the 
 spoils of her lady'smaid career. She had 
 been living on a small annuity. The boy 
 stayed on in the village; got occasional work 
 from the farmers; managed to live and some- 
 times to help his old father. 
 
 When he was nineteen he was drawn for 
 the militia. England was at war, and people 
 dreaded an invasion. Edward Mowbray 
 hated the thought of wearing a red coat. 
 With sevenpence halfpenny in his pocket, 
 and without a word to anyone, he left Ring- 
 ton village behind him, and walked away 
 without any choice of road. The road which 
 he took led to Manchester. It was three 
 days before he reached that city, destined to
 
 104 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 acknowledge him as one of its greatest men; 
 and, though he had met kindness on his way, 
 his small stock of coin was gone, and he was 
 footsore and hungry. 
 
 A widow who kept a small general shop 
 in the suburbs took pity on him, and gave 
 him a red herring for supper, and allowed 
 him to sleep in an outhouse. She was a 
 young widow, and pitied the motherless boy. 
 Twenty years later Edward Mowbray found 
 her out, and settled on her three hundred a 
 year for life. 
 
 I suppose he saw a little starvation before 
 he got any work. But by-and-by he was 
 hired as porter at a warehouse. He did his 
 work manfully. He showed intelligence. 
 It was found that he could read and write. 
 He was promoted to a clerkship. 
 
 As a clerk, he threw himself into the 
 business of his master. He worked punctu- 
 ally and accurately, and, when he had be-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 105 
 
 coaie intimate with the business, ventured 
 on modest suggestions. Luck favours care- 
 ful men like Mowbray. One day his watch- 
 ful eye detected a scheme for an enormous 
 swindle, which would have half-ruined the 
 firm. 
 
 Within a week he was a junior partner. I 
 need not follow his career step by step. By- 
 and-by he married a wealthy widow, whose 
 consols gave him considerable influence in 
 the firm. Just twenty years after he had 
 entered the establishment, glad to sweep out 
 the warehouse and to harness the dray-horses, 
 he had become the head of the house. 
 
 He went down to Rington-in-the-Clay to 
 look for his father. There was the old 
 gentleman, eighty-nine years old, living in 
 the cottage where his successful son was 
 born. Reuben's brain was still warped, but 
 it was clearer than in earlier days. Between 
 the parish and the parson he would have
 
 106 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 been well cared for : but his son, having no 
 time to spare from his business, had at inter- 
 vals sent a banknote to the clergyman anony- 
 mously — for the benefit of Reuben Mow- 
 bray. He would not return to his native 
 village till he could return with his ambition 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Rington Park was for sale. Edward 
 Mowbray bought the estate, furnished the 
 house, and established his father there as 
 Squire. Reuben accepted the situation. He 
 evidently ought to have been a Squire. I 
 have said that his ancestry was untraceable : 
 may he not have been the descendant of a 
 good race ? Strange to say, from the time 
 that he was installed as the master of Ring- 
 wood Park, a change came upon him. He 
 seemed more himself in the apparel of a 
 gentleman than in the clothing of a la- 
 bourer, which he had worn all his life. His 
 intellect grew clearer. I have heard men
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 107 
 
 who sat at his table — and he gave capital 
 dinners — speak in the highest terms of his 
 judgment on politics and theology and wine. 
 Now a plebeian may be orthodox on matters 
 political and theological^ but surely, surely, 
 surely he can never be a judge of wine ! 
 
 Whence I infer that there must have been 
 good blood in the veins of old Reuben Mow- 
 bray. And this is rendered more probable 
 from the fact that before he became the 
 Squire of the parish he was generally re- 
 garded as a lunatic — an opinion seldom or 
 never uttered thereafter. 
 
 Twenty-one years did Reuben Mowbray 
 reign at Rington Park, every year growing 
 clearer in brain. His son would come 
 thither as a guest, but his father should be 
 master. More than this, he carefully con- 
 cealed from his son, Edward Mowbray the 
 younger, the facts of the case, and made the 
 boy believe that Rington Park was an an-
 
 108 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 cient family estate, and that his grandfather 
 had always been the Squire. 
 
 The young man of course found out in 
 time that this was false : and I think it was 
 one reason of his spite against the patrician 
 race. He had been duped into thinking 
 himself the representative of an old family, 
 and his grandfather, the Squire, had been a 
 day-labourer. It made him very wild. It 
 made him resolve to be a Squire of another 
 sort. And when his father died, and he 
 became the head of the great house of 
 Mowbray and Co., he carried out that re- 
 solve, as we have seen. Reuben Mowbray's 
 long life was over years ago, and he had no 
 one to interfere with him. He sold Ring- 
 ton Park, about which there clung unplea- 
 sant traditions concerning that grandfather 
 of his. The old gentleman, as I have said, 
 gave good dinners, and held his own in 
 conversation with his guests. But he had
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 109 
 
 his eccentricities. When driving along the 
 road in his carriage and pair, if he saw any 
 peculiarly unhappy family of tramps, he 
 would take them up and carry them off to 
 Rington Park, and give them an ample 
 meal, and dismiss them with some money. 
 Naturally this became known among the 
 great association of vagabonds which has 
 existed in England since the dissolution of 
 the Monasteries : and Rington Park received 
 a succession of very eccentric guests. Mate- 
 rial for a Beggars' Opera might often have 
 been found in the servants' hall at Rington, 
 when vagrants of every possible kind, gip- 
 sies, tinkers, horse-stealers, cadgers, et hoc 
 genus omne, received princely entertainment, 
 in the form of cold beef and strong ale, by 
 order of the Squire. 
 
 Edward Mowbray the younger had no 
 sympathy with this eccentricity of his grand- 
 father's. He rightly considered indiscrimin-
 
 110 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 ate almsgiving a curse. He would have 
 deemed it almost a crime — certainly a breach 
 of the fundamental laws of political econ- 
 omy — to give a beggar a penny. Not 
 heartily therefore did he revere the me- 
 mory of his grandfather ; and he was glad 
 to sever all connexion between his family 
 and Rington-in-the-Clay. He sold the es- 
 tate, as I have said — and felt as if he breath- 
 ed more freely. 
 
 The lady he married was Spanish on the 
 mother's side. He met her at Rhyl, on the 
 coast of North Wales, with her father, who 
 was a languid Englishman. She fascinated 
 him at once : a strange thing, for Mowbray, 
 who was no longer a boy, and had never 
 been an enthusiast, was about the last man 
 to fall in love on the instant. Still, he did 
 it. Ines Kempthorne took him by storm. 
 Only seventeen, she was already a woman ; 
 her black eyes had passionate significance,
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 1 1 1 
 
 her breast a glorious curve. Hers was a 
 full stroDiz nature, inherited from her An- 
 dalu^ian mother. She saw in Mowbray a 
 nature as strong as her own, though of a 
 wholly different type. She announced to 
 her father that she should marry Mowbray, 
 long before Mowbray had entertained any 
 idea on the subject. Lionel Kempthorne 
 acquiesced. Her mother had similarly 
 married him, and he was quite prepared for 
 his daughter doing likewise. 
 
 He leaned back in his easy-chair and said, 
 
 '^ Do as you please, Ines, my child. But 
 make me a cigarette." 
 
 She made him a cigarette, with a skill 
 only attainable by long slender Spanish 
 fingers ; and he smoked it ; and the thing 
 was settled. 
 
 Ethel Evelyn Mowbray, who was tliis 
 lady's sole child, was singularly like her mo- 
 ther in many points. One characteristic
 
 112 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 however she had, which she certainly did 
 not inherit from Ines Kempthorne : it must 
 have come from some older ancestress. The 
 little girl had a simply diabolic temper. To 
 her father she never showed it, for she loved 
 him passionately: hence, when complaint 
 reached him on the subject, he suspected 
 exaggeration. But the child w^as really a 
 regular little fiend when thwarted by per- 
 sons for whom she had no liking. Her 
 father merely petted her : nobody had any 
 authority over her : and so her temper be- 
 came a torture to herself, and a terror to 
 those who had to serve her. 
 
 Mr. Mowbray, having bought the Linde- 
 say estate, had two ends in view. One was 
 the glorification of himself as the model 
 Manchester millionaire. The City of Cotton 
 knew him well. There was no shrewder 
 man on the Exchange, nor any pleasanter 
 comrade at the Queen's. But it would be a
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 113 
 
 fine thing to show his old associates that he 
 could also play the country gentleman on a 
 grand scale. So he bought this great estate, 
 and built this magnificent mansion, and 
 brought down all his friends and acquaint- 
 ances to see him. And Manchester echoed 
 with the renown of Mowbray Mansion. 
 
 " Been down to Mowbray's ?" 
 
 " No : going when the pheasant shooting 
 begins." 
 
 '' Stunning place, I can tell you. Gas 
 made on the premises, and burning in every 
 room in the house. Hot baths and mulled 
 claret at any hour of the night." 
 
 *^ Very much like a Yankee hotel." 
 
 " Well, rather — only there's no bill to 
 pay at the end. But Mowbray's a good 
 fellow." 
 
 '* Devilish good fellow, I think. That 
 little witch of a daughter of his will be a fine 
 speculation for somebody, by-and-by." 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " 0, he'll marry again, you may bet. He's 
 young, and full of life. He must have a wife 
 to show off that big place." 
 
 *' He'll want an Earl's daughter, at least." 
 
 "He hates the aristocracy." 
 
 " Ah, then he's sure to get a wife out of 
 the peerage. That's a safe prophecy. What 
 odds will you give me about it ?" 
 
 Thus did Edward Mowbray's Manchester 
 acquaintance canvass his affairs. There was 
 some truth in what these gentlemen said. 
 Extremes meet. Love and hate are closely 
 connected. Mowbray detested the aris- 
 tocracy, with a detestation which might have 
 moved the envy of the member for Birming- 
 ham : for all that, I think that if he could 
 have married a Countess in her own right 
 he would have lived happily ever after. 
 
 But I must not forget Mowbray's second 
 idea : it was the mortification of a Marquis. 
 He knew nothing of Lord Wraysbury, good
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 1 1 5 
 
 or bad ; but he had heard that the Marquis 
 particularly desired this Lindesay estate, and 
 it was a great delight to thwart him. And 
 then he would build a house on the opposite 
 side of the river Ashe, which should make 
 Ashridge Manor look small. And he would 
 even have a new inn of his own in Ashridge 
 village — with Bass's ale and billiards, and 
 every modern improvement. At the Wayn- 
 flete Arms they had never got beyond baga- 
 telle — and the colossal landlord brewed his 
 own beer. 
 
 These things, we have seen, he gradually 
 effected. But a feeling of dissatisfaction had 
 grown up in his mind, ever since his inter- 
 view with Lord Waynflete. That young 
 nobleman had taken matters so very easily. 
 He had seemed rather pleased than other- 
 wise at this invasion of the neighbourhood. 
 Mr. Mowbray intended nothing of that kind. 
 He wanted to be a thorn in aristocratic flesh : 
 
 I 2
 
 116 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 but the flesh in question seemed rather 
 tickled than troubled by his advent. There 
 is no greater nuisance than to find you amuse 
 a man when you want to annoy him : just 
 try the effect of laughing at a persistent organ- 
 grinder. 
 
 Mowbray's interview with Adrian made 
 him very unhappy. He had some insight 
 into character, and recognized in the young 
 Earl a man not easily put out of temper, but 
 certain to be a dangerous antagonist when 
 once roused. Mowbray did not wish to 
 settle down amicably at Ashridge. He 
 wanted to worry the aristocrats. Lord 
 Waynflete looked like a man who was not 
 to be worried in a hurry, and not to be 
 worried too much with impunity. Mowbray 
 became more spiteful than ever after his 
 interview with Adrian, and determined to 
 do all that he possibly could to annoy his 
 inoffensive neighbours. Building the Mow-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 117 
 
 bray Hotel was one of his extravagances in 
 this direction. 
 
 The long absence of the family in London 
 had been unfortunate for Mr. Mowbray. 
 You can't annoy an absentee. Meanwhile, 
 he thought he would annoy other people. 
 He exercised his manorial right over Ash- 
 ridge Common : but he did not do it as Lord 
 Wraysbury would have done. He set up no- 
 tices against trespass and depredation, and 
 called in the county police to keep watch. 
 Old women who had picked up dry sticks 
 on that heath for the last half century, were 
 brought before the magistrates for such rob* 
 beries, and fined with alternative of impri- 
 sonment. Horses and cattle and donkeys 
 were driven into pound. Things were car- 
 ried out so stringently, that the wit of the 
 village wanted to know why larks were al- 
 lowed to sing above the common. 
 
 Soon, of course, Mr. Mowbray was in
 
 118 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 collision with the gipsies. He would have 
 no vagrants on the heath. They came, not- 
 withstanding. His keepers had to turn 
 them out, and there was some pretty rough 
 fighting. The gipsies, on the whole, got 
 rather the best of it. But Mowbray was 
 determined ; he put on more men ; and the 
 Romany Chals were obliged to accept de- 
 feat for the present. Not, however, without 
 plans for the future, as we have heard from 
 Black Jack Johnson. 
 
 While Mr. Mowbray was thus at war with 
 others, he was much troubled with rebellion 
 at home. Miss Ethel Evelyn Mow^bray was 
 giving a great deal of trouble, for a child so 
 young. You see, she was brought up as a 
 kind of fairy princess. Life was to be made 
 easy for her. Every fancy that she enter- 
 tained was to be flattered and fulfilled. But 
 character is very often too strong for circum- 
 stances, and. the marvellous hot temper
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 119 
 
 which was born with her spoilt her own 
 enjoyment of life, and made her a perfect 
 nuisance to the people who had to wait 
 upon her. They dared not complain to 
 Mr. Mowbray ; and so servant after servant 
 grew tired and went away, and there was 
 perpetual discord in the household. 
 
 Mr. Mowbray was an inaccessible man, so 
 that none of his people ventured to say a 
 word to him on the subject. There are 
 various ways of treating dependents. Some 
 people think it a fine thing to keep them at 
 a considerable distance, exacting from them 
 all manner of formal exhibitions of respect. 
 Others treat them as if they were human 
 beings, their own equals in all the great es- 
 sentials of humanity. I have not found that 
 these last are served less faithfully, or treated 
 with less courtesy. But the novi homines 
 are too apt to behave in the former style : 
 recently emancipated from servitude them-
 
 120 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 selves, they play the master somewhat too 
 tyrannously. 
 
 In due course of time, however, Mr. Mow- 
 bray began to have a glimpse of what was 
 the matter. He could not readily decide 
 on the best thing to be done. There w^as an 
 ancient lady, a Miss Priscilla Oust, who claim- 
 ed cousinship with his wife in some way, and 
 who had made him aware that she would be 
 very happy to come and take charge of his 
 establishment. But she was a mild old per- 
 son, with vague blue eyes, which precisely 
 indicated the vagueness of her character: 
 and he was quite certain that she would not 
 do as manager of his wilful child. 
 
 " I see what I must do," he said one 
 evening to himself, as he smoked a solitary 
 cigar in his dressing-room ;" I must get a 
 governess for Ethel. But I suppose it won't 
 do to have a governess without some nominal 
 female head to the establishment : so I mav
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 121 
 
 as well let poor old Priscilla have her way, 
 and take her in for life. She's an inoffensive 
 creature, and very good-tempered. Yes, 
 that's what I'll do." 
 
 Having decided thereon, he acted with 
 his customary promptitude. He delighted 
 the heart of Miss Oust with an immediate 
 invitation. When she came, he took her 
 into counsel about a governess : and she, 
 having an acquaintance in the scholastic 
 profession, soon managed to procure what 
 he wanted. And so the machinery was set 
 going for the proper subjugation of the 
 young heiress and tigress, Ethel Evelyn 
 Mowbray.
 
 122 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MISS PINNOCK. 
 
 TN a certain suburb of London there 
 ^ stands a vast Grecian edifice, with 
 lawns and gardens around it, and tall iron 
 railings defending it from the outside public. 
 Well kept are those lawns — gorgeous with 
 the best flowers of every season are the 
 beds and borders. The casual passenger 
 who, outside an omnibus, passes through 
 that retreat of semi-genteel cockneyism, 
 usually asks the driver what building that 
 is. What indeed is it ? Not a gaol or a 
 workhouse — the gardens are too trim. Not 
 a lunatic asylum — else you would see a few
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 123 
 
 happy lunatics taking the air and building 
 castles therein. No : it is an orphan school : 
 and inside those imposing walls there are a 
 couple of hundred little boys and girls who 
 have known no father except that same 
 magnificent edifice. And, if they have known 
 a mother, so seldom do they see her that 
 she seems a stranger. 
 
 In this school, whose whereabout I will 
 not too minutely indicate, little Amy Gray 
 had received her education. When first 
 she became its inmate, she was seven years 
 old. She found herself among a herd of 
 other children, a mere unit, nothing more. 
 They slept in a vast dormitory ; they were 
 rung up, summer and winter, at six in the 
 morning ; they had to wash in troops, in 
 a comfortless lavatory ; they were fed like 
 inferior animals ; they were taught care- 
 lessly and neglected cruelly. It was no 
 fault of the directors of that institution if
 
 1 24 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 the poor children escaped being brutalized. 
 This little Amy, whose father had been a 
 poor gentleman, with a remarkable capacity 
 for failure in all he undertook, was very 
 miserable for a long time. Happily, human 
 nature is far stronger than inhuman tyranny. 
 The child throve, and so did many of her 
 schoolfellows, notwithstanding the stupid 
 repression to which they were subjected. 
 Imagine the hideous monotony of dull unin- 
 telligent lessons from year to year ! Imagine 
 the entire absence of holidays 1 Visits of 
 friends were allowed for brief times at re- 
 mote intervals : but poor Amy had no 
 friends. The life of these children was 
 passed between school-room, bed-room and 
 playground — this last an ugly irregular quad- 
 rangle, with a few stunted trees along the 
 high outer wall, and with a line of long flat 
 windows overlooking it. Do not suppose 
 that those emerald lawns and vivid par-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 125 
 
 terres were intended for the young eyes of 
 these hapless orphans. No : they were 
 simply an advertisement of the splendour 
 of the place : the committee were wont to 
 lounge there, after the fatigue of inspection, 
 followed by an early dinner. Those rotund 
 white-waistcoated fathers of the City would 
 spend a quiet hour there after their port 
 wine, and smoke a mild cigar, and congratu- 
 late themselves on their goodness to father- 
 less children. But the eager eyes of the 
 boys and girls never enjoyed those pleasant 
 gardens. They did not pass the lofty walls 
 even for religious worship ; there was a 
 chapel, and there was a chaplain, and every 
 Sunday brought with it the Church Cate- 
 chism — not to mention the necessity of 
 learning by rote, collect, epistle, and gospel. 
 Sunday was the weariest day of the week : 
 quite as much to learn, and laughter forbid- 
 den.
 
 126 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 I think it must be admitted that Amy- 
 Gray, in this prison house, was a spoilt child 
 in the strongest sense of the words. She 
 saw nothing of the fragrance of flowers, 
 heard nothing of the music of birds. But 
 childhood has its compensations, and God is 
 too strong for City men and school-keepers. 
 Here were a lot of little girls thrown toge- 
 ther, and love and mirth awoke among 
 them ; and they formed a little world of 
 their own, full of beauty and magic and 
 mystery. True, some of them died : but 
 what is an orphan more or less ? So the 
 world might say : I merely say that the or- 
 phan is fortunate who goes straight to the 
 loving embrace of the Father of orphans. 
 Some of them died : for there were rooms 
 ill- ventilated, there was food plentiful but 
 ill-chosen, there was none of the tender nur- 
 ture which young children need. 
 
 Amy Gray did not die, though she was a
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 127 
 
 very fragile little creature to look at. She 
 was of dainty and delicate mould. Her 
 hair was a light soft brown, her eyes a 
 watchet blue, her temperament strangely 
 quick, sensitive, apprehensive, forgetive. 
 [N.B. — That last epithet is of Shakespeare's 
 coinage, and deserves to be kept in use.] 
 But, after some years of bullying by big 
 girls — a process whose cruelty cannot be 
 comprehended unless one has been a little 
 girl and suffered it — Amy gradually became 
 a " big girl " herself, and moreover took an 
 important position among her peers. The 
 child happened to have a conscience. These 
 are days in which people are apt to forget 
 that intellect is one thing and conscience an- 
 other ; that intellect is often swayed by fal- 
 lacies and plausibilities; while conscience, 
 being an intuition, cannot be so swayed. 
 Men feel what in old English was called 
 tlie avenbite of inwvt, and wonder what
 
 128 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 it means. They have been too clever 
 for some rival or opponent ; they have 
 " done " him — and done him fairly, since 
 he would gladly have done them in the 
 same manner ; but, when they are in a 
 meditative mood, alone, at midnight, they 
 feel an unpleasant sensation — something 
 like a nasty taste in the mouth. Well, 
 that's conscience. They get rid of it with 
 masterly rapidity ; and it soon dies out, and 
 is forgotten. And so railway and insurance 
 and discount companies flourish and are 
 famous. 
 
 Thanks rather to her conscience than to 
 any other ingredient in her character, Amy 
 Gray held quite a leading position among 
 her schoolfellows when there happened a re- 
 volution. The Lady Principal of the estab- 
 lishment died — it was currently reported, of 
 overeating herself — and the governors, after 
 long and deliberate reflexion, appointed as
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 129 
 
 her successor a Miss Pin nock, who was only 
 about five-and-twenty, and who had herself 
 been educated in this very place. That she 
 was an " old orphan " — if one may use such 
 a phrase concerning a rather pretty girl of 
 her age — was a great recommendation : so she 
 was unanimously elected, and duly installed. 
 Now the fact is, that Angelina Pinnock 
 was a young person who could form a de- 
 finite idea — and, which is better, could carry 
 it out. There are people who to this 
 day believe that America was created to 
 gratify Columbus. I don't know about that ; 
 but I do know that if any human mind de- 
 votes itself to a sinprle strenuous effort for any 
 given purpose, that effort generally succeeds. 
 When Miss Pinnock left this Orphan School, 
 after many years of bad teaching and misery, 
 she took with her a fixed resolve to return 
 some day as its mistress, and to reform it al- 
 together. Her vow had its fulfilment. She 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 did return as its mistress, and began at once 
 to change the aspect of the place. 
 
 She could teach pleasantly, and did so. 
 She could be kind and yet strict, and she 
 united those qualities. She improved the 
 ventilation of the rooms, varied the food of 
 the children, let them out of that cheerless 
 trapezoid of playground in which previous- 
 ly they had been confined. There were 
 members of the committee who had always 
 entertained an interest in the school : she 
 made that interest more direct and immedi- 
 ate. Of course it took different forms ; one 
 old gentleman showed it in the form of 
 strawberries and cream ; another, of lessons 
 in botany. Truly, under her influence, the 
 place was as much changed as the palace of 
 the Sleeping Beauty, when the destined 
 Prince kissed her lips, and all the world 
 awoke. 
 
 Miss Pinnock was by no means a perfect
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 131 
 
 Avoman. She had formed herself on Dr. 
 Arnold, who was her fair ideal, and she 
 wanted to make this Orphan School a petti- 
 coated Rugby. She went in for omniscience, 
 herself: she had taught herself everything, 
 and was as learned as Byron's Donna Inez. 
 Latin she had learnt at school. Subse- 
 quently she had become, as she considered, 
 a perfect Greek scholar, being quite able to 
 translate the New Testament into the phrase- 
 ology of the authorized version. There 
 were mystic rumours of her recondite know- 
 ledge of Hebrew and Sanscrit. As to ma- 
 thematics, she was equal to any senior 
 wrangler, having mastered Colenso's Arith- 
 metic, and the first part of that episcopal 
 ready-reckoner's Algebra, I firmly believe 
 that she had some faint notion of the mean- 
 ing of the Binomial Theorem — that " beau- 
 tiful child of Newton's Youth," as the poetic 
 Professor Sylvester called it. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 MAKQUIS AND MEE CHANT. 
 
 Surely a lady with such accomplishments 
 as these may be forgiven for being a little 
 conceited about them. Miss Pinnock was, it 
 is certain. I think, however, that she had a 
 better right to feel some self-satisfaction in 
 reference to her reforms at the Orphan 
 School. She brought air and light and 
 freedom into that dull place. There was a 
 perfect metamorphosis. The stolid old gen- 
 tlemen from the City, who muddled their 
 heads with Consols in the morning and San- 
 deman at night, were amazed at the change. 
 Two or three of them, bachelors and 
 widowers — it is astonishing how many of 
 both classes there are in the City — abso- 
 lutely fell in love with Miss Pinnock. But 
 the resolute Angelina angelically pursued 
 the even tenor of her way, and impartially 
 distributed her smiles among her elderly 
 admirers. 
 
 Meanwhile, she was doing infinite good
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 133 
 
 among the children under her care. Our 
 little friend Amy Gray was one of the first 
 to profit by it. After years of such suffer- 
 ing as girlhood never should know, she had 
 
 • 
 reached the summit of the school, and was 
 
 in a position to tyrannize over others. She 
 had never done so. Her young heart 
 yearned for loving guidance, and from Miss 
 Pinnock she obtained it. There was a de- 
 finite distinction between the mistress and 
 pupil. Amy Gray was pure gold : Angelina 
 Pinnock, at the very best, was only silver- 
 gilt. But Amy at this period firmly believed 
 in Miss Pinnock ; worshipped her indeed ; 
 thought her wiser and cleverer than she 
 even ventured to think herself There 
 were about ten years between the ages of 
 these two young people. 
 
 Now it was a rule of the establishment 
 over which Miss Pinnock presided that a 
 certain number of the girls were to go out
 
 134: MARQUIS AND MEECHANT. 
 
 as governesses — and this was to be Amy 
 Gray's happy destiny. What else indeed 
 could the poor child do? There is no 
 marriage market in this United Kingdom : 
 otherwise might she, on her intrinsic merits, 
 ■have found a master at once. For she was 
 a very nice girl when she emerged from the 
 Orphan School into a world of which she 
 knew nothing ; a pretty quiet shy quick 
 child, without a single vice — unless ignor- 
 ance be a vice. And even her ii^norance 
 had recently been modified, for Miss Pin- 
 nock had lent her the works of one William 
 Shakespeare. She intuitively recognised his 
 women, and so began to see that there must 
 be truth in his men. Men ! Imas^ine what 
 an imaginative child of eighteen, shut up all 
 her life in an Orphan School, must think and 
 dream concerning that utterly unknown half 
 of the world. Men! Yes, there they were, 
 on that glorious canvas, painted by the
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 1 35 
 
 world's Master Poet. Yes : she saw herself 
 in Miranda : was there any Ferdinand ? 
 She would like to be Rosalind ; but ah ! 
 she had never seen the deer bound gaily 
 through the long dim glades of Arden's 
 forest. Shakespeare was the world to her ; 
 she read his profound pages just when she 
 needed a key to the world. 
 
 I think there ought to be numerous copies 
 of Shakespeare in all orphan schools for 
 girls. Boys can do with Euclid and Virgil. 
 
 Angelina Pinnock, as I have remarked, 
 had formed herself upon Dr. Arnold. She 
 had even adopted his politics. What in the 
 world she wanted with politics may well be 
 asked : but Miss Pinnock wasn't going to be 
 behind the opposite sex in anything, so she 
 set up decided political and theological 
 opinions. She was a Liberal — quite an ad- 
 vanced Liberal, indeed. 
 
 This circumstance had an effect upon the
 
 136 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 destiny of Amy Gray. The time had come 
 for her to leave the place, and go out as a 
 governess. The school supplied governesses 
 of the first quality, so far as the pretence to 
 teach everything goes ; and the best people 
 were in the habit of applying to the Lady 
 Principal. When Amy had to leave, there 
 were two excellent situations to choose from. 
 Miss Pinnock had her favourite pupil to 
 lunch with her in her own private room, and 
 talked over the matter. 
 
 *' There are two very good situations. 
 Amy," she said, '^and I hardly know which to 
 recommend. In each case there is one little 
 girl to look after, in her ninth year. One 
 is the daughter of the Marquis of Wrays- 
 bury, and the salary offered is fifty pounds 
 a year." 
 
 " Where do they live ?" asked Amy. 
 
 "At Ashridge Manor, in one of the mid- 
 land counties."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 137 
 
 " I think I should like that," said Amy. 
 '* People of good family are always pleasant 
 to deal with, I have heard." 
 
 ''That is not invariably true," said Miss 
 Pinnock. *' They are generally very haughty, 
 and treat their governesses as if they were 
 servants. I think, for every reason, the other 
 is best." 
 
 "What is the other?" inquired Amy. 
 
 " It comes from the same neighbourhood, 
 which is rather curious. Mr. Mowbray, of 
 Mowbray Mansion, wants a governess for his 
 daughter. He offers a hundred a year." 
 
 There was a pause. After a while Amy 
 said : 
 
 *' Really, Miss Pinnock, I think I would 
 rather go to Lord Wraysbury's." 
 
 Miss Pinnock felt angry. She was an ad- 
 vanced Liberal, you know, and had a strong 
 objection to peers of the realm. 
 
 " You foolish girl," she said, " you are led
 
 138 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 away by a title. Would you give up fifty 
 pounds a year just for the sake of having a 
 Marquis for your master ? I never heard of 
 such a thing. Mr. Mowbray, I know, is one 
 of the richest men in the north of England, 
 and he offers you twice as much money as 
 Lord Wraysbury. Surely you won't hesitate 
 in your choice." 
 
 Amy Gray did hesitate; but she could 
 not set herself against the declared opinion 
 of her mistress. She was perfectly ignorant 
 of the state of the world outside the ivalls 
 in which she had spent her life since mere 
 babyhood. She had a very vague idea of 
 the meaning of a Marquis ; but she in- 
 stinctively felt that the fifty pounds a year 
 was a better offer than the hundred. 
 
 However, her fate was sealed. Miss Pin- 
 nock was averse from Marquises, and Amy 
 thought herself bound to do whatever Miss 
 Pinnock told her. That unquestioning obedi-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 139 
 
 ence of girls to their female seniors is an 
 uncommonly curious phenomenon. They 
 don't obey the opposite sex with anything like 
 similar alacrity. 
 
 So Amy Gray became tutress to Mow- 
 bray's unmanageable daughter, Ethel Evelyn. 
 Great festival was held in honour of her 
 departure from the Orphan School. She 
 was the pet pupil, you see, and the mis- 
 tress's crony ; and several well-built girls 
 aspired to fill the situation which she va- 
 cated; and so there was much rejoicing 
 over her exit. She was going to be a 
 governess with a hundred a year, which 
 seemed a prodigious promotion to those 
 children who were as yet her equals. But 
 I don't think she was very enthusiastic about 
 it, poor child. 
 
 However, she had to go forth into a 
 world which was completely unknown to 
 her. Miss Pinnock took her to town, in-
 
 140 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 structed her in her route, placed her safely 
 in a first-class carriage of the Great Northern 
 Railway. Amy had never travelled by rail 
 in her life : the whole thing amazed her. 
 But she knew she had to dree her weird, 
 and so took matters as quietly as possible. 
 She had about ninety miles to travel by 
 rail, and then Mr. Mowbray's carriage would 
 meet her at Rothcastle station. All these 
 things she had learnt by heart: and, al- 
 though railway travelling was an entire 
 novelty to her, she had made up her mind 
 to take it as coolly as if she were the in- 
 ventress of railways. 
 
 Miss Pinnock had got her into a carriage 
 by herself, and was kindly requesting an 
 amiable guard (who was not above the re- 
 ceipt of a shilling) to take the greatest pos- 
 sible care of her. She was going to Mr. 
 Mowbray's, and a carriage was to meet her 
 at Rothcastle. As she was audibly deliver-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 141 
 
 ing these instructions, another guard came 
 up the platform, followed by a tall man, 
 and coolly opened the carriage door, saying, 
 
 *' Room here, my lord." 
 
 Adrian, Lord Waynflete. quietly took his 
 place opposite the little governess. Miss 
 Pinnock was taken aback : but the bell rang 
 at that moment, and there was a cry of 
 
 " Take your seats, please !" 
 
 " Good-bye, dearest : write to me direct- 
 ly." . . . You know the sort of thing. The 
 train goes out of the station with the steady 
 swiftness of fate — and it is quite possible 
 that those two dreadfully affectionate people 
 never meet again. Perhaps they don't want 
 to. 
 
 Lord Waynflete was not at all the sort of 
 man to sit opposite a pretty girl for a hun- 
 dred miles without talking to her. His first 
 move was simple enough. Would she like 
 to look at Punch ?
 
 142 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 She had positively never seen a copy of 
 Punch m her life. She accepted his offer; 
 looked through letterpress and engraving;: 
 laughed merrily ; for her spirits rose with 
 the adventure, and then told him so. 
 
 " Why, where can you have lived, never 
 to see Punch ? It is quite a miracle." 
 
 She explained. She had not been out in 
 the world as yet, and saw no disgrace in 
 being an orphan, educated by charity. 
 
 " Well," said Lord Waynflete, ".that ac- 
 counts for it. Why, what a multitude of 
 things you will have to find out! It is al- 
 most worth while to be shut up in one's 
 youth, to come out into a new world, as 
 you do." 
 
 " It has been very pleasant as yet," she 
 said, simply. She was quite amazed and 
 delighted with this noble specimen of man- 
 hood, who treated her as if she had been 
 his sister.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 143 
 
 " And where are you going?" he asked. 
 
 " To Rothcastle Station. This is the first 
 railway journey I have ever had. It is very 
 nice." 
 
 " Very nice the first time," said Adrian. 
 " So you are going to Rothcastle. That's 
 ray station, too. Are you going to stay in 
 the neighbourhood?" 
 
 " I am going to Mr. Mowbray's as gover- 
 ness to his little girl." 
 
 " Ah ! Mr. Mowbray has a very fine place 
 down there. I hope you will be comfort- 
 able with him. I believe he is a very good 
 fellow. But do you think you shall like 
 being a governess ?" 
 
 *' I don't know what I shall like. I have 
 been shut up between brick walls all my 
 life " 
 
 " Which is not a very long one," inter- 
 rupted Adrian. 
 
 " It has seemed long," she said. '* How-
 
 144 MAEQUIS AND MEKCHANT. 
 
 ever, I have been shut up, like a bird in a 
 cage ; and I have no idea what the world is 
 like ; and I feel rather frightened." 
 
 " I hope I don't frighten you," he said. 
 
 " Not at all. You have taken away some 
 of my terror. I feel as if I had met a friend. 
 If everybody is like you, the world will not 
 be so very dreadful. But I am afraid I talk 
 too freely." 
 
 '^ You talk in the true way," said Adrian. 
 " Now let me talk freely to you. This Mr. 
 Mowbray is, I believe, an uncommonly good 
 fellow ; but he is prejudiced : and he hates 
 ray family extremely. It is political hatred. 
 You don't know the difference between a 
 Whig and a Tory, of course ?" 
 
 ''No, indeed!" 
 
 " How should you ? They are names for 
 follies. But they exist, and give some trou- 
 ble. Mr. Mowbray detests me, because I 
 don't think as he does."
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 145 
 
 "And do you detest him for the same 
 reason ?" 
 
 " Not in the least. I like what I have 
 seen of him. He is a very good fellow, but 
 does not carry out his ideas in exactly the 
 right way." 
 
 " And are we near each other ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 ^' Very near. He has just built an im- 
 mense place just opposite ours. We are on 
 the top of a hill ; there is a river below, 
 and a small village beyond : and then on the 
 other side is his new house. I shall be 
 sure to see you again." 
 
 There was silence for some time after 
 this. Amy studied Punchy and Adrian 
 watched her covertly, thinking what a little 
 innocent frank creature she was. 
 
 Suddenly she said, 
 
 " I wish you would tell rae your name." 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " I am Adrian, Lord Waynflete," he said, 
 with a smile. 
 
 " Ah, that was not the name. No, it was 
 Wraysbury." 
 
 " That's my father's name,'" he said. 
 " You don't understand these trifles. What 
 about it?" 
 
 " Only that I was offered to be governess 
 at Lord Wraysbury's, and they made me 
 take this other. Do you know, I'm very 
 
 "Are you?" he said. "Well, so am 1. 
 But if you get tired of Mr. Mowbray, you 
 can cross the river, you know, and come and 
 take charge of my little sister. She's such a 
 good little child." 
 
 " 0, but she will have another governess. 
 Well, Lord Waynflete, I am sorry. They 
 made me take it, because ... 0, I can't 
 tell you." 
 
 At this moment the train stopped at Roth-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 147 
 
 castle. Lord Waynflete, much amused with 
 his innocent little fellow-traveller, got out, 
 and handed her out. A footman was wait- 
 ing. 
 
 '* Go," he said, " and see if there is a car- 
 riage from Mr. Mowbray's for this lady." 
 
 The servant returned in a few minutes. 
 There was no carriage from Mr. Mowbray's. 
 
 "They have forgotten you," said Adrian. 
 '' Never mind. There is a carriage of mine 
 here, fortunately — I will send you in that." 
 
 " No, no," she said. " 1 feel sure you are 
 inconveniencing yourself. Let me hire a 
 carriage, or something. I don't understand 
 those things, you know." 
 
 "Of course not," said Lord Waynflete; 
 "but I do. My horses will take you to 
 Mr. Mowbray's in twenty minutes. Come : 
 I assure you there is no other way." 
 
 And he handed her to the door of the 
 omnibus. 
 
 l2
 
 148 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " But how will you get home ?" 
 
 "They will come back for me in about 
 half an hour. Meanwhile, I shall smoke a 
 cigar, if you know what that means. Good- 
 bye. We shall rbeet again." 
 
 Thus it happened that the Merchant's 
 governess drove up to his door in the car- 
 riage of the Marquis. 
 
 Waynflete meanwhile took a cigar from 
 his case, sat down by a blazing fire in the 
 waiting-room, and reflected on the marvel- 
 lous little innocent ignorant creature he had 
 met that day. 
 
 " She's a study in character," he said to 
 himself " But for an accident, she'd have 
 come to educate little Mary. I wish she 
 had. Never mind, she won't stay at that 
 cad Mowbray's ; and I shall tell mamma my 
 adventure, and ask her not to engage a 
 governess till this child is ready. She is a 
 very curious little party, that's a fact. What
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 149 
 
 in the world is it she reminds me of? Some 
 
 flower, I think. 0, I know, a primrose." 
 " Carriage is waiting, your lordship." 
 The servants were not at all pleased at 
 
 having had to take a lady to Mowbray 
 
 Mansion.
 
 150 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GOVERNESS ARRIVES. 
 
 A BRIAN got home to Ashridge Manor 
 -*-^ half an hour before dinnertime. He 
 had just run up to town for a few hours' 
 change and refreshment : father and son 
 had rooms in the Albany, which they used 
 for brief visits to London. Even Lord 
 Waynflete, who loved the country with a 
 hearty affection, found it now and then 
 necessary to go up and dine with a friend, 
 or hear a new prima donna. On this occa- 
 sion he had found some slight excuse for a 
 night in town, and had enjoyed the time in 
 his own quiet fashion, but was extremely
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 151 
 
 glad to get back again. There are some 
 men who cannot breathe freely except in 
 pure air, and Waynflete was one. 
 
 Miss Lech mere and Harry Fane were still 
 at the Manor — indeed I think it was to get 
 beyond reach of Miss Lechmere for a few 
 hours that he had gone to London. He 
 was very tired of this young lady, who was 
 pertinaciously agreeable to him. She was 
 in too grand and lofty a style to suit Adrian. 
 The simple frank little governess whom he 
 had so curiously encountered was far more 
 to his taste. Moreover, Miss Lechmere 
 treated him with an air of patronizing af- 
 fection which amazed while it amused him. 
 Her manner seemed to imply — " I am much 
 too good for any man, but I might possibly 
 be induced to tolerate this young Marquis." 
 I don't know that Adrian suspected Lily of 
 designing to marry him, for never was there 
 a man more unsuspicious.
 
 152 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 But he could see that Miss Lechmere had 
 an objectionable influence over the Mar- 
 chioness. There is a dramatic poem of 
 Charles Lamb's based on the influence exert- 
 ed by one woman over another — the said 
 influence having been gained in their school- 
 days ; but such cases are probably rare, for 
 when a girl enters the world, and especially 
 when she marries, the feelings of her days of 
 pupilage generally seem to her childish and 
 absurd. Miss Lechmere, however, had con- 
 trived to retain her influence over Lady 
 Wraysbury, whose feeling towards her was 
 evidently a mixture of liking and fear. 
 Adrian scrutinized this curious relation with 
 an inquiring eye ; and wished, both for his 
 stepmothers sake and his own, that Miss 
 Lechmere would terminate her visit. 
 
 Dinner was at eight. Little Lady Mary 
 was in bed by this time, happily asleep. 
 There was no one at table except the party
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 153 
 
 at the house. Fane did not come down till 
 the soup had been removed. Until his 
 arrival, scarcely anything had been said. 
 
 " Will you have some soup, Mr. Fane ?" 
 asked the Marchioness. 
 
 "Thank you, no. Will you accept my 
 apology again? Really I am ashamed of 
 this incurable un punctuality. Do you know, 
 I once had to call on the Duke of Wellington 
 on important business. He appointed eight 
 o'clock in the morning — positively, in the 
 morning. That was a command, of course. 
 But how was I to do it ? I had not been 
 up at that barbarous hour since I left Eton." 
 
 " I hope you managed to keep the ap- 
 pointment," said Miss Lechmere. 
 
 " yes. I supped a little later than usual, 
 and went to Apsley House the last thing be- 
 fore going to bed." 
 
 " Very ingenious," said Miss Lechmere, in 
 her customary tone of sarcasm. " I hope
 
 1 54 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 you have brought us some news from Lon- 
 don, Lord Waynflete." 
 
 ^'To be sure, Adrian," said Fane. "Do 
 you know I forgot you had gone to town, 7^ 
 there any news ?" 
 
 " Yes, a little. Charles Wells threw Lord 
 Ensor out of the Chandos Club window the 
 other day." 
 
 " And what did Ensor do ?" 
 
 " Picked himself up, shook his fist at the 
 window — not at Charley, you may be sure 
 — and vowed he would never enter the 
 vulgar place again. If he keeps his word, 
 there will be some rejoicing." 
 
 " So I should think," said Fane, languidly 
 searching for the choice morsels of a red 
 mullet on his plate. " Anything else ?" 
 
 " Yes, several things. Lady Adela Rad- 
 ford has run away with somebody, but at 
 present it is not known who is the victim." 
 
 " Why, that's the fourth time," said Fane. 
 "What more?"
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 155 
 
 " Rabsliakeh Grimes has given up the 
 sixty per cent business, and bought a 
 princely estate in the West Riding." 
 
 " Sorry for that," said Fane. 
 
 " But surely," said the Marchioness, " you 
 have brought us some news more interesting 
 than this, Adrian ?" 
 
 "I suited myself to Fane," he replied. 
 " He cares for nothing but club gossip of the 
 sort 1 have just been inventing to amuse him. 
 There's not a word of it true, Harry, upon 
 my honour." 
 
 Fane took a glass of Roederer. 
 
 "And you had no adventures at all?" said 
 Miss Lech mere. 
 
 Adrian had intended to say no word of 
 the little governess, except to Lady Wrays- 
 bury, but this Miss Lechmere vexed him 
 with her pertinacity, and he thought he would 
 tell his slight story. 
 
 "Adventures are not frequent in these
 
 156 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 days, Miss Lechmere," he said. '' Still I had 
 one." 
 
 " What was it ?" she asked. 
 
 " I came down from London to Rothcastle 
 with a very charming girl." 
 
 ^' You call that an adventure?" 
 
 " Yes. I think that to meet a charming 
 girl is an adventure both pleasant and rare." 
 
 " Love at first sight, Adrian ?" said Lord 
 Wraysbury. 
 
 " No, sir, but the adventure was curious. 
 The child was fresh from an orphan school, 
 and was going as governess to Mowbray's 
 place. I found out that she was the very 
 same girl that was mentioned to you, mam- 
 ma, as a governess for Pet." 
 
 Lady Mary's familiar name was at this 
 moment Pet. But Adrian, a great coiner 
 of names and phrases, generally gave her a 
 new name about once a month. 
 
 *' That is singular," said the Marchioness.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 157 
 
 "I wonder why she preferred Mr. Mow- 
 bray?" 
 
 " Easily guessed," said Lord Wraysbury. 
 "He probably oiFered the higher salary. 
 What did you propose, Alice ?" 
 
 " Fifty pounds," said the Marchioness. 
 
 " Fifty ! Depend on it Mowbray would 
 not condescend to pay less than a hundred." 
 
 " You're right, sir," said his son. " The 
 girl, who is as simple as if she were no older 
 than Pet, was about to tell me why she was 
 ordered to go to Mowbray's, and suddenly 
 stopped short. That is it, no doubt." 
 
 '* Did you like her, Adrian ?" asked Lady 
 Wraysbury. 
 
 " Yes, I certainly did like her, though 
 whether she would make a good governess 
 or not I cannot conjecture. But she is the 
 most perfectly simple little girl I ever met ; 
 she is absolutely ignorant of the world ; she 
 has positively been kept within the high
 
 158 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 walls of a London orphan school ever since 
 she was seven years old." 
 
 "You must have found her dreadfully 
 stupid," said Miss Lechmere. 
 
 " Not in the least. Her perfect ignorance 
 was accompanied by a quick intelligence. 
 But I can't help speculating on her first in- 
 troduction to the world. How will she get 
 on, I wonder ? I wish she had come here, 
 mamma. It would have been quite an inte- 
 resting psychological study." 
 
 "Long word, Adrian," said Fane. "Might 
 as well say flirtation. It's easier to under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Really," remarked Miss Lechmere, "that 
 interesting orphan seems quite to have fasci- 
 nated you, Lord Waynflete. I think her not 
 coming here has been quite a fortunate 
 escape. I can't understand your caring so 
 much for a young person from a charity 
 school."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 159 
 
 Adrian did not reply, and Lady Wrays- 
 bury rose. When the ladies were gone, a 
 last bottle of Chateau Lafitte, of the comet 
 year, drew the gentlemen closer together. 
 
 "That Miss Lechmere wants to marry 
 you, Adrian," said Fane. " Egad, this is 
 noble claret, my lord." 
 
 " It's a tolerable wine," quoth the Mar- 
 quis. ■' 1 like it. Bad claret is an utter 
 abomination, but the very best claret is the 
 wine of wines. Burgundy has nothing so 
 bad as Bordeaux, bat then it has nothing 
 quite so good." 
 
 "Not even Rothschild's 'old Clo,' that 
 Thackeray joked about," said Fane. " But, 
 Adrian, my dear fellow, 'ware hawk. The 
 Lechmere is dangerous." 
 
 " She does seem rather fond of you," says 
 the Marquis, laughing. 
 
 " I don't return it," says his son. " I've 
 an intuitive dislike for that young woman.
 
 160 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 on the Dr. Fell principle. She's handsome, 
 and dresses well, and talks well, and has 
 plenty of money ; but I cannot help feeling 
 an antipathy towards her." 
 
 "After which," said the Marquis, "sup- 
 pose we go to the ladies." 
 
 Lord Waynflete, at a convenient time 
 next morning, when the stately Miss Lech- 
 mere was supposed to be immersed- in her 
 studies — I believe she was quietly improving 
 the colour of her eyebrows and lips — had a 
 talk about his adventure with the governess 
 to Lady Wraysbury and his little sister. 
 
 " The poor child will never stay at Mow- 
 bray's," he said. "It is the talk of the vil- 
 lage that Mowbray's daughter is a regular 
 little fiend in temper. Besides, this girl 
 has never known the world, and her 
 straightforward ways will shock a cad like 
 Mowbray. Did I tell you that they had 
 not sent to meet her, and that I had her
 
 MAEQUIS AND MEKCHANT. 161 
 
 taken to Mowbray's in our omnibus ? " 
 
 " No ; you did not tell me that last night." 
 
 '* I forgot. I wish I had — it would have 
 made your friend, Miss Lechmere, so angry. 
 That young person thinks that people with 
 less than ten thousand a year have no right 
 to exist." 
 
 ^' You don't like Miss Lechmere," said the 
 Marchioness. 
 
 " I don't think you're enthusiastically fond 
 of her," said Adrian, with a laugh. " I wish 
 she'd cross the river, and marry Mowbray." 
 
 I wonder whether Lily Lechmere heard 
 these words ? Her hand must have been 
 on the door : she entered even as they were 
 uttered. Lord Waynflete retreated, saying, 
 
 " Good-bye, mamma. I am going down 
 to the decoys to look for wild-fowl." 
 
 Dinner was at eight at Mowbray Mansion 
 also on the night of Miss Gray's arrival. 
 Mr. Mowbray was away from home, which 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 accounted for no carriage having been sent 
 to meet the governess. Under his eye 
 everything was punctual and regular ; but 
 his servants did not practise absolute fidelity 
 in his absence. When Amy Gray reached 
 the great house in Lord Wraysbury's car- 
 riage, there was a considerable amount of 
 surprise and bewilderment ; but in due time 
 her arrival was understood, and she was 
 shown into the private apartment of Miss 
 Priscilla Gust. 
 
 " Dear, dear," said that old lady, when 
 she understood who Amy was — " how glad 
 I am to see you !" 
 
 Which was strictly true ; for, during Miss 
 Gust's short residence at Mowbray Mansion, 
 her life had been rendered perfectly miser- 
 able by the vagaries of Ethel Evelyn. That 
 wicked young witch beheld in the vague 
 irresolute old lady an easy victim : and the 
 tricks she played upon her were so numer-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 163 
 
 ous and daring that Mis3 Oust began to 
 wish she had never left her humble cottage. 
 And yet she liked good living and general 
 comfort; and her spacious bed-room, with a 
 glorious fire on winter nights, and the 
 plenteous dinners and generous wines of 
 Mowbray Mansion, contrasted pleasantly 
 with her damp little chamber at the cot- 
 tage, and the boiled neck of mutton with 
 turnips which was her favourite festival at 
 home. Well, there was a governess com- 
 ing : she would wait and see. 
 
 When she saw and talked with the new- 
 comer, she was not relieved from her fears. 
 The gentle simple Amy looked by no means 
 a tigress-tamer. However she hoped for 
 the best, and received Miss Gray with the 
 utmost kindness. 
 
 '* My Cousin Mowbray is away," she 
 said, " for two or three days. I am so sorry 
 I forgot to send the barouche for you. He 
 
 M 2
 
 164 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 will be quite angry. But really I have no 
 memory now, though I used to have an ex- 
 cellent one when I was your age. I could 
 remember the multiplication table and the 
 apostles' creed quite easily. Indeed, I once 
 learnt the third chapter of Proverbs^ because 
 my grandfather offered me a guinea to do it. 
 There were good old-fashioned guineas in 
 those days, my dear. Mustn't I have had a 
 good memory ?"" 
 
 " Indeed you must," said Amy. 
 
 " But you would like to go to your room, 
 and get ready for dinner. There is nobody 
 but you and me. My cousin Mowbray is 
 away — and Ethel Evelyn is gone to bed ; 
 she wasn't well this afternoon. She is rather 
 wild, you know, and she got into the jam 
 closet, and it gave her a stomach ache. So 
 we shall dine quietly together, my dear." 
 
 Amy Gray was shown to her room, and 
 prepared herself for dinner. She was rather
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 165 
 
 bewildered. Miss Oust was a charming old 
 lady ; but she saw at once that from her she 
 would get no guidance. However, she 
 could only hope for the best, and resolve to 
 do the best on her own part ; so, being a 
 good little girl, she knelt down at her bed- 
 side, and prayed an earnest prayer for help, 
 which was not ineifective. I won t discuss 
 any theories of prayer; but the strong 
 movement of human will is always a power 
 in the universe. 
 
 Dinner was served for Miss Oust and Miss 
 Gray in the little dining-room — a charming 
 cabinet, exquisitely furnished, with priceless 
 pictures on the walls. This was where Ed- 
 ward Mowbray dined when the company did 
 not exceed four. There were two other din- 
 ing-rooms — one, where from eight to twelve 
 could be comfortably entertained — another, 
 for great occasions, with room for a hundred 
 and twenty.
 
 166 MAKQUIS AND MEECHANT, 
 
 Strangely new was all this to the little girl 
 from the Orphan School. Every trifle per- 
 plexed her. She had a special taste for art ; 
 she had been selected as a promising pupil 
 to proceed beyond the customary limits in 
 drawing and painting; and the pictures 
 sumptuously placed upon these walls were 
 to her a vision, a revelation. There was 
 one just opposite — a cool bend of the 
 Thames, with a punt and some people fish- 
 ing ; nothing original or poetic, but the work 
 of an artist who could put air and water on 
 canvas. It fascinated her for the time. But 
 she was obliged to turn her eyes to the 
 table, and to do her best to avoid solecisms. 
 
 She succeeded very well. The grave 
 man-servant behind her chair may have 
 found her out, but Miss Oust did not. Only 
 imagine however her difficulties — coming 
 straight from her nunnery-prison to a country 
 house, and dinner served on silver plate — a
 
 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 167 
 
 man-servant, whose breath she could feel on 
 her neck, which she didn't like — strange 
 viands, of which she had no experience — 
 *' Champagne, miss ?" from a butler who 
 looked far more venerable than the chap- 
 lain of the Orphan School — entrees and en- 
 tremets^ puddings and conserves — and who 
 can be surprised if she committed solecisms ? 
 1 don't say that she did, mind ; but am sure 
 that if she did she may be forgiven. And 
 after all, the best of us are liable to err. 
 I have seen a man eat vinegar with oysters. 
 I have seen a man drink sherry with salmon. 
 I have even seen a man take bread sauce 
 with pheasant. And, being tolerant, I 
 have forgiven them, and made no mention 
 of their crimes. 
 
 Dinner was over. Amy was eating some 
 green ginger under Miss Gust's direction, 
 and marvelling whence there came such a 
 multitude of delicious things, when the door
 
 168 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 was suddenly flung open, and in ruslied 
 Miss Ethel Evelyn Mowbray in her night- 
 dress. 
 
 " !" she shrieked, in that metallic tone 
 which invariably indicates bad temper — ^' so 
 I'm sent to bed, and here's the new gover- 
 ness. Give me something nice. Aunt Pris — 
 I want something very nice." 
 
 Wherewith she climbed into Miss Gust's 
 lap, and helped herself to the nearest thing 
 on the table which looked at all nice. 
 
 " She is rather unmanageable," said the 
 old lady, endeavouring to smile, but pro- 
 ducing only an agonised grin. " But she 
 will really be a very good child — with a 
 little training. Ethel r 
 
 These last words rose to a kind of shriek : 
 for the amiable Miss Mowbray, while Miss 
 Gust was talking to Amy, had taken a pin 
 from the old lady's dress, and was sticking it 
 savagely into her arm.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 169 
 
 " I think you had better go to bed again, 
 Ethel," said Miss Oust, mildly. But it was 
 not until she was half asleep that the little 
 animal could be got rid of. 
 
 Poor Amy Gray looked forward to her 
 work with considerable alarm. 
 
 " She is a naughty child," said Miss Oust. 
 " But she really has an excellent disposition, 
 and I have no doubt you will soon bring 
 her into order. I wish she wouldn't stick 
 pins into me." 
 
 Wherewith the old lady rubbed her arm 
 and looked lugubrious. 
 
 When Amy Gray awoke next morning to 
 her work, she felt that she had heavy busi- 
 ness before her. And very difficult business 
 indeed she found it. This little girl whom 
 she had to manage was perfectly unmanage- 
 able ; she was as untam cable as a fly ; she 
 had been spoilt all her life, and meant to go 
 on being spoilt. Amy did not know what
 
 170 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 to do. She asked Miss Oust, and got no 
 reply worth having. Mr. Mowbray himself 
 was detained in Manchester by some im- 
 portant business — and so this inexperienced 
 little governess was left quite without aid or 
 counsel. 
 
 The fact Avas that Ethel Evelyn Mowbray 
 did not want a governess. She had southern 
 blood in her, and was a precocious child, and 
 in her ninth year was as clever as many a 
 girl in her teens. She liked to have her own 
 way ; to get into a boat, and row down the 
 Ashe ; to ride her pet pony without a saddle ; 
 to be generally independent and unladylike. 
 Such instincts in a little girl are healthy 
 and natural — say what you will, I am not 
 to be persuaded that girls should be dosed 
 to death with Latin and mathematics. But 
 unluckily Miss Mowbray had two charac- 
 teristics which are simply abominable : she 
 was spiteful and she was cunning.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 171 
 
 Amy was distracted by the vagaries of her 
 pupil. She consulted Miss Cust : but that 
 dear old lady had been driven to her wit's 
 end long ago. It wasn't a long drive, as 
 Artemus Ward would sav. 
 
 Mr. Mowbray was not expected to return 
 for at least a week. Meanwhile, our little 
 Amy found herself in charge of a child that 
 was rather more like a goblin than anything 
 else ; that delighted in mischief, and was not 
 amenable to reason. Amy tried to lecture 
 her, kindly and pleasantly, on the folly and 
 naughtiness of her behaviour — and the little 
 elf laughed in her face and went off to do 
 more mischief. 
 
 Utterly in despair, Amy sat down one 
 evening and wrote a long letter to Miss 
 Pinnock. She wrote it by her dressing-room 
 fire, and occupied quite two hours in its 
 composition. It was lucid, pathetic, elo- 
 quent. It told the whole story of Amy's
 
 172 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 surroundings. It was a charming letter, 
 the thorough outpouring of a young girl's 
 difficulties and troubles. Amy wrote it at 
 night, and then said her prayers and got into 
 bed ; and then couldn't sleep soundly, but 
 dreamt that in some way or other Miss 
 Pinnock had been turned into a very naughty 
 girl, and she had to manage her ; and then 
 woke unrefreshed in the morning, and read 
 through her letter before she dressed, and 
 thought she had better not send it. 
 
 However, at last she determined she 
 would send it, and it was duly posted, and 
 reached the Orphan School. Miss Pinnock 
 read it at breakfast, and smiled. And by 
 the very first post she replied. 
 
 Well might she do so, since her letter did 
 
 not take long to write. It contained two 
 
 words only. 
 
 * # # * * * * 
 
 Those two monosyllables, seven letters in
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 173 
 
 all — and in the number seven there is mystic 
 significance — solved the problem for Amy. 
 She was a good girl, and did as she was told. 
 The recipe acted like a charm. Ethel Mow- 
 bray soon found out that her governess was 
 her best friend; she became more docile; 
 she took to Mangnall's Questions and Mrs. 
 Markham's Histories as if she really and 
 truly liked them. She was quite polite to 
 Miss Oust, and treated the servants as if they 
 were human beings. 
 
 When Mr. Mowbray came home, which 
 was nearly a fortnight after Miss Gray's ar- 
 rival, he was simply astounded at the state 
 of affairs. He had almost forgotten about 
 this governess whom he had engaged. 
 When he suddenly recollected her, he 
 formed a picture of a tall gaunt woman, 
 quite incapable of being mistaken for a lady. 
 He got home just in time for luncheon, and 
 found Miss Gust, Miss Gray, and his daugh-
 
 174 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 ter sitting at that meal. Ethel jumped up 
 and welcomed him in her usual impulsive 
 manner, for she had a passionate love for 
 her father ; then she went back to her seat, 
 and Priscilla introduced Miss Gray to him. 
 He was quite taken aback. This shy frank 
 beautiful creature was not at all his ideal of 
 a governess. He anticipated something 
 bony, angular, ill-tempered. 
 
 His surprise was heightened when he 
 found that his daughter was tamed. The 
 child had been a perfect nuisance to him. 
 He had no time to bring her into order ; 
 and if he had, might not have known the 
 way to do it. This little governess from an 
 orphan school had got him out of his diffi- 
 culty, and already achieved a marvellous 
 metamorphosis in his child. To him it seem- 
 ed miraculous. 
 
 . And then, as was very natural, he looked 
 at the little governess. Really she was a
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 175 
 
 charming little lady, and blended beauty 
 and intelligence with an unusual felicity. 
 Mowbray made up his mind that she was 
 precisely the sort of person to fall in love 
 with. He watched her quietly, and thought 
 her perfect in everything. When a middle- 
 aged gentleman like Mowbray falls in love, 
 the symptoms are serious. 
 
 It must not be imagined that during this 
 time no other eyes had regarded the little 
 governess. Adrian Lord Waynflete, un- 
 utterably bothered by the Lechmere, seve- 
 ral times crossed the Ashe with intent to 
 meet his pretty fellow-traveller, if she should 
 appear. Patience, like other virtues, is oc- 
 casionally rewarded : and it so happened 
 that Adrian met Miss Gray on the day when 
 she had written her letter to Miss Pinnock. 
 She was going to post it. Women have 
 their small superstitions about such matters, 
 and think a letter more likely to reach
 
 176 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 its destination if they post it themselves. 
 
 On this occasion Lord Waynflete showed 
 her the way to the post-office, and gave 
 her certain valuable information as to the 
 hours of posting. Big Dog was with him, 
 and made her acquaintance at once. His 
 first sniff seemed to give him a key to her 
 character, and he was perfectly satisfied. 
 
 By some curious coincidence, which I 
 confess myself unable to explain, it fre- 
 quently happened thereafter that the gover- 
 ness, going to the post-office, or to Miss 
 Avery's shop for some fragment of finery, 
 found herself suddenly almost knocked 
 down by Big Dog's romping approach, and 
 had to shake hands with Big Dog's master. 
 The village began to talk — Miss Avery espe- 
 cially. She led the choir. And one day 
 she considered it her duty to give a lecture 
 to Miss Amy Gray herself. 
 
 " Have you seen Lord Waynflete lately,
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 177 
 
 Miss Gray ?" she asked, after selling her a 
 scrap of lace, or some such trumpery. 
 
 "0 yes, I met him just now, with Big 
 Dog. What a beautiful dog that is !" 
 
 " Which do you admire most, the dog or 
 the man ?" 
 
 Amy Gray, having a hidden admiration 
 for Lord Waynflete, and by no means relish- 
 ing Miss Avery's comparing him to a dog, 
 thought it best to say nothing. 
 
 *' Has it ever occurred to you, Miss Gray," 
 said the shop woman, presently, ^' that you 
 are unwise in being so often seen in the 
 village with Lord Waynflete ? People say 
 such unkind things, you know." 
 
 " Surely, Miss Avery," said the little girl, 
 with the swift anger of innocence, " there is 
 no harm in my walking through this village 
 with a gentleman whom I know. What 
 harm Z5 there? Tell me?" 
 
 The child stamped her foot so impetuously 
 
 VOL, I. N
 
 178 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 that she almost frightened Miss Avery, whose 
 blood did not move quite so rapidly. 
 
 "But you see," said that excellent old 
 lady, "he is a lord, and you are only a 
 governess. Don't you understand what I 
 mean ? If you were of equal rank it would 
 be different." 
 
 Miss Avery talked what was a perfectly 
 unknown language to Miss Gray, as, indeed, 
 to all other innocent creatures. But Amy 
 was frightened by these mysterious intima- 
 tions, and so, the next time she met Lord 
 Waynflete, she frankly told him that she 
 thought they had better not meet again. 
 
 "Why not. Miss Gray?" he asked. 
 
 She said she had heard it was rather im- 
 proper for two people of different rank to 
 meet in such a way. 
 
 " Who in the world has been giving you 
 lessons in etiquette?" he asked, with a laugh.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 179 
 
 " You are not afraid to be seen in my com- 
 pany, are you ?" 
 
 " Not at all," she replied. 
 
 "Still," he said, reluctantly, ''one must, I 
 suppose, pay homage to public opinion — even 
 though it is the opinion of a small village 
 where the majority of the population can 
 neither read nor write. Well, Miss Gray, I 
 won't come down this way quite so often 
 when you happen to be going to the post- 
 office. Will that do ?" 
 
 " I am sure I am always glad to see you, 
 Lord Waynflete." 
 
 " And I am always glad to see you," he 
 rejoined. "And we'll meet again, depend 
 upon it. At the same time, if Eliza Avery 
 has begun to talk, other people are talking 
 also. You can always tell in her shop which 
 way the wind blows. So I won't subject 
 you to annoyance, my dear Miss Gray. And 
 
 n2
 
 180 MAKQUIS AND MEKCHANT. 
 
 now I'll go and scold Miss Avery for chatter- 
 ing to you." 
 
 He turned one way, and she the other. 
 Then he looked back, and was charmed with 
 her dainty figure, and the easy lightness of 
 her step ; and said to himself — 
 
 " That's the girl. I might just as well have 
 asked her to marry me."
 
 181 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GIPSIES ON THE COMMON. 
 
 T ITTLE Amy Gray, being a very inno- 
 -*-^ cent simple child, had not the remot- 
 est idea that she was an object of decided 
 ^interest to those two important personages, 
 Lord Waynflete and Mr. Mowbray. Having 
 spent her short life in a kind of scholastic 
 prison, completely separate from the world, 
 she was wholly ignorant of many matters 
 which the girl of the period perfectly un- 
 derstands. The world was new to her in all 
 respects. She had never tasted game, or 
 drunk champagne, or seen a hot-house 
 flower, or made acquaintance with horses
 
 182 MAEQUIS AND MEKCHANT. 
 
 and dogs, till she came to Mowbray Man- 
 sion. Least of all had she seen any men. I 
 would compare her to Miranda ; but per- 
 haps the excellent elderly managers of that 
 Orphan School would complain that I re- 
 garded them as so many Calibans. They 
 would doubtless be modest enough to ad- 
 mit that they were not precisely of the 
 Ferdinand type. 
 
 Some of my lady readers may perhaps 
 insinuate that Amy was not quite so inno- 
 cent as she looked. What did the little 
 minx mean by meeting Lord Waynflete so 
 frequently in the vicinity of the village post- 
 office ? Miss Avery certainly did not give 
 her credit for too much simplicity. " Sly 
 girl that," she was wont to reflect, " though 
 she looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her 
 mouth. She thinks she's got hold of Lord 
 Wavnflete. But I ffuess she's making: a 
 mistake : those young noblemen are not so
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 183 
 
 easily taken in. Well, I hope no harm will 
 come to the poor silly young thing." Thus 
 Miss Avery would meditate, and then put 
 on her spectacles, and set seriously to make 
 up her accounts. 
 
 Amy of course saw that Lord Waynflete 
 liked her company ; but more than this she 
 saw not, and her head was unvexed by any 
 foolish visions. She was pleased to see him, 
 certainly. To meet him in Ashridge was 
 an agreeable variety in her life. And she 
 was wholly amazed when Miss Avery 
 amiably warned her that there was some- 
 thing wrong in such meetings. She accepted 
 the statement without question. At the Or- 
 phan School, all sorts of things had been 
 considered wrong. It was improper to run 
 too fast, or to sing too loud, or to whistle, 
 or to eat as if you were hungry, or to 
 laugh on Sundays. Indeed so many things 
 were improper that Amy was not at all
 
 184 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 surprised to find an immense number of un- 
 intelligible improprieties in the outer world. 
 Lord Waynflete, as we have seen, had a 
 strong feeling towards Amy, and, as he 
 walked home after their last interview, felt 
 half sorry that he had not told her so. At 
 the same time, he was a little in doubt. 
 There was a cousin, very charming, and a 
 great heiress, whom everybody imagined 
 he would marry eventually. It was not ex- 
 pected that he would marry in a hurry. 
 His friends, who knew his temper, thought 
 that he would take his time about it, but 
 ultimately select the most eligible lady, a 
 happy combination of rank, wealth, and 
 beauty. They called him a cool hand, a 
 devilish sensible fellow, not the man to 
 make a mistake in marriage : the notion of 
 his falling in love would have appeared to 
 most of his acquaintances eminently ridi- 
 culous.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 185 
 
 There were three people who held a dif- 
 ferent view of his character : his father (who 
 had fallen in love once or twice himself), 
 the Marchioness, who read his character 
 with feminine intuition, and George Me- 
 tivier, a poet, who recognised the poetic ele- 
 ment in Adrian's composition. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Mowbray was looking at the 
 little girl with appropriative eyes. Towards 
 her employer Amy's feeling was one of pro- 
 found respect ; she had been trained to ven- 
 erate her superiors, and to obey without 
 question. When she had consulted Miss 
 Pinnock in her difficulty, she was quite 
 frightened at the thought of following the 
 advice given ; but she had never disobeyed 
 Miss Pinnock in her life, and so she did as 
 she was bid. Next to Miss Pinnock, who 
 was the idol of her youth, she venerated 
 Mr. Mowbray. He seemed to her a superior 
 being, of more than paternal age. Oddly
 
 186 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 enough, she had never felt at all respectful 
 towards Adrian. He seemed her equal. 
 They had been friends since their first meet- 
 ing in the railway-carriage ; she never 
 thought about his rank and wealth. She 
 only thought he was the handsomest and 
 most courteous gentleman she had ever 
 seen. 
 
 Edward Mowbray was astonished at his 
 governess. The product of a charity school 
 to be a lady so easy, and unconscious ! Such 
 was his thought ; it might have been re- 
 torted — who was he, to set up for a gentle- 
 man ? He found himself perpetually think- 
 ing of the little girl ; her face, figure, air, 
 were full of charm ; she was like a statue of 
 Nausikaa, that he had set up in an al- 
 cove in one of the great Mowbray Mansion 
 corridors. Anybody like her he certainly 
 had never seen : and then how completely 
 she had tamed that wicked wilful little
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 187 
 
 daughter of his ! How would she do as 
 his wife ? He thought she would suit him 
 perfectly. 
 
 ' But Mrs. Grundy has much to do with 
 the fates of men. Mowbray's Mrs. Grundy 
 assumed the form of his Manchester friends. 
 It was the general opinion amongst them 
 that he would marry again. And it was as- 
 sumed as a certainty, that if he did marry 
 again, it w^ould be some lady of noble 
 birth and large estates. 
 
 " That's what Ned Mowbray will do, sir," 
 Tom Stewart used to say, as he took his 
 third bottle of Lafitte at the Queen's. " He's 
 an out-and-out radical, you know ; but he'll 
 found a family, and his son will be a peer. 
 Mowbray isn't the man to throw away 
 his position." 
 
 The merchant knew that this was the 
 general opinion about him in Manchester ; 
 that in fact Manchester looked forward to
 
 188 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 his doing the city honour by making his 
 way into the ranks of the aristocracy : and 
 he felt that if he married his governess he 
 should be disappointing those splendid ex- 
 pectations. It hath been said that omne quod 
 exit in ess is good : still there is some differ- 
 ence between countess and governess, not- 
 withstanding the similarity of termination. 
 
 But I have stopped long enough describ- 
 ing people's feelings. Let us go on with 
 our tale. Rothcastle, as I have said, is a 
 small town, whose only claim to importance 
 is its enormous fair. Once a year it comes, 
 in autumn, and the village for a short time 
 has the population of a city. Rothcastle is 
 really a poor sort of village, situate where 
 several muddy roads converge. The mud 
 at Rothcastle is an institution : there is no 
 hard stone nearer than Mount Sorel, so 
 they macadamize with something almost as 
 soft as loaf sugar, , When the road is out of
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 189 
 
 repair, you may sink in the mud to your 
 waist ; if the stone is just put down, you will 
 not go much higher than your knees. It is 
 a most lonely and forlorn and dreary vil- 
 lage at ordinary times ; but when the fair 
 comes it is pretty lively. 
 
 Vast flocks of sheep are driven in, and 
 penned with hurdles. Mighty herds of cattle 
 arrive, and long springs of horses. Buyers 
 of many classes throng to the fair ; farmers 
 and cattle-dealers are numerous; and the 
 London livery stables all send agents to a 
 fair where a horse saleable at three hundred 
 guineas may sometimes be picked up for 
 thirty. Pickpockets and swindlers and card- 
 sharpers come down in force, as may be ex- 
 pected ; and of course detectives come also. 
 It is a singular rustic carnival, this fair, whose 
 origin lies in remote antiquity. It is men- 
 tioned, I think, in Edward the Confessor's 
 reign.
 
 190 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 One tribe of folk who never fail to put in 
 an appearance are tlie gipsies. What is 
 Lavengro about that he tells us no more of 
 that strange people ? Whence came they? 
 That is a difficult question ; but there is one 
 quite as difficult : whence come they ? How 
 is it that on a Derby Day the hill at Epsom 
 is thronged with them, so that you are sur- 
 prised at there being such a multitude in the 
 land ? Whence come they, those innumer- 
 able old crones who gibber and scream, and 
 hold up broken glasses and cups for the 
 remainder of your champagne ? 
 
 Well, we have already seen that it had 
 been the custom of the gipsies to camp on 
 Ashridge Common on their way to Roth- 
 castle Fair. Hereunto Mr. Mowbray strongly 
 objected ; and, when the fair time approach- 
 ed, he gave orders to his keepers to concen- 
 trate themselves on the common, and to 
 expel all trespassers.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 191 
 
 The time came. It was two days before 
 the fair. A pleasant October day, with a 
 constant struggle between the sunshine and 
 the mist ; all the foliage turning marvellous 
 colours ; the little river Ashe brimful of 
 water. Altogether a delightful day — it drew 
 Lord Waynflete out immediately after break- 
 fast. For some time he had not seen Me- 
 tivier, so he thought he would look in upon 
 him. When he and Big Dog got beyond 
 the park gates it became evident that there 
 was something unusual going on. Lord 
 Waynflete knew Rothcastle Fair ; he gene- 
 rally rode over to see it in progress. He 
 liked to study the faces of men ; especially 
 when many classes of men are brought to- 
 gether under the pressure of excitement. 
 And, when he passed the gates, and saw 
 some gipsy vans on the road, he was re- 
 minded of the coming event. He walked 
 across to the Waynflete Arms, and while so
 
 192 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 doing was surprised at the great number of 
 gipsy vans and carts that there were on the 
 road. In front and behind, as far as he 
 could see, the procession appeared con- 
 tinuous. 
 
 Burton was sitting on a bench outside his 
 door, with eyes wide open, wondering at the 
 cavalcade. You wouldn't have thought there 
 were so many gipsies in England. Van 
 after van filled with women and children ; 
 girls riding on donkeys ; gaunt men striding 
 along, with cunning lurchers at their heels. 
 This was the sort of thing, and there really 
 seemed no end to it. 
 
 ^* What's the meaning of this ?" said Lord 
 Waynflete to Burton. 
 
 " Good morning, my lord," says the colos- 
 sal innkeeper. " They've been on the road 
 ever since four this morning, and when 
 there's any end coming to them I'm sure I 
 don't know."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 193 
 
 " But why are they so much more numer- 
 ous than usual ? I had no idea there were 
 so many gipsies in the world." 
 
 " It's all about the right to the Common, 
 my lord. You know what Black Jack 
 Johnson said. Well, he's to be here ; and 
 he's brought together all the force of the 
 gipsies ; and they mean to see if the Squire 
 can turn them out." 
 
 Adrian thought he would go and see the 
 fun, so he strode along the village street, 
 and made his way to the Common. There 
 was an encampment, sure enough. Already 
 the wide expanse was so covered with gipsy 
 vans that it seemed as if no room could be 
 found for any others. Still, on they came, 
 an interminable procession, and defiled upon 
 the heath, and took up such positions as 
 as they could get. Mr. Mowbray's httle 
 army of keepers were practically powerless ; 
 they had not come down till sunrise, when 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 the heath was already dotted with these 
 vagabond vehicles ; and they arrived so 
 regularly, and poured in so continuous a 
 stream, that Mowbray's men could really do 
 nothing. 
 
 Mr. Mowbray, angry beyond description, 
 had sent a messenger to the Chief Constable 
 of the county. That gentleman arrived and 
 surveyed the Common, by that time meta- 
 morphosed into a Bohemian city, and profess- 
 ed his inability to be of any use. 
 
 " What's the good of the police ?" asked 
 Mowbray, curtly. 
 
 " I could not possibly get together a suffi- 
 cient force to clear this Common for several 
 hours," said the Chief Constable, " if indeed 
 I could do it at all without extraneous aid. 
 Now, as they will all start for Rothcastle 
 early to-morrow morning, it would be ab- 
 surd to do anything incomplete and in- 
 efficient."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 195 
 
 The Chief Constable was a very good 
 officer, but rather too fond of tall talk. 
 
 " But confound it ! Hughes, am I to be 
 deprived of my manorial rights because the 
 police are not strong enough ? Am I to be 
 defied by these audacious vagabonds ? Do 
 you consider it the duty of a Chief Constable 
 to sit quietly on horseback and see the law 
 broken, and make no attempt to prevent it 
 or to punish it? I'm not at all of that 
 opinion." 
 
 "Nor am I," said Mr. Hughes. "But 
 you must see, Mr. Mowbray, the absolute 
 impossibility of clearing this Common. The 
 people will go off in the course of the night. 
 Just now they are coming on as fast as pos- 
 sible, and there seems no end to them." 
 
 " And I can do nothing," said Mowbray, 
 angrily. " It is enough to make a man 
 swear he wont trouble himself with landed 
 property." 
 
 o2
 
 196 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 The scene was at this time singularly pic- 
 turesque. It had been a tranquil summer : 
 so that now in October there was more 
 foliage than usual upon the trees, and the 
 hues were more vivid and various. The 
 gorse was still yellow, and even the heather 
 had some little purple left. Mowbray and 
 the Chief Constable (the Squire on a magnifi- 
 cent roan cob) had halted their horses to « 
 look at the sight. On both sides of the road 
 the gipsy vans and carts were numberless ; 
 the horses and donkeys were loose, grazing; 
 the fires were burning, and the cauldrons 
 bubbling above them. And, as they watched 
 the scene, more and more detachments ar- 
 rived, and the Common grew populous. 
 
 Mowbray bit his lip and said nothing. In- 
 deed, there was nothing to say, and there 
 was nothing to do. He felt that the Chief 
 Constable was perfectly right. The gipsies 
 would be all gone to-morrow, but they had
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 197 
 
 taken possession for the time, and there was 
 no mode of getting rid of them. 
 
 As the Squire and his ally of the con- 
 stabulary held in their horses and watched 
 the scene, Adrian came striding along with 
 Big Dog as his companion. Mowbray was 
 disgusted to see him at this moment of de- 
 feat, but tried to be civil. They exchanged 
 a few words. 
 
 " The gipsies are in great force this year, 
 Mr. Mowbray," said Adrian. " I am afraid 
 you will find them a nuisance." 
 
 "They are a nuisance," said Mowbray. 
 " I want to get them off the Common alto- 
 gether, and this is their way of revenging 
 themselves. And the police are afraid of 
 them. They daren't interfere." 
 
 " Is that true, Hughes ?" said Lord Wayn- 
 flete, laughing. " Afraid of a few gipsies ? 
 We shall positively have to call in the mili- 
 tary."
 
 198 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " I don't see anything I can do, my lord, 
 in such a case as this. Look at the thousands 
 of them. If I was to go round from one to 
 another, and tell them who I was, and that 
 they must go off at once, why, they'd laugh 
 at me." 
 
 "Very likely," quoth Adrian. "And a 
 Chief Constable ought by no means to be 
 laughed at. I suppose the best thing is to 
 leave them alone, and to take better pre- 
 caution next year." 
 
 " I'll take good care of that," said Mow- 
 bray. "They won't serve me this trick 
 
 twice." 
 
 At this moment came Black Jack Johnson 
 on the scene, riding a splendid brown stallion 
 about six years old, and followed by several 
 long strings of horses, collected for Roth- 
 castle Fair. Black Jack was pleased with 
 his triumph, and had probably been drink- 
 ing his favourite gin and ale in honour of
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 199 
 
 it. When he reached the group he exclaimed, 
 
 " Well, Squire, who's lord of the manor 
 to-day, you or me ?" 
 
 " Don't be impudent, Johnson," said Lord 
 Waynflete, who knew the man. " You know 
 you are doing what's against the law. The 
 best thing you can do is to take your people 
 off the Common as soon as possible." 
 
 "All right, my lord," he replied, and rode 
 on at once. 
 
 Adrian took leave of Mowbray, and went 
 on towards the abode of the Hermit. 
 
 "That gipsy fellow was very civil to 
 Lord Waynflete," said Mowbray to the con- 
 stable. 
 
 " Everybody likes Lord Waynflete," said 
 Hughes. 
 
 " Damned if I do !" thought Mowbray. 
 
 " You see," continued the chief of police, 
 " the Waynfletes have had these estates for 
 many hundred years. And then they are
 
 200 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 good to the poor, and affable " [hafFable, I 
 think he said] " to everybody. I don't 
 think there's another gentleman in England 
 that knows the people about him as Lord 
 Waynflete does. He treats everybody 
 alike." 
 
 " There must be some distinction of rank," 
 said Mowbray, coldly. 
 
 " In course," returned the Chief Con- 
 stable. "And I suppose Lord Waynflete 
 remembers it sometimes, for I've heard peo- 
 ple call him proud and haughty. But I 
 never found him so." 
 
 Meanwhile, the subject of this colloquy 
 had made his way to Metivier's. The Hut 
 had a gate upon its lawn looking right over 
 the Common, and there Lord Waynflete 
 found his friend, with no hat, his long but 
 scanty grey locks floating in the autumnal 
 air. He was leaning on the gate and watch- 
 ing the gipsy encampments. It was now
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 201 
 
 sunset, and as the light decreased, the fires 
 sparkled pleasantly in the distance. 
 
 " What do you think of this ?" asked 
 Metivier. 
 
 '^ I think it uncommonly picturesque," 
 said Lord Waynflete. " Gipsies are a bad 
 lot, no doubt, but I should not care to sup- 
 press them violently. However, Mr. Mow- 
 bray takes quite a different view of the 
 case." 
 
 ^' Have you seen him ?" 
 
 " Yes, he's in a very wrathful state. He's 
 got Hughes here, the Chief Constable. Poor 
 Hughes says he can do nothing, so Mowbray 
 is in a terrible state of ire. And I could see 
 he was angry with me, so I suppose he has 
 heard that I am rather fond of gipsies than 
 otherwise." 
 
 " I am going to wander about on the 
 Common by-and-by with Black Jack John- 
 son. Stay and dine with me, and let us go
 
 202 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 together. You'll not see so many gipsies 
 together again, I fancy." 
 
 " I'll stay with pleasure," said Adrian. 
 " Shall I meet Black Jack at dinner ?" 
 
 " No," said Metivier. " He wouldn't 
 come, or I'd make him welcome. But he 
 has promised to have some cold beef and 
 strong ale before he starts." 
 
 ^^If I'm to dine with you," said Lord 
 Waynflete, '' you'll have to feed Big Dog 
 also." 
 
 " If I were quite as certain of pleasing 
 you as I am of pleasing him, I should feel 
 satisfied. He wants quantity : you want 
 quality." 
 
 " And I generally get it when I come to 
 see you. Why, 'tis worth while to visit you, 
 for the sake of a cup of coffee." 
 
 ^' Ah, my coffee is good, I know. And I 
 can give you a cliasse this evening. My 
 nephew, the Count, has sent me some
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 203 
 
 Kirschenwasser : very old it is, but very 
 mellow. That will be a variety. I have 
 no wine, as you know, but claret." 
 
 "There are few things better," said 
 Adrian. 
 
 "Ah, you English have great wines, 
 which you will not bring to perfection. 
 Your cider is a wine — if it were only made 
 carefully, it would be as good as Sauterne. 
 Your perry, which nobody ever drinks, is as 
 good as Moselle. But come, let us see if I 
 can give you any dinner." 
 
 Adrian and Big Dog followed Metivier 
 into the house, and to the room in which he 
 lived. Books, books, books, were on 
 shelves all around it ; were piled on the 
 floor ; were thrust into the oddest corners. 
 A very small iron bedstead stood in a re- 
 cess : there Metivier slept, if sleep he ever 
 did. But a small square table in the centre 
 of the room had a white cloth upon it ; and
 
 204 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 the silver and glass were antique and ele- 
 gant ; and that last luxury of light, a mag- 
 nesium lamp, stood on the table ready to 
 be ignited. 
 
 " Why, you are a millionaire," said Ad- 
 rian, when he saw it. '^ Do you burn 
 magnesium ? My governor can't afford it." 
 
 ^' I like a bright light," replied Metivier. 
 " My eyes are not what they were. I was, 
 in my youth, very long-sighted ; could de- 
 fine objects at an enormous distance ; but 
 that telescopic eye-sight perishes early. 
 Now, as night is the time I love, the time 
 when I read much and write a little, I want 
 light. Wherefore I extravagate in mag- 
 nesium. It is not much dearer than wax 
 candles." 
 
 The dinner was served by the deaf old 
 lady heretofore described. It was not a 
 bad dinner. The Ashe had yielded splen- 
 did pike : there followed a boiled neck of
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 205 
 
 mutton, with turnips : then carae some wood- 
 cock and snipe. If a man can't dine satis- 
 factorily on such materials, with an ample 
 supply of sound claret, I think he is to be 
 pitied. The coffee and chasse followed, and 
 Lord Waynflete kudized the Kirschenwasser. 
 
 By-and-by, as they sat talking that plea- 
 sant after-dinner nonsense, half-poetical and 
 half-philosophical, but wholly useless, which 
 is so intensely enjoyable, came a message 
 from Black Jack Johnson (who had fin- 
 ished his beef and ale), that it was time to 
 start. 
 
 " Let us have him in and look at him first," 
 says Adrian. 
 
 "To be sure. I wonder what he'll say to 
 Kirschenwasser?" 
 
 " He'll want some in a * moog.' " 
 
 Black Jack came up, looking positively 
 shy, and standing irresolutely at the door. He 
 was a great chief among the gipsies, the
 
 206 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 best boxer and wrestler of his time ; a fel- 
 low without fear, and with very few scru- 
 ples. But he didn't half like entering this 
 room, full of dangerous-looking books, and 
 with a little lamp burning in it that gave a 
 light equal almost to that of day. And he 
 was thoroughly afraid of that grey-haired 
 gentleman who owned the books and the 
 lamp. Of Lord Waynflete he had no fear ; 
 him he thought he understood ; he was a 
 lord, you know, and a country gentleman, 
 and a very good fellow, and would be kind 
 to you if you didn't poach. But this amaz- 
 ing old gentleman who lived at the Hut, and 
 never seemed to go to bed, and burned such 
 bright lights, was a mystery and a terror to 
 Jack Johnson. Even the Kirschenwasser, 
 which he drank with great gusto, seemed to 
 have something weird and uncanny about it. 
 Well, the three started forth to the 
 Common, and went from one encampment
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 207 
 
 to another for an hour or two. Black 
 Jack's presence was an immediate introduc- 
 tion : and the old crones instantly wanted 
 to tell their fortunes, while the young ones 
 looked wickedly at them, and endeavoured 
 to fascinate even the venerable Metivier. 
 It is a fact worth notice that, while gipsy 
 women will do anything in the way of 
 frolic fascination, their chastity is impreg- 
 nable. 
 
 After wandering from point to point, and 
 seeing several picturesque encampments. 
 Jack Johnson announced his intention of 
 taking them to see his great-grandmother, 
 Ursula Johnson. She was Queen of the 
 Camp, by reason of good blood and great 
 age. Both were obvious at once. The old 
 woman, very small, with very white hair 
 and very bright eyes, welcomed her visitors 
 with a charming mixture of dignity and 
 courtesy. Though only Queen of the Gipsies,
 
 208 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 she was quite a queen. She sat under the 
 roof of her van — which was a remarkably 
 good one — with as much pride and as fine a 
 condescension to inferior persons as if she 
 had been mistress of Windsor Castle. Nor 
 would she allow her guests to leave her 
 without entertainment. She gave them, 
 in quaint old-fangled cut glasses of unusual 
 size, a sparkling refreshing liquid which 
 turned out to be heather wine. 
 
 " Mami," said Jack Johnson, " is the only 
 one left who knows the secret of making 
 that wine. She will leave it, when she dies, 
 to little Ursula, my sister's daughter. But 
 she won't die yet, though she is pretty old." 
 
 " How old is she ?" asked Metivier, when 
 they had come across the heath into the 
 road, and were separating. 
 
 " She's a hundred and thirteen, sir," said 
 Black Jack. 
 
 They had come back into the road within
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 209 
 
 a few yards of the Hut, so M^tivier wished 
 his friend good night. When he was gone, 
 Adrian, who had occupied the interval in 
 lighting a cigar, said to his gipsy companion, 
 
 " What's the good of bringing all these 
 people on the Common, Johnson? They 
 look very nice, but it doesn't pay, does it ?" 
 
 '' Well, my lord, it certainly does not. 
 But we're not going to be deprived of oui 
 rights by this Squire Mowbray. Because 
 he's got money he thinks he can do just as 
 he pleases with everybody. The Marquis 
 wouldn't have turned us off the Common if 
 it had been his. He's a gentleman, he is." 
 
 " Glad you think so, Johnson," said 
 Adrian, laughing. " We wanted to buy the 
 property, but Mowbray was beforehand with 
 us. And I should certainly have voted for 
 allowing your people to come here when 
 they liked. You are not exactly honest, 
 you know " 
 
 VOL. 1. P
 
 210 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " We're about as honest as railwa}^ direc- 
 tors, my lord," says Black Jack, "or as 
 those gentlemen that get into Parliament by 
 bribery, and then take their solemn oath and 
 davy that they didn't do it. If we weren't 
 a little honester than them folks I'd cut the 
 connexion at once, and turn methodist par- 
 son, that I would. Look here, my lord, we 
 all know you — you're a gentleman : we've 
 never touched a pheasant in your woods, 
 and never will. And if you'd bought the 
 place, you'd have let us come here as we 
 used to come — I know that — and have sent 
 us something to drink now and then. But 
 this fellow that's got it is no gentleman — 
 and he'll be sorry for the day when he first 
 interfered with a Romany Chal." 
 
 "My good fellow," said Adrian, rather 
 amused, " don't on any account quarrel with 
 Mowbray. He's a Manchester man, and 
 doesn't know what a Romany Chal means.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 21 1 
 
 There's no particular harm in him ; but he 
 has lately come into the country and bought 
 land, and thinks he can do exactly as he 
 likes. He'll learn a little in time. You're 
 a sensible fellow, Johnson, and you know 
 that to quarrel with Squire Mowbray would 
 be absurd- Try if you can't get on quietly, 
 and not annoy him or interfere with him." 
 
 " I don't want to interfere with him, your 
 lordship," said Black Jack, '^ but if he 
 interferes with us he'll have to take the 
 consequences. He's a Manchester man, is 
 he ? Well, they say we Romans came from 
 Egypt first, and that's a sight ancienter than 
 Manchester." 
 
 " By Jove !" thought Adrian, " the fellow 
 talks^'like Sidonia. I should like to know 
 where you did come from, Johnson," he said. 
 ^' I don't believe there's anyone among you 
 that knows." 
 
 " We know about as much as other 
 
 p2
 
 212 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 people," he replied. "It isn't everybody 
 knows his grandfather, my lord. I wonder 
 whether Squire Mowbray does? Now my 
 grandfather's father is alive to this day." 
 
 ''What!" says Adrian, astonished. "A 
 great-grandfather as well as a great-grand- 
 mother ! You're joking, my good fellow. 
 It can't be true." 
 
 " We marry early, most of us," says John- 
 son. " And we live in the open air, and 
 don't trouble ourselves about being respecta- 
 ble, and haven't any debts to worry us. So 
 we manage to live pretty long." 
 
 " But your great-grandfather must be 
 immensely old," said Lord Waynflete. 
 
 " Not so very. We're all only sons in 
 our family. He married at about fifteen, 
 and my grandfather and my father weren't 
 much behind him. I don't believe he's more 
 than ninety, your honour." 
 
 " I should like to see him."
 
 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 213 
 
 " He'll be at Rothcastle Fair the day 
 after to-morrow," said Black Jack. " He's 
 got some business there. If your lordship 
 will ride over, I'll show you the old man." 
 
 '' How shall I find you ?" 
 
 " The moment you are in the fair I shall 
 know," quoth Black Jack. 
 
 "But, look here, Johnson," said Lord 
 Waynflete, " you showed us your great- 
 grandmother just now, and you said she 
 was a hundred and thirteen. Are they hus- 
 band and wife ? " 
 
 "Not a bit of it, your lordship. She's 
 not a Johnson born, she's a Cooper — and 
 the Coopers think themselves a sight better 
 than we are. Everybody's got four great- 
 grandfathers, I've heard say, and four great- 
 grandmothers." 
 
 " True enough, Johnson," said Lord 
 Waynflete laughing. "I didn't think of 
 that."
 
 214 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Promising to go to Rothcastle Fair, he 
 wished the gipsy good-night, and went 
 away. And the next day he arranged a 
 party for Rothcastle, inducing the Mar- 
 chioness to drive over with him in the mail- 
 phaeton, and picking up Metivier on the 
 way. Rothcastle, always a sight worth see- 
 ing in fair-time, would be unusually busy 
 with this enormous addition of the gipsy 
 forces. 
 
 "Take care of the Marchioness," said 
 Lord Wraysbury, when he heard of the ar- 
 rangement. "'What horses shall you drive ?" 
 
 " The old chestnuts," replied his son. 
 " They're much too steady to be frightened 
 by the crowd."
 
 215 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED AT ROTHCASTLE FAIR. 
 
 TT was again a glorious October morning, 
 -^ when the mail-phaeton with the old 
 chestnuts came up to the door of Ashridge 
 Manor. The air was misty-bright, and threw 
 a mystic glamour over the burning woods, 
 the dewy lawns, the shining river. Lord 
 Waynflete, having taken a sensible breakfast 
 — a cold grouse and a bottle of Chambertin 
 — was ready for any enterprise. 
 
 '' Mayn't I go too, mamma ?" exclaims 
 little Lady Mary, in a tone of pathetic en- 
 treaty. 
 
 " No, dear," said Lady Wraysbury. '^ Stay
 
 ^1 
 
 216 MARQUIS AND MEECHANT. 
 
 at home and take care of papa. He'd be 
 lonely without you." 
 
 " Well done, Alice/' laughed the Marquis. 
 " That means I'm to be head-nurse on duty. 
 Never mind, Mary, we'll amuse ourselves 
 while they are away. I dare say we shall 
 find the key of the jam-cupboard." 
 
 ^' Don't make yourselves ill, you two 
 babies," said his wife. " I know of another 
 cupboard, where pills and black draughts 
 are kept. Come, Adrian, I am ready." 
 
 They drove down the hill, across the 
 bridge, along the village street. Burly old 
 Burton, standing outside his door, touched 
 his hat profoundly. Lady Wraysbury had 
 not passed through Ashridge since her ar- 
 rival ; she was rather astonished at Mr. 
 Mowbray's new tavern, looking exactly as 
 if it had been transplanted from a suburb of 
 Manchester, before the smoke of that fulgin- 
 ous city had turned it the colour of ebony.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 217 
 
 As they crossed the Common, the change 
 in its appearance was curious. Not a crea- 
 ture now visible amid the gorse and heather 
 — but at intervals you could see black scorch- 
 ed spots, where the Zingari had built their 
 fires. The great camp was gone ; there was 
 perfect stillness, save when a leveret or a 
 rabbit bounded across, or a lark not wholly 
 tired of summer song rose into the air. 
 When they reached the Hut, the Hermit was 
 already leaning over the gate, in his usual 
 contemplative humour. He saluted the 
 Marchioness in the old-fashioned style of the 
 vieille roche ; there were Metiviers in France 
 long before the Buonapartes. 
 
 The drive to Rothcastle from Ashridge is 
 all the way pleasant : woodland and heath 
 alternate, and now and then you catch re- 
 mote glimpses of the winding Ashe, which 
 however keeps shyly away from the road. 
 The Marchioness had never seen the fair
 
 218 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 before. She was amazed at the multitu- 
 dinous vehicles of all sorts ; the strings of 
 horses, and herds of cattle, and flocks of 
 sheep ; the immense crowd of people, of 
 many different types, ruddy farmers, pallid 
 cockneys, swarthy gipsies; the universal noise 
 and confusion and hubbub. 
 
 " I am glad Mary did not come," she said. 
 ^' It would have frightened her." 
 
 "You are not frightened, I hope, mam- 
 ma?" said Adrian. ^' We can turn back 
 when you like, you know." 
 
 " no. I want to see it all. I'm not in 
 the least nervous." 
 
 They drove slowly through the village 
 street, whose normal mud had been churned 
 into chaotic slush by tread of hoofs innumer- 
 able and interminable grind of wheels. 
 Adrian pulled up the old chestnuts in the 
 space between the ancient church and the 
 Market Place, left unfinished by hands that
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 219 
 
 have been dust for a couple of centuries — 
 and waited to see what would happen. 
 
 Not long had he to wait. There came up 
 to the carriage a little black-eyed short- 
 skirted gipsy girl, of about ten years old, 
 tambourine in hand, who said to Adrian — 
 
 " Old Jack's coming along, your honour." 
 
 And in about two mhiutes there came 
 along the road, mounted on a stout cob 
 pony, a short old man, with iron-grey hair. 
 He did not look like a gipsy. He wore a 
 drab coat, knee breeches, leathern gaiters, 
 and might have been taken anywhere for a 
 small farmer in good condition. 
 
 He rode up to the off-side of the phaeton, 
 and said — 
 
 " You wanted to see me, my lord. My 
 boy says you're a good gentleman to us Ro- 
 mans. I'm old Jack Johnson." 
 
 " You don't look very old, Mr. Johnson," 
 says Lord Waynflete.
 
 220 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " I haven't had much trouble, my lord. I 
 never married but once, and my wife died 
 when my son was born." 
 
 " Gipsy philosophy, mamma," said Ad- 
 rian. 
 
 " What a dreadful old wretch !" whispered 
 the Marchioness. 
 
 " That's a good old pony of yours," said 
 Lord Waynflete. 
 
 ^' He is a good un. He was foaled the 
 very day Black Jack was born, so I swore 
 I'd always keep him. That's thirty years 
 ago, last Lammas, and I believe he's good 
 for five years more, at least. I've rode him 
 twenty miles to-day, your lordship, and 
 shall ride him twenty more before night." 
 
 At this moment a tall gaunt gipsy ran up 
 alongside of old Jack's pony, and said some- 
 thing to him in Romany. The old fellow 
 abruptly rode away down the street, where 
 it could be seen that a vast crowd of gipsies
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 221 
 
 were surging to and fro in a highly excited 
 state. Metivier dismounted. 
 
 ^' There is something going on, Adrian/' 
 he said. "If you will stay here, I will 
 walk down and see. I understand Romany 
 pretty well." 
 
 Metivier returned in about ten minutes. 
 
 "Your neighbour, Mowbray," he said, "is 
 determined not to be beaten. He has taken 
 out a warrant against Black Jack Johnson 
 for trespass on Ashridge Common, and the 
 police have just got him in custody. j^They'd 
 have been killed though, if it hadn't been 
 for the old fellow we have just talked to. 
 The gipsies were mad : old Jack rode his 
 pony right in amongst them, and made his 
 way through with blows from the handle 
 of his riding-whip, and gave them quite an 
 eloquent oration." 
 
 "What did he say?" asked the March- 
 ioness.
 
 222 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 '' I heard only part of it, the noise was so 
 great. He told Black Jack not to resist the 
 law, but to go quietly with the constables. 
 And he told the mob of gipsies to keep the 
 peace, and to disperse quietly. ' I am his 
 father and your master,' the old man said : 
 ' trust in me, and leave these men to obey 
 their masters. Good-by, Jack !' Black Jack 
 waved his hand gaily, and went off between 
 a couple of policemen, whom he could have 
 killed if he had chosen. I had no idea there 
 was so much discipline among the gipsies." 
 
 ^' Mowbray is not very wise, I think," said 
 Adrian. '' He might easily have kept the 
 gipsies in order during the very short time 
 they occupy the Common. They will play 
 him some trick, in revenge for this, you may 
 depend on it." 
 
 Just then old Jack Johnson rode up, quite 
 in a good humoured state. 
 
 '' The Squire's angry," he said. " My
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 223 
 
 poor boy is gone off to prison. Tiiey can't 
 hang him, I know — and I don't think they'll 
 keep him ver}^ long. He can't sleep well 
 under any roof but the sky." 
 
 *' I thought there was going to be a row," 
 said Lord Waynflete. 
 
 " I'm glad I came to Fair," said the old 
 gipsy. " If I hadn't been here, one or two 
 of those fellows in blue would have lost 
 what little brains they've got. But I'm sorry 
 for Squire Mowbray." 
 
 "Why?" asked the Marchioness. 
 
 " Our people will have their revenge, my 
 lady. When the police get hold of Black 
 Jack, they feel just as you English would do 
 if somebody insulted the Prince of Wales. 
 I can keep them from violence, but I can't 
 hinder secret revenge. But good-bye, my 
 lady, and gentlemen both. I must go and 
 see what they are doing. I am glad I came 
 to Fair."
 
 224 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Wherewith the old fellow trotted off upon 
 his pony. 
 
 " He is a curious character," said Metivier. 
 " I must talk to that old man again." 
 
 Lord Waynflete turned his horses' heads 
 towards home. As they drove through the 
 fair it was easily perceivable that the gipsies 
 were quieted down. They had returned 
 peaceably to their customary avocations — 
 the boys were turning somersaults, the girls 
 were walking on stilts, the women were 
 telling fortunes, the men were encouraging 
 the manly and elegant pastime of " Twelve 
 Throws a Penny," with cocoanuts and toys 
 for prizes. The rough broad humour of 
 the English fair was in full progress. It is 
 always a vulgar sort of entertainment, with 
 evil flavour of execrable beer and tobacco, 
 and much looseness of discourse. You will 
 get no better till you educate the people — 
 and you will not educate the people until
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 225 
 
 you learn that they are of more value than 
 the land, or the cities of luxury, towers of 
 labour, mansions of comfort, built upon the 
 land. If only our statesmen could be taught 
 the one great political idea — namely, that 
 God's noblest creation is an Englishman, 
 and that if we develop the greatest possible 
 number of perfect Englishmen, all other 
 things will follow. People squabble over a 
 Bishop of Exeter, who seems to tread on 
 the verge of heresy : they do not stir a 
 finger to rescue from poverty one street- 
 boy, who will be a thief, but who might per- 
 chance be a Shakespeare — and therefore 
 worth more than all the prelates and priests 
 of all the churches. How can men dare to 
 waste in this foolish fashion the imperishable 
 blood which filled the veins of Shakespeare, 
 Milton, Byron? 
 
 Meanwhile, what has happened to Black 
 Jack? He met his great-grandfather's 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 humorous glance with a warning twinkle 
 in it, and walked off between two small 
 stout policemen with perfect docility, look- 
 ing like a mastiff in custody of two sheep. 
 He was taken to the lock-up. That impor- 
 tant building consists at Rothcastle of three 
 rooms : there is the prisoner's dungeon, 
 square, and about ten feet each way, on 
 the ground floor : built up against this are 
 the sitting-room and bedroom of the con- 
 stable in charge. The actual prisoner's cell 
 is about twenty feet high ; the walls are tre- 
 mendously thick, and the windows are mere 
 slits in the wall. The constable's rooms 
 are built one over the other, each being 
 about ten feet high. There are a great 
 number of iron bars and spikes every- 
 where. 
 
 An amiable fellow was the constable in 
 charge ; and he liked Black Jack, as did 
 most people who knew him. So his wife
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 227 
 
 gave the prisoner some tea, and the police- 
 man kindly inquired if he had any baccy. 
 He had plenty : he lay upon his mattress 
 and smoked his short pipe; and his guardian, 
 after a pleasant chat about the Fair, wished 
 him good night, and locked him in, and 
 went happily to bed. 
 
 Black Jack lay on his mattress, smoking, 
 for several hours. He was a man of infinite 
 patience. He listened to the roar of the 
 crowd outside ; thick as were the walls, he 
 could hear the mighty murmur of the Fair. 
 Not till some hours past midnight did he 
 move, and then he struck a match, light- 
 ed an end of candle which he took from 
 his pocket, and examined the walls. At 
 one point there was an iron rod which sup- 
 ported something in the roof: it was im- 
 bedded in the stone work, but there were 
 points at which the masonry had crum- 
 
 q2
 
 228 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 bled away from it. Black Jack saw his 
 way at once. He could climb like a cat. 
 He worked away quietly with an old clasp 
 knife till there was something to grasp. 
 Then, holding himself up by the left hand, 
 he made a similar attack upon the wall a 
 few feet higher up, and in less than half 
 an hour he had reached the rafters, on one 
 of which he sat astride, examining the roof 
 It was simple tile work, no ceiling. Jack 
 removed a dozen tiles, and was out under 
 the sky : no moon, but a bright starlit 
 night. Below, Rothcastle was very quiet ; 
 here and there a smouldering fire burnt 
 itself out, but the various vagabonds of the 
 Fair were asleep. 
 
 Black Jack, in no wise anxious to break 
 those long legs of his, searched carefully 
 along the edge of the roof for something 
 that projected. He found it at last — about 
 three inches of timber. Very cautiously
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 229 
 
 he let himself down over the side, holding 
 on to the beam like grim death ; then, when 
 he hung straight by his hands at full length, 
 he dropped. A man who knows how to 
 drop may descend almost any reasonable 
 distance — cats know the secret. 
 
 Odd to say, no sooner had Black Jack 
 touched the ground than some one touched 
 him on the shoulder. It was pitch-dark, 
 and he pulled himself together, in readiness 
 to polish oif a policeman. He was agree- 
 ably surprised: a whispered word caused 
 him to recognize his great-grandfather. 
 
 " I knew you'd do it, boy," said that 
 venerable gipsy. '' I knew you weren't such 
 a fool as to stay in that place. Look, I've 
 brought the stallion ; he's had a good feed 
 of corn and will go fifty miles. Jump up, 
 and off with you. Down the road^ mind." 
 
 Black Jack wanted no further instruc- 
 tions. The old man stood listening to the
 
 230 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 sound of the horse's hoofs, as he splashed 
 along the miry Rothcastle street. 
 
 " One to you, Squire Mowbray," he said, 
 as he turned away to his nocturnal repose. 
 The old gentleman did not condescend to 
 undress ; he crawled through the door of 
 his tent, lay down on an old great-coat, 
 with a whisky jar for his pillow, and slept 
 in five minutes the sleep of conscious inno- 
 cence. 
 
 Meanwhile, Black Jack, on the brown 
 stallion, was riding west like a whirlwind. 
 
 Next morning, what a row there was in 
 Rothcastle ! How the police swore ! How 
 the gipsies laughed ! The Chief Constable 
 had come up to look after this important 
 prisoner. When he found that the bird was 
 flown, his anger reduced him to shorter 
 words than he commonly used. He was 
 very vexed, this unfortunate Hughes, for he 
 wanted to oblige a wealthy and influential
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 231 
 
 gentleman like Mowbray, and now he had 
 missed a capital opportunity of doing so. 
 
 When the news reached Mr. Mowbray 
 himself, he vented his anger on the ineffi- 
 ciency of the police. But he was a man 
 prompt in action, so he immediately adver- 
 tised far and wide a reward of one hundred 
 pounds for Black Jack Johnson's recapture.
 
 232 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN WHICH ASHRIDGE COMMON IS ENCLOSED. 
 
 rpiHE Marchioness of Wraysbury came of 
 -*- a family in which consumption was 
 hereditary : the damp air and sudden 
 changes of an English winter did her harm, 
 and the doctors were unanimous in advising 
 the Marquis to take her abroad. She dis- 
 liked to go herself. She felt sure that no 
 harm could come to her in the cosy rooms 
 and warm corridors of Ashridge, or when 
 she drove out on sunny days so comfortably 
 wrapped up. The Marquis knew better. 
 He knew that the air of England is poison- 
 ous in winter ; that no warmth of stoves, no 
 defence against draughts, no possible wrap-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 233 
 
 pages, can keep that poison from operating. 
 I am loyal to the English race, but I am 
 not particularly loyal to England. This 
 country is so called because we English 
 came to live here, some thousand years 
 ago : we have aired it, cultivated it, devel- 
 oped its resources, till it is comfortable 
 enough. I don't think much more can be 
 done with it. I think it is getting used up. 
 If a few million English would just agree to 
 migrate to some other island, in a better 
 climate, bringing brains and books — bring- 
 ing all the force of the world's first race — I 
 don't think they'd regret it. England, as I 
 have said, is getting used up : and there are 
 so many stale old-fangled absurdities which 
 would suddenly vanish if we English started 
 a new England. I don't propose a colony : 
 I propose an exodus. One great benefit 
 would be this — we should leave the Scotch 
 and Irish behind.
 
 234 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Lord Wraysbury decided to take his wife 
 and daughter to Nice for the winter : Adri- 
 an very willingly agreed to remain at Ash- 
 ridge and keep matters straight. He did 
 not care for the voluptuous atmosphere of 
 perpetual summer. Moreover, as we know, 
 there was a little girl in this neighbourhood 
 from whom he had no wish to be far re- 
 moved ; though he had not met her so often 
 lately, nor had he quite made up his mind 
 as to what he should do in the matter. He 
 liked her ; he thought he loved her ; he did 
 not feel quite certain. There was no hum- 
 bug at all about Lord Waynflete. It never 
 occurred to him that there would be any- 
 thing absurd in his marrying a governess. 
 But he was not quite so prompt as some 
 men I have known, in making up his mind 
 whether he loved a girl or not. 
 
 Let us cross the river and the village 
 street, and take a glance at Edward Mow-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 235 
 
 bray. He also was in an uncertain state, 
 in his feelings towards Miss Gray. He saw 
 she was just what he wanted, but he was 
 held back by the knowledge that all Man- 
 chester would laugh at him if he married 
 his governess. Another thing which hin- 
 dered his love-making was his anger with 
 the gipsies, increased to white heat by Black 
 Jack Johnson's daring escape and complete 
 disappearance. You would think that a 
 hundred pounds' reward would bring in a 
 notorious chief of the gipsies, seven feet 
 high. It did not. Mr. Mowbray doubled 
 it. 
 
 And then he determined to take stronger 
 measures about Ashridge Common. His 
 solicitors had, by his desire, looked carefully 
 into the title-deeds of the estate, and were 
 decidedly of opinion that Mr. Mowbray had 
 a right to enclose the Common. It had 
 been left open for luany years ; but it was
 
 236 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 clearly the property of tlie lord of the 
 manor. 
 
 Such was the judgment of Lincoln's Inn. 
 Mowbray, a prompt and resolute man, deter- 
 mined to act on this opinion. He gave his 
 orders to a Birmingham firm ; got down a 
 set of workmen ; and in about ten days the 
 wild heath, over which there had been free 
 passage for man and beast for years imme- 
 morial, was surrounded by iron fencing, six 
 feet high, deeply sunk in the ground, and with 
 fearsome spikes at the top. 
 
 " This will settle your gipsies," said Mow- 
 bray, when he saw it accomplished. 
 
 Lord Waynflete happened to be absent 
 when this great event occurred. He was at 
 Brighton. Metivier watched the progress of 
 the affair, leaning philosophically over his 
 garden gate, and was amused. When the 
 thing was finished, he sat down, and indit- 
 ed a letter to his friend : —
 
 marquis and merchant. 237 
 
 " My dear Adrian, 
 
 " The Mowbray improves. Will 
 you guess what he has done ? 
 
 " He has not married that little gover- 
 ness of his, though he much wants to. 
 
 " Would she have him ? The heart of wo- 
 man is deceitful above all things. 
 
 " What matters that to you and me, con- 
 firmed bachelors ? 
 
 " * When will this fellow come to the 
 point?' you exclaim. I come. Mowbray 
 has surrounded the whole of Ashridge Com- 
 mon with an iron railing, unusually lofty and 
 pointed. 
 
 " Alas for the gipsies ! Alas for your 
 canter over the turf with your pretty little 
 sister ! 
 
 "Shall such things be? Of course they 
 shall. Manchester rules England. 
 
 "Still, thank the dwellers on Olympus, 
 Manchester is foiled by the Romany race.
 
 238 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Mowbray offers two hundred pounds for the 
 capture of our agreeable friend, Black Jack. 
 Our agreeable friend is not captured, by any 
 means. 
 
 " Mowbray, in his wrath, encloses the 
 Common. 
 
 *"' These things are very amusing. Don't 
 you think a Buonaparte and a paternal 
 government would be of use in England — 
 for a time, at least ? 
 
 " George Metivier." 
 
 Lord Waynfiete found Metiviers note 
 at the Carlton, and was amused and amazed. 
 He took the last train down that night, tele- 
 graphing for a groom to bring a horse to 
 the station. Next morning he walked over 
 to see his friend at the Hut. Of course he 
 was stopped by Burton on the w^ay. 
 
 " So the Common is fenced in, I hear," he 
 said.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 239 
 
 " Yes, my lord. The Squire says it's his. 
 I suppose nobody daren't resist him, in these 
 parts ?" 
 
 " Well, my good fellow," replied Lord 
 Waynflete, " if it is his, he has a right to do 
 as he likes with it. That's the thing we 
 have to discover. If he hasn't the right, he 
 will soon have to remove his fence." 
 
 " I hope so, my lord," says Burton ; some- 
 what sulkily, however, for he began to 
 think Squire Mowbray could do anything he 
 pleased. 
 
 Adrian reached Metivier's dwelling, having 
 walked along a road between tall iron fences. 
 It moved his spleen somewhat, but it moved 
 his pity more. What a fool, he thought, 
 must this Mowbray be, to vex himself and 
 to anger his neighbours for such trivial 
 reasons ! 
 
 " You see, ray friend," said Metivier, 
 when they met — "you see what a churl this
 
 240 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 is. Wh}^, he would shut up sunshine and 
 air from the trespass of those he deems his 
 inferiors, if he could. You English develop 
 the greatest genius and the greatest gene- 
 rosity of the world : but — forgive me, my 
 dear friend — you also produce the greatest 
 fools and scoundrels, and the most illiberal 
 of men." 
 
 " Do you think he has a right to do this?" ' 
 asked Adrian. 
 
 " How should I know ? I am unfamiliar 
 with English law. It looks to me like 
 brutal robbery. But you know what to do, 
 of course." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Ask your attorney. That's the regular 
 English recipe." 
 
 '' I'll follow it," said Adrian. " Good-bye, 
 Metivier. I shall get back to London by 
 the first train." 
 
 But he didn't. He loitered through Ash-
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 241 
 
 ridge rather, with Big Dog at his heels, and 
 tried Burton's ale and Miss Avery's gossip, 
 and thought he might possibly see the 
 prettiest little girl in the world pass through 
 the village on some errand or other. 
 
 No such luck. 
 
 No : although he sauntered along the 
 street of the little village for a considerable 
 time, he caught no glimpse of the charming 
 figure that he knew so well. Wherefore, 
 seeing that he was in disfavour with the 
 destinies that rule such trivial matters as 
 casual love-meetings, he went off to Ash- 
 ridge Manor, and made arrangements for 
 going to town by the evening express. And 
 the next morning he was holding council 
 with that trusty attorney and agent, Nicholas 
 Chinery, of Gray's Inn. 
 
 Gray's Inn is, among Inns of Court, by 
 no means the liveliest. I have in my time 
 climbed a good many of those dingy decayed 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 staircases ; for your barrister-author is apt 
 to find shelter in those lofty retreats, and to 
 sport his oak with persistency. But there 
 are great firms of attorneys in Gray's Inn ; 
 and on a very dark ground floor, Mr. 
 Chinery, inheritor of the agency to the 
 Marquises of Wraysbury, has his offices. An 
 ancient and venerable, honourable and saga- 
 cious man, carefully protected from the' 
 outer world by a cordon of clerks. 
 
 Very few clients saw Mr. Chinery : very 
 few clients would he condescend to accept. 
 If you have the business of a great country 
 family, you may keep up your house in 
 Russell Square, and drink old port after 
 dinner, without troubling yourself to serve 
 writs upon the hapless gentlemen who can- 
 not and will not pay their debts. No ordi- 
 nary business was transacted at Mr. Chinery's 
 office. His managing clerk was a far more 
 dignified personage than most of the lawyers
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 243 
 
 one meets, and might indeed have very well 
 passed for a judge. 
 
 Lord • Waynflete obtained access to Mr. 
 Chinery with no difficulty, as may be sup- 
 posed. He stated his case succinctly. The 
 old lawyer listened, and said nothing. 
 
 " Has Mowbray this right, as lord of the 
 Manor of Lindesay ?" asked Adrian, having 
 finished his explanation. 
 
 *' I can't answer the question offhand, my 
 lord. I have a strong impression that an 
 attempt of this kind was made very many 
 years ago, and that it failed. If so, I shall 
 have full record of it somewhere." 
 
 " That v/ould guide us, certainly," replied 
 Adrian. " Can you put your hand on it?" 
 "It will take an hour or two's search. 
 Are you engaged this evening, my lord? 
 If not, and you will dine with me, I have no 
 doubt I can then produce the document. I 
 am quite alone." 
 
 r2
 
 244 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " I'll come with pleasure," said Adrian.- 
 " Your old port is a teroptation, Mr. Chin- 
 ery." 
 
 Which it really was. The old lawyer 
 was a good judge of wine, and did not spare 
 expense in stocking his cellars; and when 
 he got an illustrious guest like the heir to 
 the House of Wraysbury, you may be sure 
 that he brought from the innermost bins the 
 choicest vintages. 
 
 Mr. Chinery lives in a vast house in Rus- 
 sel Square, all by himself. It is the great 
 sorrow and disappointment of his life, that 
 he has no son to succeed to a business 
 which has descended from father to son 
 through many generations. His wife died 
 after a few years of marriage, leaving him 
 with one daughter only. When that young 
 lady reached maturity, he fixed upon a pro- 
 mising young solicitor as just the very hus- 
 band for her — the very man to be his part-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 245 
 
 ner and successor : but Miss Chinery differed 
 from her papa, and insisted on marrying an 
 eloquent Curate, who is now a Dean, and will 
 be a Bishop if he lives long enough. The 
 worthy lawyer forgave his daughter, and 
 hoped that in time a grandson would arrive 
 to play the important part of " Chinery, of 
 Gray's Inn :" but Mrs. Dean, though as pro- 
 lific as becomes a clergyman's wife, has 
 none but daughters. The old gentleman 
 wishes women could be attorneys-at-law. 
 The girls come in small parties of two or 
 three to see their grandfather now and 
 then, exchanging their spacious Gothic 
 home in Idlechester Close, covered with 
 ancient flowering creepers, and with vast 
 expanse of lawns and gardens behind, for 
 the square comfortable ugliness of a house 
 on the Bedford Estate. Eight of them there 
 are, and none yet married ; and if either of 
 them should marry a solicitor, Mr. Chinery
 
 246 MAHQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 feels it is now too late to mould him into a 
 representative and successor. 
 
 Lord Waynflete got an excellent heavy 
 dinner, suitable to the massive furniture and 
 plate, and general air of respectable ugli- 
 ness, of comfort without luxury, of wealth 
 without taste, which pervaded Mr. Chinery's 
 house, which seems indeed to pervade the 
 vicinity. With the dessert came the preci- 
 ous document, a quaint old black-letter 
 affair on vellum, which Adrian examined, 
 but found that he could scarcely make any- 
 thing of it. 
 
 *'I will have it copied," said Chinery. 
 " To-day there was not time. The date, 
 you see, is 1722. That was the year when 
 David Lindesay bought the Manor, which 
 has since been called by his name ; previous- 
 ly it was called Under Ashridge. He pro- 
 posed to enclose the Common, and indeed 
 began to do it. The people about pulled
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 247 
 
 dowii his fences as fast as he set them up. 
 Then Gerald, Marquis of Wraysbury — he 
 was the eleventh Marquis — took the matter 
 in hand, and it was legally proved that the 
 lords of Ashridge Manor had rights of tur- 
 bary and the like over all waste places in 
 the Manor of Under Ashridge. Indeed it 
 would seem that originally the present 
 Manor of Lindesay had been the manorial 
 inferior of the lords of Ashridge." 
 
 " Then there can be no doubt," said 
 Adrian, " that my father has rights over 
 that Common." 
 
 " Not the slightest doubt, my lord. We 
 should be quite certain to carry a suit against 
 Mowbray, with such a precedent." 
 
 Old Chinery's eyes twinkled at the thought 
 of a law-suit. 
 
 " Get that record copied," said Adrian, 
 " and send it down to me. But we won't 
 go to law with him."
 
 248 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 "What mil you do, my lord?" asked the 
 lawyer. 
 
 " Leave him to go to law with us, if he 
 likes. I shall remove his fences." 
 
 Chinery seemed inclined to advise a more 
 deliberate mode of procedure, but Lord 
 Waynflete was resolute. 
 
 " No," he said. " Do you get that docu- 
 ment copied, and obtain corroborative evi- 
 dence if there is any, and be prepared for 
 a fight. And now I must leave you, Mr. 
 Chinery : I shall try to see a man to-night 
 who can help us in this matter." 
 
 Lord Waynflete drove straight to Victoria 
 Street, Westminster, and there was lucky 
 enough to find, busy with rule and com- 
 pass, the very man he wanted — a young 
 engineer called Wakefield, with whom he 
 had become acquainted abroad, and who 
 was now engaged upon one of the vast 
 public works which have lately changed the
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 249 
 
 aspect of London. The engineer was sur- 
 prised to see him, but entered eagerly into 
 his project, which was to give a good night's 
 work to a couple of hundred " navvies " 
 in removing Mowbray's fences. Wakefield 
 could command the men, having twice the 
 number at work. It was arranged that they 
 should go down in a special train at about 
 midnight on the next day but one. 
 
 " Can they do it , quickly and quietly, 
 Wakefield ?" asked Adrian. 
 
 " dear yes. I'll pick my best men, and 
 tell them what tools to take. They'll en- 
 joy the fun. They'll have a holiday, and be 
 paid for it. You ought to pile the fences 
 up in front of Mowbray's windows." 
 
 " It would be impossible, without waggons, 
 and there is no time for such an arrange- 
 ment. No, we must leave them on the 
 Common. You'll manage about the special 
 train, Wakefield. I want to go down to
 
 250 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Brighton to-night, and there's just time for 
 the last train from Victoria." 
 
 " I'll see you off, my lord," said the en- 
 gineer, and they started at once, and caught 
 the train by a minute. 
 
 "Mind, I leave everything to you, Wake- 
 field. I shall be on the platform at twelve 
 precisely." 
 
 The appointment was kept. Dim burnt 
 the lamps at the great terminus, for the last 
 ordinary train had left some time, and it 
 was assumed that, from station-superintend- 
 ent down to newsboy, everybody was gone 
 home to bed. But this assumption, like 
 many others that men make, was wholly 
 wrong. On the dim platform stood a dark 
 mass of men, each of whom carried over 
 his shoulder some heavy implement : they 
 made no sound, for the w^ord had been 
 passed to keep quiet till they were well out 
 of London. Presently a well-lighted train
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 251 
 
 of six or seven carriages and a horse-box 
 backed into the station. Under Wakefield's 
 direction the men took their places at once. 
 He and Lord Waynflete then entered a first- 
 class carriage, and prepared to smoke. 
 
 •' The way's clear," said the superintend- 
 ent. "You won't stop, and you'll be set 
 down close to the Common." 
 
 For the railway ran within a few yards of 
 Ashridge Common, so there was no need to 
 stop at the station. Only the men on their 
 return would have to go to the station, as 
 the train must get on the upline, and be 
 shunted on a siding, for fear of accidents. 
 
 When the " special" was well away from 
 London, Lord Waynflete could hear his 
 regiment of navvies roaring forth mighty 
 melodies. For them this midnight ride was 
 a gigantic spree. Be sure that they had all 
 provided themselves with supper and beer, 
 vast hunches of bread and meat and stone
 
 252 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 jars of " cooper," being the favourite form 
 of refreshment. They ate and drank and 
 sang till the train pulled up — then they 
 shouldered their weapons, and marched on 
 to the Common, and worked in gangs with 
 that terrific energy which belongs to the 
 English navvy. 
 
 It chanced to be a bright moonlight night, 
 a point which Adrian got in his favour with- 
 out any consideration on his part. As he 
 stood on the breezy heath, and saw these 
 stalwart fellows, working in their gangs of 
 twelve, each with a foreman, he was astonish- 
 ed at the rapidity with which the heavy iron 
 fences were removed, and neatly piled. 
 Wakefield also had astonished him by an 
 act of generalship. He had brought a stout 
 pony, saddled and bridled, down in that 
 horse-box ; when they arrived, he mounted 
 and rode round the Common, and saw that 
 all the gangs were doing their duty.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 253 
 
 " Rather a good idea of mine, this pony," 
 he said, when he rejoined Lord Waynflete. 
 
 "You ought to be a general," quoth 
 Adrian. " I should never have hit upon 
 that. I noticed your horsebox, and fancied 
 you had tools in it." 
 
 The engineer started for another round, 
 and when he returned reported that every 
 fence was removed, that they were all 
 neatly stacked, and that the men were on 
 the way to the station. It was getting to- 
 wards morning. 
 
 " Many thanks, my dear fellow," said 
 Adrian. " Thank your men for me. They 
 have done the thing well, and deserve 
 thanks as well as payment. You must come 
 down and see me, and hear the end of this 
 little affair." 
 
 " I'll come on a Sunday," said Wakefield. 
 " It is my only holiday just now." 
 
 Wakefield got his men off by the train in
 
 254 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 excellent time. Lord Waynflete walked 
 across the Common home, and let himself in- 
 to a door which led to his own special suite of 
 rooms. When he rang his bell next morn- 
 ing it was no surprise to his valet, for Adrian 
 belonged to that sensible class of men who 
 always do as they please, careless of infer- 
 ior opinion. Would that they were more 
 numerous. 
 
 Verily there was a great disturbance, a 
 singular excitement in Ashridge that next 
 morning. The news was brought in with 
 the milk to the Mowbray hotel. Mr. Flan- 
 agan, who generally lay in bed late, unless 
 there was some hunting or coursing, tumbled 
 out in a tremendous hurry, and made his 
 way to the Common. Yes, it was true. 
 Every fence was up, and they were neatly 
 piled at regular intervals. All done in a 
 single night! The whole village of Ash- 
 ridge turned out: the rustic population stood
 
 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 255 
 
 staring at the Common as if they expected 
 the fences to get up and replace themselves. 
 No greater amazement could have been ex- 
 hibited by the inhabitants of that city where- 
 in the palace of Aladdin was built in one 
 night. 
 
 Mr. Flanagan of the Mowbray Hotel, an 
 Irishman, and therefore superstitious, at once 
 exclaimed — 
 
 ''It's all them darned gipsies." 
 For he attributed to gipsies magical pow- 
 ers, and this seemed like a work of magic. 
 
 Then the practical side of his mind began 
 to operate, and he said to himself — 
 " I must go and tell the Squire." 
 Off he went toward Mowbray Mansion at 
 his briskest pace. The morning was mild 
 and sunny. Mr. Mowbray had opened the 
 window of his breakfast parlour, and 
 sauntered out upon the terrace. At the 
 other end of it he saw approaching his little
 
 256 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 daughter and her governess, who had been 
 taking the fresh air for a few minutes. 
 Ethel Evelyn, dressed in red, was trotting 
 along by Amy's side, and looking up pleas- 
 antly into her face, and talking about the 
 young robins that came up to the windows, 
 and asking her which was a thrush or which 
 a starling, or something of the sort. Amy 
 had won her victory over her recalcitrant 
 pupil, and seemed to have quite transformed 
 her. 
 
 As Mowbray saw them at the other end 
 of the terrace, he thought with pleasure of 
 the change in his little daughter, and he 
 looked with delight at the beautiful creature 
 whom chance (potent divinity!) had sent him 
 as a governess. For Amy, you see, had a 
 perfect figure ; and she had exquisite move- 
 ments and gestures; she would turn her 
 head, or lift her hand, or raise her dress 
 from the ground, in a way that was unique.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 257 
 
 These little things seem trivial ; they fasci- 
 nate men, because the body is an index to 
 the mind. Grace of gesture means grace of 
 soul. 
 
 Mowbray was looking with admiration at 
 Amy, when a servant came to say that 
 Mr. Flanagan wanted to see him on import- 
 ant business. 
 
 " Confound that Irish blockhead !" said 
 the Squire to himself *' Important busi- 
 ness this hour of the morning; ! If he wants 
 more money he won't get it. He's the most 
 improvident of Irishmen." 
 
 The Squire went round to the servants' 
 entry, and there found Flanagan declaiming 
 excitedly, amidst a crowd of domestics, from 
 the groom of the chambers down to the 
 foolish fat scullion. They stood arrectis 
 auribus, while the Irishman, with the fine 
 fluency of his race, narrated all that he 
 knew — and indeed a good deal more. So 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 absorbed were the group that they did not 
 observe their master's approach until he was 
 close upon them, when they dispersed with 
 singular promptitude. 
 
 ^' Now, Flanagan," he said, '' what's the 
 meaning of this? I object to being disturbed 
 at this time." 
 
 " Very sorry, Squire, but I know you'll 
 say I did right. Those revengeful gipsies 
 have pulled down every fence upon the 
 Common !" 
 
 " What !" thundered Mowbray. " Pulled 
 down my fences ! The gipsies, you say! You 
 are dreaming or drunk, my good fellow." 
 
 " Not a drop have I tasted to-day, your 
 honour, the Holy Virgin knows it. There's 
 the fences all piled in heaps, and who could 
 have done it but the gipsies ?" 
 
 Mowbray ordered his horse, sent word to 
 Miss Gray to breakfast without him, and 
 rode straight to the Common. He could
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 259 
 
 hardly believe his eyes. There were the 
 fences, piled as neatly as possible at regular 
 distances. He galloped right across the 
 Common, and found the same thing every- 
 where. He was taken entirely by surprise. 
 
 " No gipsies did this," he reflected. " It 
 is the work of skilled workmen, and a good 
 many of them. Gipsies only travel in their 
 carts, or on horseback. The people who 
 did this must have come by rail." 
 
 No human being did he perceive on the 
 Common or near it, except Lord Waynflete 
 and Metivier, standing at the gate of the 
 Hut. Adrian had turned out early to see 
 his friend, before going back to Brighton to 
 finish his visit. Metivier, always an early 
 riser, was probably the first person who saw 
 what had been done. 
 
 "You see," said Adrian, " I have asked 
 my attorney, and that's the result. Now 
 there will be a little legal fighting." 
 
 s 2
 
 260 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 " Does Mowbray know you are the ag- 
 gressor ?" 
 
 '' Not yet. He will have a letter from 
 our lawyer to-morrow mornmg." 
 
 *' I wonder," thought Mowbray, as he 
 rode to the railway-station, ''whether those 
 two had anything to do with it? I don't 
 like that young fellow." 
 
 At the railway he got some information. 
 Mr. Green, the most obliging of station- 
 masters, had been purposely kept in ignor- 
 ance of what was to be done. He was 
 merely told that a special from London 
 would run through at a certain hour, and, 
 returning empty, would wait to take up 
 passengers. Wakefield had arranged every- 
 thing, so that the London authorities knew 
 nothing about Lord Waynflete in the affair ; 
 and, in the dusk of the midnight platform, 
 he was recognised only by the chief guard, 
 who shut him in, and unreluctantly accepted
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 261 
 
 a sovereign, and kept his counsel. Green 
 told Mr. Mowbray all he knew, which was 
 that the train had kept its appointment ; 
 that when he had seen it safe in a siding, 
 he had left it in charge of the guards and 
 gone to bed ; and that when he returned to 
 superintend the early morning traffic, it had 
 left for London. He saw no passengers — 
 only the guards and engine-men. 
 
 Mowbray had some friends coming from 
 Manchester that day ; they had promised to 
 be at the Mansion to dinner. He calculated 
 that by taking the next train he might get 
 to London and back just in time for them. 
 On this idea he acted with his usual prompti- 
 tude. 
 
 Arrived at London, he went to the man- 
 ager's office, and made his statement, and 
 inquired what that gentleman knew of it. 
 
 " Only this," was the reply. "A special 
 was ordered for twelve last night by an
 
 262 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 eminent engineer to run through Ashridge 
 Road Station, and return, and wait. We 
 named our price, and he drew a cheque at 
 once. Not a word was said about the pur- 
 pose of the expedition ; he merely said that 
 one first-class carriage for himself would be 
 enough, as the men were navvies, who would 
 have their tools with them. I gave the 
 orders, and the train was back here by day- 
 break." 
 
 " Do you generally let special trains in 
 this way, without asking questions ?" 
 
 "There are some questions to which a 
 cheque is the best answer. Besides, the 
 train was hired by a well-known engineer, 
 and rapid bits of engineering are often done 
 at night." 
 
 " I suppose the amount paid was a heavy 
 one?" 
 
 *' It was moderate, being for one of the 
 profession — only two hundred."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 263 
 
 " You did not see the train off, I suppose?" 
 
 "Why, no," replied the general manager, 
 " that's not much in my line. Besides, I 
 had some people to dinner." 
 
 Mowbray was reminded of his own en- 
 gagement. 
 
 "I must get back soon. This eminent 
 engineer — may I know his name and ad- 
 dress ?" 
 
 " By all means, Mr. Mowbray. There's 
 no mystery about it." 
 
 Obtaining this information, Mr. Mowbray 
 got into a hansom, telling the cabman to 
 drive as fast as possible to Victoria Street. 
 
 Wakefield was out. 
 
 Back he came to the terminus, and reached 
 it just as his train was moving from the plat- 
 form. 
 
 "Well," he thought, with a Sardian grin, 
 "this completes it. There'll be Sir Jacob 
 and his son, with nobody to receive them, and
 
 264 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 that helpless Priscilla tearing her hair and 
 wondering what to do. Never mind, there's 
 the telegraph." 
 
 So he telegraphed to Miss Gust not to 
 keep his friends waiting for their dinner ; 
 and, having forgotten all day his own re- 
 freshment, sat disconsolately down to the 
 ordinary terminus meal, flavourless soup, an 
 over-roasted joint, sherry full of fire. Of 
 course the next train was a very slow one, 
 to make the chapter of accidents perfect. 
 
 However, when he got home at about 
 eleven, and found the billiard-room bril- 
 liantly alight, and Sir Jacob and his son 
 smoking cigars, and knocking the balls about, 
 he began to feel a little happier. Mowbray, 
 you see, was unaccustomed to ill-luck, and 
 generally had the ball at his foot. 
 
 " I hope you dined well. Sir Jacob ?" he 
 said, after their first greeting. 
 
 " Admirably," replied the old gentleman.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 265 
 
 " Dinner and wine perfect. I pitied you, 
 my dear fellow." 
 
 " Ah," said Jacob the younger, who was 
 a noble specimen of the Manchester swell, a 
 rather peculiar species, "and that pretty 
 governess of yours, Mowbray — she is de- 
 lightful, really !" 
 
 The Squire could have knocked him down. 
 He made no reply, but called for some Cham- 
 pagne and brandy, which refreshed him.
 
 266 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BOHEMIAN BARRISTER ON DUTY. 
 
 /^N the following morning Mr. Mowbray 
 ^^ found the mystery solved. Lord 
 Waynflete had arranged with Chinery that 
 a formal letter should be sent to him on the 
 day after the rails were removed : so, amid 
 his numerous letters he found one which 
 claimed, on the part of the Marquis of Wrays- 
 bury, rights over Ashridge Common, in the 
 Manor of Under Ashridge, incorrectly called 
 Lindesay : that in the exercise of such rights 
 the Marquis, by his representative, had 
 caused the removal of certain iron fencing 
 illegally erected around the Common, and
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 267 
 
 that Mr. Mowbray was requested to take 
 away the piles of fencing within a reasonable 
 time. 
 
 The Squire, who was first in the break- 
 fast-room, was in a tremendous rage. 
 
 " That audacious young lord !" he ex- 
 claimed in soliloquy. " I guessed it was 
 he. What the deuce does this lawyer mean 
 by the Marquis having rights over the Com- 
 mon? If there are such rights, and that 
 fellow Terrell hasn't found them out, I'll get 
 rid of him pretty soon." 
 
 He meditated whether at once to employ 
 his lawyer, or first to communicate with 
 Terrell. He decided on the latter, and 
 caused a telegram for him to come down to 
 be at once despatched. 
 
 While thus gravely deliberating, Miss Cust 
 and Ethel and her governess had entered 
 the room, but he was too absorbed to notice 
 them. However, presently came the burly
 
 268 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 pompous Sir Jacob, with his creaking step, 
 and his 
 
 " Ha, good morning, ladies. Good morn- 
 ing, Mowbray." 
 
 Close after this important patriarch of 
 merchandise came the young Manchester 
 exquisite, who looked at Mowbray's grave 
 face, and said, 
 
 ^'My dear fellow, you are quite seedy. 
 Did you travel too much yesterday, or have 
 you had bad news this morning ? How are 
 the markets ?" 
 
 Mowbray winced. He had his reasons of 
 business for keeping on good terms with 
 this father and son ; but he privately thought 
 the latter the most atrocious young cub in 
 the City of Cotton. The young cub had 
 quite another opinion of himself He was 
 his father's only son and partner ; he 
 dressed in a style which he flattered himself 
 would be admired in Pall Mall ; he lavishly
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 269 
 
 spent his money on all the fashionable dissi- 
 pations of the clay. Sir Jacob had a great 
 admiration for his son, who for his part was 
 on the most familiar terms with his father. 
 
 " Mowbray's had bad news tliis morning, 
 governor, you may bet on that." Thus ele- 
 gantly did he address his father on the first 
 opportunity. " Think he's been speculating ? 
 You could see that the post had spoilt his 
 appetite." 
 
 It hadn't exactly done that : but Mowbray 
 could not help thinking of what he should 
 do about the Common, and was rather ab- 
 sent, and forgot his breakfast. Jacob the 
 younger compensated. He ate of every- 
 thing on the table ; finished with a great 
 silver tankard of ale ; talked to everybody, 
 and especially to Miss Gray, who had never 
 been taught slang, and understood less than 
 half of what he said ; pretended to make 
 love to Ethel Evelyn, and tried to kiss her,
 
 270 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 when a spice of her old temper showed 
 itself, and she pulled his sandy whiskers with 
 such violence that it brought tears into his 
 eyes, and nearly made him swear. Amy 
 scolded Ethel afterwards, but I don't think 
 she was seriously displeased. 
 
 They were to shoot that morning : Jacob 
 the younger had brought down a new 
 breech-loader of the most improved descrip- 
 tion, and looked as if he meant to kill every 
 head of game in the county. Sir Jacob, 
 rather too obese for such amusement, pre- 
 ferred a solitary stroll. 
 
 Mowbray's shooting was the least satis- 
 factory part of his new estate. The coverts 
 had been neglected under the late owner ; 
 and you can't stock a manor with game as 
 easily as you can build a house. Moreover, 
 Mowbray had no knowledge of the subject : 
 so he advertised for a head keeper, and got 
 a man of magnificent appearance, and with
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 271 
 
 the most magniloquent testimonials. But 
 this fellow really knew very little more 
 about game than his master : and the keepers 
 over at Ashridge soon found him out; and 
 laughed at him heartily. 
 
 " I fear I shall show you very little sport," 
 said Mowbray to his friend, as they walked 
 across the woods, followed by the magni- 
 ficent keeper and his attendant, and two 
 brace of dogs. *' I haven't been here long 
 enough to preserve. I mean to have a fine 
 head of game next year, and rather think of 
 forming a deer park." 
 
 "Fine place up on the hill there," quoth 
 Jacob, who had never been down before. 
 "Who's is that?" 
 
 " Ashridge — Lord Wraysbury's." 
 
 " 0, yes, an awful old Tory. Do you 
 know him ? Is he a good neighbour ?" 
 
 " I don't know him at all " said Mow- 
 
 bray.
 
 272 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 ''Ah, that's a pity. We might have tried 
 his woods, if you'd been friends. I suppose 
 he's got lots of birds." 
 
 At that moment a hare ran across. Jacob 
 saw her, fired with both barrels, and missed 
 with both. 
 
 " Confound that gun !" he exclaimed. 
 " It's a new one, that I haven't tried yet. I 
 believe I should have done better with my ' 
 old one." 
 
 There is nothing very amusing in follow- 
 ing two inferior shots over ground where 
 there is very little game. Mowbray made 
 no pretence to be a sportsman, but he cer- 
 tainly did more execution than the young 
 man from Manchester, who had come pre- 
 pared to do wonders. He, however, did 
 not seem discouraged ; but blamed the new 
 breech-loader, and the scarcity of birds, 
 and returned to a late luncheon in a state of 
 apparent self-satisfaction.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 273 
 
 "Too late for trout-fishing," he said, as 
 they came where there was a fine view of 
 the windings of the Ashe. " Else I might 
 have had better luck with the fly. There's 
 trout in that stream, I suppose, Mowbray?" 
 
 "The river is in Lord Wraysbury's 
 Manor," replied the merchant, "so I know 
 nothing about it." 
 
 " Deuced unlucky. Wraysbury seems to 
 have the best of everything down here." 
 
 Mowbray, who loved to dazzle his mer- 
 cantile friends with the magnificence of his 
 house and the perfection of its appointments, 
 did not enjoy remarks of this character. 
 However, it was no use to be annoyed. 
 This young man of Manchester was famed 
 among his friends for making unpleasant 
 remarks. The victim didn't like it ; but as 
 it amused the audience, he was rather popu- 
 lar than otherwisci 
 
 Late that evening came Terrell, the 
 
 VOD. I. T
 
 274 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Bohemian barrister ; too late for dinner, 
 which Mowbray, with all his hospitality, did 
 not regret. For Terrell was an excitable 
 man; wont when on a railway journey, which 
 he hated, to console himself with copious 
 draughts of stimulating liquid ; garrulous 
 and humorous under such circumstances, 
 but hardly presentable at a table presided 
 over by decorous Miss Cust, and where Amy 
 Gray sat m shy prettiness, in the modest 
 soft-coloured high dresses which Miss Pin- 
 nock had taught her were becoming a gover- 
 ness. Little Amy had never seen a dinner 
 party : the first time a fashionable lady in 
 evening dress becomes visible to her, I wonder 
 what she will think ? 
 
 The Bohemian barrister came joyously 
 into the billiard room, a pleasant sight to 
 him after his long dark railway travel. 
 Mowbray introduced him to his friends, and 
 then said :
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 275 
 
 " You're too late for dinner, Terrell, and 
 I don't suppose you'll care to go into the 
 dining-room. Have something here, will 
 you?" 
 
 " Exactly what I should like." 
 
 " Well, what will you have ? I know you 
 are a good judge of such matters." 
 
 " I should like a broiled pheasant, and a 
 bottle of mulled port. After that I shall 
 feel better." 
 
 He was supplied with what he wanted with 
 promptitude. Mowbray's people were al- 
 ways rapid in their movements when their 
 master was at home. Terrell sat down at a 
 small table close to a grand fire of logs built 
 upon andirons, and ate his bird and drank 
 his wine with infinite satisfaction; and having 
 finished, came to look at the billiards. 
 
 Mowbray and Jacob the younger were 
 playing ; the former a steady and the latter 
 a showy player, but neither of anything like 
 
 T 2
 
 276 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 the first force. Terrell watched them through 
 a game or two, wherein Jacob the 
 younger was for the most part victorious, 
 and then proposed to engage the winner of 
 the next. This also fell to the young man 
 of Manchester. 
 
 " You re not altogether a bad player, sir," 
 says Terrell, "but you'd never get your 
 living at half-a-crown the game." 
 
 " Ah, you think you can beat me," he re- 
 torted. 
 
 *^ I think it might be done. Come, I'll 
 give you twenty out of fifty for a sove- 
 reign." 
 
 The young man from Manchester was dis- 
 gusted. He had never seen Roberts play, 
 whereas Terrell was a pupil of that magician 
 of the cue. He laughed at the audacity of 
 the challenge, but accepted it. 
 
 " I hope you've got plenty of sovereigns, 
 Mr. Terrell," he said.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 277 
 
 " I shall soon have one of yours," retorts 
 the Bohemian with a laugh. 
 
 Terrell began with a miss. His opponent 
 scored seven, making him twenty seven. 
 Terrell scored five, making four to the good. 
 Then the Manchester man had a great in- 
 nings, and scored seventeen, making him 
 forty-four. 
 
 "This looks awkward," said Terrell, chalk- 
 ing his cue, and then taking a great gulp of 
 brandy and seltzer. 
 
 His opponent laughed. 
 
 " You can't gobble me up quite so easy as 
 you think," he said. " Now, Mr. Terrell." 
 
 Terrell settled down to his work, and 
 made a break of forty-six with the utmost 
 ease, eagerly watched by the others. 
 
 "Why, you're a grand player, sir," said 
 Sir Jacob. 
 
 " Passable," replied the barrister, modest- 
 ly. "I once beat Roberts, when he gave
 
 278 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 me eight hundred out of a thousand." 
 
 "Terrell can do anything," says Mowbray 
 to Jacob junior. "You should see him 
 shoot." 
 
 " Can't do much where there's no game," 
 was the retort. 
 
 " Well," said the old knight, " I must go 
 to bed, Mowbray. What say you?" 
 
 " I must also. We need not hurry you, 
 gentlemen. You'll be ready for business 
 to-morrow morning, Terrell ?" 
 
 " Rather," he said. 
 
 The merchant and his elder guest retired, 
 and Terrell and his late opponent remained 
 to talk and smoke and drink. Terrell 
 would never go to bed if he could help it. 
 Weary waiters in the smoking-room of his 
 club, the latest in London, would anathema- 
 tize him hour after hour, as he consumed 
 goblet after goblet, cigar after cigar, till 
 daylight broke in the east, and Covent Gar-
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 279 
 
 den awoke to its matutine business. Could 
 he only get a comrade, he would go on for 
 ever. This evening, finding himself so cosily 
 placed on a sofa in Mowbray's magnificent 
 billiard-room, with a grand fire blazing, and 
 an unlimited supply of alcohol and tobacco, 
 Terrell was happy. Besides, he had Mr. 
 Jacob there — Jacob Jones, for I have not 
 as yet mentioned the illustrious family name 
 — and Terrell saw through him at once, and 
 resolved to amuse himself by enlightening 
 him. 
 
 Jacob Jones did not appear at breakfast 
 the next morning. 
 
 Terrell did, looking as fresh as a lark, 
 and doing credit to Bohemia by his appe- 
 tite, and to himself by his courtesy to the 
 ladies at table. There was never a more 
 perfect gentleman when he had himself well 
 in hand. But, as I have said, he was excit- 
 able, and would under certain circumstances
 
 280 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 become rather too garrulous — rather too 
 high in his tone. 
 
 Breakfast over, Mowbray excused himself 
 to his other guests on the plea of important 
 business, and took Terrell to his private 
 room. There he gave him a succinct ac- 
 count of what had occurred, and showed 
 him Chinery's letter. 
 
 Terrell pondered. 
 
 " Chinery of Gray's Inn," he said. *' I 
 know him. He is one of the dryest and 
 sharpest old fellows in London. He may 
 know something we don't know about the 
 title. You see, the record of these old 
 manors that have been in one family from 
 time immemorial, are often full of informa- 
 tion that nobody can get at." 
 
 " But why," asked Mowbray, '^ did you 
 recommend a property which might possi- 
 bly be in such a position ?" 
 
 ^' You can never be sure of any property
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 281 
 
 in the world. I have seldom seen a clearer 
 title than old Lindesay's representative gave 
 you. If there is any such right as Lord 
 Wraysbury claims, I'll answer for it they 
 didn't know it." 
 
 " That's no great consolation to me," says 
 Mowbray. 
 
 " What sort of a fellow is this young Lord 
 Waynflete — I mean as to temper ? Is he 
 impetuous, do you know ?" 
 
 *' I know very little about him. I should 
 think him determined, and perhaps rather 
 quarrelsome. Why do you ask ?" 
 
 " Because I should like to know whether 
 that letter was old Chinery's own idea, or 
 was what Lord Waynflete told him to write. 
 And I should also like to know whether 
 Chinery advised him to remove your rail- 
 ings. However, I can find out all we want 
 to know." 
 
 " You can ?"
 
 282 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 "Unquestionably. I'll go back to town 
 this afternoon, and you shall know within 
 the week." 
 
 "Meanwhile, how do you advise me to 
 act?" asked Mowbray. 
 
 " Leave the rails where they are, and send 
 a copy of Chinery's letter to Roberts and 
 Roberts, asking their advice. You must 
 employ them in the business by-and-by, so . 
 they may as well be allowed to suppose that 
 you consulted them from the commence- 
 ment." 
 
 Roberts and Roberts were Mowbray's 
 Manchester attorneys. 
 
 " A very good idea," said Mowbray with 
 a laugh. " You always think of those things, 
 Terrell." 
 
 " I'd have been Lord Chancellor, sir, if I 
 had been able to keep straight. The Lord 
 Chief Justice and I were at Oxford together, 
 and have been up at a police-court together,
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 283 
 
 and have been in a spunging-house together. 
 Never mind. They'll make me a revising 
 barrister by-and-by, or a judge in one of 
 the West Indian Islands. What train can I 
 get to town by ?" 
 
 " Don't go to-da}^," quoth Mowbray, hos- 
 pitably. "To-morrow will be time enough. 
 You can have a little shooting — besides, you 
 got no dinner yesterday." 
 
 " I've neither a gun nor a dress-coat," said 
 Terrell, with a laugh. 
 
 " Well, I'll find you a gun, and the ladies 
 will permit you to dine in velvet. You 
 took the conceit out of young Mr. Jones at 
 billiards yesterday ; and I should like him 
 to see you shoot. He fancies himself a good 
 shot, and has brought the newest thing in 
 breech-loaders. What do you say ?" 
 
 " I accept, of course, though it's neglect of 
 duty." 
 
 The conference over, they descended to-
 
 284 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 gether. Sir Jacob had settled down in the 
 library, amid letters and newspapers. His 
 son was smoking on the terrace. Mowbray 
 proposed an hour or two's shooting. Jacob 
 the younger did not seem to care about 
 it much, but assented ; and they started 
 presently in an opposite direction to that of 
 yesterday's exploit. 
 
 There was more game this way. Mr. 
 Jones made several splendid misses, and 
 execrated his gun. 
 
 " I don't know where that gent's shots do 
 go," murmured an under keeper. "Just 
 now they was meant for a pheasant, and 
 next they was bound to hit master's head ; 
 but neither weren't hurt." 
 
 " Change with me for a time," says 
 Terrell. " The one I've got shoots pretty 
 straight." 
 
 It certainly did, in his hands. But 
 Jones's, a splendid implement of the newest .
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 285 
 
 and most careful construction, was very 
 superior ; and Terrell had the luck to knock 
 over a brace of pheasants within five minutes. 
 
 " You'll have plenty of game here, Mow- 
 bray," he said, " if you get a sensible keeper. 
 That long swell behind is merely a fool. 
 What's that bit of marsh below? Is it 
 yours ?" 
 
 '^Yes." 
 
 " A likely place for a snipe, it strikes me. 
 Let's try." 
 
 Terrell was right ; he bagged three brace 
 right away. 
 
 "I don't call this bad sport," he said. 
 " And I don't call this a bad gun of your 
 friend's — he may make me a present of it it 
 he likes." 
 
 They had a pleasanter dinner that evening 
 than any since the Joneses had been in the 
 house ; for Jacob junior was stricken with 
 admiration by Terrell's higher accomplish-
 
 286 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 ments and wider knowledge, and did not 
 attempt to say so many nasty things. And 
 the Bohemian barrister, being in the pre- 
 sence of ladies, showed his better side, and 
 produced quaint legal reminiscences of witty 
 judges and brilliant counsel. He knew 
 everybody of his own standing, and they all 
 admitted his equality ; he might, as he said, 
 have been Lord Chancellor ; but the gaieties 
 of life had for him a greater charm than its 
 duties. Men of this sort are a failure in the 
 world, but they are uncommonly pleasant 
 companions at the dinner-table and else- 
 where. Terrell's sparkling talk fascinated 
 Amy Gray, revealing the existence of an 
 unknown world. She had never heard such 
 brilliant sketches of character, such lively 
 anecdotes, such witty epigrams. Her eyes 
 grew bright and her cheeks flushed rosily 
 as the raconteur grew more and more fluent 
 after each glass of Roederer orMarcobrunner.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 287 
 
 When the gentlemen went off to their 
 billiards after coffee, and Amy to her quiet 
 bedroom, she could not help wondering 
 what sort of a place the world was. She 
 had passed her childhood in a dull and 
 sordid school of charity ; she was suddenly 
 transplanted to what seemed in comparison 
 a fairy palace, a temple of delights ; she had 
 found a hero in the person of Lord Wayn- 
 flete, the very day of her escape from prison ; 
 and now she heard of a new and strange 
 region of the world, where intellect and wit 
 seemed to be the lords paramount. And 
 the people she saw were so different. Mr. 
 Mowbray and the two Joneses all came from 
 Manchester ; but how far superior he was 
 to them ! Mr. Terrell came from London, 
 and seemed in some things superior to all 
 three. Were all London people better than 
 Manchester people, she wondered? And 
 then she said her prayers, fell asleep, and
 
 288 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 dreamt she was Lord Chancellor and had to 
 sentence Jacob Jones junior to death. 
 
 Meanwhile, the billiard-room was cosy as 
 usual, and Sir Jacob was taking a lesson 
 from Terrell. 
 
 "A quick eye, a steady hand, a little 
 intuitive dynamics — those are the requisites 
 for billiards," said Terrell. " But the great 
 thing is, to make your play easy. Don't go 
 in for showy play ; try to have your balls in 
 an easy position every time. Once learn 
 that art, and a break of two hundred is as 
 easy as a break of twenty." 
 
 They went to bed early that night. 
 Terrell, who was the hero of the hour, an- 
 nounced his intention of starting by the first 
 up-train, which left Ashridge Road at the 
 dismally early hour of six. So the Joneses 
 retired first, leaving Mowbray and Terrell 
 too^ether. 
 
 I've written a small cheque for you, 
 
 a T'
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 289 
 
 Terrell," said the Squire, handing him a 
 parallelogram of paper folded up. It wasn't 
 a very small cheque, I'll do Mowbray the 
 justice to remark. " But why do you want 
 to go so early? Why not stay to breakfast?" 
 
 " Shall I tell you ? I don't want to see 
 Miss Gray again. She reminds me of some- 
 body else that I knew twenty years ago. 
 She wasn't a bit like Miss Gray, but there 
 was the very same innocent happy look in 
 her eyes. So I'd rather not meet Miss Gray 
 again : it makes me melancholy." 
 
 " Well," thought Mowbray, '' the notion 
 of Terrell's being sentimental !" 
 
 But he thought a good deal of Amy Gray 
 that night himself. 
 
 The following evening was spent by the 
 Bohemian barrister in a place very different 
 from the brilliant apartments of Mowbray 
 Mansion. It was, however, rather a cosy 
 place in its way. An ancient coffee-room, 
 
 VOL. T. u
 
 290 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 divided into boxes in the snug old fashion ; 
 a long room, in which two famous fires were 
 burning, on one of which stood a huge 
 copper kettle, with a tap, holding about a 
 kilderkin ; a sanded floor, and no very bril- 
 liant dinner apparatus, but capital viands and 
 liquors. 
 
 Hither came Terrell, in prosecution of Mr. 
 Mowbray's business. He had a fine wide 
 legal acquaintance — and it was deep as well 
 as wide, extending from the highest stratum 
 to the lowest. There was hardly a judge on 
 the bench who was not his friend, or at 
 least his acquaintance ; while a very large 
 number of pettifoggers' clerks had served 
 him with writs in his time. Between these 
 two extremes his knowledge was also exten- 
 sive, at each successive level : and among 
 those whom he knew was the dignified Mr. 
 Rooker, managing clerk to Chinery of Gray's 
 Inn.
 
 M AR QUIS AND MERCHANT. 291 
 
 Not, however, Chinery's confidential clerk. 
 The old boy was too shrewd to give his con- 
 fidence to anybody. He was as silent as 
 Horas, otherwise Harpocrates. He had the 
 custody of several family skeletons, and never 
 opened their cupboard except when alone, 
 or left the keys in anybody's way. Hence 
 it was very little indeed that Rooker knew 
 of his master's business. 
 
 Terrell, who knew his habits, caught him 
 by accident taking his midday chop, with 
 the Morning Post at his elbow. Rooker al- 
 ways read that journal ; he had a firm belief 
 that he ought to have been a gentleman and 
 a man of fashion, and loved its glimpses of 
 the upper world. The landlord of his chop- 
 house took in that elegant journal chiefly to 
 oblige Mr. Rooker — " as was a werry reglar 
 customer, you see." Rooker took what he 
 called his luncheon — a mutton chop, half a 
 pint of porter, and a glass of " rack," regu- 
 
 u2
 
 292 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 larly every week-day at that chop-house, ex- 
 cept when he got his fortnight's holiday in 
 the autumn. He always took his holiday in 
 the shooting season, and those of his friends 
 who loved him would inquire on his return 
 how he had enjoyed the sport, and whether 
 the birds were wild. He has been known 
 to give a little game to his intimate friends. 
 Once on his return he brought a brace of - 
 pheasants for Chinery. The old lawyer 
 smiled significantly, and said, 
 
 " Very fine birds. Come and eat 'em with 
 me on Tuesday. But don't waste your 
 money, Rooker — don't waste your money." 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Rooker," said the Bohemian, 
 taking a place at the same table, " glad to 
 see you well. No news to-day, is there ?" 
 
 "None at all. There are two or three 
 judges very ill. Pity you haven't a friend in 
 the Cabinet, Mr. Terrell." 
 
 " Faith, I'm a very good judge already —
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 293 
 
 of port wine. Waiter, bring me a kidney 
 and some stout." 
 
 '* I don't often see you here, Mr. Terrell," 
 says Rooker. 
 
 " Not often. I drop in for some lunch 
 just where I happen to find myself. By the 
 way, is there a place in this neighbourhood 
 where one can get a good dinner? You're 
 sure to know. I sometimes have to be down 
 here on business just when luckier fellows 
 are going to dine at their clubs, and I should 
 like to know where to get a civilized meal. 
 Where do you go, Rooker ?" 
 
 " I generally go to the Lord Eldon 
 Coffee-House : it's an old-fashioned place, 
 but you are capitally served." 
 
 Terrell knew the Lord Eldon well enough, 
 and felt certain that Rooker did not often 
 dine at a place where the rumpsteaks were 
 excellent, but cost five shillings. 
 
 " I'll try it, certainly," he said. " What
 
 294 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 do you say ? Shall we dine together there ? 
 I've nothing to do to-night. But perhaps 
 you've an engagement." 
 
 No : Rooker had no engagement, and was 
 quite ready for a good dinner at the Lord 
 Eldon. So he agreed to meet his enter- 
 tainer there at seven o'clock, and went off to 
 his office. 
 
 ''Now," thinks Terrell, '' if this blockhead 
 knows anything, out it shall come — as cer- 
 tain as if it were one of his eyeteeth, and I 
 had the pincers upon it." 
 
 He went to the Lord Eldon, and ordered 
 dinner for two. 
 
 " The best bill of fare you can give me, 
 Frederick," he said to the head-waiter. 
 " And the choicest wines. Game, of course. 
 I don't want the bother of ordering : I leave 
 it to you." 
 
 " You may depend upon me," said the 
 waiter.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 295 
 
 ^* By the way, I owe you something ; what 
 IS it f 
 
 '' Very little, Mr. Terrell." 
 
 " No matter ; I'll pay it at once, and have 
 it off ray mind. You'll wait upon us, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Then remember, I'm a stranger here. 
 You've never seen me before. Be as affable 
 as you like to the gentleman I bring with 
 me. 
 
 The appointed time came ; Rooker, in full 
 evening dress, looking a Q.C. at least, was 
 there five minutes before it. There was a dingy 
 mirror over the fireplace, and he examined 
 himself in it with much satisfaction, though 
 a warp in the glass made him look as if he 
 had taken poison, and were expiring in 
 frightful convulsions. Then he took to study- 
 ing the evening paper until Terrell's arrival. 
 The dinner was as good as the Lord Eldon
 
 29 6 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 could produce. The wines were abundant, 
 and well-chosen. 
 
 "I gave them carte hlancJie^ joxx see, 
 Rooker," said the Bohemian ; " told them I 
 wanted a good dinner, and that I wouldn't 
 be troubled with ordering it." 
 
 " You see, I told you it was a good place 
 to dine," says Rooker, quite elate. 
 
 Of course there was some fine old port 
 after dinner ; all lawyers like port wine, and 
 Terrell was particularly fond of it. 
 
 " Had your usual trip into the country, 
 Rooker?" he asked, by-and-by. 
 
 " yes. Returned ten days ago." 
 
 " Good sport, I hope." 
 
 " Very fair : not so good as last year." 
 
 " By the way, I had a day's shooting last 
 week. Was lucky enough to kill some 
 snipe." 
 
 " What part of the country ?" asked 
 Rooker.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 297 
 
 " Ashridge, not far from Rothcastle. Lord 
 Wraysbury has a place there." 
 
 " Ah yes, he's a dient of ours, " says 
 Rooker. " He's a nobleman of the right 
 sort." 
 
 Need I say that Mr. Rooker was a High 
 Tory — a very fervent supporter of the 
 Church and the Crown ? 
 
 " His son. Lord Waynflete, is a fine 
 young fellow," says Terrell, just as if he were 
 his intimate friend. ";By the way, there's 
 a new-comer down there, some man from 
 Manchester, who has been squabbling with 
 him about manorial rights. These million- 
 aires are buying estates everywhere now." 
 
 ** Oh, I know all about that," said Rooker, 
 with a laugh. "That millionaire won't do 
 much good. We found an old document in 
 our office, date 1722, which shows that the 
 owner of Under Ashridge, now called Linde- 
 say, made the attempt to enclose the Com-
 
 298 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 mon at that time, and the Court decided 
 that Lord Wrayshury had superior rights." 
 "By Jove!" quoth Terrell, "is that a 
 
 fact r 
 
 "Yes. It's a crabbed docuraent, looking 
 twice as old as it really is. We had to have 
 it copied, and the whole story is as clear as 
 possible." 
 
 " Well," thought Terrell, " this old fellow 
 has given me bad news in exchange for a 
 good dinner. Mowbray will be in a sweet 
 temper when he hears this story. It's true, 
 I can see : and that accounts for Waynflete's 
 acting so boldly. Well, my good friend 
 can't always have his own way : he isn't, 
 often beaten, and perhaps it may do him 
 good." 
 
 And then he said to Rooker : 
 
 " That will rather astonish the opposite 
 party. Come, suppose we finish with a bo vvl 
 of punch and a cigar."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 299 
 
 The punch was an excellent finish, and 
 indeed it finished Mr. Chinery's chief clerk. 
 He had rather an undignified and dishevelled 
 appearance when the punch was running 
 low in the great china bowl, and its solid in- 
 gredients, such as sticks of cinnamon and 
 slices of lemon, lay like stranded wrecks in 
 a receding tide. 
 
 ** Get the old boy a cab, Frederick," says 
 Terrell. " I've had almost enough of him. 
 You must give me a bed to-night. It's too 
 cold to go out of doors with a good dinner 
 and several bottles of wine concealed about 
 one's person." 
 
 The Lord Eldon, though not an hotel, has 
 a comfortable bedroom or two for privileged 
 customers, who have sanitary objections to 
 cold air after dinner. 
 
 ** Have a fire lighted," said Terrell, when 
 Rooker was disposed of, "and send me up 
 some writing materials and a gentlemanly
 
 300 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 supply of brandy and soda. I've a short 
 letter to write, which you must send to a 
 pillar-box to-night. Don't let any human 
 being come near me in the morning till I 
 ring." 
 
 Such were the Bohemian barrister's ar- 
 rangements.
 
 301 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MARIGOLD. 
 
 T?!DWARD MOWBRAY was angry when 
 -■-^ he found himself foiled. But he was 
 too sagacious a man to fight a losing battle. 
 So, after some reflexion, he ordered the iron 
 fencing to be removed from Ashridge Com- 
 mon, and took no other notice of Mr. Chin- 
 ery's letter. He felt sure there would be 
 some way in which he might annoy his aris- 
 tocratic neighbour. He was less certain 
 about the gipsies : however, Rothcastle Fair 
 would not return till next year, and mean- 
 while he had much to do. He had to stock 
 his preserves, improve his gardens and hot-
 
 302 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 houses, make a deer-park. He was not cer- 
 tain whether he would not try to do some- 
 thing more important than any of these. 
 Amy Gray was always in his thoughts — and 
 he would long ago have put the question to 
 her but for a question which haunted him — 
 
 What will Manchester say? 
 
 Meanwhile, what did Ashridge say? 
 
 " My lord's beat the Squire." 
 
 " Yes, and darned glad I am ! What 
 business has he got taking in a Common that 
 always used to belong to everybody in the 
 village ? It's a darned shame !" 
 
 But Mr. Flanagan and the other gentle- 
 men who haunted the Mowbray Hotel, talk- 
 ing horse, and playing billiards, and drinking 
 Irish whiskey, were unanimously of opinion 
 that the Squire would get the best of it. 
 
 ''His honour won't be beat," Flanagan 
 would say, " by any of your lords, or any of 
 your gipsies."
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 303 
 
 However, the stacks of iron fencing had 
 been quietly removed, and there was no 
 further attempt made to claim unusual 
 rights over the Common. 
 
 All through the winter, which was a severe 
 one, Ashridge Manor was extremely quiet. 
 The Marquis being abroad with his wife and 
 daughter, Lord Waynflete divided his time 
 between various country houses. Once or 
 twice he paid the old place a flying visit, 
 just to see how affairs were going — possibly 
 not without an arriere pensee of a certain 
 pretty little governess. But for the most 
 part he was absent, shooting, hunting, flirt- 
 ing; enjoying the winter season as only an 
 English gentleman can enjoy it. 
 
 Winter in England has been much abused, 
 and deservedly. It is an abominable sea- 
 son for the great majority. It slackens 
 work. It starves the poor and kills the 
 weak. But there is one entity to whom it
 
 304 MAEQUIS AND MEKCHANT. 
 
 is the most enjoyable of seasons — and that 
 is the Englishman in the prime of life, in 
 perfect health, and with unlimited command 
 of money. He wins joy from the wicked- 
 ness of winter. He builds houses of such 
 massiveness and comfort, and carpets and cur- 
 tains his rooms so snugly, that he defies the 
 bitter storm without, and makes it heighten 
 his enjoyment. He loads his tables with all 
 the mighty meats — the turtle and venison, 
 fish and game — which can only be eaten 
 with real appetite when the weather is cold. 
 He lays down ample store of choicest wine, 
 and quickens the blood in his veins by the 
 rarest vintages of the Coast of Gold. The 
 world is iced that he may enjoy it by mak- 
 ing an inner climate of his own. 
 
 There are slushy splashy raw comfortless 
 mornings in our English winter — mornings 
 when it seems equally horrible within and 
 without. Will it rain ? Sure to drizzle all
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 305 
 
 day — and if you get far from home it will 
 come down like the Deluge. The coals 
 wont burn ; draughts come in through all 
 the windows and doors. On such mornings 
 the footman fiendishly brings you a request 
 for ''the amount of our little account." 
 On such mornings servants lie in bed, and 
 you get a comfortless breakfast. On such 
 mornings you envy South Sea Islanders and 
 dormice — any creatures beyond the reach of 
 the infernal weather. 
 
 How is it with our friend described 
 above ? " Fine hunting morning, my lord," 
 says John, as he brings in his water. He 
 is out of bed on the instant ; plunges into 
 his cold bath ; comes down to breakfast in 
 pink, ready for action. Breakfast punctual 
 and first-rate : Ms servants don't lie in bed. 
 A rump steak and a small cup of tea ; no 
 ale or wine or brandy : then he mounts his 
 hack, and is off to the covert-side. What 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 does he know of the weather he rides 
 through ? Rain may drench him; he's none 
 the worse. He rides a three-parts thorough- 
 bred, and leads the field, and goes fast at 
 everything. Coming home through the 
 mirky twilight, he has his warm bath, and 
 dresses and descends to dinner, as fresh as 
 paint, quite ready for a plate of " clear " 
 and a glass of '^ dry" — with the proper se- 
 quences; quite ready to end the evening 
 amid flirtation, music, proverbs, charades — 
 with a game of billiards at the close of all. 
 Without an unstrung nerve in his frame, with- 
 out any of those mysterious aches and twitches 
 which haunt the system of an unsound man, 
 without the slightest care as to how many 
 sovereigns he spends between morn and eve, 
 this fortunate fellow contrives to get im- 
 mense enjoyment out of a winter day. 
 
 Adrian, Lord Waynflete, though no en- 
 thusiast in field-sports, enjoyed them in
 
 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 307 
 
 moderation ; and, having perfect health and 
 plenty of money, liked winter very well 
 indeed. One thing certainly is in its favour 
 — the pretty girls who work so hard all 
 through the London season, and look so 
 jaded at the end of it, are once more fresh 
 and natural, having returned to their native 
 nests, and to reasonable hours. They get 
 some beauty-sleep now, and are not obliged 
 to have their tea in bed at two in the after- 
 noon. They are merry maidens, not belles 
 of the season ; nice girls, not mere market- 
 able articles. Besides, they have their 
 younger sisters around them — the pretty 
 children who must not be allowed to quite 
 escape from the school-room till their elders 
 have fulfilled their duty. Now these younger 
 folk, though supposed to be in the pinafore 
 stage of existence, and to dine when others 
 lunch, and to learn geography and Italian, 
 are sometimes rather older than they are 
 
 x2
 
 308 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 allowed to look, and can occasionally flirt 
 with as much skill and science as their sis- 
 ters who have graduated in the saloons of 
 western London. 
 
 Lord Waynflete went on his winter cir- 
 cuit, through some of the pleasantest houses 
 in England, staying a week here and a fort- 
 night there, and taking life easily enough. 
 He would rather have been at home, but 
 Ashridge was just now deserted. He liked 
 to look after his own place ; to visit the 
 horses and dogs, the woods and fields; he 
 knew that he was missed by everybody at 
 Ashridge, and by Big Dog especially. How- 
 ever, there was no pleasure in staying alone 
 at the Manor, so he accepted the invitations 
 of his friends, and had a wandering winter. 
 
 Let us look in upon him at Mere Court, 
 in Gloucestershire, so called because of the 
 great lake in the grounds, a noted haunt of 
 wild fowl. Mere Court lies low, and the
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 309 
 
 country around it is flat and damp, the 
 nearest village having the suggestive name 
 of Bratton-in-the-Marsh. But the Delameres 
 have dwelt there for generations, and seem 
 to thrive ; they burn big fires in the old 
 house, and scare the demon of damp from 
 the doors. Hither came Adrian, to join a 
 pleasant party — Hugh, the eldest son, hav- 
 ing been his friend at Oxford. A pleasant 
 circle ; some very pretty girls ; among them 
 one who specially took his notice. She has 
 thus been painted by a poet of my acquaint- 
 ance : — 
 
 " Ay, in sweet sport I named her Marigold : 
 The golden haze of the Calendula 
 Always around her seemed to glide and play ; 
 And the great bulk of her bright hair was rolled 
 Back from her deerlike head in curious twine 
 Of gorgeous burnisht gold, splendidly serpentine. 
 
 " And all her fresh flusht face was smitten thro' 
 With fervent colour, such as sunlight burns 
 Into delicious depths of blossom-urns : 
 
 But then her eyes were of strange sapphire-blue. 
 Or that which men have seen in early skies 
 
 Ere Phosphor in the abyss of perfect purple dies."
 
 310 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 The description is pretty accurate. She 
 was a marvellous woman, of two or three 
 and twenty — a creature all glowing flushing 
 colour, who looked as if you would find the 
 same colour if you cleft her in twain — just 
 as it is with a melon. 
 
 She was a Miss Delamere ; but Adrian 
 did not at first understand that she was not 
 a sister of his friend Hugh. There was such 
 a fine family of brothers and sisters that it 
 took a new-comer some time to learn their 
 names and peculiarities. The golden-haired 
 blonde — a positive blonde, as Dr. Holmes 
 very well puts it — was very different from 
 the rest of the feminine group. They were 
 also fair, but it was negative fairness ; they 
 had no definite colour ; the majority of men 
 would have preferred them to their cande- 
 scent cousin, and styled them " sweetly 
 pretty girls." She wasn't that sort of thing 
 at all ; she was a meteor in petticoats, rather.
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 311 
 
 Her name was Agnes Delamere ; but 
 somebody [the above-quoted poet says it 
 was he] nicknamed her Marigold ; and this 
 of course got shortened to Mary, and then 
 altered to Polly. And Hugh's brother 
 Charlie, the wit of the family, had trans- 
 muted Marigold into Yellow Flower, and 
 called her The Flower at ordinary times, 
 and the ^' Yaller Gal " when he wanted to 
 make her angry — a thing not difficult to do. 
 Consequently Lord Waynflete was rather 
 mystified for some time, and could not make 
 out what was her actual name. 
 
 Hugh Delamere would have been very 
 glad if she had been his sister ; for it was his 
 destiny to marry her. She was the sole 
 daughter and heiress of a younger brother 
 of his father, who had made an immense 
 fortune : and, as the Squire had a big family, 
 the brothers had amicably arranged that 
 Agnes should marry Hugh, whereby the old
 
 312 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 estate might be kept free from the heavy 
 burdens which otherwise must be charged 
 upon it for the benefit of the younger chil- 
 dren. Both the cousins were aware of the 
 arrangement. Hugh was obedient : he was 
 a fine honest young Englishman, not too 
 brilliant, anxious to do his duty. He saw 
 what a good thing this would be for the 
 family. Still, he slightly hesitated. He 
 couldn't understand his cousin. She was a 
 different sort of being from his sisters : he'd 
 have fallen in love with a girl like one of 
 them with perfect willingness. But Mari- 
 gold puzzled him. 
 
 Marigold herself had a mixed feeling to- 
 wards her cousin. Naturally, she would 
 have liked him better if she had not been 
 obliged to marry him ; this would be the way 
 with any girl, and is excusable, if not justi- 
 fiable. She could not help liking him for 
 his good-humour and admiring his courage
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 313 
 
 and steadiness, but she at the same time felt 
 a certain amount of contepapt for his intel- 
 lectual sluggishness. He was made of that 
 sound sterling stuff which produces the ordi- 
 nary country squire. He had a clear head 
 for business, and excellent judgment on all 
 subjects likely to come before him : but he 
 didn't see much in Shakespeare or Tupper, 
 and had never in his life said a clever thing 
 — or tried to. 
 
 Marigold was an accomplished flirt, but 
 had had few opportunities. Her father was 
 rather a martinet, and kept her in good 
 order when he was at home, which was sel- 
 dom. The chief seat of his business was St. 
 Petersburg, and he passed much of his time 
 there : in that city he was a man of import- 
 ance, having taken great government con- 
 tracts, and being acquainted with the Impe- 
 rial family. He had a palace on the Neva, 
 as well as a warehouse, and was a Knight
 
 314 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 of the White Eagle. Emperors are fond of 
 men who can lend a million on an emer- 
 gency. So Ralph Delamere kept his daugh- 
 ter at school, notwithstanding her mature 
 age, at an establishment of the most expen- 
 sive kind, somewhere near Kensington, 
 where never more than six young ladies 
 were received. The heiress was permitted 
 to visit her uncle at Mere Court during va- 
 cation time, but all the rest of the year she 
 was immured within the walls of Milton 
 House, and her manners and morals were 
 carefully watched over by the stiff and 
 shrewd preceptress, a spinster of fifty, 
 whom her pupils nicknamed Lady Macbeth. 
 Marigold did not at all like this sort of 
 thing, at her age and with her ideas, as may 
 well be supposed ; but her father was reso- 
 lute, and she had no way of escape. She 
 was not to be finally liberated from the 
 care of Lady Macbeth until the necessary
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 315 
 
 arrangements were concluded for her mar- 
 riage with her cousin. About these there 
 seemed no particular hurry ; her father 
 didn't know when he could leave Russia, 
 and of course desired to be present at his 
 daughter's nuptials, determined to make 
 them in all ways magnificent. The young 
 lady was less satisfied than ever with her 
 confinement at Milton House ; for the girls 
 of about her own age had lately dropped 
 off, one by one, and their places were sup- 
 plied by little chits of from twelve to fif- 
 teen, with whom she could not deign to 
 associate, and who mischievously laughed at 
 her for being kept so long at school. For 
 some time she had frequent and enthusiastic 
 letters from her old schoolfellows — letters 
 which sorely tried her temper by describing 
 the gaieties of the outer world, and the 
 charming young men to be met there. 
 Suddenly the correspondence would stop
 
 316 MAEQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 altogether ; then, after an interval, would 
 come a brace of wedding-cards, and perhaps 
 a stout letter in a soiled envelope, soiled by 
 the delicious marks of bride-cake. 
 
 Marigold was delighted with Lord Wayn- 
 flete, and went in at once for a tremendous 
 flirtation. Adrian couldn't make her out. 
 For a considerable time he took her for a 
 sister of his friend Hugh, and rather won- 
 dered that so steady a fellow should have 
 so fast a sister. Indeed, it was from her 
 own lips that he learnt the truth, and under 
 these circumstances. 
 
 Outside Mere Court there was a stone 
 terrace, a pleasant promenade. One even- 
 ing, after Adrian had been there for a day 
 or two, the bright moonlight shone through 
 a lofty window, whose curtains were un- 
 drawn. Adrian had by this time got on 
 pretty good terms with Marigold ; she 
 amused and interested him ; she had a fresh
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 317 
 
 original way of talking and thinking, which 
 he liked ; so they had at intervals many 
 conversations on such topics as young men 
 and maidens like to discuss together. Hugh 
 wasn't at all jealous ; perhaps he wished he 
 could understand his future wife as well as 
 Adrian seemed to. Hugh was willing to do 
 his duty, but it appeared hard that he should 
 have to marry a Sphinx. 
 
 Well, on this moonlit evening, when the 
 Squire was asleep after dinner, and Mrs. 
 Delamere knitting, and Hugh playing chess 
 with Charlie, and some of the younger folk 
 at a round game, Marigold espied the full 
 moon through the tall window, and said to 
 Adrian — 
 
 *' Let us go out on the terrace for five 
 minutes, Lord Waynflete. It is so dread- 
 fully hot here. They will be wanting to 
 play whist presently." 
 
 " Wrap yourself up carefully," said Adrian.
 
 318 MAKQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 Well, they strolled out and walked up 
 and down for some time in silence. The 
 gay laughter of the girls at their game rang 
 through the windows. Lord Waynflete, 
 looking at his companion, thought there was 
 something weird and mysterious in that 
 golden hair and glowing face, seen beneath 
 the moonlight, which seemed to brighten 
 the brilliant eyes. 
 
 " I guess, 'twas frightful there to see 
 A lady so richly clad as she — 
 Beautiful exceedingly." 
 
 That triplet came into his mind as they 
 walked side by side in silence, under the 
 moon. At that very moment 
 
 " Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright," 
 
 as she turned them on Lord Waynflete, and 
 she suddenly said, 
 
 "What are you thinking of?" 
 
 " I was thinking of Christabel,'^ he answer- 
 ed. " Do you like that poem ?"
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 319 
 
 ** I do, indeed. It seems to me to con- 
 tain more real poetry than anything written 
 lately. I mean that I can see Christabel, 
 and the strange lady, and the old castle : 
 they seem real people and a real place : but 
 the people in Byron always make me think 
 of actors and actresses. But I never meet 
 with anybody who cares about poetry." 
 
 " Well," said Adrian, laughing, *^ your 
 brother Hugh doesn't care much about it, I 
 know." 
 
 " My brother Hugh !" she exclaimed, al- 
 most hysterically. " Why, you didn't fancy 
 Hugh was my brother ?" 
 
 "Excuse me. Miss Delamere," Adrian be- 
 gan — but she interrupted him, and with 
 strange volubility, told him who she was, 
 what was her relation to Hugh, how she was 
 kept so many months in the year close 
 prisoner under Lady Macbeth's charge. 
 
 " It is cruel," she said, "cruel, and I won't
 
 320 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 
 
 endure it much longer. I am not a baby ; 
 I am of age, and my own mistress. Is it 
 right to treat me so, Lord Waynflete ?" 
 
 Adrian was rather perplexed, but made 
 the most sagacious remark he could think of. 
 
 " You should talk to Hugh about it. He 
 has a right to advise you, you know." 
 
 " Hugh ! I hate Hugh ! He shall never 
 have any rights over me of any sort. I would 
 rather drown myself" 
 
 " Don't talk so rashly," said Lord Wayn- 
 flete. " Hugh Delamere is one of the best 
 fellows in the world, and you will be very 
 happy as his wife, and mistress of this charm- 
 ing place." 
 
 " Never ! He only wants my money. 
 You can see that he doesn't care for me. 
 Haven't you seen that ?" 
 
 *'Why, don't you know, I thought you 
 were his sister. You are excited to-night, 
 Miss Delamere ; you are not very well, I
 
 MARQUIS AND MERCHANT. 321 
 
 fancy. Come, let us go in. It is too cold 
 for you to stay out here any longer." 
 
 The thought flashed across his mind 
 whether the young lady might not be a little 
 deranged. It was the very full of the moon, 
 and that is said to influence lunatics. He 
 would talk to Hugh about it. 
 
 His theory was rather confirmed by her 
 conduct. She hurried forward to the glass- 
 door by which they had come out upon the 
 terrace — opened it — turned suddenly round 
 and clutched his arm, and said in a loud 
 whisper — ^^ Adrian, I love you I " and then 
 ran away along the corridor. 
 
 Lord Waynflete entered just in time to 
 join the whist-party. Marigold was seen no 
 more that night. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA