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DANIEL DENNISON, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 CUMBERLAND STATESMAN. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON 
 
 AND THE 
 
 CUMBERLAND STATESMAN. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 MRS. HOFLAND. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1846. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street. 
 

 
 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF A 
 
 COUNTRY APOTHECARY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 When Emily arrived at the Hall, she 
 found even that orderly mansion in the 
 state of confusion to be expected from 
 circumstances ; and on her arrival being 
 announced, Mr. Witherstone earnestly re- 
 quested to see her, and appeared assured 
 that her presence and advice would operate 
 more in his favour, than the prescriptions 
 of those around him. 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
^ DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 Emily had scarcely patience to see such 
 selfishness and obstinacy combined, as he 
 evinced ; and when he inquired " if I were 
 at home f" as if he had been going to send 
 for me, she answered, " that I was, before 
 then, many miles from home ; and would 
 probably be going from house to house, all 
 night, in Appledale." 
 
 Leaving him to digest this pill as he 
 might, she then went to visit his wife, 
 who was now laid in a kind of stupor and 
 exhaustion, which was but too soon ex- 
 changed for the restlessness of fever, and 
 the wanderings of delirium. She talked 
 much of Charles, and called on him "to 
 free her from the snakes that held her 
 so fast," which her sister-in-law, who had 
 also accompanied her brother, accounted 
 for by saying, " she had found a book 
 in the dressing-room, lying open at that 
 part of the life of Charles XII., of Sweden, 
 where, in his childhood, he took a stick 
 in his hand, and went forth to kill the 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 3 
 
 serpents." My wife concluded that she 
 referred to former terrors, which was un- 
 doubtedly the fact, but combined with 
 more recent circumstances. Whatever she 
 uttered w T as in a low, plaintive tone, and 
 with a thick voice, far different from her 
 usual sweet one ; and if denied anything, 
 instead of speaking with sharpness and 
 vivacity, as she was wont, she instantly 
 appeared cowed in her spirit, and fearful 
 of reproof. Alas ! for this too, there was a 
 reason. 
 
 When the physician arrived, and had 
 first prescribed for her husband, by his 
 command she was bled, though Emily, 
 in consequence of what I had said, ear- 
 nestly protested against this step. It was, 
 however, not likely in such a case, that 
 a woman's advice would be attended to ; 
 and as after this the patient recovered 
 her reason, it was thought a proof of her 
 amendment. She did not inquire, but was 
 told that Mr. Witherstone was ill, on which 
 
 b 2 
 
<* DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 her countenance became evidently more 
 tranquil, and she closed her eyes, which 
 had been singularly wild and wandering, 
 as if she thought she could sleep. After 
 a time she opened them, and inquired 
 "if I had been sent for to Mr. Wither- 
 stone," and on being answered in the 
 negative, she said, with a kind of half 
 smile : 
 
 " Oh, then he is not very bad !" 
 This was the only moment, my wife said, 
 in which she looked or spoke like her 
 former self: it was the last faint glim- 
 mering of that playful archness, which 
 she ever indulged. 
 
 Towards noon her mind was again con- 
 fused, but the teasing pain of a blister 
 seemed to recal her to a remembrance of her 
 situation, for she inquired in the kindest 
 manner after the poor family of Collets, and 
 gave strict orders to keep her child in the 
 most distant part of the house, or else ob- 
 tain leave to take him to ours. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 5 
 
 This permission it was now not difficult 
 to obtain, for I myself, the long banished 
 one, was again sent for, although it was 
 certain that the most judicious means had 
 been used in the Squire's behalf, and all 
 reason for alarm was gradually subsid- 
 ing. 
 
 But could I, ought I to intrude on the 
 patient, to whom I was not called, but who 
 was in fact the only one who would in this 
 season of universal suffering have drawn 
 me from those to whom I stood pledged ? 
 In this I had little choice, for after I had 
 been pestered nearly a whole hour by ques- 
 tions, and disgusted by apologies from 
 him, I was suddenly sent for by my wife in 
 such strong terms that I had no power to 
 refuse, and I followed the messenger on the 
 instant. 
 
 Mrs. Witherstone was raised up on the 
 bed, and reclined her head on the pillow 
 upon my wife's shoulder, who sustained 
 her burthen with evident difficulty. I 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 found with horror and sorrow no tongue 
 can describe, that she was then actually 
 dying; and although I rapidly ordered 
 whatever might delay the awful moment, I 
 saw it was at hand. ' 
 
 She evidently knew me, and thanked me 
 by her looks, and was soon so far recovered 
 that she desired Emily to reach her a little 
 casket, from which she took a bracelet that 
 had been her mother's, and seizing an oppor- 
 tunity when she was unseen by the attend- 
 ants, she put it in my hands, saying " Keep 
 it for — for him" 
 
 " She means for her child," said Emily, 
 sobbing as she spoke, " for there is on the 
 hasp a picture of herself." 
 
 " No, no, he knows — only him — and he 
 will promise — " 
 
 " I do know T all you would say, dear lady, 
 and I do promise. I will give it faith- 
 fully." 
 
 *■ Thank ye ; God bless ye both ; say no 
 more now, but pray for me — oh, yes ! pray 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. / 
 
 for me, both of ye — pray that I may be for- 
 given for thinking — for thinking of him 
 now. My feet are very, very cold. You 
 will love my child, I know. Tell your wife, 
 your good wife all, Mr. Dennison ; and tell 
 him that my last, last words were—" 
 
 At this moment I offered some restora- 
 tive drops, but she shook her head and put 
 them bye. It was the last effort of nature ; 
 two long-drawn sighs escaped her lips, and 
 then the pale cheek sank deeper on the 
 pillow ; the soul had fled. 
 
 My wife saw not what had occurred until 
 I relieved her from the precious burden, 
 and laid down gently that beauteous head 
 which the sculptor's art has never rivalled, 
 and closed those eyes which, within thirty 
 hours, I had beheld suffused with beams of 
 tenderness for one now far away. 
 
 My first emotions were far different to 
 those of my wife, who wept in very agony ; 
 for I inwardly thanked God that she had 
 died in her own house, and on her own 
 
8 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 bed, a sinless sufferer; her good name un- 
 polluted by disgrace, her marriage vow 
 preserved, and her memory claiming honour. 
 I traced her sad history from the moment 
 she had entered these walls, and what did it 
 present, save the misery of years, the tri- 
 umph of moments ? Anguish and vexation, 
 aversion and submission, had filled succes- 
 sively those hours in which she had been 
 seen by others — there had been many, un- 
 questionably, whose disgust and regret had 
 alike inflicted sufferings still more acute. 
 Could I lament that such scenes were closed 
 for ever, that such griefs should afflict her 
 no more ? 
 
 Whilst these thoughts were passing my 
 mind, the sad news was divulged to the 
 family. Oh ! what a cry arose, as with one 
 voice, from one heart. It was at once a 
 cry of dismay and unbelief, for how could 
 death have taken one so young, and so 
 short a time since moving amongst them 
 in her beauty and benevolence ; one, too, 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. \) 
 
 who had suffered so much, and so long, yet 
 still survived, as though she were invul- 
 nerable to death ? 
 
 There was no checking the impulse of 
 the heart at such a moment as this. Every 
 fount was instantly in motion, from the 
 aged bailiff to the young dairy-maid ; they 
 came flocking in trembling haste to the 
 chamber door, to hope, and trust it could 
 not be true, that something could be done 
 by the doctor to save her yet and each 
 one seemed ready to offer a portion of their 
 own life for the purpose — who first should 
 fly for help — who first should labour to 
 procure relief. 
 
 No, it was not a long swoon, but death 
 itself. Yet all were eager to tell me that 
 she had looked thus before, and to reproach 
 me for doing nothing. When at length 
 convinced that, indeed, there was no hope, 
 how bitterly did they lament ! — how the 
 bailiff wept, and the stiff gardener himself 
 sank down in the very feebleness of sorrow ; 
 
 b 3 
 
10 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 the master, that awful master, rang his 
 bell again and again, but it was unheard 
 as well as unanswered, for he was forgot- 
 ten now ! 
 
 This sight had not only banished my 
 previous reasoning, but completely unman- 
 ned me, and I had wept as a father over 
 his child, a mother over an orphan sister ; 
 but at length recovering myself I went to 
 the sick man's room. He complained in 
 strong terms of his desertion, and par- 
 ticularly that I, who had not been sent for 
 to Mrs. Witherstone, should yet have given 
 her an undue preference, knowing as I 
 must perforce do, that he was the first 
 person to be considered — the head of the 
 house and the head of the woman also." 
 
 " You are now, indeed, sole and only 
 head, Sir ! Your wife is dead /" 
 
 " Mrs. Witherstone dead ! dead ! it is 
 impossible. Why was I not informed of her 
 expected departure ?" 
 
 " You knew that she was extremely ill, 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. . 11 
 
 Sir, and you saw that I was sent for in ex- 
 treme haste and distress by my wife ; more 
 we could not tell you — her removal was 
 awfully sudden." 
 
 " I see it all. I ought to have been sent 
 for, and carried to her bedside, that she 
 might have bade me an eternal farewell, 
 and commended her child to my care ; but 
 you dreaded my complaint would return — 
 you did well ; it would have been too much 
 for me. As it is, I am quite overwhelmed, 
 — it will be the death of me." 
 
 So saying he drew the sheet over his face 
 to hide his sorrow. 
 
 " Thank God!" I said internally, " that 
 he did not come near her — that her last 
 moments were not disturbed by the sight 
 of him ; nor her due feelings of repen- 
 tance for a half-intended fault rendered 
 nugatory by his hated presence, and cold- 
 hearted speeches." 
 
 Hearing my feet at this moment pacing 
 the chamber, he hastily looked up to beg 
 
12 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 I would not leave him, "that I would 
 have pity on his desolate situation, and re- 
 member that he had lost the most lovely 
 creature that death ever tore from a widowed 
 bosom." 
 
 In reply, I told him, " that disease was 
 making fearful strides in the neighbourhood, 
 that my duty called me to visit many 
 afflicted families, and that every man must 
 bear his sorrows for himself, for w T hich I 
 had no remedy; and, moreover, that his 
 complaint was wonderfully abated." 
 
 "But are you sure of that ? Do you 
 believe that the danger is passed away ?" 
 
 " I am confident that it is. Besides, 
 with early morning you will have other, 
 and better advisers." 
 
 " Then go, go, for it is meet that I weep 
 my loss in solitude and silence." 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 It will strike my reader, as it did me, 
 that sorrow would not kill the Squire ; 
 nevertheless the extravagance of his grief 
 and the extraordinary exhibition he made 
 of it, were themes of conversation, not 
 merely through the neighbourhood, but 
 the country. Sorrow is, indeed, infectious, 
 and here it spread from house to house with 
 more rapidity, perhaps, as being connected 
 with the complaint under which many were 
 suffering or fearing ; but yet most of it 
 undoubtedly proceeded from the personal 
 love with which every one regarded that 
 
14 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 beautiful young creature, whose endearing 
 manners, universal benevolence, and unfor- 
 tunate union had so long engaged their 
 admiration or pity. Beyond her own house 
 she had not a fault, and within it not one 
 which was not considered to spring from 
 the indulgence of her parents and the seve- 
 rity of her husband. Now that death had 
 set his all-hallowing seal upon her she was 
 considered more of an angel than a woman, 
 and whatever was even remotely connected 
 with her became an object of such sympathy 
 and interest, as can only be conceived by 
 those who have resided in a retired country 
 place, where affairs of such moment can 
 rarely occur. 
 
 I do not say, nor in the least believe, 
 that Mr. Witherstone was not sincere in his 
 expressions of grief, for I observed him 
 closely, and when the more important point 
 of anxiety for himself was removed, when 
 he visited her in her coffin, and beheld that 
 face so pale in its beauty, verging to the 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 15 
 
 awful consummation of all earthly glory, 
 it is certain his heart was touched to its 
 core. It was, however, well for him that he 
 thus mourned, since that alone could wipe 
 away, even in a slight degree, the hand- 
 writing that was against him in the memory 
 of all around us. It was also well for himself 
 that his grief, like his love, and his religion, 
 was full of forms ; seeing that its essence 
 became expended on those things which in 
 a differently-constituted mind would have 
 been its nutriment. The watchings of the 
 corpse, the number of candles to be lighted, 
 the black draperies, and the white sheets — 
 flowers, and plumes, and hatchments, were 
 all so many sources of diversion to a mind 
 like his, and it is probable that in the exer- 
 cise of his taste on a point long studied, he 
 obtained at once a gratification to himself, 
 and secured pardon and eulogium from the 
 short-sighted and the vulgar-minded of his 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 The day of the funeral is said to be some- 
 times as great a trial as the day of death, 
 
16 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 for till then, perhaps, we do not feel the full 
 extent of our loss. It is not for me to say 
 whether the widowed husband delayed the 
 funeral from a dread of parting with the 
 precious remains, or a desire to gain time, 
 to render its solemnities more striking ; but 
 it is certain that he did so manage it, that 
 the first burst of sorrow had subsided, and 
 that this awful ceremony recalled it, and 
 awakened it in such a manner as I have 
 never witnessed in any other case. Alas ! 
 the hearts of many had, in the meantime, 
 bled for their own nearer connections, par- 
 ticularly their children, and, for my own 
 part such had been my incessant exertions, 
 my fears for my own family (particularly 
 my wife) that although I was incessantly 
 required at the Hall, and did go there when- 
 ever I was able (Miss Witherstone being 
 slightly visited by the prevalent complaint) 
 I had to a certain degree subdued or eluded 
 my sorrow till that awful day brought it 
 back. I was summoned, as a matter of 
 course, to attend the funeral, but there was 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 17 
 
 found a necessity to divide me from my 
 brethren of the profession, and render me 
 what I truly was — a mourner. It was the 
 determination of the Squire that the little 
 boy should follow his mother, and the sur- 
 prised and alarmed child, now only in his 
 sixth year, would walk with no other per- 
 son but me, whose very heart he rent with 
 inquiries for mamma. 
 
 When told she was gone to heaven : 
 
 " But why did she go such a long way, 
 and not take me with her f" said the poor 
 innocent. 
 
 Oh ! how often in after-days have I 
 thought on his words, how often when he 
 was schooled to any misery, corrected 
 severely for the most trivial errors, his 
 mind astonished, his temper irritated, his 
 affections suppressed, his spirit cowed, his 
 little heart broken, I have said, " Why did 
 she not take thee to heaven with her in- 
 deed ?" 
 
 At the east end of the parish church 
 there was an enclosure separated from the 
 
18 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 rest of the burying-ground by an iron rail- 
 ing, which included a considerable area, 
 where for many centuries the ancient family 
 of Witherstone reposed. All without this 
 place was crowded with persons who joined 
 our own parishioners in lamenting the good, 
 and young, and beautiful lady, and who at- 
 tended with that deep silence interrupted 
 only by sighs, which became the scene. 
 The church itself was verv full, but the 
 mourners occupying the family seat, which 
 was high, and screened by a curtain, all 
 eyes were cast rather on the escutcheoned 
 coffin than the funeral train, until the time 
 when we proceeded to lay the body in the 
 dust. 
 
 At this moment we were so pressed, that 
 I found it necessary to take the child in 
 my arms ; and as I am tall, and the boy 
 was of course bare-headed, he attracted in- 
 stant attention ; — the golden curls of his 
 full hair, the pearly whiteness of his skin, 
 contrasting with his black clothing, in- 
 stantly told every creature in the crowd that 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 19 
 
 that fair child was the sole heir, the beau- 
 teous representative of his dead mother. 
 Every bosom was wrung with the deepest 
 sympathy, - and many a mother literally 
 " lifted up her voice and wept;" whilst 
 those who had " eaten of her bread," shared 
 her acquaintance, or partaken her charity, 
 sobbed in very agony. Some sunk over- 
 powered on the ground ; others pressed, in 
 spite of impropriety, to look into the grave, 
 as if to ascertain the dreadful certainty ; and 
 not a few, with looks of scorn, observed to 
 each other, " Ah ! ah ! he feels it now, and 
 let him feel — may the snake be in his own 
 breast for ever !" 
 
 In all this I partook the transports of 
 grief, blended as before with an occasional 
 sense of inward exultation that she had 
 escaped all sorrow and all shame ; and well 
 was I aware that no chance of even temporary 
 earthly happiness could have been hers, if she 
 had been so far deserted as to have fled with 
 her 4over. She was too pure, too noble by 
 
20 
 
 DANTEL DENNISON. 
 
 nature, to have endured life under a sense 
 of degradation ; and, indeed, her principles 
 of religion would have rendered it impossible, 
 for she had this principle deeply engrafted, 
 as I believe, by her excellent mother-in-law. 
 Even when ridiculing the dogmas of her 
 narrow-minded, ceremonial-loving and su- 
 perstitious husband, she has frequently made 
 remarks, proving not only a sounder judg- 
 ment, but a purer faith. Oh ! in such a 
 case she would have been infinitely more 
 pitiably situated than she had been before. 
 Whilst life and memory remain, in humble 
 gratitude will I bow before God, to thank 
 Him for having made me the instrument to 
 snatch her from perdition like this. 
 
 When all the more vivid and acute feel- 
 ings, awakened by the death of this lovely 
 and ill-fated being, had subsided, her me- 
 mory still pressed on my heart as a sensible 
 loss, which I felt the more when the country 
 was restored to health, and all my own pro- 
 mising family awoke thankfulness for their 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 21 
 
 preservation. With so much to rejoice in, 
 why did I still inwardly mourn, convinced 
 as I must be that all was for the best ? To 
 me she had been for years as a sealed book ; 
 I neither beheld the beauty which delighted 
 my eyes, nor partook the society which 
 gladdened my spirit. True as this was, I 
 yet found, that when most effectually shut 
 out from her, she had yet been to me as a 
 hidden treasure, sufficing to my imagination, 
 though denied to my possession. I had a 
 key to her feelings, which though unentered, 
 were still precious and sacred in my sight, 
 and gave me right in her, a relationship to 
 her, an affection towards her, alike pure 
 and inexplicable. I can call heaven to wit- 
 ness, that never did man in his youth gaze 
 on woman in her beauty and simplicity, 
 with such total absence of desire, such bro- 
 therly holiness of admiration and delight, as 
 I have looked on her ; and frequently even 
 now, when more than forty winters have 
 shed their snows on her grave, I strive to 
 
22 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 analyse my feelings towards her in vain. 
 Perhaps they more resembled those of Ba- 
 bington for his beautiful Queen, than of 
 any person I have ever known or read of — 
 the fealty and devotion of loyalty and 
 love. 
 
 Such at least is the opinion of my wife, 
 who loved her differently, but not less than 
 myself, and whose sorrow for her loss, espe- 
 cially after I had made her acquainted with 
 her sad story, exceeded my own, although 
 it was, I apprehend, by no means so du- 
 rable. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 When the funeral was over, and every 
 possible attention had been paid to exter- 
 nals, Mr. Witherstone, who out-heroded 
 Herod, in his pathetic orations, and those 
 descriptions of his departed wife which 
 harrowed up every heart around him cer- 
 tainly more than his own, professed an in- 
 tention of setting out to travel, as the only 
 way in which tosoothe his sorrow, and follow 
 the " customs of his family." He therefore 
 established his remaining unmarried sister 
 as mistress at the Hall, and did not delay 
 to execute his project beyond a few weeks, 
 which being required to complete the pos- 
 session of his wife's estate, rendered it de- 
 
24 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 sirable that he should wait to receive her 
 property from her guardians in a more 
 regular manner than he had yet done. 
 
 As in these times the whole country was 
 very superstitious, numberless omens of the 
 late event had been mentioned, especially 
 the sound of a hearse rushing through the 
 lane the night before her death ; and one 
 man even maintained that he had seen her 
 wraith at the gate of the desert, which made 
 him run a mile without stopping. 
 
 The reader will be certain I heard these 
 accounts with satisfaction, seeing they were 
 reports far distant from the truth. At the 
 market- town a different reading was given, 
 for there I heard " that a young officer 
 (who should be nameless) had hired a 
 carriage to take him to a strange place, 
 when it was certain that shots were fired 
 though at considerable intervals, and that 
 after leaving it he had travelled with the 
 greatest rapidity to London ; but what be- 
 came of his adversary was unknown." 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 25 
 
 As it was certain I discharged the second 
 pistol myself in order to guard from evil 
 consequences the half-distracted man, I was 
 not sorry to see this idea broached amongst 
 those with whom ghost-stories would not 
 have been tenable. Often would my mind 
 pursue the fugitive with thoughts of pity, 
 and for his sake I was not sorry that the 
 Squire had in every possible way given pub- 
 licity, in the county advertiser, and even 
 the London newspapers, to the death of his 
 lady. 
 
 Whatever might be the agony it inflicted 
 in the first place, it could not fail to be- 
 come consolatory in the second. For some 
 time I was anxious to deliver to him the 
 bracelet with which I had been charged, but 
 the dread I had of making any inquiry that 
 could by possibility awaken suspicion 
 prevented me, to which was added the idea 
 that he had left the kingdom. He had 
 spoken of taking her to another country, and 
 thare was somewhat in his accent which 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
26 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 induced me to conclude that Ireland was 
 the country he meant, and his own native 
 country ; in that case he was probably 
 there already. 
 
 To me he appeared an elegant, handsome, 
 and truly interesting man ; nor had anything 
 occurred in all my observation which rob- 
 bed him of my esteem and good wishes, 
 for I saw clearly that he was almost dis- 
 tracted by passion, and incapable of inten- 
 tional dishonour, though betrayed by his 
 feelings into error. Unquestionably he had 
 heard reports of the misery of her he 
 loved beyond even the truth, since her 
 father was apt to pour out a strain of 
 invective against the Squire in unmea- 
 sured tones, and when those impressions 
 were added to the invitation she gave him 
 in her hour of despondence, no wonder he 
 acted as he did, for he was yet a young 
 man and an ardent lover. 
 
 Miss Witherstone who was left in charge 
 of her brother's child and his house, 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 27 
 
 though still a very young woman, had more 
 of those peculiarities about her which we 
 term old-maidism, than any of her sisters 
 had ever exhibited. She was, indeed, 
 11 the softened image of her noble sire ;" 
 therefore, the fair boy, who during his 
 month's residence with us had grown a far 
 more vigorous and playful, more child-like 
 and boy-like than I had ever hoped to see 
 him — had little chance with her of enjoying 
 that health which is the gift of exercise, or 
 that expansion of the faculties which arises 
 to children from observation and society, 
 rather than instruction. On the contrary, 
 his food was prescribed, his walks mea- 
 sured ; he must not be boisterous with the 
 footmen, nor romp wifeh the maids, nor taste 
 sweets with the housekeeper, nor chat with 
 the rough lads of the village, nor cry to go 
 to the Doctor's, and above all things, he 
 must ask no questions of his aunt. " No- 
 thing was so rude as asking questions. 
 
 c 2 
 
28 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 Nothing on earth so tiresome as teazing 
 children. Either he must sit down and 
 be good, or stand in the corner till he had 
 learnt to be so. When papa came home, 
 he should be whipped for every offence, as 
 he used to be." 
 
 On witnessing the operation of this 
 system, I used to say, " But why, my dear 
 young lady, do you not bind and gag him 
 at once ? It would save you abundance of 
 trouble." 
 
 " Why, Sir," she would reply, with 
 great simplicity, " I should think it would 
 kill the poor little thing." 
 
 1 ' So should I, in time ; but would killing be 
 more cruel than thus to restrain those limbs 
 which nature bids him exercise ? — to fetter 
 that mind, and those affections she excites 
 and moves to action ? You are too young 
 to have forgotten how you wished to run 
 through the desert, thread its mazes, and 
 feel the wind meet you at the turn of every 
 corner, and you now love a little dancing I 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 29 
 
 know, with a pleasant and proper partner, 
 and so forth. Why should the child be 
 blamed for similar desires ?" 
 
 However vexed and really angry I might 
 be when I thus addressed the young lady, 
 I never failed to throw as much suavity as 
 I could into my manners, and to look at 
 her as if I thought her dress becoming, or 
 her person improved ; for being a married 
 man, and therefore out of the question as a 
 lover, I considered it a fair thing to forward 
 my suit by addressing those little weak- 
 nesses of nature which might assist it. 
 Miss Mercy Witherstone was, I trust, not 
 born without her sex's due share of them, 
 but yet her vanity could never be tickled 
 either out of her simplicity, or what she 
 deemed her propriety, and she would sagely 
 answer — 
 
 " I don't pretend to say, Doctor Den- 
 nison, that I had not that kind of feelings 
 when I was quite a child, for, as my poor- 
 dear brother says, we are all corrupt enough 
 
30 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 by nature. But I also remember very well, 
 that I was never allowed to run a single 
 step, and only to walk round the grass plot 
 three times a day, and never to go out at 
 all, if the wind blew, lest it should take the 
 powder out of my hair ; and papa always 
 talked of the good old times when children 
 never sat down in the presence of their 
 parents, or spoke till they had been spoken 
 to ; and he said " no good came of new 
 ways in any thing, so of course I shall 
 bring up the little boy as he brought up his 
 father before him, and I think you will 
 allow, Sir, that such a man as my poor, 
 dear brother cannot be found every day — 
 few people will say they know his fellow 
 anywhere." 
 
 " I cannot deny that, Ma'am, certainly; 
 but allow me to ask if your mamma — 
 whose goodness and experience must have 
 weight — brings up her two last children 
 in this way ?" 
 
 "I am sorry to say she does not ; but 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 31 
 
 that I suppose is to please her present 
 husband. I must also say, Doctor Den- 
 nison, it is not very handsome of you to 
 put me in mind of mamma having done such 
 a thing as to have more children at all. 
 As my poor dear brother says, ' Nothing 
 could be more unnecessary than taking 
 such trouble; for what with cotton mills, 
 and potteries, and such like, there will 
 be a population that will eat us all up by 
 and bye." 
 
 Poor Miss Mercy ! what would she have 
 said had she lived to see the present state 
 of overflowing, and long-living society? 
 Most happily she did not ; yet within her 
 time there was an abundant increase in 
 our neighbourhood, either from births or 
 arrivals, in Appledale and its neighbour- 
 hood ; and many must have been her 
 anxieties ere she died of old age at forty- 
 nine. 
 
 We now received another letter from 
 India, which, following the former so 
 
32 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 closely, awoke our attention in the live- 
 liest manner. We there learnt that the 
 war with Hyder AH, being for the present 
 in a state of cessation, our worthy relative 
 had determined to return immediately to 
 Europe ; and as he expected to arrive 
 at the most favourable season in his native 
 country, he was desirous, in the first place, 
 of coming to our village, or neighbour- 
 hood, and wished me to look out a fitting 
 habitation for him and his family, for 
 the space of two or three months, during 
 which time he could cast about his eye 
 for a more permanent residence, and ascer- 
 tain the power of his daughter to endure 
 the climate of England's middle counties. 
 
 Never surely was a more puzzling com- 
 mand. The Witherstone arms was ut- 
 terly unequal to receiving such a guest, 
 even if it had been exclusively devoted 
 to him, for the ground-floor was all 
 stone, the chambers all plaster, and the 
 warmest summer failed to penetrate the 
 walls, which were fenced by a rocky mound 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 33 
 
 more picturesque than comfortable. Ap- 
 pledale was crowned like a beehive, besides 
 it was too distant ; we were completely at a 
 loss. 
 
 It so happened that in consequence of the 
 late fatality amongst us, one house had 
 become vacant. It was situated within a 
 little distance of ours, in a shady lane, with 
 a narrow slip of garden before it, and an 
 orchard behind, and had a good deal of 
 what the celebrated Browne would have 
 called " capability" about it. At least so 
 thought Emily, and she even ventured to be- 
 lieve that in the present softened frame of 
 his mind, if our landlord were at home, she 
 should be able to persuade him to make the 
 necessary alterations. 
 
 How she intended to work on that man 
 of incapabilities I know not ; but women are 
 often ambitious on such points, and fre- 
 quently carry them, so I left her to manage 
 the matter as she could, determined per- 
 sonally never to solicit him ; but I confess 
 
 c 3 
 
34 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 I was not sorry when we learned that he 
 had arrived, and was therefore acces- 
 sible. 
 
 It appeared that he had come home 
 precisely that day six months on which his 
 poor wife died, and that he had done so for 
 the express purpose of making the proper 
 change in his mourning where he could best 
 have leisure to give due consideration to a 
 matter so momentous. 
 
 In pursuing this intention his weepers 
 were discarded, his plain black buckles ex- 
 changed for others of a more dressy appear- 
 ance, the broad hems on his linen narrowed 
 one half, and a slight tinge of powder ad- 
 mitted upon his hair ; he also mounted on 
 his forefinger a ring of an oval form and 
 an unusual size, in which, upon a ground 
 of ebony was displayed the figure of a ske- 
 leton, curiously wrought in pearl or ivory, 
 and so well done as to offer to many eyes 
 an appalling spectacle. This proof of his 
 love he vowed should go with him to his 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 35 
 
 grave, for he declared that his sorrows 
 knew no respite, that his days were pleasure- 
 less, his nights sleepless, that he had 
 neither relief in wandering, nor peace in 
 rest, and professed an intention, so soon as 
 he had received his rents and performed 
 one paramount duty, which pressed much 
 on his conscience, to go forth again, like 
 Noah's dove, and explore every remarkable 
 place in Ireland and Scotland. 
 
 This information quickened our anxiety 
 on the subject of the house ; but we could 
 not forbear to remember, that this man who 
 could now travel every where, would never 
 indulge that beautiful young partner whom 
 every other man would have been proud to 
 exhibit, with a single journey ; since the 
 only time he took her from home, was that 
 when he was called by necessity. On 
 Emily stating her desire to accommodate 
 her uncle, and the possibility of doing so 
 by making improvements in James Allen's 
 former habitation, he not only agreed to her 
 
36 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 wishes in the most liberal manner, but 
 placed the workmen at her disposal, and 
 commissioned her to improve to an amount 
 far beyond any thing she deemed necessary. 
 He assured her, " that the wants of a man 
 accustomed to the luxuries of India, even 
 for a temporary purpose, would go beyond 
 any calculation she was likely to make ; but 
 that his house, furniture, and purse, were 
 alike at her service for the entertainment of 
 her worthy relative. " 
 
 After this truly kind speech, he invited 
 her to meet his mother and eldest sister on 
 the following Wednesday ; observing, " That 
 he required her presence relative to a 
 certain duty incumbent on him as a widower, 
 and in which the presence of men might be 
 dispensed with." We therefore walked 
 home together, well pleased with our nego- 
 tiation, and agreeing that we had never seen 
 the Squire to equal advantage. "Home keep- 
 ing youths have homely wits," as they say, 
 was a quotation that rose to both our minds, 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 37 
 
 and we could not fail to regret that his wits 
 had not been improved by travel during 
 that period, when such improvement would 
 have rendered it valuable to the sweet com- 
 panion he had lost. 
 
 When my wife appeared on the appointed 
 day, the meeting was, necessarily, very 
 affecting ; as the ladies had not seen each 
 other since the loss of her they alike loved 
 and lamented. Still more were their hearts 
 touched, when the Squire himself proceeded 
 with them to his late wife's dressing-room, 
 where, on various chairs and tables, were 
 piled up all the clothes, laces, feathers, 
 and trinkets of the deceased, each of 
 which necessarily brought back to the mind 
 her form and countenance; the particular 
 occasion on which such and such things 
 had been worn, and the sad conviction 
 that they should never behold her again. 
 I will not say that the four females thus 
 gathered together, consisting of his eldest 
 and youngest sisters, his mother still in her 
 
38 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 prime, and even the young friend of the 
 family, — mine own especial friend, — might 
 not feel some little desire to appropriate 
 a portion of the immense mass before 
 them, which had been unquestionably 
 gathered together by a lavish and extra- 
 vagant hand, seeking thus to cheat the 
 heart of its sorrows ; and it is probable, 
 that a little female curiosity did float 
 through the mind of each on the sub- 
 ject ; but sorrow was suspended, and 
 curiosity quenched by the oration which 
 followed : 
 
 " Behold ! behold ! — these piles of vain 
 and gorgeous apparel f see here the idle 
 and changing fashions, by which vanity 
 decketh itself in immodest allurements, and 
 that money is consumed which was given 
 to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. 
 The fair form which they once decorated, 
 is now gone down to the dust. The breast 
 which was covered with this gauze, and 
 adorned by these pearls, is now a banquet 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 39 
 
 to the worm. Never more shall these ha- 
 biliments feed the pride, and exhibit the 
 weakness of woman. As she is in her 
 grave so shall they also be entombed, and 
 never shall the evil weeds of folly spring 
 from the soil that covers them. Their 
 grave shall be in the darkest shades of the 
 desert, and you shall all behold the earth 
 close over them : — for the present I beg 
 you to depart and to meditate." 
 
 The surprize which every one experienced, 
 the sorrow which had been naturally awak- 
 ened, and the awful ideas which were 
 thus pressed upon them, caused all to 
 depart in silence, and retrace their steps to 
 the distant drawing-room, where for some 
 time the silence of meditation, so emphati- 
 cally recommended, did indeed prevail. It 
 was, however, broken by Miss Mercy, who 
 observed, she must needs say : 
 
 " Her poor dear brother in some things 
 had rather odd notions — to bury a chest of 
 good clothes, like a Christian's body, was 
 
40 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 to her mind, a kind of sacrilegious thing, 
 that seemed someway quite awful." 
 
 " It will be no sacrilege in my mind to 
 dig it up again," said the sister. " The day 
 of resurrection will only follow the day of 
 judgment in this case, instead of preceding 
 it." 
 
 " Say nothing about it, my dears, for the 
 present," quoth the mother, " your brother 
 will have his own way, and can do what 
 he will with his own property, you know." 
 
 " I don't call it his property ; 'tis that of 
 the poor child's, for his mother laid out a 
 good five or six hundred a year, which 
 came by Mrs. Seppington to her you know, 
 and ought to go to her heirs. I will ask 
 my husband about it when I get home ; for 
 I am a mother myself, and cannot bear the 
 idea of a child being wronged." 
 
 " Had she lived to make a will, she would 
 have given all to me as the unmarried 
 sister," said Mercy. 
 
 " No such thing ! I should have had 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 41 
 
 them as the youngest, being nearest her 
 own age." 
 
 " I rather think the dear creature pre- 
 ferred me as her mother to all her sisters ; 
 and perhaps this, her good neighbour Mrs. 
 Dennison, even to me, therefore, it is foolish 
 to dispute on the point. Be quiet, and 
 when your brother is gone we will see if 
 any thing can be regained. In that case, 
 as you, Gertrude, say, we will save them 
 for the child." 
 
 " I did not exactly say that, mother. 
 We know that he can neither wear them, 
 nor want them." 
 
 " His wife should have the jewels," said 
 Emily, speaking for the first time. 
 
 This point was warmly being argued by 
 the sisters, when the door was opened by the 
 solemn gardiner, who rather by motion than 
 words summoned them to follow him to his 
 master. Each threw a cambric handker- 
 chief over her head, as it was now spring, 
 
42 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 and proceeded mechanically to follow their 
 conductor through the mazy walks of that 
 portion of the grounds I have already men- 
 tioned. As they advanced they became 
 sensible of heat in the atmosphere ; but no 
 one broke the silence they had relapsed 
 into, and they at once were led into an 
 open space, surrounded by high trees, where 
 to their absolute horror, stood the Squire, 
 like a magician presiding at a sacrifice. A 
 robe was in his hand, the embers of an im- 
 mense fire at his feet, and ever and anon 
 as he stirred the ashes, silks, and tafFeties, 
 crackled ; gauze and lace sparkled up ; the 
 glimmering of fiery spangles emitted rays, 
 and ribbons of every hue shot forth long 
 lines of living fire. 
 
 One shriek of amazement, one exclama- 
 tion of utter reprobation, burst from every 
 lip ; but when the work of destruction was 
 complete, when even the sable-trimmed 
 cardinal, and the ermined negligee were con- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 43 
 
 sumed, and the destroyer pronounced that 
 his work was done, there was again silence 
 of the most decisive kind, for it was com- 
 pounded of astonishment, anger, and ob- 
 stinacy. My wife did not wait for its dis- 
 persion, she considered her share of the 
 lesson to be finished, and hastened wisely 
 to that home where she could speak freely, 
 and revile safely, and, to give her her due, 
 never was she more eloquent in speech, nor 
 appropriate in epithet — nor did I hesitate 
 to chime in with the opinions she expressed 
 at every interval when she afforded me an 
 opportunity. 
 
 It will be now supposed that we agreed 
 the strange man's travels had made him 
 worse instead of better ; but this we could 
 not, for his own generous conduct respect- 
 ing the house, and the great pains he took 
 to relieve the poor, increase the welfare of 
 his tenants, and arrange all things well in 
 the parish, forbade us to do so. In point 
 
44 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 of fact, he was, as he had always been, un- 
 changed and unchangeable — perfectly sel- 
 fish, but not, therefore, mean or covetous, 
 and, above all things, whimsical and con- 
 ceited. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Our kinsman was delayed, for he did 
 not arrive till the month of September, a 
 circumstance highly favourable to his rustic 
 home, since it happened to be rich in ever- 
 greens, as to its little garden, and shaded 
 by elms. 
 
 My wife had really done wonders in her 
 improvements ; for she had thrown a 
 bow window out of the parlour, which at 
 once enlarged and enlightened it ; she had 
 turned the former kitchen into a dining- 
 room, and made that necessary appendage 
 out of the dairy, by which means the future 
 
46 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 inhabitants would be neither annoyed by- 
 sound nor smell. She had furnished the 
 rooms with simple, but tasteful furniture ; 
 the walls were green, the curtains white, 
 the chairs easy, the sofas soft. Plants 
 which she concluded to be familiar to them, 
 were placed on little brackets and stands ; 
 a few books were laid about, and a musical 
 instrument hired from the country town. 
 Receipts were procured from all the likely 
 sources ; and Debby, who was really an 
 excellent cook, deputed to that department, 
 with the proviso that if a foreign one was 
 part of the household, she must submit to 
 his regulations — a salvo by no means pa- 
 latable, but accepted on principle by our 
 excellent damsel. 
 
 Expectation was wound up to its utmost 
 pitch, not only in our own family but the 
 neighbourhood, before Colonel Littleton 
 made his appearance, for not one person in 
 the parish at present, besides myself, had 
 ever seen a blackamoor, and very few knew 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 47 
 
 what a nabob was ; yet all agreed to apply 
 that term to my wife's uncle, while his 
 daughter was termed a nabobess. It turned 
 out, however, that the expected cavalcade 
 of Nookabadar, Dubushes, Kananahs and 
 Khidmajus were comprized in a sickly 
 looking gentleman about fifty-five, a delicate 
 girl of eighteen, a man of colour, as a valet, 
 and an English lady's maid, who was the 
 only formidable personage in the party. 
 
 Far from bringing with them eastern airs 
 and hauteur, the strangers seemed de- 
 lighted to be received with affection by 
 plain people, whose hearts could be read in 
 their countenances ; and although the 
 dialect of the country was often unintelli- 
 gible, the smile which it elicited was un- 
 mingled with contempt, and the command 
 reiterated without peevishness. It was 
 ; ndeed reported to the carpenter who had 
 i£ed according to Emily's orders as 
 besitect, that the great man called the 
 preset. 
 vol. * 
 
48 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 house " a pretty bungalow," which they 
 considered to be French for " bungling job," 
 and sorely did it grieve the honest man; 
 but beyond this no offence was given or re- 
 ceived. 
 
 The Colonel, with a frankness that en- 
 deared him to Emily, and a confidence in 
 my skill not less flattering, placed the affairs 
 of his stomach in my hands, both as to food 
 and medicine, in consequence of which 
 Deborah was installed high-priestess in the 
 kitchen ; and as I had taught her to make 
 curry, she was soon in high favour, and de- 
 clared to be super-excellent for an En- 
 glishwoman. So much did this flattery re- 
 concile her to Saib, her dark acquaintance, 
 that no two persons ever pulled together 
 more agreeably. What would I have given 
 if good fortune had sent an itinerant painter 
 into the country who could have done justice 
 to their singular physiognomies, when sin 
 ting over a cup of tea, the sable trav had 
 
 t knew 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 49 
 
 related " moving incidents by flood or field," 
 and Deborah replied by a sympathetic tear, 
 or approving smile. 
 
 At one time I really thought their sym- 
 pathies would have verged to that point of 
 union which people of all colours and 
 countries are subject to contracting ; but I 
 have no right to say matrimony was 
 thought of by Deborah herself, and it is 
 certain Saib's whole soul was wedded to 
 his master with a strength of attachment 
 which I apprehend cannot be frequently 
 experienced by his countrymen for the 
 English. Alas ! scarcely had six pleasant 
 weeks passed over us, when our gentle 
 exotic, shuddering beneath the first breath 
 of a northern frost, alarmed the father, and 
 bade him seek for her a more genial cli- 
 mate. 
 
 One evening, as we sat together consider- 
 ing whether Bath or Devonshire would be 
 best for this tender blossom, a letter was 
 presented to me from the Hall, to which 
 
 VOL. II. d 
 
50 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 place it was said that the Squire had suddenly 
 returned, and whilst the servant was speak- 
 ing, the news was confirmed by the striking 
 up of the three church bells. Opening the 
 letter, I read as follows : 
 
 "Esteemed Sir, 
 
 " 1 hereby inform you that I have re- 
 turned to my own mansion, from which, 
 God willing, I shall be in no haste to de- 
 part, having brought with me a mistress for 
 the same, who may in some slight degree 
 assuage my present anguish, and partake of 
 the grief she cannot console. She is a 
 comely personage, my family having a pre- 
 dilection for such, of good family and 
 nurture, though unportioned, and more 
 stricken in years than my late lady ; for as 
 I am myself advancing to thirty years, 
 which I consider to be the top of the hill in 
 man's life, from which he descendeth 
 surely and certainly, so I felt it my duty to 
 unite my fate with a staid and sober person 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 51 
 
 meet for the duties of conjugal life, the 
 which is nowise a matter of light disport, 
 but of due gravity. 
 
 " Considering Mrs. Dennison in all re- 
 spects as a discreet person, I desire to 
 introduce her to my said lady, and trust 
 that she will accompany you hither at your 
 
 earliest convenience, and remain 
 
 # # # 
 
 "Good God!" exclaimed I, "Mr. 
 Witherstone is married, and has just 
 brought home his wife to the Hall." 
 
 " Surely not," cried Colonel Littleton, 
 " for the people of the village are saluting 
 him by a dumb peal." 
 
 " His honour ordered it," said the ser- 
 vant, " for it is a year this very night since 
 Madam died, and he has wished the time 
 to be properly observed." 
 
 The man departed with a suitable mes- 
 sage ; and it will readily be believed that 
 our conjectures and surprize furnished 
 
 d 2 
 
52 DANIEL DENNIS0N. 
 
 conversation for the evening, not unmixed 
 with those fond remembrances of the de- 
 parted, which the melancholy sound of the 
 bells contributed to inspire. We had 
 indeed already spoken so much of her, that 
 our friends were nearly as interested as our- 
 selves in the subject ; and her sad fate had 
 drawn many a tear from the mild eyes of 
 Eliza Littleton. 
 
 We did not doubt that the Squire had 
 been taken in at some watering-place by an 
 artful woman, some made-up old maid, or 
 cunning widow, and we all agreed to la- 
 ment bitterly the fate of the dear boy, under 
 such a step-mother, though we were well 
 aware that no one could be more strict, 
 severe, or teazing than his own father, and 
 that all change must be for the better. 
 
 So much had the more vivid imagina- 
 tion of my wife rung the changes on the 
 troubles of this interesting child, that when 
 morning came she was really too much op- 
 pressed and too unwell to pay her respects 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 53 
 
 to the bride. I was therefore deputed to go 
 alone, make her apologies, and use my eyes 
 and ears in detecting the deception of this 
 artful woman, of whom it was nevertheless 
 prophesied that " she had met with her 
 match, as she would find to her sorrow." 
 
 With these prejudices in my mind, and 
 the memory of her in all her loveliness, 
 whom I had first beheld there as a bride, I 
 walked slowly down the avenue, after turn- 
 ing my face towards the desert, — that scene 
 of suffering, — and retracing the mournful pro- 
 cession, which just in that season had poured 
 down this vista a year before. When I got 
 to the house I heartily repented that I had 
 come out, for my heart was oppressed even 
 to suffocation. 
 
 The moment I was announced, the bride- 
 groom stepped forward to receive me with 
 more than his wonted urbanity, and less 
 solemnity than usual, acquired unquestion- 
 ably by living in the world a little. He was 
 dressed in a perfectly new suit of grey cloth, 
 
54 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 lined with black silk, and laced with black, 
 which became him extremely. Miss Mercy, 
 completely out of mourning and gaily 
 dressed, next met my eye ; after her, a 
 handsome woman in the decline of life, 
 whom he introduced as his grand aunt-in- 
 law ; next came the bride, " the comely 
 lady stricken in years." 
 
 Her years appeared three or four and 
 twenty ; she had in fact been married on 
 the birthday of the last. She was not 
 merely comely, but actually beautiful. Her 
 height was commanding, her figure grace- 
 ful and delicate, her complexion fair and 
 blooming, and every feature decidedly hand- 
 some, their general expression being as good 
 as their particular forms. That expression 
 was at once highly intelligent, yet meek 
 and subdued j in speaking, she used the 
 language of a well-read woman, which in 
 those days was a happy singularity, but 
 often unpleasantly combined ; on the con- 
 trary, in her it was accompanied by the 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 55 
 
 utmost modesty and quiet unconsciousness 
 of superiority ; but what pleased me in her 
 best of all, was to see the child alternately 
 look in her face, and then nestle to her side, 
 whilst without a single word, without a 
 pretext of fondling, often as her arm encir- 
 cled its neck would she press its little head 
 towards her, with the unpremeditated fond- 
 ness of a kind and tender heart ; and when 
 she perceived the emotion I felt, the grati- 
 tude even, which I doubt not my eyes ex- 
 pressed, the tears sprung to her own. 
 
 Excellent woman ! if my heart did ho- 
 mage to you then, well may it, when after 
 years of unwearisome torture, unmitigated 
 tyranny, the cold severity of ceremonial, 
 the wearisome complaint of hypochondriac 
 ailment, you still retained the uncomplain- 
 ing sweetness of a temper, that could al- 
 ways feel, yet never resent, and the kind- 
 ness of a noble nature. If ever human 
 being obeyed in its fullest sense the apos- 
 
56 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 tolic injunction, " Be not wearied of well- 
 doing," that woman was you. 
 
 It will be readily believed that my report 
 made a great change in favour of the bride, 
 and set all upon wondering " how such a 
 woman could have sold herself to such a 
 man." In this respect our good uncle, 
 though personally a stranger to both par- 
 ties, knowing the world far better than any 
 of us, set all to rights. " Surely," said he, 
 " a woman is not to be classed with the 
 mercenary, nor the self-selling, who in 
 accepting a wealthy man provides herself 
 not only a superior home, but the power of 
 benefiting her fellow-creatures far more 
 than she could do by virtuous poverty. 
 Besides, Mrs. Witherstone probably thus 
 aids the venerable relative who has supplied 
 to her the parents she has lost. You must 
 also remember that your odd Squire is well- 
 looking, and to her little known ; since at a 
 distance from his own home and his de- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 57 
 
 pendants he could not possibly exercise his 
 peculiarities of manner and temper, whereas 
 his good qualities travelled with him, for a 
 man may find objects of charity in every 
 situation." 
 
 Soon after this change in the village, 
 Colonel Littleton and his sweet daughter 
 set out for Bath ; but as my wife was on the 
 point of presenting me with another child 
 — which proved to be a boy — they both 
 desired to be considered sponsors, and left 
 me such a present for the occasion that I 
 became a purchaser of their house, which was 
 to be held theirs by rent, and always inha- 
 bited by them in the summer season. It 
 was an act of great kindness in the Squire 
 to sell me this pretty place, but which he 
 could luckily do without dismembering his 
 estate, to which it had not originally be- 
 longed. 
 
 The new lady produced three daughters 
 in the following six years, each of whom 
 were taken away to a nurse a few hours 
 
 d 3 
 
58 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 after their birth, but were all exempted by 
 their sex from the dangers of immersion. 
 On being each brought back at the age of 
 two years to the paternal mansion, the 
 example of family custom in all points of 
 discipline was laid before Mrs. Witherstone, 
 and she was required to enforce it. These 
 orders she never controverted, but acted on, 
 as if she had made the vow of Griselda. 
 Nevertheless, her own sweetness was grafted 
 in all things on his acidity ; and whilst she 
 was shut out from a world she was calcu- 
 lated to relish and to adorn — whilst her 
 fine person was arrayed in all the anti- 
 quated clothing he desired, and the pretty 
 little girls themselves were dressed like the 
 marble troop on his great grandfather's 
 monument — still she retained the calm 
 cheerfulness of her manners, the equani- 
 mity of her temper. In all the other rela- 
 tions of life she was dignified as benevolent 
 — here she was submission even to child- 
 like obedience. Emily, indeed, used to 
 
DANIEL DENN1S0N. 59 
 
 say, " that had she been less handsome she 
 would not have consented to dress so like 
 a fright, but that she was conscious he 
 could not spoil her." There might be 
 something in this whilst she was under 
 thirty, for I have frequently seen pretty 
 young girls like to put on spectacles ; but 
 we are all certain when she had turned 
 thirty, it would not be very agreeable to 
 wear gowns and bonnets suited to no one 
 younger than her grandmother. Still more 
 must she have felt those restraints painful, 
 when her blooming girls were compelled to 
 appear like dairy-maids, and forbidden all 
 the pleasures and advantages their situation 
 in life entitled them to enjoy. " Gall min- 
 gled with vinegar" was the draught em- 
 blematically held every day to her lips ; 
 and He alone to whom it was literally 
 offered, could have enabled her to take it 
 without useless recrimination or vain re- 
 pinings. 
 
 But in no point did the excellence of this 
 
60 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 lady's conduct affect me so much as in that 
 of her devotedness to the little motherless 
 hoy, who grew up so like the parent he 
 had lost, as to attract all eyes, and predis- 
 pose all hearts in his favour, save that of 
 the father. He had, indeed, some pride in 
 his beauty, but none in his talent, for every 
 indication of quickness he sought to crush, 
 and would have really reduced him nearly to 
 imbecility, if by her increasing kindness and 
 ability she had not succeeded in fostering 
 the germ of mind and softening the disposi- 
 tion to rebellion his father's pertinacious 
 whimsies infallibly awakened, whenever his 
 health was tolerable. This never amounted 
 to strength, either from the cold caught in 
 his immersion or the abundant clothing 
 inflicted by Miss Mercy ; his lungs were 
 always delicate. Happy were we all when 
 he was sent to a distant boarding-school, 
 and placed under a kind and judicious 
 master. 
 
 Yet even here it is certain he w r as pur- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 61 
 
 sued by the miseries which his father's 
 whimsical systems unceasingly inflicted on 
 every creature within his domestic sove- 
 reignty, for his strange dress rendered him 
 a laughing stock to the boys. The demands 
 made upon him for exertion, beyond the 
 usual lessons, abridged his hours of play — 
 even his prayers were dictated, and his 
 punishments prescribed. In the latter par- 
 ticular, it is, however, only justice to say 
 that the beautiful and elegant Mrs. Storme 
 was a more vindictive and effective tyrant ; 
 her only daughter — the child ordered out of 
 her presence — never went to school after a 
 vacation without being accompanied by a 
 list of punishments to be endured from time 
 to time, for offences committed during the 
 holidays — such as soiling a frock, breaking a 
 tea cup, or giving a saucy answer. These 
 recompenses consisted of whippings, fast- 
 ings, tasks, and mortifications — happy, too, 
 was it for her when the good, the rough 
 admiral, her father's brother, opened his 
 
62 DANIEL DENNIS0N. 
 
 arms and house for her reception — 'Still more 
 happy when she became united to her pre- 
 sent partner. Long as all this has passed, 
 should her eye glance on this record of early 
 life, well will she remember it. She was a 
 high-spirited and lively child, full of the 
 abilities which distinguished her family, 
 and rendered her brother, as a classical 
 traveller, one of the most noted and ho- 
 noured men of his age. 
 
 At this time, her beautiful mother was a 
 widow ; but this she did not long remain, 
 transferring her passion for toads to the 
 toad-eater, Mr. Bosworth. It was a pecu- 
 liarity in the history of this couple that, 
 during the years when they resided under 
 the same roof before marriage, they agreed 
 together — the world said — too well; but 
 from the first week of their marriage, they 
 disagreed so entirely that parting soon took 
 place, and half of the lady's jointure was 
 consigned to the husband, in consequence 
 of which she ever afterwards suffered com- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 63 
 
 parative poverty. What was not less to be 
 lamented, was the want of that adoration 
 to which she had been accustomed, and 
 which was not less a loss than the luxuries 
 she had revelled in, for the rest of her life 
 was a vain search for it, or an attainment 
 of it temporarily, injurious to her good 
 name though insufficient to its destruction. 
 She embraced every changing doctrine in 
 politics and religion, affected to be a leader 
 of fashion in the village, and give the ton 
 in literature at Buxton or Matlock — nay, 
 even dabbled in physics, and died the victim 
 of an experiment, ere " time had thinned 
 her flowing hairs," or impaired the bril- 
 liance of her complexion. In fact, she 
 died at thirty-eight, after a few hours' 
 illness. 
 
64 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Bath was found to agree with our excel- 
 lent friends as a winter residence ; and for 
 three successive summers the Colonel and 
 his fair daughter resided as before in the 
 place we now called " Elm Cottage," where 
 their presence was equally desired by the 
 relatives who loved them, and the poor 
 whom their residence employed or assisted. 
 As the house was at the very verge of the 
 parish, on that side which led to the Park, 
 such help was of course particularly valua- 
 ble in the first two summers, from the great 
 house being shut. On the third year the 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 65 
 
 heir took possession, and soon after brought 
 a bride there, in consequence of which we 
 all became gay again, and I had great plea- 
 sure in seeing some amusement thence 
 arise to these beloved relations. 
 
 Before the summer was over more mate- 
 rial events occurred. Miss Littleton re- 
 ceived the addresses of a gentleman who 
 was related to the young Lady Hamerton, 
 and he was in every respect so desirable a 
 connection, that her father could not refuse 
 him, although he justly considered the 
 health of his daughter unfitted her for the 
 marriage state. His objections were over- 
 ruled ; the marriage took place in the fol- 
 lowing autumn, and they all departed for 
 the west of England to the gentleman's seat, 
 after which we saw little of the Colonel, al- 
 though he retained his house, for having a 
 sincere regard for us all, and almost a paren- 
 tal love for Emily, — who greatly resembled 
 him in person, — it was always his intention 
 to reside much amongst us, but circum- 
 
66 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 stances prevented him from effecting his 
 purpose. 
 
 His daughter bore two children, the latter 
 of whom soon died, and was followed by its 
 fragile mother. When we received infor- 
 mation of the second event, Emily immedi- 
 ately set out to visit and console the afflicted 
 father, and finding him not only in great 
 sorrow, but actually ill health, she prevailed 
 upon him to remove to Bath, which was 
 a place where he always received benefit, 
 and with my free permission, determined to 
 remain with him some time. 
 
 He became better there, though it was 
 summer time, and he would probably have 
 ventured down to the cottage, if it had not 
 been for the arrival of a lady from India, 
 whom he had known from her childhood, 
 and to whom he offered this abode so long 
 as it might suit her. She was the wife of a 
 man of great military name then, a briga- 
 dier-general, and had come to England 
 partly because the voyage had been pre- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 67 
 
 scribed for her health, and partly to place 
 her only child, a little daughter, in a school 
 of high reputation near London. 
 
 I understood from the Colonel's letter 
 that the lady was not rich, as her husband 
 had no private fortune and his own ex- 
 penses, under existing circumstances, were 
 very great ; and that as she had been accus- 
 tomed to every elegance, and was naturally 
 gay and very attractive, a retired residence 
 was every way desirable for her, provided 
 she could be induced to consider it agreeable. 
 He said, "it would at once restore her 
 health, which was injured by a warm climate, 
 prevent her from accumulating expenses, 
 which might hereafter become embarrassing, 
 and above all things, be valuable as a safe 
 retreat to a handsome woman, unprotected 
 by the presence of a mother, and thrown at 
 a great distance from an honourable and 
 affectionate husband. As to society," he 
 added, " she will find in Mrs. Witherstone 
 a host, and even in her husband there is 
 
68 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 store of amusement, so I hope my lively 
 protegee will manage." 
 
 In due time then came Mrs. Clifford 
 attended by a man cook and a female wait- 
 ing woman, both children of the soil from 
 whence she travelled, so that my provision 
 of a good housemaid and a handy footboy 
 were by no means unnecessary. As the 
 place could boast " the perfumes of Arabia," 
 or others equally good, for it was perfectly 
 covered with roses, woodbine, and jessamine, 
 and had, during the time when it was inha- 
 bited by an elegant young woman, received 
 various additions and improvements, she 
 expressed equal admiration and surprise at 
 all she saw ; and the weather being indeed 
 delightful, there seemed every reason to 
 believe that she would find both health and 
 content in her temporary retreat. 
 
 This lady was not so tall as my wife 
 or Mrs. Witherstone; she was just the 
 middle size, and of that description of 
 person which in the country is called 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 69 
 
 plump. Her complexion was slightly em- 
 browned by the warm climate ; her eyes 
 dark, brilliant, and yet mild in expression ; 
 her teeth white, and her lips full and well 
 formed. The rest of her face had nothing 
 to boast, but as a whole it was attractive. 
 Her hands, feet, and neck were very fine, 
 and it was now the fashion to display 
 them ; a fashion which never before had 
 presumed to travel to Witherstone, and 
 which a single glance informed me, would 
 shut the door of its great house against 
 her. 
 
 But co aid any man shut his door, or his 
 heart, against one so correct in her man- 
 ners, so delicate and lady-like in every 
 movement ; so insinuating in her languor, 
 so charming in her gaiety, and who, more- 
 over, was frequently wrapt in mantles 
 even ample enough to cover a dozen ? No, 
 I could not doubt that the stranger must 
 be well received by every one, even by Miss 
 Mercy herself 
 
70 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 Unfortunately this was the seventh year 
 since the Squire's second marriage, and he 
 held it as a kind of jubilee, on which he 
 would make peregrinations, and they set 
 out the very week of the strange lady's 
 coming. The family at the Park, however, 
 paid her every attention ; my sister came 
 over whenever she was able, and the good 
 Adamsons left no means untried to add to 
 her comfort. Books, flowers, and fruit, 
 morning calls and invitations, varied the 
 scene, and she declared " the whole affair 
 was perfectly delectable." 
 
 But in a few weeks the Park family set 
 out for Scarborough, the Adamsons went 
 to Harrowgate, the rustic neighbours 
 were better understood, and therefore less 
 ludicrous ; the singing birds less novel, and 
 therefore less charming ; and our fine lady 
 evidently got so familiarized to all around 
 her, that I expected she would inevitably 
 become weary of all. 
 
 On the contrary, she could make com- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 71 
 
 pany of a plain countryman like me, to 
 whom she related many anecdotes, and 
 gave many descriptions of the most amus- 
 ing character, and was particularly delighted 
 to find that I had picked up a pretty con- 
 siderable knowledge of the customs, amuse- 
 ments, and habits of the European resi- 
 dents in our Eastern dominions, that I 
 understood hard words and strange dishes ; 
 could enter into the spirit of a tiger hunt, 
 and the pleasures of a journey by dak. 
 She borrowed and lent books with me, and 
 compared opinions on their authors ; would 
 take her guitar and sing to me the airs she 
 was learning, and even press me to bring 
 my flute in my pocket, and take tea with 
 her, saying, " I was capable of accompany- 
 ing her," though I played only from the 
 ear, and of course could do no such thing. 
 
 WhenJMrs. Clifford first came amongst 
 us she manifested a nervous anxiety for 
 newspapers, and I took care to supply her 
 liberally, she was also extremely solicitous on 
 
72 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 the point of receiving letters from the old 
 Colonel, or my wife as his representative, 
 knowing that he would transmit her the 
 earliest information from the scene of Indian 
 warfare. By degrees her extreme solicitude 
 wore off, and I had the satisfaction to per- 
 ceive her mind tranquil; a circumstance 
 accounted for by the great improvement in 
 her health. As, however, it was my duty 
 to inquire after] her, and by no means 
 relax in a system proved to be beneficial, I 
 generally called every morning for that 
 purpose, and being purveyor-general for 
 the family, if I neglected to do so from ne- 
 cessity, her Indian cook never failed to 
 inform me that the garrison was in a state 
 of famine ; in short, something or other 
 called me there both morning and evening, 
 and there was something which rendered 
 every hour when I was not there, irksome 
 and vexatious — all other places and all other 
 people were distasteful or disgusting. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 73 
 
 Murder will out — Yes ! to my shame be 
 it spoken, at the mature age of thirty-seven, 
 with a wife I would have exchanged for no 
 man's, and a promising young family I 
 fondly loved, and to whom I sincerely 
 desired to give a virtuous example, even 1" 
 was so infatuated by the power of female 
 captivation, as either to love, or at least feel 
 something very like love. Alas! my wife was 
 far from me ; my children were at school, 
 or in the nursery ; and he, the vigilant 
 guardian of the parish was distant also. I 
 verily believe that his presence, or that of 
 his more penetrative wife, would at this 
 time have been my protection. 
 
 It must be remembered, also, that I was 
 by nature a very sociable being, and ha- 
 bituated to exchange my thoughts and relate 
 my adventures to an intelligent female, and 
 accustomed constantly and professionally 
 to converse much with women, and enter 
 into their feelings and fancies, with more 
 than usual sympathy ; and I may also say, I 
 
 VOL. II. e 
 
74 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 had a taste for refined and sentimental inter- 
 course, rendered only the more vivid, by the 
 few opportunities for indulging it which my 
 situation presented. I merely adduce these 
 palliatives for my unhappy infatuation, that 
 I may venture to say " Let him that think- 
 eth he standeth take heed lest he fall," and 
 remember to guard himself at all times, 
 and all seasons ; for little could I have 
 suspected such an evil befalling me, who a 
 dozen years before had parted from my 
 wife a whole year, and been caressed by 
 every widow, maid, and wife in the country, 
 without giving a single thought to any one 
 
 of them beyond their due. 
 
 It was undoubtedly from my ignorance of 
 these deep-seated weaknesses in the heart 
 of man, to which my own experience had 
 furnished no clue, that made me so long 
 play like a moth round the candle, be sen- 
 sible of uneasiness without sorrow, and 
 anxiety without cause. Whether the lady 
 was as artless as myself I know not ; whe- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 75 
 
 ther vanity tempted her to secure even so 
 humble an admirer rather than none ; or 
 whether her heart like mine, was somewhat 
 led astray by nature and circumstance, I 
 cannot say : all I know is, that if the eyes 
 tell truth, there was nothing to choose be- 
 tween us, and it was as yet only by glances 
 half-given, and half-suppressed, and certain 
 inflexions of the voice, where simple tones 
 say more than words, that our feelings were 
 either revealed or confessed. 
 
 One evening I was sent for to a woman at 
 some distance, the road to whose house lay 
 past the Elm Cottage. I set off at a brisk 
 canter — the occasion calling for haste — but 
 I could not forbear to check my horse as I 
 went past her, and look towards the bow- 
 windowed parlour. My regards were not 
 in vain ; there she stood, looking more 
 than usually lovely, though dressed only 
 in a kind of morning wrapper, which was 
 rather a night than day dress, and seldom 
 used but on occasions of sickness. I could 
 
 e 2 
 
76 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 not fail to inquire " if she were well ?" and 
 was answered — " Perfectly so ; but she 
 had been beguiled by a new poem, which 
 should be lent to me, if I would call for it 
 on my return." 
 
 This of course I promised to do ; but 
 added, " That my time in the present case 
 was uncertain." She smiled, and kissed 
 her hand, and I rode forward at full gallop , 
 yet I did not forget that her gown was 
 pushed up above her elbows, and those 
 fair, round, soft arms, on which I had so 
 often gazed too fondly, were exhibited, 
 as if for the purpose of gratifying me, 
 ' What a kind creature ! She is all good- 
 ness !" said I. 
 
 Never in my whole life had I been such 
 an unamiable attendant at the couch of the 
 suffering as I certainly was on this evening ; 
 in fact, there was not an old woman present 
 that did not say " the deuce was in the 
 doctor," a truth that, if it had reached his 
 ear, might have had its echo in his heart. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 77 
 
 Nature was slow in her operations, and so 
 many hours passed as to prove that I had 
 no chance for the coffee, the poem, the 
 parting smile, and the parting touch of that 
 velvet hand, which had been running in 
 my silly head ever since I beheld her. 
 
 When all hope of my visit was over, I 
 became considerate for others ; and as it 
 was necessary that the good man should go 
 to my house — late as it was — for a restora- 
 tive draught for his wife, I lightened the 
 fatigues of the way by permitting him to 
 ride home my horse, and giving him a note 
 to my apprentice. There was a nearer 
 road than the lane I have spoken of, and 
 the poor man took it. So did not I, for I 
 found the harvest-moon glowing in all its 
 beauty, in the midst of a sky dappled by 
 clouds of fleecy whiteness, and the whole 
 scene so beautiful that it furnished an ex- 
 cuse for just crossing the lea, and taking 
 the Elm cottage in my way, " to see how 
 
78 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 picturesque it must look on such a night as 
 this/' 
 
 And so it did. Paradise could be hardly 
 more fair when Satan entered it; but of 
 him I thought not, as gazing upwards I 
 wondered " whether she slept, whether she 
 were angry with me, whether she would 
 give me one of her pretty piquant scold- 
 ings ?" On withdrawing my eyes from this 
 object, I became sensible that there was a 
 light still in the parlour, and on applying 
 my eye to the crevice of the window- 
 shutter, I saw Mrs. Clifford standing in 
 the room in the attitude of one listening for 
 a distant sound. 
 
 " Are you still up, my dear Madam ?" 
 
 " How could I retire on such a night as 
 this ?" she answered, opening the window, 
 which was a casement door ; " never, surely, 
 was such a night as this seen in Europe ?" 
 
 "Then I had no share in your watch- 
 ings ?" 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 79 
 
 " A little, undoubtedly, since it is not 
 ten minutes since I barred the window ; 
 and, by the way, I hurt my fingers, but 
 I don't think they will require surgical aid 
 till to-morrow." 
 
 " How came you to think of barring the 
 window yourself?" 
 
 " Surely you cannot suppose me so very 
 an Eastern sultana as to keep up my slaves 
 to this unreasonable hour, merely because I 
 loved to gaze on the moon, and inhale the 
 odours of the flowers ? I trust such incon- 
 siderateness is not among my faults. No ! 
 they have all been asleep above two hours." 
 
 I cannot say that on this hint I spoke, 
 but it is certain that I entered, and in the 
 first place examined with tender solicitude, 
 the slightly (very slightly injured fingers) 
 — that I took wine poured out by those fair 
 hands — seized them, and talked floods of 
 nonsense — became encroaching — offended 
 — was penitent and pardoned, but might 
 
80 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 have trespassed further, if a voice had not 
 suddenly arrested me. 
 
 This was not the voice of conscience, for 
 I blush to say that was either feeble or un- 
 regarded, but this cried out in most piteous 
 accents : 
 
 " Maister ! maister ! maister !" 
 
 Well did I read alarm, sorrow, and re- 
 proach, in every succeeding word ; the 
 sounds fell like ice-bolts on the boiling 
 flood within me, and, though in the first 
 moment I was enraged, in the next I stood 
 quailed, as if under the influence of super- 
 natural horror. I flew to the window, and, 
 escaping in silence, stood before one who 
 might well have passed for what, indeed, 
 she was, " an accusing spirit." 
 
 " I guessed ye were here, maister ; more's 
 the pity, and the shame, too, but keep 
 your own counsel, and I'll keep mine — 
 follow me." 
 
 So saying, my truly awful visitant pro- 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 81 
 
 ceeded in a sober pace down the lane, walk- 
 ing under the shadow of the trees, from 
 which circumstance neither of us were 
 likely to be seen; on reaching the vil- 
 lage she took an indirect path, evidently 
 with intention, and soon after suddenly 
 turned through a gap in the hedge, and led 
 me circuitously by many windings, till she 
 fairly brought me through a cluster of cot- 
 tages near to my own house, giving me, of 
 course, the appearance of coming from 
 thence. At the door of a little garden which 
 we had crossed, she paused a moment, and 
 said with far more than her usual solemnity, 
 
 "Maister! if ye be not so far lost, but 
 that ye can still look up to ffim, do it now ; 
 for ye'll soon set eyes on a man that'll 
 make ye're heart dither.' ' 
 
 " What brings the Squire so suddenly?" 
 said I, in a confused and sullen tone. 
 
 " Squire! it's none sich a bag o' see- 
 saws as him, I promise ye, but a real, 
 
 e 3 
 
82 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 grand man, and a soldier, — that fal de ral 
 madam's own husband." 
 
 " The General here ? Good God !" 
 
 " Ye may well say good. But as ye love 
 yoursel' and the rest, (that ye shuld love) 
 pluck up a heart, an' just meet him like a 
 man." 
 
 This advice was sooner given than taken, 
 and for all the houris in Mahomet's para- 
 dise, I would not experience again the feel- 
 ings which bowed down all that was man 
 within me, as I entered my own house, and 
 crept, rather than walked, into the parlour, 
 where General Clifford was sitting. 
 
 He rose on my entrance, and advanced 
 towards me with that courteous air of min- 
 gled suavity and frankness peculiar to his 
 profession, yet his countenance was grave, 
 almost to melancholy. That countenance 
 was not unknown: — did I see aright, or had 
 guilt and its inseparable companion, fear, 
 affected my senses ? I uttered a few words 
 inarticulate through astonishment. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 83 
 
 ■} Yes, Mr. Dennison, you are right, we 
 have, indeed, met twice before, under cir- 
 cumstances of the most awful and affecting 
 importance. I parted from you in a temper 
 of mind that would leave you a right to 
 think ill of me, notwithstanding the pity 
 you so kindly expressed. I am happy, sin- 
 cerely happy in the present meeting, because 
 it enables me to thank you for the highest 
 obligation man can bestow on man — you 
 saved me from guilt and remorse — saved 
 her, the dear one too." 
 
 " Ay," thought I, " and most literally 
 have you repaid the obligation." 
 
 As, however, neither these sounds, nor 
 others which rang through my heart, re- 
 proaching Daniel Dennison in words which 
 seemed to flame before me like the hand 
 writing which a Daniel alone could read, 
 were uttered, or could be uttered, by a 
 tongue which clove to its roof, I made a 
 virtue of necessity, and with a trem- 
 bling hand unlocking my bureau, took 
 
84 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 thence that bracelet which had lain there 
 for eight long years, and silently placed it 
 in his hand. 
 
 " Ah ! what is this ? Her own bracelet ! 
 Her own portrait, too, but taken in very 
 early days. How came you by it ?" 
 
 " In her last moments she gave it to me 
 for you, to be delivered as her dying memo- 
 rial." 
 
 " You were with her, then ? Did you 
 return to her ? Tell me, I beseech you." 
 
 " I sent my wife to her immediately, wha 
 never left her afterwards, and in whose 
 arms she died. I entered the room but a 
 few minutes before the last, when she 
 roused herself even from death to send this 
 pledge to you." 
 
 The General gazed long upon it, pressed 
 it to his lips and his heart, and finally 
 deposited it in his bosom ; then wiping his 
 eyes, and summoning evidently his courage, 
 he said, 
 
 " May I ask you, Mr. Dennison, to crown 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 85 
 
 all your kind offices to me, by leading me 
 to that place which your own heart will 
 tell you mine now yearns to visit ?" 
 
 I lead him to his wife — overwhelm 
 her, poor wretch, as I was myself over- 
 whelmed ; impossible ! 
 
 " Or, if you can direct me to the spot 
 where she lies. It is only to-night that I 
 can so indulge, for I would not for the 
 world awaken one painful suspicion in my 
 Louisa's mind. No ! I would not pain 
 her with jealousy, even of the dead." 
 
 Relieved by this explanation, I gladly set 
 out to the churchyard, looking up, as I did 
 an hour before, at the same glorious moon, 
 and thinking what different beings she 
 lighted, what different scenes she surveyed, 
 in this strange world of ours. At this 
 moment the General put his left arm in 
 mine, and as he did so I felt as if I had 
 rather he had felled me to the earth. 
 
 I now observed that his right arm was 
 in a sling, and the shoulder much ban- 
 
86 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 daged, that his face was embrowned, his 
 hair darkened, and his general figure much 
 enlarged ; but he was a fine, manly-looking 
 person, and had in his intelligent counte- 
 nance, good feelings, and graceful manners, 
 whatever one would think was most likely 
 not merely to captivate, but to retain, the 
 female heart. As I contemplated him, could 
 I forbear saying, " frailty, thy name is 
 woman ?" but my own cheek was still 
 burning. 
 
 I led the bereaved lover to the east-end 
 of the church, and pointed out the marble 
 slab, beneath which that beauteous form had 
 crumbled into dust, and then speedily with- 
 drew, not merely from that delicacy due of 
 course to his sacred sorrows, but from that 
 sense of guilt, and shame, which made me 
 for the first time in my life feel that I was 
 unworthy to partake of the virtuous emo- 
 tions of a noble and loving heart. Time 
 was I too could have wept, and knelt, and 
 prayed, as if in the very presence of her 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 87 
 
 departed spirit ; but my own was no longer 
 blessed with consciousness of its proud purity 
 — no longer had community with those 
 whose constancy of attachment and fidelity 
 of heart, seemed to give them pre-eminence 
 in their own nature. It is true as I sat on 
 a low gravestone, bending my head in the 
 abasement rather than the humility of my 
 feeling, I did now and then say " thank 
 God that I escaped ; oh, how happy that it 
 is no worse," but I was not therefore happy ; 
 my conscience was now as much awake as it 
 had been heretofore sound asleep. It re- 
 traced my weakness through every stage, 
 my lingering looks, my insinuating atten- 
 tions, my forgetfulness of duty, my dead- 
 ness of affection, even the vanity of subter- 
 fuge, in daring to rejoice in the escape from 
 personal guilt, when I knew that according 
 to His holy code of laws whom I professed 
 to worship, I had " sinned in my heart. 
 
 How long I had thus sat I know not, but 
 when the General with red eyes, and pale, 
 
88 DANIEL DENNISON, 
 
 yet serene looks stood before me, and 
 thanking me, intimated his wish to return, 
 I well know that I started as if a ghost had 
 arisen from the grave. 
 
 How different a thing it is for man to feel 
 guilty before his brother worm, and before 
 his Maker ? To the latter, the lower he 
 sinks the more happy he rises ; but to 
 tremble before man is servility the soul 
 abhors. 
 
 I conquered myself sufficiently to offer 
 the stranger a bed in my house; but he told 
 me his servants and carriage were at the 
 " Arms," and he was waited for there, adding 
 that in the morning he would call on me to 
 be taken to the cottage, but hoped that 
 previously to that time I would cause his 
 lady to be informed of his arrival, add- 
 ing: 
 
 " I have been as fortunate in my marriage 
 connections, Mr. Dennison, as I was un- 
 happy in my early attachment ; Mrs. Clifford 
 is a very superior woman." 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 89 
 
 I replied in a mumbling voice, " that so 
 far as I could judge, she was — was" I 
 durst not trust myself with either handsome, 
 charming, or any other expression indicative 
 of admiration. The General mistook the 
 cause of my hesitation. 
 
 " Yon may have mistaken Louisa, Mr. 
 Dennison ; but I can assure you that in her 
 letters to Colonel Littleton she has spoken 
 highly of you, and deemed your attentions 
 invaluable. She may perhaps have appeared 
 a little too high, for she has lived long in 
 the East, and you have probably thought 
 her cold and distant ; but, depend upon it, 
 Sir, her heart was always in the right 
 place." 
 
 I told the General, as well as I was able, 
 that I had no complaints whatever to 
 make against his lady, and that I under- 
 stood eastern manners exactly, then disen- 
 gaged myself as well as I could from his 
 wringing grasp — wringing I may well call 
 it, for it wrung my heart ; and I am fully 
 
90 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 persuaded that never did a surgeon's knife 
 in the most painful operation touch with 
 acuter pangs than those words inflicted on 
 my mind. 
 
 Some of my readers will know too well 
 how to sympathize in my suffering. Happy ! 
 thrice happy is he to whom my story brings 
 no recollection of similar sensation, but 
 who whistles as he turns over the leaf, or 
 yawns now he is got to the end of the 
 chapter. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 91 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The next morning T became all anxiety 
 to know how I should break this important 
 arrival to her whom it most concerned. I 
 was determined not to carry the news my- 
 self, such a messenger would be either 
 reproachful or affecting. I wrote note after 
 note, but all were committed to the flames ; 
 one was too warm, another too cold, a third 
 common-place, and a fourth mysterious. I 
 saw the General advancing before the deed 
 was done, and therefore dispatched poor 
 Deborah with many cautions against wound- 
 ing the feelings of the lady, to make a 
 
92 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 verbal communication of the event, and 
 announce our united and speedy arrival at 
 the cottage. 
 
 It appears that when my chaste and sus- 
 picious Deborah reached Elm Cottage, she 
 desired to be admitted to the lady's pre- 
 sence, who was then seated at a late break- 
 fast table, and appeared pale and listless. 
 
 " My maister has sent me, Madam, to 
 tell ye as how ye mum be prepared for a 
 great change." 
 
 " 'A great change V is your master turned 
 methodist preacher ? his inspiration is some- 
 what sudden." 
 
 " Nay, marry not he ; to my mind he's 
 been lately turning to summut far worse ; 
 but it's not of him I'm sent here to 
 speak." 
 
 " Of whom, then?" said the lady scorn- 
 fully and impatiently. 
 
 " Your own lawful husband." 
 
 "The General! What of him? speak, 
 woman ?" 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 93 
 
 " He came hither last night, and will be 
 with you anon. — My maister brings him." 
 
 Mrs. Clifford rose from her seat, sat 
 down again, — gasped for breath, and rung 
 violently for her servant, but on her en- 
 trance motioned her to withdraw. Debo- 
 rah reached a bottle of sal-volatile from the 
 mantel-piece, and pouring a little into her 
 tea-cup, presented it to her with more of 
 pity, I doubt not, than she chose to own. 
 
 " Great wonderment is bad to bear, espe- 
 cially after a sleepless night, or upon an 
 anxious mind. Was it you that fetched 
 Mr. Dennison last night, Mrs. Deborah ?" 
 
 " Yes, it was ; I'd been loath to send a 
 giggling lad, and still loather his ain bro- 
 ther." 
 
 " The General would be alarmed if you 
 said he was with me ?" 
 
 "An' wi' great reason, Madam, seeing 
 ye had no ailments he could find a name 
 for." 
 
 " Then you did not mention where Mr. 
 
94 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 Dennison happened to be ? You are a 
 prudent woman ; it might have made the 
 General uneasy — not that he was here two 
 minutes 3 — something for a new gown, my 
 good Debby." 
 
 Two guineas were at this moment slid 
 into the maiden's hand, and as quickly laid 
 down, as though the very touch had pro- 
 faned her, whilst drawing her scraggy neck 
 to its utmost altitude she said, 
 
 " Lady, I have eaten my maister's bread 
 nearly fourteen years ; — I love him well, 
 his wife better, and his bairns best of all. 
 I want no gold to seal my lips, when open- 
 ing them wad injure one, or grieve ano- 
 ther. Here come the two, that mun needs 
 be one too many. Swallow your tea, and 
 do your best." 
 
 This advice was, I apprehend, taken, for 
 of course I did not, indeed I could not, 
 enter. I understood that Mrs. Clifford 
 fainted, which was imputed to the sight of 
 her husband's injured limb. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 95 
 
 When she was restored, he had good 
 news to communicate, for he had brought 
 her a title, having been knighted the day 
 before he set out for the country ; he more- 
 over conveyed her the forgiveness of an 
 uncle, who had been offended at her uniting 
 herself with a soldier, but now pardoned 
 her for the sake of that soldier's merits. 
 She was, therefore, about to re-enter the 
 w T orld under the happiest auspices, and 
 however she might have been affected, was 
 soon likely to forget a country apothe- 
 cary. 
 
 That she should do so was unquestion- 
 ably my most earnest desire, especially as 
 it is certain all passion had vanished as 
 completely from my own breast as though 
 it had never existed. That it had left 
 a void, " an aching void," was very certain ; 
 but yet right glad was I to be freed from a 
 guest which had cost me so much pain. In 
 fact, Deborah's voice in the very first in- 
 stance had proved a powerful medicine for 
 
96 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 a " mind diseased ;" for never did I exhibit 
 a dose that so rapidly expelled deleterious 
 matter from a patient's stomach, as her 
 message and appearance cleansed my bo- 
 som of its " perilous stuff." 
 
 Happy as the General was in the society of 
 his wife, and proud of her accomplishments, 
 he had still one point to carry. He wished 
 to see his Bella's boy, and I, of course, could 
 alone procure him this painfully pleasurable 
 interview. As he had brought his lady a 
 new carriage, she was induced to make calls 
 in it, to say farewell to a widely- scattered 
 circle of acquaintance, during which, 1 drove 
 him in my one horse chaise to the school, 
 and though we found the boys in the play- 
 ground* he was quickly aware which was 
 the one he sought. Bella's child stood con- 
 fessed in his eye in the likeness he bore to 
 his beautiful mother; nay, he was sensible 
 that in his hair, his eyebrows, and a certain 
 dimple in his chin, he resembled himself. 
 
 Much did the poor boy wonder at the 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 97 
 
 endearments he received; but his own warm 
 and loving heart expanded to embrace them 
 with gratitude and love towards the stranger; 
 and doubtless the hours that he passed with 
 us at the inn were not only the best he had 
 ever known, but the ground- work of many 
 others ; and if presents and promises could 
 make him blest he was the happiest of 
 school-boys. I could share the joy of nei- 
 ther, for the hectic flush of that fair cheek, 
 the heat of those small, wasted hands, too 
 surely told that the first interview would be 
 the last between those whose hearts were so 
 tenderly attracted to each other, and that 
 the grave must soon part those for ever 
 which the grave might be said to have 
 united. 
 
 Within a little year the auguries whis- 
 pered only to my own bosom were fulfilled : — 
 the fair boy was laid beside his mother. 
 She, who then bore that sacred name, most 
 holily fulfilled her duties. 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
98 DANIEL DENN1S0N. 
 
 To return — the General could remain 
 very few days. On the third evening, fear- 
 ful that my absence might occasion sur- 
 mises, I once more visited my cottage at 
 the customary hour of twilight. Its appear- 
 ance was very interesting, for the re-united 
 pair were engaged at chess, but with the 
 expression of countenance which indicated 
 that they were too happy to attend to 
 their game. 
 
 " You are just come, Mr. Dennison, at 
 the right moment, to take my side of the 
 board, whilst I step down to your little 
 inn, to arrange affairs finally, as we must 
 depart to-morrow. 
 
 " But cannot I settle them for you, Gene- 
 ral ? In my opinion, you will play your men 
 better than I can do." 
 
 " No, you cannot do what I want in the 
 village ; and you can finish the game. You 
 will find the queen in some danger from 
 an adventurous knight, but I dare say you 
 will obtain means to rescue her." 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 9 9 
 
 With these words, in themselves by no 
 means sedative, the active officer departed, 
 and we two oddly situated people, found 
 ourselves seated as we had often been be- 
 fore, but certainly never under such peculiar 
 circumstances. 
 
 We neither moved, nor looked up. The 
 servant brought in candles, closed the win- 
 dows, and withdrew, and we still remained 
 motionless. At length by a strong effort 
 I obtained the power of saying, 
 
 " Is it your Ladyship's move or mine ?" 
 giving her title as my first recognition of 
 it. 
 
 She answered not, but burst into a flood 
 of tears, so violent as to make me fear hy- 
 sterics ; — yet I durst not soothe her by 
 any of the usual modes of consolation. I 
 was touched with the deepest, tenderest 
 pity 5 I could have called myself a villain 
 for her sake, but I could not be one with 
 my eyes open. Oh! how relieved, how 
 
 f 2 
 
100 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 happy was I after all I had lately suffered, 
 to hear her say, 
 
 i( You cannot, ought not to be surprised 
 at this agony, now you have seen this ex- 
 cellent, excellent man, and reflect on all he 
 has suffered since we parted. My repent- 
 ance, my sorrow — oh ! I shall never, never 
 more feel that I am worthy of him, never 
 more dare to be happy in his arm — 
 arms." 
 
 At this moment the door opened, and 
 the General entered. 
 
 " Ah ! traitress, have I caught you V 
 said he ; for a moment I was half petrified 
 with terror, but in another all likelihood to 
 become happily ossified, vanished. " Have 
 I caught you," repeated he, " talking again 
 of my arm, and plaguing the poor doctor 
 about it after so faithfully promising never 
 to cry about it more ? This is pretty chess- 
 playing, truly ! Why you have not made a 
 move ; it is plain, I can do more with one 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 101 
 
 arm, than you can do with two, so never 
 fret about the matter. What says the 
 
 songr 
 
 Remember thou'rt a soldier's wife, 
 Those tears but ill become thee." 
 
 As the General spoke, he kissed his wife's 
 white hand, and playfully pinched her 
 cheek ; but her heart was too deeply, let me 
 say too happily though painfully touched to 
 conquer her emotions, and she left the 
 room for a short time, during which he told 
 me in ardent language of her good 
 qualities, her attachment, seeming to 
 think he could never laud her enough by 
 way of convincing me that he loved her. 
 Poor man ! I was quite satisfied that he felt 
 for her all that he ought to do, and often 
 did I say to myself, surely 
 
 " Where ignorance is bliss, 
 Tis folly to be wise." 
 
 The following morning Sir Charles and 
 
102 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 his lady bade a long farewell to Witherstone, 
 and within a fortnight my wife and her 
 uncle returned — the former to the home she 
 earnestly desired to behold, the latter to 
 end his days in a retreat which he now con- 
 sidered himself capable from habit, of en- 
 during, even as a winter residence. 
 
 The reader will be aware that I could not 
 meet my beloved Emily with what the Irish 
 emphatically call a " clean heart." They 
 will follow me through a thousand embar- 
 rassing questions from my wife as to the 
 charming Mrs. Clifford; and w T hen other 
 men were expatiating on her talents, dress, 
 and manners, think how I felt on my 
 Emily saying — 
 
 " Now really Dennison is very stupid ; 
 he could see none of these things in the 
 lady, though he visited her every day." 
 
 At length, when from more than usual 
 attention I had for a considerable time 
 proved to her how highly I esteemed, how 
 tenderly I loved her, when we found that 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 103 
 
 the General and Lady Clifford were returned 
 to India, after engaging her to that secrecy 
 towards her uncle which I felt due to the 
 lady, I told her all that I have told the 
 reader, as he may suppose, to her great 
 astonishment. Having done so, I waited 
 with the patience of a culprit for my sen- 
 tence, which, to the best of my recollection, 
 was uttered in these words — 
 
 " What a horrible creature that woman 
 must be ! — I call her a disgrace to her sex. 
 Hanging is a great deal too good for her, in 
 my opinion. " 
 
 Such was the judgment of one of the 
 best-tempered women who ever existed — 
 the most merciful and considerate ; but I 
 have always found the women very stormy 
 in all points of this nature when speaking 
 of that party yet termed of the weaker 
 sex, 
 
 Expecting'from the mortal dame, 
 The strength immortal natures claim. 
 
 Happily in all probability for us both, a 
 
104 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 great change at this time suddenly took 
 place in our situation and circumstances. 
 Our generous kinsman being informed by 
 a friend in the west of England — whom he 
 had probably set to watch — that a very 
 superior practice in the neighbourhood of 
 
 the ancient borough of G was to be 
 
 disposed of immediately, purchased it for 
 me, and overwhelmed both Emily, myself, 
 and my neighbours with astonishment by 
 the communication. 
 
 I believe he had long thought better of 
 me than I merited, and could not bear the 
 idea of my receiving obligations from Mr. 
 Witherstone, whom he disliked as much as 
 he esteemed his lady ; and he was the 
 more inclined to close with this offer be- 
 cause he had no doubt whatever that it 
 would form a safe residence for himself, 
 and, moreover, in its vicinage to a consider- 
 able town, find proper employment for my 
 promising boys. 
 
 Thither, therefore, we suddenly removed ; 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 105 
 
 and well for us all it was, that our removal 
 was one of haste and confusion, so fondly were 
 we now caressed, and our loss so bitterly 
 lamented, notwithstanding the elder of my 
 brothers remained behind, and the Squire, 
 with more of feeling than I had ever seen 
 him display, professed himself his future 
 patron. 
 
 Since then, my life has been one of un- 
 ceasing employment, and I have met with 
 persons who, however different from the 
 Squire, deserve no less to have their cha- 
 racter delineated, and their stories told ; 
 but I freely confess to my reader — if such 
 patient people exist — that I am become 
 weary of this my new vocation, and hope to 
 find myself able once more to take my gun or 
 my fishing-rod, which are more congenial 
 companions to a man whose life has been 
 so active as mine. It may happen that I 
 should explore through another volume, or 
 may be two ; but for the present I have 
 taken off the edge of my appetite for author- 
 
 f 3 
 
106 DAN\EL DENNISON. 
 
 ship, for the days are lengthening, the sun 
 shining, and all nature invites me to go 
 forth into the fields ; and God be thanked, 
 he has enabled me to answer, " I come." 
 
 Still I must not close my work without 
 doing as others do, in telling the end of 
 that person whose spirit might be said to 
 have inspired it. I now only heard of his 
 good deeds and his strange vagaries through 
 my old friend Adamson. I always knew 
 his remarkable predilection for being a 
 very aged man, and remembered that his 
 last daughter, born to him at thirty-seven, 
 was always termed the child of his old age, 
 and treated with more indulgence than her 
 sisters, though it was little enough. On 
 reaching the age of forty, he set himself 
 down as an infirm, incurable invalid, main- 
 taining that when a man was twice mar- 
 ried, he encountered so much of the wear 
 and tear of life, that two-score years 
 and ten, instead of three-score and ten, 
 became the due and expected period of 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 107 
 
 his existence — of course he could desire no 
 more. 
 
 From this time, therefore, he took up his 
 abode in his wife's dressing-room, and never 
 left it but once, when his sudden appear- 
 ance in the servants' hall one Sunday after 
 dinner, when the maids were gone out and 
 the men sleepy, frightened several of his 
 ancient serving-men almost out of their 
 senses, as they were fully persuaded they 
 saw the ghost of their long dying master. 
 He now constantly wore a night-cap, roque- 
 laure, and stockings rolled above his knees, 
 with gouty shoes, although he never had 
 that disorder, and used spectacles con- 
 stantly, which he slipped on the forehead 
 when he wanted to read. Two medical 
 gentlemen attended him, and two clergy- 
 men w T ere his regular visitants, by his espe- 
 cial invitation, but on even the elder finding 
 that he always locked him into his bed 
 room — as it appeared to him, by way of 
 taking care of the maids — they alike 
 
108 DANIEL DENN2SON. 
 
 spurned his suspicions, and entered his 
 house no more. 
 
 When he had pursued this plan of 
 seclusion about three years, he prudently 
 provided himself with a coffin, made from 
 the wood of a favourite tree. Previously to 
 his self-imprisonment, he had performed 
 another auto-da-fe, by burning together 
 Voltaire's and Shakspeare's works, as being 
 alike atheistical. We may the sooner 
 pardon this misconception of our good and 
 great poet, because he constantly classed 
 methodism and atheism together, and dis- 
 played a spirit of persecution against the 
 former which might have immortalized 
 him in the annals of times now happily 
 gone for ever. 
 
 But, notwithstanding his seclusion, his 
 rule was still one of iron ; and though he 
 maintained that he was blind* as well as 
 
 * One of his latest freaks was sending for my brother 
 to shoot a sparrow whose domicile was near his window, 
 9nd whose conduct he pronounced not only indecorous but 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 109 
 
 old, he continued to hold his daughters by a 
 rein that effectually kept them in his magic 
 circle. Every one was bound to visit him 
 at stated times, and answer his questions . 
 The intercourse of love he never knew, but 
 the power of condemnation and infliction 
 he held fast ; and as his estates were in his 
 own power and he had always an immense 
 idea of the superiority of his own sex, his 
 amiable, sensible, and much enduring lady 
 strained every nerve to pay and ensure due 
 obedience to his unbounded phantasies, 
 lest after all, herself, and her lovely girls 
 should be reduced to beggary. 
 
 One thing I must do him justice in de- 
 claring, no man ever lived who took more 
 pains to fulfil his own prophecies. In 
 possession of a large house, situated in a 
 proverbially healthy country, he rendered 
 
 profligate. " Only think, Sir/' said he, " what an execrable 
 little wretch it must be, when a man so nearly blind, so 
 aged and infirm as myself is so frequently offended : what 
 an example to every bird in the vicinity !" 
 
110 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 its benefits nugatory by confining himself 
 to one room, without using any exercise ; 
 he ate with the zest of a gourmand whatever 
 could excite the palate of an epicure, and 
 added to the labour of his afflicted stomach 
 whatever wines his jaded appetite could 
 fancy. Quack nostrums of every possible 
 description were his refuge, thereby render- 
 ing useless the medicines prescribed ; and 
 of course he became in due time as com- 
 pletely a dyspeptic patient as any practitioner 
 could desire. Nevertheless it was a weari- 
 some time before the coffin became useful. 
 
 Making wills of every variety of des- 
 cription, occupied his long leisure; but I 
 never heard the contents of the final one, 
 and am not sure that the last was not 
 destroyed, and things left to take their 
 chance. The nature of my profession for- 
 bade me visiting the neighbourhood ; my 
 correspondents soon ceased to mention his 
 affairs and I myself was at that time anxious 
 on other subjects. 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. Ill 
 
 His daughters are, I believe, married in 
 distant counties, his widow long since dead, 
 being worn out by her attendance on him, 
 and the name of Witherstone is no more 
 known in the land — his house being in the 
 hands of those who farmed his estates. 
 
 Peace to his ashes — they alone bestowed 
 it on others. And now, reader, I have ar- 
 rived at the end of my book, " even as a 
 tale that is told." I have nothing to say of 
 any other person worthy your notice save 
 poor Deborah, who lived to a good old age, 
 and to within a year of her departure was 
 able, to her great satisfaction, to discharge 
 the duties of cook and housekeeper. She 
 had the satisfaction, so rarely enjoyed by 
 her sex, of growing neither older nor 
 plainer ; and never did we receive an old 
 neighbour whp did not exclaim, "Why, 
 Debby, you look as well as ever;" a truth 
 which was undeniable. 
 
 Though by nature a truly generous and 
 disinterested creature, in the latter years of 
 
112 DANIEL DENNISON. 
 
 her life she became fond of hoarding money, 
 and when past work, desired me to raise 
 her wages, — a fancy I was happy in comply- 
 ing with, having pressed her to accept more 
 in vain, years ago. This worldly care 
 arose from the marriage of my eldest son, 
 for whose future family she was thus provi- 
 dent. He was her especial darling, and 
 had first awakened in her virgin bosom 
 those maternal feelings of love and tender- 
 ness which are peculiar to the heart of 
 woman, though not necessarily confined to 
 those who are wives and mothers ; and I 
 trust they repaid her kind cares for him by 
 their natural sweetness— not that his grati- 
 tude was wanting towards her, but the 
 heart hath its own fountain of cares and 
 delights. 
 
 To him, therefore, Deborah bequeathed 
 all her worldly wealth, and to me the ex- 
 penses of her funeral, knowing, she ob- 
 served in her will, " that he loves to do a 
 good deed, especially to a discreet lady ;" 
 
DANIEL DENNISON. 113 
 
 and I trust it need not be said that I 
 accepted my legacy gladly, for we all like 
 to be understood. 
 
 In laying these specimens of the Derby- 
 shire curiosities of by-gone times before the 
 world, although I may " some things have 
 extenuated," it is certain " I have set down 
 nought in malice." More than half a cen- 
 tury has gone by since my principal scenes 
 w r ere enacted. A new world, with new 
 manners, habits, tastes, pursuits, and occu- 
 pations surround me. In casting my eyes 
 retrospectively through so long a vista of 
 time, in order to snatch from oblivion 
 memorials of the loved and the lamented, 
 the singular and the blamable, I trust that 
 1 have been innocently employed, and even 
 indirectly instructive ; and that, therefore, I 
 have sought to communicate the same to 
 those whom I now bid, thankfully, 
 
 Farewell. 
 
CUMBERLAND STATESMAN, 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Weel ! weel ! Maister Neamless, I'll 
 say no more about it, I nivver meant tul 
 affront ye ; nae, doot ye're a rich man, 
 an if ye choose to dress yersell like a scare- 
 crow and to work like a neger, for sartin 
 it's nought to naebody ; I've nae mare to 
 say, nae mare at all." 
 
 So spoke the fat, good-humoured landlord 
 of the little inn at Porley, on the banks 
 of Ulswater, to a tall, thin personage, who 
 was leaning over the gate of his own farm- 
 
118 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 yard. He then turned as if to go away, 
 with an expression of disappointment, not 
 unmixed with disgust, on his countenance ; 
 but he had walked nearly five miles, the 
 last two of which were up the steepest part 
 of the mountainous district he inhabited, 
 and his guests would have deemed it 
 thirsty weather ; therefore returning without 
 rest or refreshment, was sooner said than 
 done. Besides, his heart was in his busi- 
 ness, and though the uncourteous reception 
 he had met with at the outset made him 
 declare he would " say no more," he yet 
 felt a most violent inclination to say ten 
 times as much. 
 
 Luckily, as he turned to depart, the 
 mistress of the house came out and relieved 
 a part of his troubles with the welcome 
 salutation : 
 
 " Surely, Mr. Eussel, ye would not be 
 going without asking me how I fend this 
 busy hay time ? You'll walk in, and take a 
 mouthful of something ?" 
 
STATESMAN. 119 
 
 As never welcome was uttered more 
 kindly, the honest man soon found himself 
 in the parlour of Mrs. Nameless, where a 
 pint tumbler of rum and water, mutton, 
 ham, oat cakes, and newly churned butter, 
 soon revived his strength and his energies, 
 and without adverting to the rebuff he had 
 lately received from the master of the 
 mansion, he thus addressed the mistress, 
 
 " It's seldom I come up these hilly parts, 
 but ye maun ken I'm seeking board and 
 lodging for a lady an her dowter that's 
 taken to our bonny country, and it's bad 
 to find : hereabouts folks are too high for 
 the buzzard, and too low for the hawk." 
 
 " Very true ;" observed Mrs. Nameless, 
 with a certain coldness that indicated as 
 little encouragement to the speaker's hopes 
 as the positive refusal lately received from 
 her husband. 
 
 At this time that person entered the 
 parlour, but as he did not approach 
 the table, though the sound of his 
 
120 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 iron hooped wooden clogs gave abundant 
 notice of his vicinity, the wily negociator 
 was not bound to consider him present, 
 and he therefore in the same tone of voice 
 continued to say : 
 
 " I doot I vexed the maister by naming 
 it to hinvbut you see, ma'am, I said to 
 mysel' this leady is a leady, for sure and 
 sartin, though she may be gone doon in the 
 world, seeing her husband's away to the 
 West Indies, an her lile lassie — what ! she's 
 just the thing that would tie itsel' to yer 
 heart strings. Sae, thinks I, she bein' a 
 London leady, an' baith Maister Neamless 
 an' mistress, weel acquint wi' that girt 
 pleace, for sure they'd be fine company wi' 
 yane another, sae I spak ; but what ! he 
 wad nae even think of it." 
 
 Mrs. Nameless shook her head in 
 reply. 
 
 "Ye see ye've a large hoos, an' a fine 
 garden, and twa bonnie servant lasses, and 
 nice saddle horses, and .... but it's nae 
 
STATESMAN. 121 
 
 use talking, I mun gae on to Will Weather- 
 all's, and see what he says ?" 
 
 " His house is dirty, and full of noisy 
 bairns." 
 
 " Then I maun see what widow Mounsey 
 can do for me." 
 
 " Poor thing, she's no bed fit for a lady, 
 and her house is too cold for these southern 
 folk." 
 
 " Eh ! it's bleak there, sure enough ; it'll 
 nip that bonny blossom when October 
 comes ; and, puir thing, it's already like a 
 flower under a snow-drift; — times are altered, 
 nae servants, nae fine hoos, nae carriage, 
 it's e'en a sad thing for women folk to be 
 puir, mare especially when their honest, as 
 I'm sure is the case here. If I can get 'em 
 put on some three months it wad du, 
 but—" 
 
 Mr. Nameless advanced to the table, and 
 said abruptly : 
 
 " I have re-considered the matter ; if this 
 Mrs. Caversham chooses to take us in our 
 
 VOL. II. G 
 
122 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 plain way, considering us as we are, a 
 farmer and his wife, she shall be accommo- 
 dated on paying for herself and daughter 
 fifty pounds a year. The two adjoining 
 rooms shall be exclusively their own ;" so 
 saying, he quitted the house. 
 
 " It's far over little, for ye're rooms are 
 varry fine ones ?" said the landlord. 
 
 " Don't say a word, or ye'll maybe anger 
 him. I think he is quite right, for ye 
 cannot suppose one would choose to get 
 any thing out of the lady ; — that would ill 
 become us; neither can we affront her by 
 asking less. Mr. Nameless is very right in 
 his judgment — very right." 
 
 This was Mrs. Nameless's constant con- 
 clusion in all matters where her husband 
 was concerned j but she was, unfortunately, 
 the only person in the parish who was 
 equally convinced of his infallibility. Her 
 present auditor, however, fully accorded 
 with her sentiments, and, having replenished 
 his tumbler, drank the " master's" health 
 
STATESMAN. 123 
 
 with cordial good- will, enlarged upon various 
 excellent properties which ran in the blood 
 of the Namelesses, " as every body knew," 
 and at length returned home, charmed with 
 the success of his mission, of which he was 
 the more proud because he felt that he had 
 managed the most impracticable man in the 
 country, and not only done a serviceable 
 action, but achieved a most improbable 
 one. 
 
 On relating the success which had crowned 
 his search in a part of the country little 
 likely for the purpose (since Ulswater as 
 the least frequented of the lakes by no 
 means offers the accommodation to be 
 found at Keswick and Ambleside) Mrs. 
 Caversham, who had lived the last fortnight 
 at his house, expressed herself highly grati- 
 fied, and determined to remove on the fol- 
 lowing day. The influx of company was 
 unpleasant to her, and the rooms she occu- 
 pied valuable to Russel during the short 
 season he enjoyed, so that if a conveyance 
 
 g 2 
 
124 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 could be procured, the sooner she was set- 
 tled the better ; and, notwithstanding the 
 warm interest her daughter had more espe- 
 cially inspired in the landlord, he took 
 all possible pains to borrow a vehicle, 
 in which he might drive them, no post- 
 chaise being nearer than seven miles. Often 
 as his eye or his mind glanced towards 
 Emma, a pale girl of thirteen, evidently 
 outgrowing her strength, or pining beneath 
 the change she had suffered, he would com- 
 fort himself by inwardly muttering : 
 
 "What ! there's every help up at Neam- 
 less Grange; puir thing, she'll have guid 
 air, guid milk, fine lambs, fat chuckies, a 
 kind friend 'ith missis, an' a garden wi* 
 plenty o' floors. All I fear is, th' maister '11 
 frighten her out of her wits at th* first set- 
 ting off." 
 
 To avert this calamity, the good man en- 
 deavoured to prepare his late guests for the 
 singular appearance and brusque manners 
 of their future host ; but so much were their 
 
STATESMAN. 125 
 
 minds occupied by painful recollections of 
 the past, or diverted by striking points in 
 the scenery around them, that they entered 
 their future abode in utter ignorance of the 
 novelties awaiting them. 
 
 Their impressions were all pleasing ; as 
 they had slowly wound up long lanes, open 
 commons covered with purple heath flowers, 
 and inhaled the fragrance of the hay-fields, 
 they became sensible that their future home 
 was the very highest human habitation in 
 the country, and as it spread in a long line 
 at the foot of a noble mountain, appearing 
 to look down directly on the beautiful lake, 
 and various fine villas, or ancient houses 
 scattered on its banks, from all of which it 
 was completely excluded by height and 
 distance, Mrs. Caversham thought it re- 
 alized her wishes for retirement, whilst the 
 clumps of hardy fir which sheltered it be- 
 hind, mingling with the grey rocks of the 
 protecting mountain, a variety of forest- 
 trees planted in front, and a large garden 
 
126 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 formed in terraces, promised that it should 
 afford objects most agreeable to her taste. 
 
 Mrs. Nameless received her guests at the 
 door of her house with a courteous weir 
 come in words, but by no means a smiling 
 countenance, for it was evident she had 
 been recently in sorrow. The good-natured 
 conductor felt his heart sink at this bad 
 omen, and the lengthening of his face, in 
 fact the pain of parting from the only person 
 she knew in the country, and one whose 
 true kindness had impressed her with a 
 liking for all its inhabitants, gave a new 
 pang to the heart of the amiable stranger. 
 She bade him farewell with a tremulous 
 voice, thanked him for having already for- 
 warded her luggage, and begged to be shown 
 to her own room. 
 
 Mrs. Nameless opened the door of a large, 
 handsome sitting-room, in which tw r o case- 
 ment-door windows opened into the garden, 
 and from which an extensive prospect was 
 enjoyed of the whole neighbourhood, framed 
 
STATESMAN. 127 
 
 in by mountains of all forms and hues. So 
 far did it exceed in beauty and magnificence 
 any thing she had hitherto seen, and so 
 perfect was the panoramic view, that she 
 could scarcely attend to the meek voice 
 which invited her to enter an adjoining bed- 
 room, which also opened into the garden, 
 but with a view more confined though ex- 
 ceedingly pleasant. 
 
 " Oh ! how delightful," cried Emma, " a 
 house without stairs." 
 
 "This parlour with the bed-room and little 
 dressing-room behind it have been built 
 within the last six years, and are all the 
 better for being no higher. Being completely 
 sheltered from the wind, they are so far 
 away from the kitchen, I trust you will 
 never be disturbed by unpleasant sounds, 
 yet they are near to our bed-room and that 
 of the maids when you need them." 
 
 11 They are very beautiful — very conve- 
 nient." Very cheap would, perhaps, have 
 been added, but their gentle hostess had 
 
128 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 vanished, and Mrs. Caversham, struck with 
 the novelty of her situation, and full of fear 
 that there was some mistake, began to 
 recollect, as well as she was able, the certain 
 drawbacks to their supposed comfort des- 
 canted upon by Russel. 
 
 The change in her circumstances, the 
 distance from her husband, the necessity 
 for her exertion of fortitude, at a time when 
 physical weakness rendered her little capa- 
 ble of exertion, affected her, but the anxious 
 looks of her little girl, as she slowly un- 
 packed the portmanteau, in her dressing- 
 room, indicated a sensibility so thrillingly 
 alive to her mother's feelings, that for her 
 sake she struggled to subdue them. They 
 both engaged in the business before them, 
 and although from being habituated to the 
 assistance of a lady's-maid, neither were, 
 perhaps, very facile ; their object was nearly 
 completed, when a voice at the door, in the 
 pure dialect of the country, announced that 
 dinner was on the table. 
 
STATESMAN. 129 
 
 " So soon ! why, mamma, it is only time 
 for a sandwich before we walk?" 
 
 " True, my love, but we can walk after 
 dinner ; we are no longer at an inn, where 
 our little meal could be taken when we 
 chose, but in a private house, where we 
 must comply with the habits of the family ; 
 and remember, my dear, not to express 
 surprise at anything you see, however outre 
 it may be." 
 
 The caution was given at a happy mo- 
 ment, because it was immediately called for, 
 yet Emma almost started, when, on enter- 
 ing the usual sitting-room of the family, 
 Mrs. Nameless announced as her liege lord 
 the person who was just taking the head of 
 the table. His face was so weather-beaten, 
 his skin so dried and tanned, that at the 
 first glance he appeared at least sixty years 
 of age ; and his dress, which consisted of 
 a worn-out shooting-jacket, ragged breeches, 
 grey woollen stockings, and wooden clogs, 
 by uniting the idea of poverty to years, made 
 
 g 3 
 
130 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 the impresssion stronger. Had he been 
 met out of doors by Mrs. Caversham, lowly 
 as the state of her purse now was, it would 
 inevitably have been drawn out for his 
 relief; yet, when the poor, ragged, half- 
 starved, old man looked up and addressed 
 her, his clear, dark, hazel eye beaming in a 
 socket of pearly white, and his distinct, un- 
 broken voice informed her truly that he was 
 under fifty, and in the full possession of 
 health and vivacity. 
 
 A beautiful leg of mountain mutton, and 
 its usual northern accompaniment, a boiled 
 tongue, with turnips white as snow, was on 
 the table, and Mrs. Caversham felt aware 
 that her ride and the pure mountain air 
 she now breathed, would enable her to dine 
 at the early hour of one ; but the clumsy 
 pieces of meat with which farmer Nameless 
 loaded their plates, entirely destroyed poor 
 Emma's chance of taking her meal. Her 
 look of despair caught the eye of Mrs. 
 Nameless, who, nipping away her plate, 
 
STATESMAN. 131 
 
 addressed her husband in a deprecating 
 tone, with, 
 
 "Why, honey, cannot ye manage just 
 to cut a Hie bit thin for Miss ? I remember 
 when ye were capital in shaving Vauxhall 
 slices, Sir." 
 
 The epithet which began this sentence 
 showed the character of the wife, which was 
 all tenderness and simplicity ; that which 
 concluded it touched on the husband's, 
 which was exacting and commanding. He 
 was the only noun substantive under his 
 roof, and no one could reside beneath it a 
 day without perceiving that the master was 
 " heard, seen, felt, and understood." He 
 now answered, 
 
 " The human frame requires sustenance, 
 and our mountain air is expected to give 
 healthful appetite. I have given the child 
 only what she ought to eat ; — but let her 
 mother help her." 
 
 As he spoke he turned the dish before 
 him to Mrs. Caversham, with an air of 
 
132 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 pique, and bolted rather than ate the food 
 on his plate. A slight blush tinged the 
 cheek of Mrs. Caversham as she proceeded 
 to help Emma, in whose eyes tears of shame, 
 sorrow, and almost affright, were glistening. 
 Just as she had tried to suit the slender ap- 
 petite of her darling, Mr. Nameless rose, 
 and saying it was folly to apologize for what 
 was necessary to a man in his station, stalked 
 out of the parlour and the house. He re- 
 turned almost instantly, having in his hand 
 two beautiful trout, which he put into the 
 maid's care, saying in a soft voice, slightly 
 tinctured by the dialect of the country, 
 
 "Here, Aggy my lassie, tell Betty to 
 dress these two fish bonnily for missy, she'll 
 get them doon better than meat. I have 
 been lucky in meeting a lad," said he, 
 turning to Mrs. Caversham, "who has 
 just taken them, and we have this advan- 
 tage amidst many wants and deficiencies — 
 that every servant can fry nicely the 
 delicious fish that our sparkling streams 
 
STATESMAN. 133 
 
 abound with. We can also offer you ex- 
 cellent cream, as you will find presently ; 
 but I have no time for such trifles.' ' 
 
 Emma looked up in wonder, and could 
 scarcely believe the same man spoke, and 
 thought his features, despite their brown 
 covering, were really handsome ; his teeth 
 were indeed singularly perfect and beautiful, 
 and the benevolent smile now awakened 
 shewed them to advantage. 
 
 As he left the room a second time, his 
 agile step and even graceful gait seemed to 
 atone for the coarseness he had adopted in 
 appearance; and his actual kindness in 
 procuring Emma a dinner, induced her 
 mother to think that his heart was much 
 better than his temper, and she felt obliged 
 so far by his attention, as to conceive it 
 possible she might become able to live 
 under his roof, which a few minutes before 
 had appeared to her impossible. 
 
 In truth, a greater oddity than Terence 
 Nameless, Esq. (such having been for be- 
 
134 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 tween seven and eight centuries the desig- 
 nation of his ancestors) , or, as he called 
 himself, " Farmer Nameless," cannot well 
 be conceived. Possessing a munificent 
 spirit, he yet lived far below his fortune, 
 and professing himself to be without heirs, 
 he yet seemed bent on the accumulation of 
 property. Continually recommending all 
 modern improvements, he yet severely con- 
 demned those luxuries which are their usual 
 concomitants ; and whilst he sought every 
 opportunity of adding to the wealth or 
 knowledge of his tenantry or other neigh- 
 bours, he set them an example in his own 
 person of industry, which amounted to 
 slavery, and of self-denial, which added to 
 the dress of a beggar, the abstinence of a 
 hermit. 
 
 Desirous of every man's benefit, he made 
 allowance for no man's prejudices or 
 habits, and set down in a place far removed 
 from general intercourse. Attached to 
 hereditary customs, it was no wonder that 
 
STATESMAN. 135 
 
 he met with opposition where he was entitled 
 to gratitude, that his motives were miscon- 
 strued, his conduct arraigned, and his con- 
 nections pitied. 
 
 It was allowed " that he had talents and 
 knowledge above his neighbours ;" but as 
 they wanted neither, " what right had he 
 to dictate to them?" and although when 
 pressed they would own " he had done 
 wonderful good in his parish, yet all agreed 
 never to calculate upon it. One happy cir- 
 cumstance attended on all he did or de- 
 signed, though his humour often changed, 
 and those who were in hourly intercourse 
 with him never could foretel how he would 
 be affected by the incident or the accident 
 of the time, yet his purposes, when decided 
 upon for a good end, were persevered in 
 for years so steadily as to be generally 
 effected. 
 
 His mind, like his native mountains, re- 
 mained the same, although like them, his 
 'face was obscured by clouds, lit up by sun- 
 
136 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 shine, or hidden by the overhanging storm : 
 like them, too, he was an object of awe to 
 those who looked to him for protection, and 
 of wonder to those who viewed him from 
 a distance ; and few cared to observe that 
 rugged cliffs may nourish lovely flowers, 
 and crystal streams flow from threatening 
 precipices. 
 
 The few who loved him were those who 
 had known him long and sympathized with 
 past sufferings sufficiently to forgive 
 present foibles. As he was no longer the 
 man he had been, they trusted he would 
 again become the man he might be. Un- 
 fortunately he had reached a time of life 
 when improvement was less to be expected 
 than an increase of the evils to be deplored 
 in his character. 
 
 To the young and timid Emma he con- 
 tinued to be a terrific personage for some 
 time, notwithstanding that she was grate- 
 ful, to enthusiasm, for frequent gleams 
 of kindness, which were by no means 
 
STATESMAN. 137 
 
 scantily bestowed upon her ; but as she 
 soon began to love his wife very warmly, 
 so was she inclined to resent what she held 
 to be his injustice to her. She also thought 
 he required undue services from the maid 
 servants whom he employed in the fields, 
 and treated the opinions of her idolized 
 mother with a haughty indifference or a 
 petulant examination, such as she had never 
 witnessed before ; for indeed poor Mrs. 
 Caversham herself was often obliged to re- 
 member that her unhappy situation com- 
 pelled her to accept some inconveniences, 
 and therefore she had " better bear the ills 
 she had than fly to others that she knew not 
 of," as there was no doubt her present home 
 was highly respectable, and one well- suited 
 to a woman separated by half the globe 
 from her husband. 
 
 Besides, there was no denying esteem to 
 a man so much busied in helping his 
 dependants and poor neighbours as Mr. 
 
138 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 Nameless was, and she could not forbear to 
 see, either from politeness to her or in 
 answer to the solicitation of his wife, his 
 personal appearance was wonderfully im- 
 proved, and she was no longer obliged to 
 suppress that sense of disgust natural to a 
 gentlewoman, on seating herself near to a 
 man bearing a sufficiency of external beg- 
 gary to warrant the fear of his possessing 
 its most loathsome attributes. 
 
 The first Sunday the strangers spent at 
 the Grange, Mr. Nameless, to the great 
 relief of Mrs. Caversham, appeared dressed 
 " like a man of the very first world," as the 
 world went in Cumberland Highlands, and 
 inquired " if she could manage to walk, or 
 would choose to ride to church? In either 
 case he was ready to attend her." 
 
 Emma had entered the parlour ; but 
 seeing a stranger, was shrinking back. On 
 hearing his voice she exclaimed : " Well, I 
 declare, it is Mr. Nameless !" and springing 
 
STATESMAN. 139 
 
 forward, put out her hand as if to welcome 
 a friend. 
 
 Mr. Nameless took that pretty young 
 hand in his own brown, hard one, and press- 
 ing it gently, said : " Did you not know 
 me ?" 
 
 Emma saw a slight flush suffuse his cheek 
 and something not unlike self-reproach 
 pass his mind. Utterly unable to concede 
 to the often pleaded reasons of his wife he 
 yet became sensible to the supposed conclu- 
 sions of a child, and from that time one 
 after another of his ragged habiliments was 
 dropped, and common, but yet decent ones 
 were adopted. 
 
 It was not from respect for custom, 
 which he despised, nor for woman, whom as 
 such, whatever her station, he considered 
 an inferior being, that he renounced the 
 folly he had adopted in pure contradiction 
 to his wife (whom he compelled to dress far 
 below her situation, and unsuitably to her 
 
140 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 age and really fine person) ; no, the touch of 
 Emma's hand, the pleasant lighting up of 
 her eye in friendly recognition, had touched 
 a chord which he never supposed had ex- 
 isted in his bosom ; he felt for the first time 
 as if life would have been sweeter, had he 
 possessed a daughter like Emma. 
 
 Repeatedly had this boon been nearly 
 given, but Mrs. Nameless had always been 
 disappointed in her hopes, and deeply had 
 she lamented the disappointment ; but never 
 had her husband hinted at the circumstance, 
 save to ridicule her weakness or frown down 
 her sorrow — a mode of treating it which 
 drew on him the severest reprobation from 
 her relations and other neighbours, all of 
 whom declared "his lack of children a 
 judgment on him and his house." Per- 
 haps, as he now walked slowly to this house 
 of God, holding another man's child by the 
 hand, guiding her through the softest paths, 
 and pointing out to her the finest views, 
 
STATESMAN. ]41 
 
 winning her confidence, and feeling his very 
 heart warmed by her smiles, he thought 
 so too, 
 
142 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Arrived at the small but picturesque 
 and exceedingly neat church and well 
 planted burial ground, Mrs. Caversham was 
 surprised to see various carriages, remind- 
 ing her of the world she had left ; and as all 
 who alighted from them spoke in the most 
 obliging manner to Mrs, Nameless, she for 
 a time felt a kind of fear that she would be 
 recognised and detected as an impoverished 
 gentlewoman. Happily, though glances of 
 curiosity mingled with those of kindness, 
 she saw no one she had ever seen before, 
 and felt it to be a comfort. The bereaved 
 
STATESMAN. 143 
 
 by death look to their fellow-creatures for 
 sympathy, and feel they have a right to the 
 consolation it may in a slight degree im- 
 part ; for all who live must, sooner or later, 
 share their losses and their sorrows. The 
 bereaved by fortune have a sense of disgrace 
 which makes them loathe the pity of others, 
 and find their best consolation in the power 
 of hiding themselves from every eye. The 
 most innocent partake those sensations with 
 the most guilty in producing the evil. In 
 a highly artificial state of society like that 
 of the metropolis, as riches are all para- 
 mount, so must poverty, even when inno- 
 cently incurred, be considered a degrada- 
 tion and a misery. 
 
 Mrs. Caversham had married, when very 
 young, a man of fine person, good family, 
 elegant manners, and respectable fortune; 
 each of which qualities and descriptions 
 were applicable to herself. Mr. Caversham 
 was at the time of his marriage studying 
 the law, with the intention of being called 
 
144 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 to the bar, where his sanguine friends and 
 his admiring wife predicted that he would 
 cut a shining figure and realise an abundant 
 fortune, which might excuse his apparent 
 predilection for spending that which he at 
 present possessed. 
 
 These hopes were founded on the talents, 
 the genius, the versatile conversation, natu- 
 ral eloquence and conciliatory manners, of 
 a handsome man, whom every circle re- 
 ceived with open arms and listened to with 
 admiring countenances. But alas ! the law 
 is a coy mistress ; she requires the whole 
 heart of a man, his exclusive preference, 
 his undivided attention. Nights of weari- 
 some research, days of studious diligence, 
 must be devoted to her ere she deign to 
 grant an encouraging smile, much less a 
 golden shower. Too volatile for examina- 
 tion, too vain to accept the lessons of expe- 
 rience or example, Mr. Caversham depended 
 on his own powers alone for success, and 
 consequently failed. A flower of rhetoric 
 
STATESMAN. 145 
 
 is a poor substitute for a mouldy record, 
 when that record alone can give not only 
 flowers but fruit ; and the wary counsellor 
 who will creep on all fours through the 
 winding labyrinth of an intricate case, is far 
 more valuable to his client than the orator 
 who mounts on stilts to stride over it. Poor 
 Caversham had lived in the world when he 
 ought to have been in his chambers ; and 
 the consequence was, that he could be seen 
 no where else. 
 
 Oar young couple had lost their parents 
 on both sides ; so that when they set out in 
 life there was no one entitled to remon- 
 strate on their expenses, or, when the con- 
 sequences overtook them — which inevitably 
 arise from miscalculated expenditure — to 
 assist their emergency. Tis true Mrs. 
 Caversham soon learned to think, and to 
 fear ; for she was in a few years the mother 
 of several children, to whose well-being she 
 gave herself up with all the tenderness of a 
 mother and the solicitude of a prudent 
 
 VOL. II. h 
 
146 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 guardian. Her progeny were all delicate, 
 and one after another dropped into the 
 grave, with the exception of the eldest, 
 who was thus initiated at too early a period 
 into the sorrows of affection, and the solici- 
 tude which belonged to worldly care, since 
 she was the constant companion of her 
 mother; and without understanding the 
 pressure of the hour, she so sincerely sym- 
 pathized in its trouble that her naturally 
 good constitution had given way, and she 
 was become the subject of extreme anxiety 
 to that mother at the time when the long 
 protracted decay of her father's credit came 
 suddenly to an end. 
 
 This was " a consummation devoutly 
 wished" on the part of the wife, whose 
 strict integrity could not endure the thought 
 of eventually injuring any one, more espe- 
 cially those to whose confidence or forbear- 
 ance she felt herself obliged ; and such was 
 the firmness with which she met the day of 
 trial, that her husband caught her spirit 
 
STATESMAN. 147 
 
 and shared her principles. The first time 
 in which he really evinced those talents 
 which ought to have been the superstruc- 
 ture of his rising fortune, was in disposing 
 of his fallen one. After years of idle dissi- 
 pation and enervating solicitude, the sudden 
 rush of long-delayed ruin, which is generally 
 found overwhelming in its effects, inspired 
 him with energy, recalled him to rectitude, 
 and beneath such influence, " he arose, and 
 was a man." 
 
 In that wide theatre of action our metro- 
 polis presents, it frequently happens, that 
 singular suffering, or unexpected good con- 
 duct, excites attention and elicits reward, 
 from some individual capable of estimating 
 merit, or pitying misfortune. Mr. Caver- 
 sham in his day of distress found no friend 
 in the circle of fashion where he had glit- 
 tered, nor yet in the learned body where he 
 ought to have shone, generous and chari- 
 table as they certainly are, whatever the 
 foolish and ignorant assert ; but, amongst 
 
 h 2 
 
148 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 the creditors, whom he neither cheated as 
 an extravagant man, nor sought to circum- 
 vent as a lawyer, one person, his landlord, 
 stepped forth on his behalf, willing and able 
 to assist him. 
 
 This was Mr. Ayrton, a West India mer- 
 chant, who had been sometime looking out 
 for a person in whom he could confide in 
 order to place him in a store at Barbadoes, 
 from whence he might make frequent 
 voyages to the Spanish settlements ; and 
 although there were friends not slow to 
 warn him against trusting a man of ex- 
 pensive habits, one, who having never 
 taken care of his own was not likely to be 
 the guardian of another's, still he persisted 
 in making the offer he meditated to Caver- 
 sham ; for, believing him to be strictly 
 honest in intention, and seeing the clever 
 manner in which he had arranged his affairs 
 for the benefit of his creditors, — by which a 
 very few years would liquidate his debts to 
 the last farthing, — he concluded that he 
 
STATESMAN. 149 
 
 would give to his affairs the attention un- 
 happily denied till lately, to his own ; and 
 that removed from the temptations of Lon- 
 don, his mind would develope all its better 
 qualities. 
 
 The offer was of course eagerly and 
 gratefully accepted by a man who sought 
 not only the means of life for himself and a 
 beloved family, but an escape from a sense of 
 shame for the past and with a sincere desire 
 to redeem it in the future. A salary of 
 three hundred per annum was offered, a 
 portion of which, the considerate merchant 
 proposed to pay Mrs. Caversham quarterly 
 in England, saying " that so frequently 
 would her husband be absent, if he did his 
 duty, that it would be better for her to 
 remain in her own country for a few of the 
 first years." This sentence coincided with 
 a conclusion they had been compelled 
 already to adopt, knowing that Emma had 
 been deemed by the first physician inca- 
 pable of bearing the voyage, or if that was 
 
150 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 got over, of living in the climate. Mrs. 
 Caversham insisted that she could live in 
 the north of England upon one hundred a 
 year, and that there was a necessity for 
 her husband at his outset to receive two, 
 and to this Mr. Ayrton assented. 
 
 A man may become guilty of a great 
 crime, without losing the affections which 
 belong to him as a human being, or the 
 attachments which adhere to his domestic 
 situation ; but it will be seldom found that 
 a man who gives up his time to idle plea- 
 sures will retain them ; the djaily indigen- 
 cies of selfishness wear out all the finer 
 sensibilities and conscientious self-reproach 
 of his nature. His sins of omission pro- 
 duce the effects of more active vices, negli- 
 gence and indifference, rob his creditors of 
 their just due, his children of paternal 
 care, his wife of that love and tenderness 
 which can alone sustain her spirits in the 
 ordinary trials of the sex, and his servants 
 of that example which is in fact a part of 
 
STATESMAN. 151 
 
 their wages and the most efficient reward 
 for their service. By the same rule, though 
 he may have the language of patriotism on 
 his lips he has not a shadow of its spirit in 
 his heart, for he has forsaken every medium 
 by which his country might have been 
 benefited. All this had occupied the 
 mind of Mrs. Caversham year after year, 
 in the lonely nursery of her pining, dying, 
 children. She had found her warm and 
 loving heart chilled by the cruelty of neglect, 
 the ingratitude for her perpetual privations 
 and personal exertions, and she was so 
 far weaned from her thoughtless husband, 
 as to bind her as by tenfold ties to his lonely, 
 unoffending, offspring ; and a short time 
 since, she could with ease, perhaps, 
 have met the trial before her ; but now, 
 when all the better parts of his character 
 had restored her esteem and justified her 
 love ; now when with the purification given 
 by sorrow, he returned to the promise of his 
 youth, to the affections which had slept, 
 
152 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 the tenderness of a father, the deep attach- 
 ment and confidence with which man in his 
 day of sorrow or sickness leans on his 
 weaker partner with endearing helplessness 
 for support, knowing that she will soothe 
 though she cannot assist him — oh ! it was 
 hard to part at such a time as this. 
 
 Yet she bore up bravely, comforted, 
 cheered, and assisted him, until the very 
 last ; but when he had actually sailed, she 
 sank into a state of such nervous weak- 
 ness, that for a time it baffled the skill 
 of the medical practitioner who attended 
 her in the surburban village where she 
 now lodged, and who at length advised a 
 long journey and an entire change of air 
 and scene, as positively necessary. The 
 pale cheek, the careworn countenance of 
 her only child, told that for her sake the 
 advice must be acted upon. 
 
 Once aroused, her prostrate energies 
 revived, she knew that her purse was low; 
 she had heard much of the cheapness of 
 
STATESMAN. 153 
 
 Wales and the beauty of the northern 
 lakes which she concluded, very erroneously, 
 to be equally so, and therefore determined 
 suddenly to set out on a journey of three 
 hundred miles, and take her chance for a 
 future residence. She had two reasons for 
 a step which would have appeared extra- 
 ordinary to her friends, if they had not 
 in the continual whirl of London society 
 already forgotten her. At the time of her 
 marriage she had made what is called the 
 " tour of the lakes," and the sweetest 
 memories of her young heart's pleasures 
 were connected with scenes and circum- 
 stances in that journey. Often since then 
 had she tried to forget them, as offering too 
 strong a contrast to those she was then 
 struggling with ; but at this time whatever 
 brought back the vivid recollection of her 
 husband and his love, was cherished as 
 woman ever cherishes the memories of that 
 passion, whether it has been her blessing 
 or her bane. 
 
 h 3 
 
154 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 Her other reason was the result of sense, 
 not sentiment. Her only near relation was 
 an aunt, the elder sister of a mother who 
 had supplied to her in early life that mo- 
 ther's cares, and was beloved by her exceed- 
 ingly in return. She had been enriched by 
 her godmother, who was a single woman, 
 with an estate, situate in the northern part 
 of Yorkshire; and the will, true to the 
 feelings of the dictator, forbade expressly 
 that any husband should be endowed with 
 it during the life of the owner, to whom was 
 given the power of leaving it to " whom- 
 soever she chose, without let or hin- 
 drance. " 
 
 This property came into the hands of 
 Miss Emma Howe when she had entered 
 her thirtieth year ; and her little orphan 
 niece lived with her, and constituted the 
 care and the charm of her existence. 
 Happy would it have been for herself had 
 this state of single blessedness continued, 
 but about five years afterwards her guileless 
 
STATESMAN. 155 
 
 nature was as much misled as if she had 
 numbered half her years, and she literally 
 became the victim of a worthless roue, who 
 stripped her of her own original handsome 
 fortune, considerable savings accumulated 
 for a present to her niece, and then quar- 
 relled with her trustees for refusing to sur- 
 render the estate in question. 
 
 The gentlemen in trust wisely placed the 
 property in the guardianship of Chancery, 
 hoping that the wife, who was several years 
 his junior, might outlive her persecutor, and 
 enjoy her income from this source uninjured ; 
 or failing that, bestow it on the niece she 
 loved, trusting in the meantime that his 
 hopes of obtaining it might ensure her good 
 treatment. This hope was defeated, as he 
 soon afterwards visited the place, dispos- 
 sessed the tenant who lived in the best resi- 
 dence, which was an old manor house 
 considerably dilapidated, and what might be 
 termed, vulgarized, by the habits of the late 
 residents. Of course, such a place of abode 
 
156 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 must be repugnant to a woman fastidiously 
 neat in her person and her apartments, un- 
 accustomed to all change, and acquainted 
 only with the elite of society in a village 
 near town ; — one to whom new books, new 
 prints, daily papers, and fashionable periodi- 
 cals, were an habitual want and quiet occu- 
 pation, interrupted only by the demands 
 upon her time made by the poor for her 
 charity, or the afflicted for her never-failing 
 kindness. To banish such a woman to a 
 place where she had not a single neighbour, 
 much less a friend ; where the stubborn in- 
 dependence of the poor resented her gifts as 
 an insult, and disliked " the fine Lunnon 
 leady wha was neither kith nor kin," to the 
 old family now " all dead and gone" — was 
 condemning her to the death of an exile, in 
 the opinion of all save her husband. He 
 had found the estate capable of great im- 
 provement, the country suitable to a sports- 
 man's views and his own failing health ; 
 therefore, that thither his wife should go, 
 
STATESMAN. 157 
 
 and there she should live, so long as she 
 added to his comfort as housekeeper or 
 companion, was his resolution, together with 
 the understanding that there she should die 
 also, when she had secured to him, either 
 by gift or legacy, the last property she pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 Mrs. Caversham had been placed at a 
 boarding-school, from the time of her aunt's 
 marriage, by firm and wise guardians, anx- 
 ious to protect her from sharing the doom 
 of a relative so dear to her. And when in 
 her eighteenth year their consent to her 
 marriage with Mr. Caversham was solicited, 
 it was, — after due inquiries, — given the more 
 readily, in order that she might effectually 
 be separated from the coils this bad man 
 might throw around her. They had under- 
 stood that his lady was giving melancholy 
 proof, that "The broken heart lives on for 
 years ;"* that Mr. Rainforth, her " master/' 
 was much of an invalid, and, like many 
 
 * Byron. 
 
158 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 others of his description, had, with advanc- 
 ing years, exchanged the character of the 
 spendthrift for the miser, thinking, we con- 
 clude, that 
 
 For an old gentlemanly vice, 
 He would take up with avarice. 
 
 In consequence of which her tenants were 
 racked, her servants starved, herself— but 
 who would look on such a prison-house, 
 when they were unable to relieve its mi- 
 series ? 
 
 From all she could learn — but that was 
 very little — Mrs. Caversham gave up all 
 expectation of receiving the estate from her 
 aunt, since she well knew the pliability and 
 the simplicity of her character. On the 
 contrary, Mr. Caversham, in all their con- 
 versation on the subject, insisted that even- 
 tually it would be theirs, though he proba- 
 bly made this assertion as an apology for 
 his own extravagance ; yet, perhaps, he was 
 not far wrong in asserting, " that the most 
 
STATESMAN. 159 
 
 upright mind might be taught cunning by 
 oppression, and that energy might enable 
 even the most quiet character to endure 
 much more than could be thought possible 
 when sustained by religion, and excited by 
 love." 
 
 Be this as it may, the death of Mrs. 
 Rainforth was announced to the Caver- 
 shams at the very time when they were 
 overwhelmed with troubles, which were 
 crowned by the announcement of her pro- 
 perty becoming, by her will, that of her 
 husband ; who on looking over her papers 
 found various payments on behalf of Mrs. 
 Caversham, during her childhood, for 
 which he held her husband responsible. A 
 week or two afterwards these claims, in the 
 form of old bills, were forwarded, in which 
 the writer — an attorney of Gainsborough — 
 used the expression " Ever since the deed 
 of gift which rendered the estate Mr. Rain- 
 forth's. 
 
 The claim was, of course, perfectly un- 
 
160 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 tenable. The discrepancy showed de- 
 cidedly that some gross deception and cruel 
 oppression had been practised ; but Mr. 
 Caversham had no money with which to 
 prosecute a law-suit, to which he had also 
 the aversion entertained by the profession 
 when the affair is their own, and he was 
 arranging his affairs for immediate depar- 
 ture from the country. 
 
 Mrs. Caversham, however futile these 
 trumped-up claims for about two hundred 
 pounds might be, considered that a bad 
 man, whom she held to be the slow mur- 
 derer of her aunt, and the systematic de- 
 frauder of herself and family — -since for 
 many years there was not the slightest 
 regard manifested or pretended between 
 Mr. and Mrs. Rainforth — might find some 
 means of annoying her. In Cumberland 
 she would be effectually hidden, and yet be 
 much nearer to him, and perhaps able to 
 hear somewhat of his past proceedings as 
 regarded her unhappy aunt. 
 
STATESMAN. 161 
 
 We have seen the result of her determi- 
 nation and conducted her to a cheap and 
 highly-respectable home ; but one in which 
 her solitude was painfully felt, and in which 
 the odd temper of her host gave her the 
 sense of its being a very precarious one ; 
 and she often suffered under a heaviness of 
 heart induced by leisure to reflect on the 
 past, and to fear for the future, such as 
 she had not experienced in the busy 
 sorrows and occupations of the late pe- 
 riod. 
 
162 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Although Mr. Nameless was generally- 
 severe and distant in his manners, uncom- 
 municative to his acquaintance, repellant 
 to his gentle wife, and haughty, though 
 never passionate, with his servants ; yet 
 when his labours relaxed and his mind 
 unbent, he possessed much of that dry 
 humour peculiar to his country, and could 
 relate an amusing anecdote, or repeat a 
 quaint dialogue with a vein of playful 
 shrewdness. At these times he generally 
 spoke in the Cumberland dialect, with 
 which Emma was exceedingly delighted, 
 
STATESMAN. 163 
 
 and like young people of her age, fond of 
 imitating. By degrees, she approached him 
 without shyness, and accepted his invita- 
 tions to walk over the farm, or go a little 
 way up the mountain — which he was be- 
 ginning to plant — with pleasure. His usual 
 rapid pace was at such times exchanged for 
 the gentlest movement, and when the pro- 
 posed distance was likely to be too much 
 for her, his wife's pony was saddled, and as 
 she had not learned to ride, he led her over 
 hill and dale with all the considerate ten- 
 derness of the most affectionate parent. 
 
 One morning, after a longer excursion 
 than usual, he prophesied with an air of 
 triumph to his wife that " the child would 
 now eat her dinner as she ought to do." 
 
 The good woman answered with a sigh, 
 " Sae much the better. I fear her poor 
 mother will eat little enough, Mr. Name- 
 less." 
 
 "How so ! is any thing the matter with 
 her ?" 
 
164 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 r 
 
 "Eh, marry! Willy at the Clough has 
 been to market, and he has brought her a 
 letter above a fortnight old, which had 
 travelled before them all about the country, 
 and what should be in it but one of some 
 botheration of a bill, which should be paid 
 to a day. It seems her husband writ it be- 
 fore he set off, and clean forgot to tell her, 
 as maybe he couldn't. However, there it is 
 for fifty pounds, and I think she said almost 
 ten pounds expenses. Surely that's a shock- 
 ing deal for postage ?" 
 
 The brow of Mr. Nameless gradually in- 
 creased in gloom as Mrs. Nameless related 
 her sad story, till it reached the full climax 
 of rage, and at the words ten pounds he ex- 
 claimed " damnation !" the most violent 
 expletive he ever allowed himself, at the 
 same time he strode towards the large par- 
 lour, now the sanctum of his guest, which 
 he had not once entered during the six 
 weeks which she had resided under his 
 roof. 
 
STATESMAN. 165 
 
 " Honey, Sir, say nothing to her ; do not 
 break her puir heart — it's too full al- 
 ready." 
 
 As the wife spoke, she flung her arms 
 deprecatingly round her husband, but he 
 broke from them, saying indignantly, 
 
 " Am I a man to break any woman's 
 heart ?" 
 
 It is certain that most women who glanced 
 over his habiliments and extended their 
 view to his countenance, would have ac- 
 quitted him of this crime in its common 
 acceptation ; but that he could move a 
 woman's heart was plain, for his sudden 
 appearance made that of Mrs. Caversham 
 beat violently as he exclaimed : 
 
 " What is the meaning of all this, Mrs. 
 Caversham ?" 
 
 " All this, Sir?" 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, all this which I have heard 
 about a bill and expenses upon it, and so 
 forth ? Why was I not sent for the moment 
 such a letter was delivered in my house, 
 
166 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 that not a single post might be lost ? Do 
 we not live ten miles from the nearest town ? 
 Has not mischief enough occurred by delay, 
 confound it ?" 
 
 Mrs. Caversham breathed more freely as 
 she gained the drift of these questions, and 
 answered in a tone of deep sorrow, 
 
 "What can I do, Sir? I have only 
 twenty-seven pounds in the world, and 
 twenty-five in time will be due to you. My 
 long illness consumed more than myself or 
 my husband could reckon on, and as I did 
 not know the length of the bill, I was in 
 hopes that he would calculate so that it 
 should not arrive until I received the fifty 
 pounds Mr. Henderson will send me when 
 due." 
 
 " Um — um — what then did you think of 
 doing?" 
 
 " Of asking you, who know our depend- 
 ance on this gentleman, whether I had not 
 better incur increased expenses, rather than 
 give him an idea of any irregularity on my 
 
STATESMAN. 167 
 
 husband's part, or of extravagance on my 
 own?" 
 
 "You extravagant! oh, mamma! no- 
 body will be wicked enough to say so ; you ! 
 oh, dear !" cried Emma. 
 
 " I see ; he must not be told ; to me it is 
 sufficient that you had an expectation of 
 this call and are in part prepared. I am 
 not a man to intrude upon you if not 
 wanted ; but since you saw me take money 
 last week, I think I ought to have been 
 asked for the loan of what was needful, and 
 not have allowed the expenses to go on. 
 Will you let me see this thing? Um — I 
 see ; yes, noting ; um — um — there is al- 
 ready five pounds fourteen ; that's better 
 than I hoped for. Here are sixty pounds 
 in this pocket-book, which more than 
 covers it. If you will write the letter, leav- 
 ing it open, I will get the exact sum at the 
 bank, seal and put it in the post myself. I 
 can just manage to shave meantime, that I 
 
168 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 may not frighten these strutting bantams 
 one sees in market towns." 
 
 Mr. Nameless, leaving his pocket-book 
 on the table, and his anger also, left the 
 room instantly, calling in a pleasant voice to 
 his man to feed and saddle old Janet, with- 
 out losing a minute. 
 
 Relieved, surprised, affected, Mrs. Caver- 
 sham, could with difficulty hold the pen ; 
 yet knowing the value of time she compelled 
 herself to write the few lines required, but 
 had scarcely signed her name when a soft 
 foot approached the table, and a gentle voice 
 whispered : 
 
 " Dear lady, my maister means well 
 always, but, dear heart, he's so rough, I 
 fear ye couldn't tell him all ; but here's my 
 little matter of notes to make out with ; it's 
 my butter money, ye see, and I can want* 
 it very well." 
 
 * A common expression in the north, meaning that it 
 can be done without. 
 
STATESMAN. 169 
 
 So saying, Mrs. Nameless laid her house- 
 wife on the table, and vanished as quickly 
 and quietly as she came. 
 
 In all her troubles during a long period, 
 Mrs. Caversham had not met with so much 
 kind consideration before. She seized the 
 little housewife, pressed it to her lips, and 
 her tears flowed upon it ; but the voice of 
 the donor was heard intreating her husband 
 to get his dinner, which recalled her to the 
 directing of her letter, which was imme- 
 diately placed in the hands of her host, who 
 instantly set out, saying, " Jewel was fed, 
 all was right.' ' 
 
 " Nae, marry, it's far frae right," said the 
 affectionate wife, as she turned discontent- 
 edly into the house ; " it can never be right 
 for a man to go working, an' fasting, an' 
 driving about 'till he's worn down to a 
 withy. But we must all submit to some- 
 what. Such as he is I have him ; but this 
 poor lady has no one but her bonny bairn." 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
170 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 Well might Emma at this moment be 
 called " bonny," agitated as she was by the 
 sweetest emotions of gratitude and plea- 
 sure, her dark blue eyes shining through 
 glimmering tears, her cheek glowing, and 
 her clustering ringlets waving in the wind. 
 Hastening to return the precious housewife 
 and assure the donor her mamma did not 
 need it, she threw her arms round the neck 
 of Mrs. Nameless, and, as she fondly kissed 
 her, declared that she loved her as if she, 
 too, were " a kind of mother.'' 
 
 Tears of a nature undefinable to Emma 
 started to the eyes of the good and amiable 
 woman she addressed. Many an hour of 
 solitary repining had pressed heavy on her 
 heart because she was not a mother ; and 
 the sense of how much such a child might 
 have contributed to her happiness, at this 
 moment overpowered her. 
 
 This occurrence opened the eyes of Mrs. 
 Caversham to the peculiarities of Mrs. 
 
STATESMAN. 171 
 
 Nameless's character far beyond the first 
 feeling of gratitude and reliance which it 
 had awakened. She had hitherto believed, 
 notwithstanding the assertion of the Pooley 
 landlord, that the man who partook or 
 even exceeded his lowest menial in personal 
 drudgery, must be poor enough to need the 
 price of labour ; and in speaking of the field 
 he was cultivating, or the house he had im- 
 proved, he had often adverted to the mort- 
 gages he had found on the estate as left by 
 a brother he evidently remembered with 
 tenderness, and never blamed the circum- 
 stances he lamented. She had, therefore, 
 been often hurt with the idea of her own 
 payment being too little for the many com- 
 forts she enjoyed ; but she now believed that 
 his excessive labours and scrupulous adhe- 
 rence to plain food and shabby clothing, 
 were neither the result of necessity nor ava- 
 rice, but a part of that system of contradic- 
 tion to the general habits of mankind, which 
 
 i 2 
 
172 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 by keeping him in a state of perpetual, 
 though not violent warfare, enabled a mind 
 of uncommon activity, and a temper soured 
 by circumstance, to find employment in this 
 solitary region. 
 
 He returned hungry and jaded, at a late 
 hour — for twenty miles over the mountains 
 in autumn are no joke. But different, as 
 usual, to the habits of his sex, he appeared 
 satisfied with his journey, ate his supper 
 with great good humour, protested that he 
 was well and equal to fatigue, in opposition 
 to his wife's condolences and assurance 
 " that, though still a young man, he had 
 been younger." He even conferred on her 
 the great pleasure of accepting a glass of 
 rum and water, " such as she knew how to 
 mix better than any body ;" and whilst sip- 
 ping it, told Mrs. Caversham how nearly he 
 had been run for time at the bank and the 
 post-office, but added exultingly, " I have 
 saved three and sixpence." 
 
STATESMAN. 173 
 
 "Dear heart! what is three and sixpence, 
 Mr. Nameless?" said his wife. " Ye've 
 been cauld, and hungry, and wearied to no 
 purpose, I'm thinking, — not that I under- 
 stand such things." 
 
 "That is indeed evident, Alice; but I 
 take it Mrs. Caversham has more sense. 
 She knows the value of money, and I hope 
 she will teach her daughter to know it." 
 
 " She has taught me, Mr. Nameless ; but 
 I am quite sure if you are even a little bit 
 poorly to-morrow, we shall just think as 
 your good lady does, that it was a pity you 
 hurried yourself so much. Even I could 
 save three and sixpence a many ways, 
 rather than slave you." 
 
 Mr. Nameless turned his eyes a moment 
 on Emma, but instantly clapped his hand 
 before them, and, though intending to say 
 something reprehensive, did not find it con- 
 venient to say any thing. 
 
 "To be hurried as our good friend has 
 
174 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 been," observed Mrs. Caversham to her 
 daughter, " is not to be thought of in con- 
 nection with shillings, but with the honesty 
 he has enabled me to evince ; with the con- 
 fidence he has so kindly shown in me, and 
 with the benevolence of his own heart. 
 When he talks of saving me a trifle he may 
 not know, though I do, that he has saved 
 me a night's rest — perhaps preserved my 
 health, and certainly has helped my credit 
 — your dear banished father's too — " 
 
 " Say no more about it, lady — no more, 
 'Tis enough that we understand each other. 
 Terence Nameless is not an ogre, though an 
 oddity ; and he is your friend, therefore 
 henceforth trust him. But he must now 
 say good night. Emma, lassie, good night 
 to thee. ,, 
 
 Emma, timid as she was, answered by 
 throwing herself upon his bosom, as she 
 was wont to her father ; and her " Good 
 night, dear Mr. Nameless," was the signing 
 
STATESMAN. 175 
 
 of a bond between them likely to last for 
 life ; since, however severe to others, to her 
 he was all gentleness and kindness. 
 
 Of this Mrs. Caversham could not be 
 aware. She well knew the warm affections 
 of her daughter towards all who in the least 
 contributed to the happiness of her idolized 
 mother, and she naturally thought her sweet 
 child irresistible in moments when the 
 enthusiasm of her mind awakened peculiar 
 sensibility; but she had no idea that the 
 stern features of her host really veiled a 
 heart of more than common feeling. That 
 he was a man of strict integrity, occasion- 
 ally munificent in his gifts for general 
 benefit, and capable of private generosity, 
 she could not doubt ; but though he, there- 
 fore, commanded her esteem, she could not 
 accord him that sense of friendship she felt 
 that he had a right to demand. In fact, she 
 feared him in his proud contempt for her 
 sex — his coldness, and often rudeness, to 
 
176 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 his unoffending and in truth endearing 
 wife ; the tasks he imposed on the maid 
 servants, contrasted with his consideration 
 for the men, thereby encouraging them to 
 follow his example and treat their future 
 partners as domestic slaves — were all cir- 
 cumstances repellant to her feelings ; but 
 she did not speak of them to Emma, whom 
 she rejoiced to see every day improve in 
 health, spirits, and intelligence, from her 
 companionship with this singular man. 
 
 Strange as the manners of Mr. Nameless 
 unquestionably were, in the eyes of a lady 
 who had lived in the south of England, and 
 reprehensible as all ladies will say they 
 were with respect to his wife, yet we must 
 say in his behalf that they were those of 
 his country. The irruptions of southrons 
 to visit the lakes, during the long period 
 when the continent was closed to the cu- 
 rious, the idle, and the ailing, had given a 
 little improvement to the manners of that 
 
STATESMAN. 177 
 
 class with whom they came in contact, and 
 innkeepers had, to their astonishment, found 
 even lordly travellers civil to their wives, 
 and " prettily spoken" to the " maidens 
 and childer;" but beyond the business of 
 the road, this influence extended slowly- 
 Through the mountainous district, woman 
 was ever the active, willing, intelligent slave 
 of man. She shared the toils of the well- 
 disposed with loving obedience and untiring 
 activity ; she quietly endured the imposi- 
 tion of perpetual tasks by the thoughtless, 
 the hard-hearted, and the dissipated — not 
 only for the sake of those children whose 
 little patrimony she sought to secure, but 
 because she held her bondage to be just to 
 her husband, and her exertion demanded 
 by her duty to God. Her submission en- 
 sured content, though it denied felicity. 
 If she were not the happy wife her tender 
 ness, energy, and ability entitled her to be, 
 neither was she the fretful, resentful, sufFer- 
 
 i 3 
 
178 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 ing being inevitable to one educated under 
 a different sense of her own value and 
 acknowledged rights. Throughout a con- 
 siderable district, the habits of the coun- 
 tries, as given by the Old Testament, were 
 acted upon as religious examples, and are 
 so at the present day ; difference of climate 
 and the gentler doctrines of Christianity, 
 much less the advancing improvement of 
 manners, never being taken into account. 
 No wonder! the doctrine and the custom 
 were alike convenient to the northern lords 
 of the creation. Well does the writer 
 remember, in childhood, seeing the master 
 of a house, his man, and two good neigh- 
 bours, passing the summer morning at cards, 
 whilst the wife, her maids, and daughter, 
 assisted by the said neighbours' wives, were 
 loading and leading hay. Could the squaws 
 of an Indian village more fully evince the 
 lack of civilization in their husbands ? — 
 who, be it remembered, were not the poor, 
 
STATESMAN. 179 
 
 but what are generally termed the respect- 
 able part of society. Sickness and hunger 
 level all distinctions. The wife must work 
 when the husband cannot crawl ; but idle- 
 ness and despotism are not less absolute in 
 their inflictions when sanctioned by custom 
 and endured on principle. 
 
180 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The scanty crops were housed, the leaves 
 were falling, the days became short, and 
 the glowing peat-fires welcome ; showers 
 were so frequent and the wind so boisterous, 
 Emma could neither walk nor ride to any 
 distance, and it was allowed, even by Mr. 
 Nameless, that she ought not to risk the 
 health so happily established. " The time 
 was come for knitting and sewing, and 
 biding within ; learning to skim milk nicely, 
 make butter daintily, to peel rushes for 
 servants' lights, and pot char for distant 
 
STATESMAN. 181 
 
 friends, as service maidens ought to 
 do." 
 
 So said he who was emphatically the 
 master ; but, although Mrs. Caversham 
 had no objection to these feminine em- 
 ployments, she was extremely anxious that 
 Emma should now resume what she con- 
 sidered necessary education, and which for 
 two years had been pursued in a painfully 
 desultory manner. Finding that the old 
 rector and his young curate were in the 
 habit of coming over in the evening for 
 an hour, now their neighbour was no longer 
 able to work out of doors, she hoped even 
 in these sequestered regions to get a little 
 assistance, the latter being the schoolmaster 
 of the parish. This scheme was, however, 
 rendered sometimes nugatory, because other 
 neighbours dropped in also, to have a chat 
 with him, who was always ready for what 
 Dr. Johnson termed " colloquial warfare," 
 and these stout borderers were alike ready, 
 
182 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 to a man, to attack one whose gladiatorial 
 powers they well knew, and whose prowess 
 they delighted to try. At length an oppor- 
 tunity occurred for broaching the subject, 
 and she inquired of Mr. Mounsey " if he 
 could find time during the winter to instruct 
 her daughter in geography, regretting — at 
 the same time — that she had not brought a 
 pair of small globes from town." 
 
 The curate would have replied ; but be- 
 fore he could arrange his words in the form 
 most proper for addressing a " London 
 lady," the master of the house, whose brow 
 — like that of his native mountains — an- 
 nounced a rising storm, broke out into a 
 strong and pathetic appeal, exclaiming, 
 
 11 How a woman to whom God has not 
 denied a common understanding — moreover 
 a woman who has lived in the busy world, 
 and seen the folly and vanity of every 
 thing in it — can desire that her daughter 
 should know any more of it, or be any far- 
 
STATESMAN. 183 
 
 ther qualified for it, than Emma already is, 
 I cannot imagine. I assert, and maintain, 
 and will prove the veracity of my assertion, 
 the child already knows more than she ought 
 to know ; of course adding to her stock is 
 increasing the evil— it is weighing her down 
 with mischief— it is launching her into a 
 world of danger freighted for certain per- 
 dition." 
 
 Mrs. Caversham started — shuddered — 
 the words " already knows more than she 
 ought," escaped her lips in such gasping, 
 tremulous confusion that old Mr. Castle- 
 ton, who sat close by her, instantly began 
 to console her, by saying, 
 
 " Why ! honey leady, ye'll nivver trouble 
 yersell for aught he says about woman- 
 kind ! For making a speech aboot turnpikes 
 or elections, there's never a bench o' 
 justices i' the county '11 come nigh him ■ 
 but a man that bides a bachelor till he's 
 
184 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 nigh forty, seldom understands women and 
 bairns ; but what says our pastor ?" 
 
 " I say ye'rereet," said the rector, autho- 
 ritatively. 
 
 " I maintain the truth of what I ad- 
 vance," cried Mr. Nameless, putting down 
 all that was said aside ; " in the first place 
 does she not read ? ay ! and fluently, too, 
 in more languages than one, — you grant 
 this ?" 
 
 There was no denying this charge • — that 
 it was brought forward as a fault at this 
 period of civilization was astonishing to 
 Mrs. Caversham, but that the accusation 
 was not deemed singular in the present 
 circle was evident, as the rector answered 
 with due gravity : 
 
 "I hold it good that christian women 
 should be taught to read their Bibles, and 
 be able to sing psalms tu athout blundering, 
 eh ! and to say off their catechisms.' • 
 
STATESMAN. 185 
 
 "Will they stop there ?" cried the ac- 
 cuser, triumphantly, " whoever found a 
 woman that could read, that did not use 
 her faculties to bad purpose ? Does she 
 not read history, travels, witchcraft, novels, 
 astrology, poetry, and the devil knows 
 what ? Is she not a thing so constructed 
 that out of all heterogeneous subjects and 
 substances she will unquestionably choose 
 and retain the vain, frivolous, and wicked, 
 whilst the good and noble is rejected by 
 her ? Is not the mind of woman a sieve, 
 through which all strong and good things 
 pass as by their own gravity, the husks and 
 shells, the skim and refuse of knowledge 
 alone remaining behind, to dirty and dis- 
 figure that which it affects to adorn ? Since 
 such effects alone can arise from a woman's 
 reading, would she not be better without 
 the power of sullying her own mind, by ad- 
 ding corruption to weakness ? The moun- 
 tain that rises above our heads is majestic 
 
J 86 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 in its simplicity, and beautiful in its heather 
 clothing. If you fritter it into a Dutch 
 garden, or plant it with poppies, what will 
 it become but a paltry toy, or a spreading 
 pestilence ? Such is a woman of letters ; 
 never may Emma become one !" 
 
 Whilst listening to this tirade Mrs. Ca- 
 versham thought she would make a stand 
 against this sweeping clause, and she began 
 to say : 
 
 " Surely, my dear Sir, we should distin- 
 guish between — " 
 
 But she suddenly stopped, as well know- 
 ing that every prejudice is hugged to the 
 heart with increased obstinacy when op- 
 posed; and that others would speak her 
 sentiments with better effect than herself. 
 The curate, too, was preparing an harangue, 
 but the orator, whose words not only flowed 
 freely, and were uttered in a clear and 
 flexible voice, untinctured by provincialism, 
 from which none other of the male circle 
 
STATESMAN. 187 
 
 were free, held the ear of the house, and 
 taking it for granted his first position was 
 allowed since it remained uncombated, 
 continued in a tone of triumph, 
 
 " Emma can also write — write legibly and 
 freely, and spell so well, as to give all she 
 writes effect." 
 
 "Why there, there I confess," said the 
 old neighbour near him, u Iamo' yure way 
 of thinking, Maister Neameless. Writing 
 cannot do a lassie ony guid : it just sets 'em 
 writing to some bit laddie, and many o' 
 them gets hold o' siccan bodies I do really 
 think for that varry purpose. There they 
 gae, scribble, scribble, using up whole 
 sheets o' clean writin' paper at a time, and 
 saying a pooer o' fine words ; but when they 
 marry duce a bit better they pruve for aw 
 their fine speeches." 
 
 " Spoken like a sensible man, Tammy. 
 My mother never learnt this art, (which 
 was meant for man alone) and where would 
 
188 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 you find a wiser, ay ! or a finer woman ? 
 one who brought up her family better, — 
 constant at church, whether fair or foul, as 
 you, Mr. Crossthwaite, can vouch, and — " 
 
 " I can, I can," said the rector j " but I 
 mun say mair than that. She could write, for 
 I taught her myseP. Yere grandfather were 
 a prejudiced man, (sic things runs i' folks' 
 bluid) and I shall never be sorry that when 
 I were young I taught baith her an' my 
 own wife a bit writing, unbeknown till 
 him. If I had not how wad she a corres- 
 ponded wi' yere father, or for matter o' 
 that, sent yourseP many a gude advice, and 
 many a bit comfort when ye lived up at 
 Lunnon ? If women are not let learn what 
 they ought, they'll maybe learn that they 
 ought not ; but I'se never repent cheating 
 that honest man, yere grandfather." 
 
 " The progress of intellect and civiliza- 
 tion to which Mr. Nameless has contributed 
 so much," said the curate, " proves that all 
 
STATESMAN. 189 
 
 he has said was a joke ; I cannot forget 
 that the contriver and giver of my school- 
 girls' writing-table lived at Nameless 
 Grange. ,, 
 
 In the warmth of his argument Mr. 
 Nameless had forgotten the fact of his mo- 
 ther's writing, though he justly remembered 
 hearing she had not been taught in child- 
 hood. It could not, indeed, be laid to her 
 charge, as it was to poor Emma's, that she 
 wrote legibly, or spelt well; yet many a 
 tender sentence, bespeaking a widowed mo- 
 ther's anxiety, many a lesson of integrity 
 and piety, unfolding her character, and 
 confirming his own, rushed to his mind, 
 and by a tacitly consenting smile, he allowed 
 the curate's view of the case to pass as the 
 right one. 
 
 After a short pause Mrs. Caversham in 
 a conciliatory tone observed, that of late 
 years female accomplishments had been 
 pushed too far, more especially with regard 
 
190 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 to music. " Even petty tradesmen," said 
 she, " have spent three or four hundred 
 pounds in the musical education of their 
 daughters, which would have formed for 
 them a far more essential benefit as a 
 dowry to the decent, but humbly situated 
 man she might marry ; and it was certain 
 either the young woman so situated speedily 
 forgot all she had learned, or retained it by 
 neglecting more important occupation 
 belonging to her duties as wife and mother." 
 " Nevertheless !" cried Mr. Nameless, 
 eagerly, " I trust you will allow Emma 
 to prosecute her study of music; I con- 
 sider it as the sweetener of all sorrows, — 
 the softener of all trials. Women, weak, 
 helpless, subjected creatures as they are, 
 must yet be deemed the singing birds of 
 society, and truly the world would be a 
 sandy desert were it not enlivened by their 
 melody. Besides, winter is coming on, 
 and when the first snow whitens our 
 
STATESMAN. 191 
 
 mountains, I bring out an old bass viol, 
 our friend Mounsey has a flute, and des- 
 perate as the undertaking may seem, I 
 propose having a piano-forte, carried by 
 hand from Penrith hither, for the improve- 
 ment of Emma, and for your amusement. 
 I perceived music-books among your pack- 
 ages, and we are not ill provided ourselves ; 
 my wife keeps my stock along with the 
 remains of two quires of writing paper 
 which I brought from London fourteen 
 years ago. 
 
 " One is not touched, Sir, at least I 
 think not." 
 
 " Yes, it must, I have written two letters 
 a year constantly, and at one time four." 
 
 " Is it possible the business of life can be 
 carried on with only two letters a year ?" 
 said Mrs. Caversham. 
 
 " Undoubtedly ! the bank pays interest 
 twice a year to my agent. He requires ac- 
 
192 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 knowledgment ; what other excuse have I 
 for writing ?" 
 
 Mrs. Caversham, though delighted to 
 hear of the prospect she had for enjoying 
 music, her dearest gratification, could not 
 forbear looking at her right-hand neigh- 
 bour, as if to inquire who, save Mr. Name- 
 less could have so little to do with letters ? 
 to which he replied, 
 
 " I cannot say much on the subject, 
 lady, I never writ but three in my life, and 
 that's years agon ; my son, who is a sodger, 
 sends us some now and tan, but the wimen 
 folk answer 'em. I am not for fashin my- 
 sel wi pen wark, ner ivver was, for that mat- 
 ter." 
 
 " Neither am I noo-a-days," said the old 
 Rector, " one cannot manage sic things at 
 fourscore and four, athout glasses, an I'se 
 be lothe to tac to them yet a bit. I think 
 to give up preaching athegither anin." 
 
STATESMAN. 193 
 
 " Surely not," said the uncle of Mrs. 
 Nameless, " why ye've belonged to us for 
 sixty years, and your voice i' your own 
 pulpit does me a power o' good, thought I 
 don't exactly know what yire saying, but 
 I'm sure it's right doctrine. It's true yer 
 curate there, is far finer than ye were i'yer 
 best days ; but an auld friend's a dear frind : 
 we munnot part yet." 
 
 This mixed compliment was received very 
 cordially, and a hearty grasp of the hand 
 was exchanged between the two, who al- 
 though both turned fourscore were so little 
 marked by time as to appear many years 
 younger. The relation of the family whose 
 appellation amongst his neighbours was 
 generally " good Antony o' the Hough," 
 was indeed a study for a painter : — his face 
 still retained every lineament of manly 
 beauty ; his complexion was fair and ruddy, 
 and a profusion of curling hair, white and 
 silky, contrasted with his deep blue eyes, 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
194 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 which still shone in sockets of pearly clear- 
 ness. His form, once tall and still strong, 
 was gently bent, but it appeared to be from 
 habit not weakness and when he rowed 
 Emma out on the lake, which was an amuse- 
 ment very gratifying to both, no one could 
 have supposed her preux chevalier had seen 
 the allotted age of man ere she entered life. 
 Simplicity, truth, and benevolence, pre- 
 served the votary on whose countenance 
 their character was indelibly impressed. All 
 loved "old Antony," even his stern, self- 
 willed nephew always met him with a smile 
 and a welcome, placed him in the nearest 
 corner and gazed on him with kindly ad- 
 miration. 
 
 Mrs. Caversham knew that she could 
 pursue drawing with her daughter without 
 being subject to comments ; but she soon 
 learned that both her host and hostess were 
 particularly fond of it, Mrs. Nameless being 
 at one time a proficient, though all power 
 
STATESMAN. 195 
 
 of pursuing it had been prohibited by her 
 liege lord as incompatible with her duties in 
 the dairy, and her portfolio and colour-box 
 were consigned to the " kist" with her 
 white gowns and other " holiday gear," 
 being alike forbidden in days past by her 
 master. 
 
 Thus every stumbling block to Emma's 
 improvement was removed, and her future 
 amusement at the same time provided for. 
 Mrs. Cavers ham herein perhaps took a 
 lesson from the women around her, by 
 avoiding discussions and practising submis- 
 sion to one who had certainly no right over 
 her, save that which he deemed the immut- 
 able privileges of his sex, to control rather 
 than advise the lower portion of their 
 species. 
 
 Her conduct deserves recording, not only 
 for its singularity, but its consequences ; 
 since it is certain she increased her power 
 by conceding every point at issue ; for the 
 
 k 2 
 
196 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 moment Mr. Nameless held his position 
 established, he ceased to act upon it, and 
 so far from throwing stumbling blocks in 
 her way, actually assisted Emma's improve- 
 ment in the very points he had most vio- 
 lently reprobated. He taught her to write 
 beautifully, permitted his wife to resume 
 her drawing, by way of companionship, and 
 thought the dairywoman might be trusted 
 with the cows. 
 
 It would be well if married women would 
 study these peculiarities, as they might 
 open the prospect of increasing their in- 
 fluence by a new and pleasant medium. 
 Many a man adopts an opinion or a habit 
 he knows not why, and defends it with the 
 more pertinacity the more it is attacked or 
 attackable. Leave him and his hobby-horse 
 alone, and after a time they will sink 
 into that common jog-trot pace in which 
 wives, children, and servants may amble by 
 their side in comfort all the days of their 
 
STATESMAN. 197 
 
 lives, while opposition and ridicule — though 
 natural and clever — will produce nothing 
 better than dust, kicks, sore bones, and 
 " biting the bridle" for the rest of the 
 journey. 
 
198 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The winter campaign commenced : books 
 were produced hitherto forbidden to shew 
 their proscribed pages, music, drawing 
 materials, a chess-board and men (released 
 from prison), two newspapers a week, re- 
 ceived once a fortnight, and an amusing 
 letter once a month, sufficed to Mrs. Caver- 
 sham in the very prime of her days, for the 
 gay and busy scenes, whence she had es- 
 caped in one sense, and been driven in 
 another. 
 
 When she had received good accounts 
 from her husband, and satisfied herself with 
 
STATESMAN. 199 
 
 the stability of Emma's health, she confess- 
 ed to herself that the last five or six 
 winters had passed, since one had allowed 
 her any comparative peace with this, or in 
 fact promised so great a portion of happi- 
 ness. There is no misery like the misery 
 of debt to the well-principled creditor, or 
 pressure on the spirits like that which arises 
 from the conscious meanness of subterfuge, 
 the implied lie, the intentional deceit, forced 
 on a heart that abhors what it practises. 
 
 The physical air of the mountains was 
 not more bracing to the frame than its 
 moral effect appeared to be to the heart of 
 Mrs. Caver sham. It gave her purity of 
 soul, independence of spirit : — the storm 
 might howl, but it never spoke of arrests 
 and executions ; the voice of a dun was not 
 heard in the land. 
 
 Under the present sense of this comfort, 
 the long winter of this dreary, though 
 
200 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 beautiful country, neither subdued her for- 
 titude nor exhausted the patience and good 
 humour of her daughter ; but it was evident 
 to Mrs. Caversham, that notwithstanding 
 his daily exposure to the northern blast, 
 Mr. Nameless was still compelled to bear 
 sufficient confinement to try his spirits and 
 temper exceedingly. 
 
 The arrival of Christmas, as the season 
 of good neighbourhood afforded him great 
 relief, for few days passed without giving the 
 diversion of a stout contest with one person 
 on the subject of a vestry meeting, another 
 on the plan of a road ; a third on the merits 
 or defects of a law-suit, whereby one parish 
 contested with another about obsolete rights 
 or unseizable tithes. He would engage with 
 a fourth on the subject of a genealogy which 
 neither themselves nor any one else could 
 trace beyond the irruption of the Scots in 
 the days of the first Edward. Happy sub- 
 
STATESMAN. 201 
 
 ject ! it was inexhaustible ; and there is 
 nothing a lover of argument dreads like a 
 conclusion. 
 
 These border-men, accustomed to disput- 
 ing every inch of ground with their northern 
 neighbours, cherishing the history of past 
 raids and forays, " nurse their wrath and 
 keep it warm," for the purpose of disputa- 
 tion. They would find in the " piping times 
 of peace," consequent on the union and their 
 great distance from the seat of government, 
 ever a fruitful medium for censure and ca- 
 villing, courage become inert and energy 
 stultified, were it not for the spring given 
 to their spirits by litigation. This includes 
 investigation, examination, tergiversation, 
 determination, and indeed vexations without 
 end, but they pervade and animate society 
 in the mountains " as the ruddy drops that 
 warm the heart." So far from saying, 
 " Blessed are the feet of him that bringeth 
 tidings of peace," in their hearts they bless 
 
 k 3 
 
202 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 him most who brings prospects of war, whe- 
 ther arriving in the shape of an acute and 
 calculating attorney, a prowling exciseman, 
 a priest of their own blood, determined to 
 claim his dubious rights, or a sturdy land- 
 owner, "who ne'er has changed or wished 
 to change his place," resolved to withstand 
 them. No matter so there can be a suit, 
 and every man for ten miles round rally on 
 one side or the other. * We all love that 
 best which costs us the most, and dearly do 
 this independent race love the prejudices 
 which have made heavy inroads on their 
 scanty purses ; but " what's a patthern with- 
 out a row to an Irishman ?" or a parish 
 
 * " Our counsellor says we must not pursue the suit we 
 talked of for the law is clear against us," said an elderly 
 man in our hearing to his younger neighbour. " No matter 
 for the law," was the reply, " we've subscribed the money 
 and we can spend it ; we shall vex the vicar and spend his 
 money mean time. I warrant we'll keep it up somehow." 
 — Happy prospect for country attorneys and travelling 
 barristers ! 
 
STATESMAN. 203 
 
 without " a bit law," in the northern coun- 
 ties of England ? 
 
 With all the natural love for contention 
 common to his people, and with far more 
 information, if not intelligence, than most 
 of them possessed, Mr. Nameless, who for 
 fourteen years had kindly furnished them 
 with much on which to descant, and much 
 more deserving approbation, had got few 
 partisans. He had by turns offended all 
 parties, for as he had intended the benefit 
 of all without preference to any individual, 
 it was self-evident no individual owed him 
 thanks. Yet it was equally certain as a 
 body they all did, since the parish was, 
 through his abilities and exertions, in such 
 a state of legal peace as the oldest man had 
 never known ; and although he determined 
 not to join the bench of justices, that body of 
 gentlemen so habitually bent to his know- 
 ledge, or allowed themselves to yield to his 
 " pleaded reasons/' that he had long carried 
 
204 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 every point he aimed at for purposes of uti- 
 lity. The improvements he had effected 
 were every day cavilled at by the old, as 
 infringements on their liberty j and even 
 the young man who approved them, and 
 wished to live in " sic a world as ither folk/' 
 most cordially abused the man, whose stern 
 countenance generally condemned him and 
 his companions, and on every possible occa- 
 sion in life, demanded that impossible thing, 
 " old heads on young shoulders." Even 
 the wives and daughters visited poor Mrs. 
 Nameless, less, as it appeared, for good 
 neighbourhood than the kindly purpose of 
 condoling with her on the faults of her hus- 
 band. This charity was now exchanged for 
 curiosity respecting Mrs. Caversham's ward- 
 robe, and desire to form her acquaintance. 
 
 Woman polishes more quickly than man ; 
 —she catches the evanescent and reflective 
 lights which occasionally glance on her path, 
 and generally turns them to the happiest 
 
STATESMAN. 205 
 
 account, in those romantic regions where 
 the beauties of nature and the poetic legends 
 of superstition awaken the imaginative fa- 
 culties. It must also be owned, that if the 
 men are despotic, they are yet communica- 
 tive ; that which they know or which they 
 feel is always given to the wife, who is ever 
 the bosom friend, even when she is the sub- 
 jected hand-maid of her lordly partner. As 
 she is seldom married from any motive but 
 ardent love, or the preference of sincere 
 esteem, the husband, who most honestly 
 holds her to be his inferior as a woman, yet 
 generally distinguishes her as the first or 
 best of women. The very possibility of 
 preferring another is a sin unknown, and 
 would be disbelieved among the race who 
 combine christian morals with manly inte- 
 grity ; they are always self-willed and quar- 
 relsome, though kind-hearted ; they have 
 many faults, but the faithless, much less the 
 impure lover, is a miracle of sin, serving to 
 
206 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 point the moral of a song as the produce 
 of a market-town, or a manufacturing com- 
 munity ; but even the gayest lad, who has 
 entered the holy pale of matrimony, is inca- 
 pable of making his " wife's heart sore," by 
 looking at another. The wedded man will 
 dance at the fair, wrestle at the races, go a 
 hunting with the Squire, take a "wee 
 drappie" at the market, perhaps injure his 
 property, make his wife a drudge, and his 
 children beggars, but his affections are still 
 bound to both — he is foolish but never 
 false — oppressive but not cruel ; the bitter- 
 est draught love can bestow, or life endure, 
 is not drunk in the mountains. 
 
 Tt follows, that the minds of the women 
 are exercised as much as those of the men 
 on subjects of moment, more especially 
 religion, and their imaginations, awakened 
 by nature, continually present nurture for 
 the poetry of superstition and the illusions 
 of affection. Give the mother of sailors 
 
STATESMAN. 207 
 
 and soldiers fancy and sensibility, place her 
 in the land of mists and shadows, rushing 
 streams, scawling mountains and northern 
 lights, teach her old ballads, and tell her 
 stories of " auld warld feuds/' fairies, and 
 witches, and between the fears excited by 
 circumstance, the hopes nursed by love, the 
 elemental phenomena for which she cannot 
 account, and the ghostly tales she can well 
 remember, and you will find her a delight- 
 ful raconteuse for a winter evening. Having 
 no intention to deceive, or the most distant 
 conception that she is open to ridicule, she 
 will not hesitate to tell of appearances and 
 warnings, spirits in the mountains, predict- 
 ing storms, lights gleaming on the earth, 
 which bring news from another hemisphere, 
 where, perhaps, her own brave boys are 
 contending with the dangers of climate and 
 battle-field ; and often will the tears well 
 up into her clear, dark, eyes when speaking 
 of the innocent vapour she saw gliding on 
 
208 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 the marsh last night. But there is no 
 obstinacy in her belief ; accustomed to the 
 silence of submission, and gifted by nature 
 with sound intellect, if she is instructed by 
 a friend, she meets the light of truth thank- 
 fully, will smile at her own dreams, or rally 
 to defend them, in a manner so naive, so 
 full of originality, that our south country 
 friends found winter tea drinkings at the 
 Grange admirable substitutes for gay par- 
 ties, in which the eye was gratified, and the 
 mental faculties unfed. So much did the 
 historical and poetical supersede the simply 
 superstitious in the details of these good 
 wives, or their blooming daughters, who, if 
 engaged, ventured to join the circle, that 
 Mrs. Caversham had no fear for Emma's 
 liability to imbibing any injurious notions ; 
 and often would she grieve when the low, 
 sweet tones of her neighbour's doric was 
 broken in upon by dialogues like the fol- 
 lowing, from the male side of the fire-place, 
 
STATESMAN. 209 
 
 showing how little the master of the house 
 was understood, or his exertions valued. 
 
 " Terence Neameless, I knew ye a lile 
 lad, an' a bonny one, but I cannot away wi' 
 yer faults an' fancies for aw that ; ye're alis 
 at wark about summut, an what guid ever 
 came on it ? first an' foremost, ye indited 
 the raid, what gat ye by that ?" 
 
 "Fifteen miles of the best turnpike in 
 the country, as you well know, who use it 
 constantly." 
 
 " Eh ! marry, and did it not bring lakers 
 and lunnoners athoot end, driving on neck 
 or nout, or else creepin about, an putting 
 thur heeds into every nick an corner. Can 
 a puir lad drive a few sheep, or a lassie 
 milk a coo in a glen bottom, but some 
 long-legged planner* will put it doon in 
 his buik ? Can a bairn gang an errand wi 
 nout on his heed but God's gift of a curly 
 
 * The universal name for one who sketches. 
 
210 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 heed, but some leady mua put her gloved 
 hand out of her carriage, and gi him hafe-a- 
 croon to buy a cap ? I've had a shilling 
 offered my ain sel for op'nin a geat : it gars 
 my blood boil to mind it." 
 
 "Yes," cried another, " but that's not 
 all ; had we not twa public-hooses at ither 
 end of our fine lake, where a man if he liked 
 it could get a drop a summut, and hear all 
 aboot murders and hangings i' great com- 
 fort ; and this guid raid has ruined aw, 
 wi bringing company. There's your quality 
 i' the parlour, your livery servants i' the 
 kitchen, and not a hole for an honest states- 
 man to sit down in. What's the conse- 
 quence ? — not one of us gaes neer the 
 pleace !" 
 
 " Truly, friend Walter, that consequence 
 alone pays my labour, for every man living 
 is better in his own house than a public 
 one. As for the landlords, they were poor, 
 and made others poor ; and I remember 
 
STATESMAN. 211 
 
 the Pooley one telling me he had done well, 
 for he had sold six bottles of wine that 
 summer, which he had bought at Penrith. 
 We made a road, and our hitherto unknown 
 lake was sought by tourists. This man 
 now lays in at least a pipe of port a year : 
 he has trebled the size of his house, fur- 
 nished it neatly, and brings up his large 
 family respectably. He assists all his 
 neighbours : one man gardens for him, 
 another fishes ; and Tom Watts keeps his 
 parents by rowing gentry in the boat his 
 savings have bought. Numbers of cottages 
 have risen at hand ; the daughters serve ; 
 the wives wash ; silver is in the pocket of 
 the poor man, meal in his chest, and clothes 
 on his back. If this is injury to a country, 
 may her troubles increase I" 
 
 " Weel, weel, there's no denying the truth 
 of this, that's certain ; but ye'll grant that 
 job ye made o' building the schule was 
 awthegither nonsense. It did for a long 
 
212 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 time, and might a dune still ; but ye set 
 aboot and beelded it up wi charity, and 
 putting doon yer ain name for a hunder 
 pund, off ye ga to his honour at Graystock, 
 and the squire at Dalemain, and our rich 
 member o' palyment, and gars them as it 
 war to gi a hunder or mare. Then he gets 
 ten punds oot o' me, and five oot o' my son, 
 and so on, all roond about, giving the stane 
 oot o' yer ain rocks an the labour o' yersel 
 and yer horses. Now all this, call it what 
 ye may, wer charity. An wha likes charity ? 
 Ye haw put an obligation on oor innocent 
 bairns that'll hang aboot their necks and 
 destroy the independence of their spirits. 
 They'd far better be without laming at all, 
 to my mind." 
 
 " Nay, nay, Johnny, laming is better 
 than house or land, when it enables a man 
 to get both. Wad yer relation, John Todd, 
 wha I remember in a shop no bigger than a 
 kitchen-cupboard, ha' been at the head of 
 
STATESMAN. 213 
 
 an establishment, like St. Bees, if he could 
 neither have written a good letter nor cast 
 up a sum ? Men must move onward with the 
 times in which they live, or they will be 
 trampled into dust by the advancing. I 
 love my people better than you do, for I 
 wish to see their bairns become men ; 
 amongst men they have always proved that 
 they had bones and sinews above others ; 
 let them prove they have application and 
 understanding, at least equal to others. We 
 have many sound scholars, it is granted, 
 amongst the yeomanry ; let us have suffi- 
 ciency even among the poor. If we raise 
 stalwart frames on hasty pudding and but- 
 termilk, why not give sound minds and the 
 knowledge meet for immortal souls from a 
 parish school? As to your objection that it is 
 charity, how can it be worse for that, seeing 
 that the Universities themselves are founded 
 on it, and Christianity in all its ways and 
 works is full of it ? Private charity humbles 
 
214 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 a man, I grant, but public charity exalts 
 him : it proves that he has had merit, or 
 given the promise of it." 
 
 " But when ye had done that ye should 
 ha' rested, and not gone to mend th' church 
 and improve the church-yard as ye did. 
 Think ye the dead 'ill rise up and thank 
 ye ? Surely that was aw pure pride." 
 
 " It was very cauld afore he did," said 
 good old Antony. " Who can be bold 
 enough to say the church of God ought not 
 to be kept in repair, and that wives and 
 children, the old and the sick, should be 
 compelled to forsake it ? Who would ?*' 
 
 " Why we must say that were necessary ; 
 but this planting yere so fond of, what's the 
 guid on't ? Ye've planted over yer patri- 
 mony sae that yer ane father would nae 
 ken his own land; ye've laid out scores 
 o' punds in Hie trees, and given 'em away 
 by scores. The very feace o' the country 
 is changing every day by your improve- 
 
STATESMAN. 215 
 
 ments, measter Neameless, but have ye 
 improved yersel ? what ! ye're a young 
 man where many of us come, an ye've 
 worked and worked, saved an saved, till 
 there's nither pith i' yer bones, nor blood 
 i' yer veins, and till vary lately the claes 
 o' yer back wad a disgraced any decent 
 scarecrow, let alone a gibbeted thief, I'm 
 thinking." 
 
 " I have pleased myself and fed many," 
 was the short and stern reply. 
 
 Mr. Nameless would allow his motives 
 to be sifted, his actions censured freely, 
 but there were two points he could not bear 
 to be touched on without wincing ; one was 
 his personal appearance as to dress, and the 
 other punning upon his name, to which it 
 unfortunately lay very open. 
 
 This was the harder on his companions as 
 a matter of forbearance, because he fre- 
 quently descanted on the one, and played 
 on the other himself with considerable 
 
216 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 humour, but the moment he had raised a 
 laugh at his own expense, he would sink 
 suddenly into gloom, and assume more than 
 his usual austerity of manners. The people 
 around would say his .transitions of this 
 description were just " passing from what 
 he was to what he is." 
 
 It is true his wife always felt these jests 
 upon him as keen inflictions on her feelings. 
 She had no smile for the wit, but she 
 had often a silent tear for the truth contained 
 in the jest; and subdued as she was to a 
 neighbour (never to her husband) the anger 
 of the moment would shew itself, in such 
 sentences as " Ye'll go far ere ye find sae 
 true a friend," or " Just hearken to our 
 great folk as to what Mr. Nameless can 
 do," were words that broke perforce from 
 her. 
 
 The deep veneration she felt for his 
 talents and integrity, enabled her to forget 
 and forgive the asperities of temper which 
 
STATESMAN. 217 
 
 made her more especially the constant butt 
 and the want of those decencies of appear- 
 ance every woman has a right to expect in a 
 situation of life like his, and which her own 
 habitual neatness shewed to be necessary to 
 her happiness. As at his bidding she had re- 
 nounced all the smart and good clothing to 
 which from her birth she had been accus- 
 tomed, and which her fortune warranted, 
 and her really fine figure in some sort de- 
 manded, she had tried for some time to 
 wean him from that which every hour 
 wounded her feelings by offending her sight, 
 but, alas ! like the Irish boy who said " the 
 more you call the more I won't come," did 
 the increasing passion of rags and labour 
 fasten on her husband, giving her daily ex- 
 pectation that hunger and avarice in all its 
 forms would follow. 
 
 As a certain something indescribable but 
 constantly all-pervading in his intercourse 
 with Emma, happily checked the downward 
 
 vol. n. L 
 
218 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 current, to the grateful joy of his wife and 
 the great comfort of all around him, we 
 will take this period of repose to give so 
 much of his history as may perhaps offer an 
 apology for the eccentricity it cannot 
 justify. 
 
STATESMAN. 219 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Terrence Nameless was the second son 
 of Anthony Nameless, whose family had 
 resided at Nameless Grange, at least a 
 century and half before the Conquest, but as 
 it appeared from family documents much 
 longer. From the very high and remote 
 situation of their house, it is probable that 
 it was chosen as a place of security, and it 
 was evident that it had formerly been one 
 of strength ; it was also well known that 
 the fine country which spread out before it 
 to either hand, in a fan-like form, down to 
 the edge of the beautiful lake, which bounded 
 
 l 2 
 
220 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 it, had once been nearly all vested in the 
 possession of a Nameless, and it is not un- 
 likely that he should choose from this ele- 
 vation to cast his eye at one view over an 
 inheritance, which however dear to his 
 heart, or flattering to his pride, was subject 
 to those irruptions which rendered property 
 a scene of frequent warfare and a subject 
 of perpetual anxiety. 
 
 By degrees, either from force or extrava- 
 gance, this little patriarchal empire was so 
 far diminished that in the reign of the first 
 James the owner could only be deemed the 
 master of a fine estate, which by an act of 
 imprudent friendship to a nobleman, his 
 neighbour, he so far diminished as to leave 
 himself only the sterile ground which im- 
 mediately surrounded his mansion, and of 
 all the beautiful spots and picturesque lands, 
 which now claim the admiring gaze of 
 strangers, nothing but the name remained 
 to evince that they had once been the 
 
STATESMAN. 221 
 
 property of the Nameless family, whose 
 younger branches were now returned to the 
 house from which they had emerged — a 
 house which from this fatal time " felt 
 shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon 
 it." 
 
 If it is found difficult to retrench expenses 
 in large cities, where a man may hide him- 
 self in a crowd, and where the perpetual 
 succession of objects might enable him to 
 elude observation, or find shelter in oblivion, 
 much more difficulty must he experience 
 who stands as a beacon in a thinly-popu- 
 lated country, shut out from general inter- 
 course, and accustomed to gaze with such 
 deep interest upon one object, that their 
 eyes are turned unwillingly to another, and 
 more especially hard is it to contract the 
 sources of expense when it has only flowed 
 in regular and praiseworthy hospitality to 
 sustain its own vigorous stems, or remote 
 branches to assist the dependant that loved 
 
222 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 its shelter, to protect the helpless one that 
 sought it. 
 
 These hardships the Nameless family had 
 now successively endured for five genera- 
 tions, sometimes manfully struggling with 
 difficulty, sometimes resolving to dare to be 
 poor, and seem poor, but more frequently 
 yielding to their natural wishes, and plung- 
 ing deeper into that distress, which was the 
 consequence of generous propensities and 
 habitual appearances, so that when the 
 father of our present subject married, al- 
 though his handsome wife brought him a 
 considerable portion, he was yet not equal to 
 the style in which he lived, notwithstanding 
 it was even then most grievously cur- 
 tailed. 
 
 This marriage produced three children, 
 all sons ; the two eldest were born within 
 three years, the third was several years 
 younger ; and in the supposition that he 
 should probably have no farther family, 
 
STATESMAN. 223 
 
 perhaps it occurred that Mr. Nameless 
 — a gay, attractive young man, and exceed- 
 ingly beloved in his own neighbourhood, 
 into which no southern visitant had yet 
 entered to divide the feudal attachments of 
 the tenantry — ventured to revive the cus- 
 toms of his fathers. 
 
 Whether from that, or any other cause, 
 it is at least certain that he added to the 
 embarrassments of his estate ; and it was 
 perhaps well for his family — although it ap- 
 peared far different — that he was cut off in 
 early life, leaving his widowed and most 
 afflicted partner with her youngest infant 
 still at the breast. 
 
 Mrs. Nameless was a woman, as we have 
 already seen, nearly devoid of those helps 
 which are derived from education, and she 
 might be called a total stranger to the 
 world, having left her father's house, which 
 was only a few miles distant, for her hus- 
 band's, in her twentieth year, and only 
 
224 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 found in both the same circle of honest 
 faces, the same round of family affairs, the 
 same simple duties and antique observ- 
 ances ; but she was by nature endowed 
 with superior powers, although fortune 
 bounded their exercise. Tall and com- 
 manding in her person, her stately gait and 
 intelligent eye gave indications of a firm 
 and energetic mind, and although she loved 
 her husband with an affection of that 
 intense and concentrated character which 
 belongs to minds of deep sensibility and 
 much reflexion, yet she did not suffer her 
 grief to overwhelm her spirits and destroy 
 her energies. With the quiet dignity of 
 profound feeling, which rather treasures its 
 sorrow than displays it, she proceeded to 
 arrange her affairs in such a manner as 
 might best increase general respect for the 
 deceased and general welfare for the living 
 objects of her care ; and although naturally 
 and habitually liberal, the first action of 
 
STATESMAN. 225 
 
 her widowed life was to shut up the great 
 gates which led to the front door of her 
 mansion, and declare " that they should 
 never be opened again till the debts of 
 her husband were paid to the uttermost 
 farthing." 
 
 " There shall be no reproach rest upon 
 his name," said the widow. 
 
 " But it is hard," said her friends, " that 
 the gates of Nameless Grange should be 
 shut ; they have been open many gene- 
 rations." 
 
 " There is yet a door in which a friend 
 may enter, and a poor man find a corner ; 
 a widow has no want of more." 
 
 Mrs. Nameless was always a woman of 
 few words, and one who to perfect simpli- 
 city of dress and manners yet united a 
 power of government seldom witnessed ; 
 her spirit was as princely as her self-com- 
 mand was absolute, and what is a much 
 
 l 3 
 
226 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 rarer quality in woman, her perseverance 
 in the more tranquil scenes which suc- 
 ceeded, was equal to her resolution in the 
 hour of awakened enthusiasm and sorrow. 
 The affairs of her husband were found in- 
 volved far beyond what she expected. 
 Mortgages, bonds, and debts of all descrip- 
 tion came over her like wave following 
 wave, each more threatening than the last ; 
 but she received all, examined all, never 
 complained, or even named them, but draw- 
 ing still closer and closer the narrow 
 circle in which her establishment now 
 moved, said in effect to every creditor, 
 " Have patience with me, and I will pay 
 thee all." 
 
 They all had patience — they all were paid ; 
 many, indeed, beyond their due, for want 
 of a little of that necessary knowledge in 
 business which the foolish prejudices of her 
 father had denied, and that knowledge of 
 
STATESMAN. 227 
 
 mankind which only experience can give, 
 and which is a light that breaks very slowly 
 on the upright mind. 
 
 In seven years time all debts and interest 
 were paid, and yet the great gates continued 
 barred ; for an impoverished estate and two 
 younger sons totally unprovided for for- 
 bade, even in common prudence, any action 
 which appeared like inviting back the now 
 alienated world around them. Deep as had 
 been the widow's retirement, her personal 
 beauty which was yet unimpaired — for the 
 calm tenor of her life seemed to arrest the 
 progress of time in her person — her exem- 
 plary prudence, and the known good terms 
 on which she stood with her only brother, 
 who was said to be getting immensely rich, 
 had altogether produced her various suitors 
 in the course of this time. These persons 
 had each been immediately dismissed, what- 
 ever might be their personal or relative 
 merit, with that quiet civility which best 
 
228 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 speaks decision on such subjects ; and in 
 order to check all renewal of similar offers, 
 or perhaps to impress her domestics and 
 sons with proper respect, the widow now 
 united to the general calmness of her man- 
 ners an inflexibility of countenance which 
 almost amounted to severity, and which, 
 added to that timidity which ever accom- 
 panies long seclusion, rendered her almost 
 repellant to her younger neighbours. It 
 could not be said that she sank, but rather 
 by degrees she changed, from being the 
 w T ife of a man who united the qualities of an 
 English country gentleman with those of a 
 feudal laird, into the active manager of a 
 farm and the actual services of a dairy 
 woman. 
 
 The two elder boys were like their parents 
 — tall, handsome, active lads. They loved 
 their mother fondly, and yet feared her ; and 
 even the eldest, independent as he knew 
 himself to be, felt to its utmost extent the 
 
STATESMAN. 229 
 
 duty he owed to his mother and the value 
 of her services to him, much as he had 
 been controlled even in common indul- 
 gences. Shut out from all society — for the 
 wise parent whom circumstances forbade to 
 place them in the rank held by their family, 
 would not allow them to mix in a lower — 
 they naturally looked up to her for all their 
 instruction and all their pleasure, and im- 
 bibed ideas of her superiority of which they 
 never lost sight in after-life — a decided 
 proof of the extraordinary mould in which 
 nature had cast the mother, since their 
 education, from its superiority to hers, had 
 a tendency to lower her in their opinion, 
 though not in their affection. 
 
 But every woman has some weak place — 
 some corner in which the heart, unbiassed 
 by the judgment, holds her little court of 
 revels, and luxuriates in unbounded tender- 
 ness, that tenderness which is at once* the 
 charm and the weakness of her nature. 
 
230 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 Mrs. Nameless, with all her unbending 
 firmness, her rigid justice, and quiet deter- 
 mined rectitude of life and domestic govern- 
 ment, was fond to distraction, and yielding 
 to error, in all that concerned her last-bom 
 darling; and the indulgence she accorded 
 him herself — contrary to the general effect 
 of favoritism — was readily granted by others. 
 Such was the general impression of her 
 justice, that few people disputed it in that 
 individual case, where alone it admitted of 
 question ; and when they looked upon her 
 beautiful boy, who seemed born to excite 
 admiration and conciliate affection — when 
 they recollected his early loss, and more 
 immediate dependence on the mother — her 
 very fault became a merit, and all around 
 pressed to partake it. Never was a babe 
 so well nursed — never was a boy so 
 caressed. As time advanced, the habit of 
 domestic idolatry increased ; and as there 
 was no sister for the elder ones to love or 
 
STATESMAN. 231 
 
 care for, all cares, all affections seemed to 
 centre in little Frank, as the rose whose 
 sweetness and beauty alone shed pleasure 
 over the calm but sterile path of life which 
 lay before them. 
 
 From this sequestered path Terence was 
 removed in his seventeenth year. The 
 only brother of his mother had, early in 
 life, taken his departure from the north, 
 contrary to the habits of his ancestors, and 
 having reached the metropolis, was not 
 long before he entered as a clerk into a 
 respectable mercantile house, into which, 
 on the death of his father, he was taken 
 as a partner. The father had never for- 
 given him for taking such a step, and in 
 his anger he had doubled the portion in- 
 tended for his sister ; but he would have 
 thought it a sin beyond forgiveness to rob 
 the heir of a single rood, so that his pa- 
 ternal estate enabled him, but of course 
 not until it was sold, to come into busi- 
 
232 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 ness on respectable terms, and his indefati- 
 gable industry and extreme parsimony so 
 far increased his power, that in a few years 
 he became at the head of the firm, and 
 both able and willing to look down upon 
 those, to whom he had once looked up. 
 
 He had left his sister young, knew little 
 of her, and had he known her better, would 
 have liked her less ; for their dispositions 
 had not one point of resemblance. He 
 never saw her husband, but he always 
 owed him a grudge, for having, as he 
 thought, obtained too large a portion with 
 his sister ; yet, nevertheless, he accustomed 
 himself to look upon the sons of poor 
 Nameless as his heirs. When a man has 
 accumulated money, he considers an heir 
 as a necessary appendage to his conse- 
 quence, though he seldom holds a collateral 
 one as an object of his affection. He could 
 never bring himself to marry, because the 
 wives of his partners spent their money and 
 
STATESMAN. 233 
 
 brought them children, which, as he justly 
 observed, " wanted educating, and portion- 
 ing, or marrying and burying ; at all events 
 they were expensive things." 
 
 Having a heart is an expensive thing too, 
 so he had none ; or having one discarded 
 it at a very early period, for no one ever 
 found that either from love, compassion, 
 generosity, or natural affection, he had any 
 such commodity for many years ; at least 
 poor Terence could not discover any symp- 
 toms of it, when he first made his appear- 
 ance in the home to which he had invited 
 him. Terence went up, 'tis true, a tall, 
 unformed lad, neither learned enough 
 for a scholar, polished enough for a beau, 
 nor drilled enough for a smirking clerk, or 
 city apprentice ; but he had a handsome 
 figure, a ruddy complexion, open counten- 
 ance, guileless heart, excellent capacity, and 
 more of right notion both in morals and 
 religion than falls to the lot of one in ten 
 
234 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 thousand, and sensibility so acute, that he 
 was compelled to smother the feelings he 
 could not exhibit, in the affectation of man- 
 liness, or the loud laugh of not yet relin- 
 quished boyhood. 
 
 On such a fair sheet, many a fair line 
 might have been written ; but to the cold, 
 unfeeling, mercenary and designing uncle, 
 " it was a sealed book," in which his un- 
 hallowed gaze could see not one reciprocal 
 feeling. Terence cared not for money, 
 beyond its real use ; and prudent from 
 habit, was yet generous from nature : — the 
 uncle liked not this. Terence in all mat- 
 ters of business was active, industrious, 
 willing to make a good bargain, but shrink- 
 ing with horror from an unfair advantage — 
 it was absolutely necessary for his peace, 
 that the man with whom he dealt, should 
 be able in his turn to deal also ; to have 
 sold a bad article well, made Terence as 
 miserable as it rendered his uncle joyous. 
 
STATESMAN. 235 
 
 Of course they had no counting-house sym- 
 pathies, and in their parlour they had no 
 one subject on which they could agree. 
 
 Terence loved all he had left in the north 
 to enthusiasm— although he never spoke of 
 a pair of soft grey eyes, which had " dis- 
 coursed sweet music" at church, nor a tongue 
 that in gently tremulous accents had bade 
 him often a cheerful good morrow, and once 
 a sad farewell ; — and all he loved was either 
 abhorred, or ridiculed by the uncle, who 
 levelled all his powers at the poverty of 
 which Terence had never felt the evil till 
 now. Satisfied with the rough plenty of his 
 mother's house, proud of the attachment 
 evinced to it by those around him, and sen- 
 sible of that exhilarating influence expe- 
 rienced in his native air, although he had 
 looked forward with honest ambition to 
 bettering himself, and benefiting his con- 
 nexions in life, by quitting for a time his 
 native mountains, and toiling for the wealth 
 
236 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 which would help to redeem the inheritance 
 of his fathers, he had never till now known 
 what was the sting of poverty. 
 
 But in the rich man's house he found it ; 
 a toil was wound around him from which he 
 could not extricate himself ; he laboured to 
 no purpose, he obtained no respite to his 
 exertions, no reward for his abilities ; he 
 was a servant without wages, a son without 
 affection or claim ; he was envied by many 
 whose situation he coveted, and he every 
 hour felt as if the next would compel him 
 to throw off trammels which he felt to be 
 insupportable ; yet when it came, he was 
 unable by such an act of independence to 
 annihilate the hopes of his brother, and 
 break the heart of his widowed parent. He 
 was well aware that he, who in his ordinary 
 dealings never respected truth, would not 
 hesitate to sacrifice his character, and that the 
 world, which he now found only judged from 
 appearance, would not hesitate to condemn 
 
STATESMAN. 237 
 
 the conduct of one, who with such fair pros- 
 pects, threw himself out of the road to 
 fortune. 
 
 For some time, perhaps, a softer motive 
 had its share in tying Terence to the alter- 
 nate drudgery of double duty in the way of 
 business, and treble compliance in the 
 shape of relationship : his heart clung to the 
 half-beloved, half-chosen form which had 
 danced before his youthful eyes, and the 
 power of demanding her from her father, of 
 purchasing for her the good things of life, 
 and for himself a quiet retreat among his 
 native mountains, influenced him. But as 
 year after year passed away, and there was 
 ever some bar to even a temporary visit 
 to his native land, as he heard that first one 
 and then another of her sisters were mar- 
 ried, and that she was surrounded with 
 suitors ; and above all, as the increasing 
 concerns of business drew him perforce 
 more and more into the cares which belong 
 
23S A CUMBERLAND 
 
 to widely-extended concerns, in which the 
 interests of many are involved, the finer 
 chords which drew him homeward, were by 
 degrees loosened, not broken, and he sunk 
 into the mere drudge of mechanical pursuit, 
 and the tame slave of ill -humour, which he 
 regarded with alternate anger and scorn, 
 though neither were expressed. 
 
 Thus had passed the first ten years of 
 Terence's London life, when a prospect of 
 more than common gain, at some little waste 
 of moral, but not legal honesty, induced the 
 uncle to grasp at it with all that intensity 
 of desire, observable in declining life, when 
 already enriched beyond its means of enjoy- 
 ment. To obtain this object, the entire 
 concurrence of Terence was necessary, be- 
 cause his personal presence and activity were 
 so ; and in order to quicken his motions, 
 the long-promised and long-delayed reward 
 of partnership was now seriously brought 
 forward. A1J the blood of all the Name- 
 
STATESMAN. 239 
 
 lesses seemed to rise into the cheeks of Te- 
 rence when the proposal was made to him, 
 but when the reward required for his ser- 
 vices was placed before him, the ruddy drops 
 receded to his heart — not to fortify the 
 citadel, for that was already firm — and his 
 countenance became pale, though his eyes 
 flashed fire, and when his tongue found the 
 power of speaking, the proposal was repelled 
 in terms of such indignant reproach, that 
 the labours and patience of ten wearisome 
 years were forgotten in a moment, and he 
 was turned out of the business and house of 
 his offended uncle. 
 
 For a short time Terence enjoyed the 
 triumph of integrity and the sense of liberty, 
 and for the first time trod the streets of 
 London, with the same sensation that ani- 
 mated him as he trod the heights of Hel- 
 vellyn, or explored the thickets of Stybray ; 
 but all our high-wrought feelings are of 
 short duration, and he was speedily com- 
 
240 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 pelled to consider what was best to be done 
 in the distressing emergency to which he 
 was now so unexpectedly reduced. 
 
 Had he followed his inclinations, they 
 would have led him back to his father's 
 house, though he had entered it as the 
 hired servant of his elder brother ; but he 
 was well aware that, although his mother 
 would have justified his late conduct, so far 
 as it was the trial of his principles, yet she 
 would be grievously distressed to learn the 
 extent of that quarrel, which had deprived 
 him of all expected inheritance, and ren- 
 dered the services of his best years a blank ; 
 he knew, also, that her health had been of 
 late very indifferent, and that she was more 
 than commonly anxious at this time to 
 place his youngest brother at college, so 
 that every circumstance combined to render 
 it unwise and unkind for him to return 
 home, carrying as he would then do, want 
 and disappointment to the breasts of those 
 
STATES M APT. 241 
 
 to whom he had hoped to bring far different 
 visitants. 
 
 In London a clever, industrious man has 
 a right to think he may always get employ- 
 ment, for many such men are called for ; 
 yet it is certain without a friend to help him, 
 in many cases a wretch may stand long on 
 the banks of this commercial Bethesda. 
 So stood poor Terence, until his money was 
 reduced to a few shillings, his clothes were 
 grown shabby, and his countenance was 
 become harsh and anxious ; and he was one 
 day debating within himself whether it 
 would not be advisable for him to turn his 
 face homewards, while yet even his scanty 
 means sufficed for a lift in the waggon, and 
 a crust on the way, when his meditations 
 were broken in upon by the driver of a neat 
 chariot, who, addressing him in the accents 
 of his own northern dialect, besought him 
 to get out of the way. Terence looked to- 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
242 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 wards the window involuntarily, and, with 
 astonishment, not unmixed with shame, 
 (for who likes to be seen when shabby) be- 
 held the pretty girl to whom we have 
 alluded, now become a smart, well-dressed 
 young lady, seated beside her elder sister 
 and a gentleman, whom he concluded to be 
 the husband of one of them — " no matter 
 which." 
 
 Though Terence said " no matter," yet 
 he felt as if it were " a little matter too," at 
 all events he wished himself or them a thou- 
 sand miles off ; and the alternate pale and 
 scarlet of Alice's cheek, and the twinkling 
 of her lucid eye, were apparently unseen by 
 him ; and never did he feel more embar- 
 rassed than by the press of carriages which, 
 in spite of every effort to escape, continued 
 to confine him until the gentleman had time 
 to alight, address him, and entreat the 
 pleasure of his company as he found he was 
 
STATESMAN. 243 
 
 a countryman and near neighbour of the 
 ladies of his family. 
 
 Terence proudly declined this pleasure ; 
 but the gentleman did not therefore decline 
 being useful to him ; and having with some 
 difficulty made a coffee-house engagement 
 with him, within a very few days Terence 
 was placed in a comfortable and even lucra- 
 tive situation, with a prospect of having his 
 talents and labours much more properly 
 estimated than they had ever been by his 
 sordid relation. 
 
 That relation, eager to enjoy the good 
 from which the pure principles and uncor- 
 rupted integrity of Terence had excluded 
 him, after various efforts to regain the lucky 
 moment, had at length the opportunity 
 offered to retrieve it ; but, alas ! in the en- 
 deavour, his health and nearly his life became 
 the sacrifice. A dreadful fever was the 
 consequence of his over-exertions ; and 
 
 m 2 
 
244 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 scarcely had Terence become settled in his 
 new situation, when he was sought out by 
 the servants of his uncle, who in the hour 
 of distress, earnestly desired the return of 
 the only human being whose sense of duty 
 or affection were likely to benefit him in a 
 moment like this. 
 
 Terence hastily repaired to his suffering 
 relative ; and forgetting all the past, beheld 
 only in the afflicted man the brother of his 
 revered parent, and an invalid whose age 
 and infirmity called for his compassion. 
 The disorder proved long and obstinate : it 
 exhausted the patience of the patient, but 
 not that of his youthful attendant, who, 
 although he assiduously performed his daily 
 task, never failed to take his nightly station 
 at the bedside of his uncle, and with feminine 
 care attended to his wishes, relieved his 
 posture, poured out his medicines, and 
 soothed his complaints, happy to find that 
 
STATESMAN. 245 
 
 his presence never failed to relieve the in- 
 valid, who now manifested a degree of 
 feeling, gratitude, and good intention, 
 such as he had never witnessed in him 
 before. 
 
 When the old man once more returned 
 to the avocations of business, he was desir- 
 ous that Terence should return to the station 
 he had so long held in his family ; but the 
 degree of independence he enjoyed, and 
 still more the use he now was of to his em- 
 ployers forbade him to comply hastily with 
 this requisition. In order to coax him into 
 compliance, his uncle proposed sending for 
 his youngest nephew, whose education he 
 promised to complete, and as Terence was 
 really grateful for this favour, no time 
 was lost in writing for Frank, for whose 
 welfare the fond brother was anxious as 
 ever. 
 
 When Francis Nameless made his ap- 
 
246 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 pearance, he realized all that Terence had, 
 in the fondness of his heart, imagined him 
 to be ; neither the rusticity nor the retire- 
 ment in which he had hitherto lived had 
 deprived the personal advantages he derived 
 from nature of their effect : for though un- 
 polished, he was not vulgar, and though un- 
 formed, he was by no means ungraceful. 
 This was the more remarkable because he 
 was more than six feet high, and very 
 slender ; but the manly exercises to which 
 he had been accustomed in company with 
 his eldest brother, had given a suppleness 
 as well as strength to his limbs, which, to- 
 gether with the labours of an itinerant 
 dancing-master, seemed to render the higher 
 personal accomplishments of the metropolis 
 in his case unnecessary, and the very naivete 
 which pervaded his manners and marked 
 the simplicity of his past life, had in 
 in itself a charm ; it frequently checked his 
 
STATESMAN. 247 
 
 speech, and often suffused his cheek with an 
 ingenuous blush ; but the deficiency thus 
 exhibited was not defect ; like a veil thrown 
 over the face of a beautiful woman, imagi- 
 nation was only excited the more to supply 
 all that was concealed, and exalt it beyond 
 reality. 
 
 When Terence saw Alice in the carriage, 
 she was a visitant to her elder sister, who 
 had married a wealthy merchant in London, 
 and had a country house in the neighbour- 
 hood of Hackney, whither they were all 
 going at the time of that casual ren- 
 contre. In many a public place had the 
 eyes of Alice been strained to behold the 
 form which, as a tall child not yet fourteen, 
 had struck her fancy beyond any which even 
 in the gay world had yet met her view ; but 
 as she had long ago feared that she was 
 forgotten by Terence — the heir of his uncle, 
 in the gay scenes which she concluded en- 
 
248 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 gaged him as much as it now occupied her 
 sister and herself — she thought that it was 
 only mere curiosity which induced her to 
 look out for him. Perhaps it might be so 
 then ; but it is certain that when Alice be- 
 held him pale, haggard, anxious to avoid 
 her eye, yet darting a farewell glance full 
 of sorrow towards her, a far different senti- 
 ment pervaded her bosom ; and notwith- 
 standing her extreme timidity, which was 
 proverbial in her own family, she betrayed 
 the interest she felt for her countryman in 
 such a manner as to awaken that of her 
 brother-in-law, and lead to the results we 
 have already related. 
 
 Terence, of course, had found out very 
 soon that Alice was not married, and that 
 she felt for his misfortunes ; but he learned 
 from the same source that she had a wealthy 
 admirer, that she was moving in that sphere 
 of life in which he had once hoped to place 
 
STATESMAN. 249 
 
 her, but from which he was now violently 
 thrust. He was aware that many more 
 years of dependance must pass before the 
 power of providing for a family even in an 
 humble manner could be his ; and he deter- 
 mined to renounce all hope of it, rather 
 than step between an ingenuous, amiable 
 woman, and the better lot which probably 
 awaited her. He felt still a great regard, 
 a very decided preference, and more of 
 awakened tenderness, towards her than he 
 had thought his heart (harassed and woe- 
 worn as it now felt) was capable ; but still 
 he was not in love ; he could reason as well 
 as feel, and as his sentiments in the opinion 
 of his new friend, her brother-in-law, did 
 him honour, and were agreeable to his 
 higher views for Alice, all thoughts of, or 
 at least all mention of the subject was 
 dropped, and he declined visiting in the 
 family as prudent for both parties, deter- 
 
 m 3 
 
250 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 mining within himself never to think of 
 marriage at all. 
 
 This resolution, though taken early in 
 life, seemed likely to be realized from the 
 arrival of Frank, on whom his heart seemed 
 to unload its long-treasured burden of social 
 affection and kindly feelings ; he was also 
 soon called upon to expend on the stranger 
 more tangible treasures, so far as he pos- 
 sessed them; for on his uncle's recovery, 
 the demon of avarice seemed to have taken 
 a new hold on his heart, strong as it had 
 been before, so that a bare permission to 
 the run of his frugal board was all he 
 granted ; and although he had positively 
 promised to place him at college, week 
 after week passed, without one step being 
 taken to forward that design. 
 
 There are few families in Cumberland of 
 the same description as that of the Name- 
 lesses, who do not furnish at least one mem- 
 
STATESMAN. 251 
 
 ber for the Church, and Frank had long 
 been destined by his mother to the sacred 
 profession ; his education had been the 
 best the country afforded, and therefore, 
 strictly speaking, a good one. Terence, how- 
 ever, conceiving that he had talents for the 
 bar, and finding he greatly preferred it, en- 
 deavoured to procure him the means of 
 studying the law, which the uncle observed 
 was certainly the best, as a clever counsel 
 might scrape up more money than could be 
 expected in an ordinary bishopric ; and 
 after much hesitation, and evidently in 
 the hope of securing Terence's attentions, 
 he advanced the money necessary for 
 Frank. 
 
 Our Cumberland Adonis had now terms 
 to keep in Oxford, and when not there 
 apartments in the Temple ; by degrees, he 
 lost all remains of his mauvaise honte, and 
 learned to talk with an elegance and volu- 
 
252 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 bility which not only astonished the old 
 man, but actually made such an impression 
 upon him, that — under the idea of the per 
 centage which such things might hereafter 
 produce — he gave him money for books 
 and deeds to an amount far beyond the 
 necessary call. The churlish hand which 
 had ever been closed to the modest wants 
 and actual services of one brother, opened 
 as if by magic to the inordinate cravings of 
 the other, and that too at a period of life 
 when avarice had reached its climax. 
 
 Terence, anxious to obtain his brother's 
 advancement, saw in this conduct only 
 cause to rejoice ; but, alas ! he could not 
 long shut his eyes to the dissipation into 
 which Frank was now daily plunging, his 
 total disregard to the duties of his profes- 
 sion, and what was still worse, the despica- 
 ble deceit to which he could stoop to curry 
 favour with his relation, or to carry a point 
 
STATESMAN. 253 
 
 with himself. Before this power was obtained 
 over the weak mind and declining health 
 of the uncle, he had impoverished himself 
 to furnish Frank with the means of im- 
 provement, and the power of appearing like 
 a gentleman. To effect this, he had ob- 
 tained employment which trenched on the 
 little time spared from the duties of his 
 office, and many hours due to rest, and 
 necessary for refreshing his jaded spirits, 
 were given to the labour of transcribing 
 accounts for the purpose of assisting this 
 admired and beloved brother, whose pro- 
 ficiency in his studies, and whose moral 
 conduct he was thus prevented from ob- 
 serving ; otherwise, neither the one nor 
 the other could have escaped his penetra- 
 tion, and at length he was compelled to 
 know all the hideous truths to which cir- 
 cumstances had blinded him. 
 
 A letter from a spunging-house broke 
 
254 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 upon the blameless tenour of his life, to 
 request his immediate attendance there ; and 
 as he found Frank overwhelmed with con- 
 trition and apparent wretchedness, he 
 scarcely allowed himself to make any in- 
 quiry beyond that which was necessary 
 for the prisoner's relief, and although the 
 debt completely drained his purse, and 
 literally left him penniless, until the next 
 payment of, his salary, he did not hesitate 
 a moment to pay it, anxious not only to 
 relieve the young man over whose sorrows 
 his heart wept in sympathy, but to hasten 
 to replace him in his own chambers, lest 
 the affair should come before his uncle, 
 who they both agreed would never forgive 
 the indiscretion which had caused it. 
 
 No sooner was Frank relieved than his 
 usual spirits returned, and care of every 
 kind was set at defiance. Although 
 Terence, in the kindest manner, intreated 
 
STATESMAN. 255 
 
 him to look into his affairs, and even placed 
 his youth and inexperience before him, as 
 an excuse for the confusion in which they 
 might be found, he yet refused with the 
 utmost obstinacy all interference which 
 could tend to reinstate them. Alas ! his 
 experience in all the ways by which sel- 
 fishness attains its own gratification, and 
 sin accomplishes its guilty purposes, went 
 already far beyond all that his elder brother 
 had ever heard of, in a world to which, 
 beyond his daily routine of business, he 
 was yet a stranger. 
 
 Frank's person and manners, united to 
 his family claims and the expectancies he 
 professed to have on his uncle, had enabled 
 him to join the society of young men of 
 fashion in Oxford, and his beauty, aided 
 by the style of manners thus acquired, had 
 rendered him attractive to women of 
 various descriptions, all alike injurious 
 
256 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 to him, and utterly subversive of his 
 views in life. 
 
 From this time it appeared as if, the ice 
 once broken, there was no end to the distress, 
 degradation, partial triumphs of unprin- 
 cipled dissipation of this wicked, infatuated 
 but still interesting and too well-beloved 
 young man, who still continued to retain 
 the affection of that very brother whose 
 indignation he perpetually incited, and a 
 kind of regard even from the uncle whose 
 stores he was ever seeking to invade. 
 Poor Terence stood between him and all 
 danger from that quarter, and although he 
 was now openly the acknowledged heir of 
 his uncle, and had therefore a prospect 
 of being soon enabled to dispose of the 
 accumulations of his life, he yet wished 
 Frank to be a partaker rather from his 
 uncle's will than his own personal bounty, 
 for as his past life had been galled by the 
 
STATESMAN. 257 
 
 fetters of dependance, he knew their 
 weight too well to wish another to feel 
 them. 
 
 It would be a painful task to trace the 
 sufferings of Terence, as now caused by the 
 conduct of this cherished darling, by which 
 he was kept in perpetual alarm, depressed 
 circumstances, endless labour, and sub- 
 jected to a sense of disgrace, which is the 
 keenest pang a noble spirit can bear, and 
 which, in despite of all reasoning on the 
 subject, we all feel in the infamy of near 
 connection with the base and worthless. 
 
 During seven long years Terence endured 
 all this in silence, seeking to save his 
 mother from knowing the part her darling 
 child sustained in life, and he had at that 
 time the mournful satisfaction of closing 
 her eyes in death, before they had wept 
 over Frank's transgressions. His stay was 
 necessarily short, but he was compelled to 
 see that Nameless Grange had not improved 
 
258 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 under the management of his brother, 
 yet that brother was still single ; that he 
 was a good farmer, a man addicted to no 
 vice, or any expense, except hunting, 
 which he could surely well afford. Terence 
 had much anxiety and many fears, yet he 
 dared not to make inquiries, lest he should 
 be induced to make disclosures also ; and 
 thus these two brothers, each possessing 
 the utmost confidence, and feeling the ut- 
 most esteem for the other, parted after a 
 short and sorrowful meeting, without either 
 daring to reveal the difficulties to which 
 both were alike reduced, by the vampire 
 which, in different ways, had long sucked 
 the life-blood from the veins of each. 
 
 " Nameless Grange is sinking to decay — 
 no matter ! in a few years there will no 
 longer be a Nameless. / must not marry, 
 my eldest brother does not, and I am sure 
 the youngest cannot." 
 
 Such were Terence's melancholy medita- 
 
STATESMAN. 259 
 
 tions as he returned from the house of his 
 ancestors. Frank was in Ireland with a 
 party of pleasure, when he had been sum- 
 moned to attend the death-bed of that 
 mother whose only fault had been the in- 
 dulgence which she had shown him. He 
 returned to London just before Terence 
 arrived there, and the bad terms on which 
 they had last met were forgotten in the shock 
 which the thoughtless libertine actually re- 
 ceived on learning the unexpected death of 
 his only parent, who died of a fever in the 
 prime of her days. 
 
 Sorrow produced confession, and in the 
 course of Frank's visit Terence learnt with 
 feelings little short of horror in the first 
 moment, that his infatuated brother had 
 during his absence actually married a young 
 person in the north of Ireland, to whose re- 
 spectable family their union was still a 
 secret — but one that must soon be divulged, 
 
260 ' A CUMBERLAND 
 
 — that he was, as usual, entirely without 
 means of support, but so humbled, that he 
 would thankfully accept of even the most 
 servile employment, if he could support 
 himself and his wife, who was yet a minor, 
 and whose fortune when obtained would be 
 trifling. 
 
 It had frequently been the task of Terence 
 to seek employ for his improvident relative 
 at those times when he was rendered desti- 
 tute ; but, as it had never occurred to him 
 to find any thing which Frank could, or 
 would do, he had for some time declined 
 the task as hopeless ; but, in the present in- 
 stance, conceiving the necessity to be more 
 pressing than ever, he was induced to de- 
 sire to place him in his uncle's service, if 
 the partners of the house permitted it. In 
 this endeavour he was, however, success- 
 fully opposed ; and in the course of the in- 
 vestigation of Frank's character, which this 
 
STATESMAN. 261 
 
 unlucky effort led to, many things reached 
 the old man's ears which had been hitherto 
 carefully concealed, in consequence of which 
 Frank was now banished his house en- 
 tirely, forbidden to hope for further favour, 
 and Terence was implicated in his crime. 
 
 Severely hurt at the bad success of his 
 endeavour, Terence again yielded the utmost 
 relief in his power ; and, pitying the forlorn 
 situation of the young woman, who had 
 thus precipitated herself and unborn off- 
 spring to ruin, by entering his family, he 
 ventured to petition their eldest brother to 
 invite them to his house, and from the an- 
 swer received to his letter, first learnt that 
 Frank had for several years past so pressed 
 upon his eldest brother, and worked upon 
 his affections, his family pride, his fears for 
 their mother's happiness, or his principles 
 as an honest man (in some measure con- 
 sidered responsible for a younger brother) 
 
262 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 that he had completely drained him of their 
 mother's savings, and compelled him not 
 only to give up all hopes of establishing a 
 family himself, but to mortgage his lately 
 redeemed estate, and subject him to innu- 
 merable privations. With all this an asylum 
 to the unfortunate wife was not denied, and 
 at Terence's expense she removed thither 
 by way of Scotland, and there gave birth 
 to the son with whom she was then preg- 
 nant. 
 
 A short time only elapsed before Terence 
 (ever necessary to soothe the pains and ame- 
 liorate the ill-humour of his uncle) was 
 againrestored to hisusual situation, and after 
 a time he once more became an inmate in 
 his house. The old man at this period 
 having an offer of a large sum of money for 
 his share in the business, chose to accept 
 it, (such was his inveterate love of money) 
 instead of giving the business to that 
 
STATESMAN. 263 
 
 nephew forwhom he professed to be accumu- 
 lating wealth. Terence was much hurtat this 
 circumstance, because he could in that case 
 have provided for Frank, who still lay a use- 
 less burden on his hands, having no ener- 
 gies save at the call of pleasure, which the 
 equally exhausted state of his two brothers 
 prevented him from enjoying; he was, 
 however, in some degree once more restored 
 to the good graces of his uncle, and on his 
 learning that he was become a father, he 
 condescended to bestow a trifling present 
 on his wife. 
 
 Nameless Grange was open to Frank, 
 and, of course, his unfortunate wife ear- 
 nestly intreated him to partake with her 
 the lonesome solitude, but sincere welcome 
 it afforded; but under pretext of London 
 being the only place where a man could 
 find employment, he evaded returning to 
 the home his vices had impoverished until 
 
264 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 her minority expired, when he hastened 
 down to take her into Ireland, and claim 
 the provision left her by her parents from 
 the hands of her guardian, who was her 
 nearest relation. To the surprise of Te- 
 rence he soon re-appeared in London without 
 her, but not without her money, as all his 
 habits of expense had evidently returned. 
 He said : 
 
 " That his Julia's cousin being now re- 
 conciled to their marriage, she had deemed 
 it prudent that herself and infant should 
 remain some time with him, in order further 
 to conciliate him, as he was a widower of 
 large fortune, and one who had much in 
 his power." 
 
 But alas! Terence found but too soon 
 that the fortune of this imprudent, but un- 
 fortunate young creature, was now being 
 squandered on a worthless woman, for 
 whose blandishments she had undoubtedly 
 
STATESMAN. 265 
 
 been forsaken ; but before he had time to 
 see and reproach the unworthy brother 
 whose conduct he abhorred, he was sud- 
 denly called to the north, in consequence of 
 the accidental death of that amiable brother 
 he esteemed truly and bitterly deplored. 
 
 Mr. Nameless was seized with the cramp 
 whilst bathing, and drowned before assist- 
 ance could be procured by the friend who 
 accompanied him. Poor Terence found 
 that he had died intestate, and of course 
 the family estate descended to him, with all 
 its burden of obligation and debts, which 
 were even considerably increased since the 
 death of his mother. All around bespoke 
 poverty and desolation ; and he read in 
 broken gates, unmended fences, falling 
 barns, and unweeded gardens, the unhappy 
 state of the late owner's mind ; who, pos- 
 sessing equal sensibility but less energy 
 than himself, had suffered their mutual dis- 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
266 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 appointment to prey upon his spirits, un- 
 nerve his mind, and entirely prevent him 
 from using the few resources yet within his 
 power for retrieving his affairs. 
 
 But for the last-mentioned stroke of mis- 
 conduct in Frank, Terence would have 
 immediately established him at the Grange, 
 and by applying the profits of his own earn- 
 ings at the place, have endeavoured to 
 repair its dilapidations and restore its re- 
 spectability ; but from the systematic adul- 
 terer, the deserter of his own blood, his 
 heart shrank, and a very little reflection 
 showed him the utter improbability of 
 hoping that an idle, dissipated gamester, 
 habituated to luxury, unable to endure re- 
 flection, and ineapable of exertion, could 
 ever return to the wholesome exercise and 
 simple pleasures of his youth ; still less 
 could he reconcile it to his conscience to 
 bring such an example among his uncor- 
 
STATESMAN. 267 
 
 rupted neighbours, such a stain into the 
 abode of his ancestors. 
 
 Terence's return to London was hastened 
 by a letter from one of his employers — all 
 of whom highly esteemed him, and at this 
 time liberally rewarded his services — to say 
 " that his uncle was either dead or dying, 
 and of course his presence was necessary ; 
 although it was only justice to add, that 
 Mr. Francis had been unceasing in his 
 attention to the old man ever since his 
 seizure, which, being apoplectic, had ren- 
 dered him insensible from the first." 
 
 " Ah ! my poor brother, thou hast died too 
 soon/' was the first exclamation of Terence, 
 as his eyes became filled with tears, and 
 the thought of how much he could now 
 have done to help him rushed upon his 
 heart. The wealth he was hastening to 
 possess seemed to come too late to restore 
 happiness or redeem character ; it fell like 
 
 n 2 
 
268 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 showers upon the rock. But at eight and 
 thirty it is not too late for the sensibilities 
 of the heart to revive, and the gifts of 
 fortune to be properly enjoyed. His friend 
 hoped that for him, which he could not 
 hope for himself. 
 
 When Terence arrived at his uncle's 
 house, the closed windows intimated that 
 all was over. He perceived, too, that pre- 
 parations were making for the funeral; 
 but he felt surprised that among the 
 strangers necessary for the awful task, not 
 one of the former servants could be found, 
 nor any person who seemed to recognise 
 him, or be aware of his claims to attention ; 
 and wearied as he was with a journey of 
 three hundred miles, he felt it necessary to 
 inquire for another resting place than that 
 his own house afforded. 
 
 Whilst desiring one of the undertaker's 
 men to fetch him a hackney coach, the 
 
STATESMAN. 269 
 
 principal himself appeared, and bowing 
 with an air of embarrassment in his coun- 
 tenance, informed him "that the funeral 
 was fixed for the following day, and his 
 presence w r ould be certainly desired by Mr. 
 Nameless, the executor." 
 
 " I am the person of whom you speak," 
 replied Terence, " and I would rather that 
 the last duties were not paid till the follow- 
 ing morning. Yet if all is ordered — if it is 
 necessary — I must agree." 
 
 " A — hem. The funeral goes down to 
 the estate in Wiltshire. It is so ordered in 
 the will." 
 
 " I must see Mr. Walter upon it. I 
 suppose this circumstance has obliged him 
 to bring the will forward, otherwise it would 
 be premature." 
 
 " Mr. Walter, hem ! hem ! I beg pardon, 
 Sir, that is the gemman as was here this 
 morning, and he seemed to wish to make a 
 
270 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 piece of work — but it wouldn't do — wouldn't 
 do at all, Sir. I says, says I, I am put in 
 by the real heir and executor, Francis 
 Nameless, Esq., as he now is, though as I 
 takes it, he'll take testator's name, and as 
 to all you says, or any other lawyer, that's 
 nothing to me. Not, Sir, but of course if 
 any thing improper is done, why I must be 
 paid by the raal heir ; — as to my bills I 
 defy any body to say they can perform 
 cheaper — hearses, plumes, scutcheons, 
 truncheon men, mutes, coachmen, and so 
 forth included ; and as to the article of 
 coffins, I'll venture to say, Sir, that you 
 will not meet with a person that can suit 
 you, or any other gemman better." 
 
 The undertaker looked up, probably to 
 measure his auditor by his eye for his 
 last house, but that auditor was gone, he 
 had entered the hackney-coach and or- 
 dered it to drive to the attorney of his 
 
STATESMAN. 271 
 
 late uncle, with whom his will and other 
 papers of consequence were deposited. 
 
 Mr. Walter, the attorney, was by no 
 means surprised to see him, though it was 
 now late in the evening, for he was aware 
 of the overwhelming astonishment which 
 must seize him on hearing of any other 
 will than that which he still held ; but he 
 informed Terence, " that immediately after 
 the death of the testator, he had been 
 summoned to his house, and required to 
 deliver up the bonds and other documents 
 in his hands, and compelled to listen to a 
 will executed as it appeared by the deceased 
 a few days previous to his death, in which 
 Francis Nameless was appointed his sole 
 heir, although with an affectation of justice, 
 one thousand pounds were bequeathed to 
 Terence, and a few trifling legacies to his 
 oldest servants." 
 
 " This paper," added Mr. Walter, "is 
 
272 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 regularly witnessed, and no form seems 
 wanting to its validity ; but it is notoriou s 
 that all the old servants are out of the way, 
 that the attorney employed was an utter 
 stranger, and the medical men are all de- 
 cidedly of opinion, that the deceased could 
 neither hold a pen, understand a sentence, 
 or by any possible action dictate a single 
 line ; in fact, the only symptom of sanity 
 he ever discovered, from the moment of his 
 seizure to that of his departure, was evin- 
 cing a wish for you." 
 
 " Poor old man ! he did not then deceive 
 me, and for all the rest I must forgive him," 
 said Terence. 
 
 " That the whole is a forgery can admit 
 of no possible doubt ; and notwithstanding 
 the difficulties which properly belong to 
 setting wills aside, in this case I believe it 
 might be done with little, for it is a down- 
 right, barefaced robbery." 
 
STATESMAN. 273 
 
 " And in what way would the perpe- 
 trator of such a robbery become amen- 
 able to the law?" 
 
 " As a felon certainly ! In my opinion 
 hanging is too good for him in the present 
 case, for he has not merely violated all 
 law, but all the principles which bind so- 
 ciety together." 
 
 A deadly qualm, a cold shivering of the 
 limbs, and a half-uttered observation, " that 
 his journey was too much for him/' was 
 Terence's only reply. He went to his inn, 
 and for some days he was shut up in his 
 room, but though looking wretchedly, and 
 eating nothing, he refused to acknowledge 
 he was ill. As soon as he was able to make 
 his appearance at his office, he announced 
 to his employers " an intention of removing 
 to his native country the moment his place 
 could be supplied." 
 
 An increase of salary was offered to him, 
 
 n 3 
 
274 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 an assistant in his department, and finally a 
 share in the concern, all of which were 
 thankfully, but fully declined. 
 
 " But you are in the very prime of life, 
 Mr. Nameless, and you have not the means 
 of retiring f" 
 
 " I am in the prime of life, I can work, 
 and I will work, but it shall be among men, 
 not crocodiles ; — pardon me, you are men, 
 and kind ones too ; you took me from po- 
 verty, and you would have made me rich, 
 but I cannot live any longer in this town ; 
 my health — yes ! my health requires my 
 native air." 
 
 The bilious skin, the hollow eye, and 
 sinking chest of Terence, rendered this 
 appeal irresistible ; and since he could not 
 be retained, he was suffered to depart im- 
 mediately, for a very few days sufficed to 
 settle affairs, which had never known de- 
 rangement. He received from his late home 
 
STATESMAN. 275 
 
 the wardrobe and other things he had left 
 there ; but to various advances made by the 
 present owner towards personal intercourse 
 he was invulnerable ; one only gleam of 
 satisfaction passed his breast on this subject, 
 it was that of learning that the wife of 
 Frank had arrived to share the splendid for- 
 tune in which he was now revelling ; but this 
 was the last ray he ever permitted to glance 
 upon his heart, from a source he loathed, 
 despised, and reprobated. 
 
 It was winter when Terence arrived at 
 Nameless Grange, and every thing looked 
 even more wretched than before ; but its 
 desolation was welcome to the withered 
 heart and perverted feelings of the owner, 
 who felt in its contrast to his wonted com- 
 forts and just expectations, a kind of right 
 to the indulgence of indignant emotions and 
 angry complaints. Too proud to advert to 
 his actual wrongs, and determined never to 
 
276 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 suffer the name of his brother to pass his 
 lips, or be made the subject of remark or 
 inquiry in his presence, he yet permitted the 
 ill-humour Frank had excited, to expend 
 itself on all within his circle, unconscious of 
 the tyranny he was exercising. Accus- 
 tomed to consider himself as injured and 
 trampled upon, he forgot that his wrongs 
 were not read in his countenance, but met 
 every advance to friendship as if it were 
 dictated by curiosity which insulted, or 
 hypocrisy which disgusted him ; and during 
 the first winter, his hand was against every 
 man, and of course every man's hand 
 against him. 
 
 But the curse of Ishmael, though it might 
 light upon Terence, could not remain with 
 him ; and as soon as the season permitted, he 
 plunged at once into all the severe labours 
 and coarse avocations of toiling husbandry. 
 With a kind of savage hostility to his former 
 
STATESMAN. 277 
 
 habits, he adopted the meanest clothing, 
 the plainest food, and the most laborious 
 work. In a short time the consciousness of 
 being equal to the task he had assigned 
 himself, encouraged him to proceed ; his 
 nervous irritability became less, and his bile 
 was gone ; he slept soundly and awoke 
 refreshed ; his love for his neighbourhood 
 returned, and he rejoiced that he was an 
 inhabitant of his native mountains, not 
 because they had taken him from the haunts 
 of men, but because there were yet men to 
 be found whom he might in some manner 
 benefit, without affecting to love. 
 
 Dean Swift, in one of his misanthropical 
 effusions says, " he hates mankind as a 
 species, but he can love Dick, Tom, or Ned 
 as well as any one." The misanthropy of 
 Nameless took a different direction ; he had 
 now no individual for whom he cared, but 
 he loved every group of children he saw, 
 and a little company of aged people warmed 
 
278 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 his heart in despite of the coldness he en- 
 deavoured to wrap it in ; by degrees, there- 
 fore he went out of his own domestic circle 
 to secure good for others, and notwithstand- 
 ing the embarrassments which still loaded 
 him, and the privations he personally en- 
 dured to redeem his estate, he yet on every 
 worthy occasion bestowed donations with a 
 princely spirit and applied his knowledge and 
 his labour with the head of a Solomon, and 
 the strength of a Sampson, and though still 
 living as a recluse in his house, he was 
 far the most important person in his 
 parish. 
 
 The second spring had risen on his 
 labours when an event occurred which by 
 greatly increasing his power, and relieving 
 his embarrassments, restored him a little to 
 society ; this was the death of an old man 
 who had been many years in the service of 
 his late uncle, and who, struck with the in- 
 justice with which Terence had been treated, 
 
STATESMAN. 279 
 
 left him the accumulated savings of a long 
 life, having himself survived his relations. 
 With this welcome legacy, Terence not 
 only emancipated his paternal acres from 
 thraldom, but was enabled to build, plant, 
 drain and cultivate wherever it was required, 
 and by a lucky purchase considerably in- 
 crease the estate. 
 
 He was enabled also to marry. 
 
 Alice, now arrived at her thirty-fourth 
 year, was yet the fairest maid in her parish, 
 and the duteous attentions with which she 
 attended on her parents, whose youngest 
 child she was, rendered her the theme of 
 panegyric to every aged person. It was 
 said " that she had refused many a good 
 offer for their sakes, because all the rest of 
 her sisters were married to the south ;" 
 perhaps this was the case, for it is certain 
 that a more tender child never existed. 
 When, however, Terence, in an unlover-like 
 way made advances in all the roughness of 
 
280 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 his newly-adopted character, Alice made as 
 little opposition to his wishes as could be 
 expected from so steady a maiden. 
 
 Her parents were both hastening to the 
 grave, and they bestowed her upon him 
 with pleasure, and a handsome portion into 
 the bargain. The death of these good 
 people one after the other, by calling her 
 from home ior a considerable time, gave the 
 habits of her husband time to grow upon 
 him, and before she could be called settled 
 as a wife, he might be considered a con- 
 firmed old bachelor. 
 
 The progress of time is allowed by all to 
 have a fatal effect on that vivacity of 
 temper and tenderness of heart which con- 
 stitute the best part of love ; but perhaps 
 even time itself is less injurious to this ex- 
 quisite plant than the wearisome drudgery 
 of unrequited toil, where hope sickens at the 
 long perspective before her. Disappoint- 
 ment, ingratitude, contempt of mankind, 
 
STATESMAN. 281 
 
 all tend in general to destroy those generous 
 ardours and disinterested attachments, 
 which belong to the first blossoms of 
 life. 
 
 Terence had suffered all these, his heart 
 was sobered by time, and chilled by habit, 
 even before it was contracted by suffering ; 
 and he even affected to have all these effects 
 upon him much stronger than he really had. 
 Of course nothing could be more unlover- 
 like than he was when he wooed that gentle, 
 simple, yet sensible and good woman, who 
 took him with all his failings, without the 
 hope of reforming his peculiarities, but cer- 
 tainly not without that of being beloved 
 the more forbearing with them. 
 
 She was not aware that no man adopts 
 any error till he has lost the sense of its being 
 such, and that many a well-meaning man 
 who would either shun a directly vicious 
 propensity, or having fallen into the snare, 
 repent it with contrition, may yet, day by 
 
282 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 day, practise unconsciously some minor 
 fault, destructive of domestic happiness and 
 of course unworthy of his own charac- 
 ter. 
 
 Mr. Nameless highly esteemed, nay he 
 even tenderly loved his wife ; that constancy 
 of affection, that purity of principle, that 
 devotedness to her parents, that unobtrusive 
 but never failing piety to God, which he 
 well knew her to possess, were all duly 
 weighed in his own heart, but it was only 
 there, for in his manners little of the effects 
 of his judgment was perceptible. These 
 were negligent or severe, as his avocations 
 engaged, or his humour affected him. 
 
 Of women, their peculiarities, infirmities, 
 privileges, errors, or endearments, he was 
 totally ignorant, and he seemed determined 
 to remain so, lest he should in any way 
 compromise the rude independence and un- 
 trammelled liberty of life he had adopted. 
 To his mother he had ever looked up ; but 
 
STATESMAN. 283 
 
 on all the rest of her sex he looked down ; 
 and although he allowed to all of his own 
 sex, however inferior their condition, that 
 manly independence of conduct and opinion 
 which was ever adopted by himself towards 
 his employers, yet he had no notion of any 
 woman being other than the abject slave of 
 man, whom it was his duty indeed to pro- 
 tect, but his privilege to despise. He was 
 too upright to use any woman ill, but he 
 was deficient in perception of her just claims 
 and her real situation in civilized society, 
 and was not aware that unmerited austerity, 
 long fits of silence, petty acts of parsimony, 
 or even those of bounty in which she is not 
 made a party, dress which disgusts her, and 
 employments which derange the comforts 
 of her house, are all so many sins against 
 wedded harmony, and acts of unkindness, 
 which corrode the heart of a tender, obedient 
 and confiding wife. 
 
 It may be said, " that though obedience is 
 
284 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 a 'wife's first duty, yet self-respect is a 
 second," and " that when an otherwise good 
 man falls from habit or humour into little 
 errors, such a one should be gently ad- 
 monished ;" but really gentle admonition is 
 so scarce, severe, and so disagreeable, that I 
 cannot bring myself to recommend the 
 practise to ladies, but I would appeal to the 
 feelings of every honest, honourable man 
 against himself on these occasions, and as 
 soon as any one can bring home Nathan's 
 words, " thou art the man," to his own 
 bosom, he will not hesitate to amend his way. 
 To return to poor Terence : his estate 
 now looked well and yielded well, both to 
 himself and tenants, for whose welfare he 
 was ever most anxious ; but he still laboured 
 as if his passion for work and rags was in- 
 exhaustible, and his wife and servants were 
 in this respect rendered bone of his bone. 
 The affairs of the parish, like Desdemona's 
 house affairs, would indeed " draw him 
 
STATESMAN. 285 
 
 thence ;" but like her, he dispatched them 
 with as much speed as he could, that he 
 might return to labour, of which he was no 
 niggard, even for strangers as well as neigh- 
 bours ; and his ambition was gratified still 
 more when the old men declared him " the 
 best ditcher in the country," than when a 
 bench of magistrates acknowledged the 
 soundness of his arguments, and admired the 
 precision, vigour, and unvarnished, but 
 manly eloquence of his style. This style 
 was certainly his own, for in his whole life 
 he had never had time for reading, and for 
 the punishment of his wife, whom he once 
 caught weeping over a bit of a love-story 
 bought of a wandering pedlar, every book, 
 save the Bible and Common Prayer-book, 
 were banished the house, and even these 
 were interdicted, save at those hours when 
 it was well known the cares of the dairy 
 forbade their use. " Practise what you 
 hear, and receive your knowledge from the 
 
286 A CUMBERLAND 
 
 rector," was Terence's constant maxim to 
 others, and, unlike many lawgivers, he gave 
 example as well as precept. 
 
 Yet it is certain that if he had not studied 
 much, he had caught up scraps of law- 
 knowledge with which he edified, as- 
 tonished, or vexed the natives; for he 
 quoted authors of this description with a 
 faithfulness of memory and accuracy of 
 language, which proved how well such 
 studies accorded with his taste. When 
 visiting Frank, and waiting his slow motions 
 in the morning, or his late return to his 
 chamber in the evening, Coke upon Lit- 
 tleton laid upon the table as a matter of 
 course, or a few scattered reports had en- 
 gaged him, and the otherwise wearisome 
 time passed on unheeded ; and these dull 
 details being unmixed with " baser or lighter 
 matter," kept possession of his brain through 
 many a long walk in the environs of the 
 metropolis, during the only day in which he 
 
STATESMAN. 287 
 
 could take that salutary exercise in which 
 he ever delighted. These subjects in his 
 maturer years, when sorrow had wounded 
 and care oppressed him, tpok place of those 
 buoyant dreams he had formerly indulged 
 in a walk to Primrose Hill, when every 
 pretty girl he met reminded him of Alice, 
 or a solitary ramble on Hampstead Heath, 
 when the breeze seemed to breathe of the 
 far distant mountains where his heart re- 
 posed. 
 
 Within a few years after Terence's return, 
 things wore, as we have already said, a very 
 different appearance in his neighbourhood, 
 and the little property which changed its 
 owners, became more than double its value, 
 and even that which remained in the same 
 hands was beautified and enriched, without 
 being drilled into formality, or tortured into 
 the picturesque. The roads drew visitors, 
 the visitors became admirers, and land was 
 purchased, mansions built, and the poor 
 
288 A CUMBERLAND STATESMAN. 
 
 employed, in a district which, though thin 
 in population, had hitherto been unable to 
 rear the hardy race of " bold peasantry" to 
 which she had giv,en birth. 
 
 Yes ! all things changed, and improved, 
 save him who taught them progression ; he 
 stood alone, like the bare rock which shakes 
 from its craggy sides the fostering soil 
 which would clothe it with flowers ; but he 
 was not like the rock invulnerable ; and the 
 society which first diverted his attention 
 next amused his fancy, then roused his 
 judgment, and finally, by engaging his 
 affections, touched his heart and reformed 
 his manners. 
 
 END OF VOL. II, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
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