^<?Se UBRARY
 
 .v^
 
 NO SENSE LIKE COMMON 
 SENSE; 
 
 SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF CHARLES 
 jvIIDDLETON, ESQ. , 
 
 BY MARY HOWITT. 
 
 »VTKOa Oy "8TR1VK AND THRIVE ;" " HOPK OK, HOPK BrBR;" " ^OVtim 
 ANO RSAPIWO," ttCt'ttC 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
 
 443 & 445 BEOADWAY. 
 1863.
 
 CONTj^JNTS. 
 
 I. "MlDDLKTON AND THE MiDDLETONS . • . 1 
 
 II. The Squire's Soj« . . , • ..17 
 
 III. The Justice's Clerk . . . , , 37 
 
 IV. The Election of Stockington . . . . 52 
 V. A Duel and a Voyage to America . . ,67 
 
 VI. The Justice's Clerk AGAIN . . , . 84 
 
 VII. The Lyndens and a Wedding . . . .93 
 
 VIII. Small Troubles, AND Great Changes . . . 103 
 
 IX. Utopia Discovered 124 
 
 X. Adventures in a German Lodging-house . . 130 
 
 XI. The Pickets AND THE Oakleys. . . .139 
 
 XII. Old England for Evkh ', ». • • • • IM
 
 NO SENSE LIKE COMMON-SENSE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MIDDLETON AND THE BlIDDLETONS. 
 
 One of the oldest families of Derbyshire is that 
 of the Middletons. They seem even to be of Saxon 
 origin, and to derive their name from their resi- 
 dence at certain places called Mitteltoun, or Middle- 
 Town, probably because they originally lay equi- 
 distant between other well-known towns or villages. 
 Stoney Middleton, Middleton Dale, and other places, 
 chiefly lying in the Peak, still mark where branches of 
 this ancient family once were located ; and various of 
 their descendants still also are numbered amongst the 
 gentry of the county. The learned and pious Bishop 
 Middleton was a descendant of one of these branches, 
 and the individual who will figure in these pages is 
 the lineal descendant of another. That branch had 
 for ages possessed large estates both in Derbyshire 
 and Nottinghamshire, which the jolly lives of his 
 ancestors from generation to generation had managed 
 considerably to diminish. The father, however, of 
 Charles Middleton, our hero, liad a handsome estate 
 1
 
 a MIDDLETON AND 
 
 in lands and mines, which it was his business and 
 amusement to superintend. He was a person of 
 great natural abilities, though they had never been 
 much cultivated or called forth by education ; for 
 the Middletons living from age to age in the country, 
 and mixing only with the neighbouring gentry, or 
 the people of the village, or thoscemployed on their 
 land or in their mines, none of whom were ever over- 
 done with knowledge, never felt the necessity of great 
 intellectual acquisition or great accomplishments. 
 They knew all the mysteries of hunting and shooting, 
 fishing and farming, and that was enough for them. 
 
 Such of them as belonged to the magisterial bench — 
 and many of them in succession had done so — sate 
 there witli good jolly sides clothed in good broad- 
 cloth, and jolly faces clothed in much fat and rud- 
 diness, but all with due gravity. They had always 
 a clerk, some poor fellow who had been brought up 
 to the law, })ut had either not had the ability or the 
 interest to enable him to climb up among the 
 golden mountains to which the highways of the law 
 lead, and had, therefore, taken refuge under the 
 patronage of the village magistrate, and thus grown 
 into a very important personage. In this person the 
 worthy guardian of the rural peace had always an 
 oracle to appeal to, which saved him the trouble of 
 having to dip deep into the pages of Bum's Justice ; 
 and what more did he need? He was willing that 
 the clerk should be the depository of all the legal 
 knowledge that was wanted, and all the fees which
 
 THE MIDDLETONS. 3 
 
 flowed in for v/arrants and summonses, so that he had 
 the honour of being one of the quorum ; and he was 
 equally willing that the parson should be held to be the 
 monopoliser of all the other learning in the parish. 
 
 Thus it had gone on for centuries, and thus it 
 Btill went on in the days of Charles Middleton's 
 youth. Duly every Monday morning he saw his 
 father issue forth at ten o'clock, and proceed to the 
 little white and very neat cottage on the green of 
 his native village of jNIiddleton, which had been 
 ever known to the fathers and grandfathers of the 
 hamlet and country round as the justice-room. 
 There were those still living who could remember 
 it as an old red-brick cottage covered with red pan- 
 tiles, standing under a huge elm on the open green, 
 and having a very decayed and weather-beaten ap- 
 pearance. A rude bench, ran along its front, and 
 another went all round the giant bole of the old 
 elm, on which the country-people who came there 
 every week for "justice" used to seat themselves till 
 the magistrates, Mr. Middleton and another gentle- 
 man of the neighbourhood, proceeded to business. 
 
 There was no fence of any kind to keep off the 
 cattle wliich ranged the green, and those, in hot and 
 bad weather, used to seek satisfaction there as much 
 as the countr^'-people themselves, and often had trod 
 up the ground round it in rainy seasons till it was 
 difficult of approach. Ducks, too, had often been 
 Been paddling in a pool which after a thunder-storm 
 had collected before the very door, when the old
 
 4 MIDDLETON AND 
 
 clerk came to open it in preparation for their wor- 
 ships. Swine and sheep were as often to be seen 
 stretched along, in luxurious contempt of all magis- 
 terial reverence, under the bench by the wall in hot 
 weather, or panting in groups at the shady end of 
 the building. Great cows and lazy-looking bullocks 
 stood winking and lazily flapping their sides with 
 their tails as they chewed their cuds under the tree 
 and round the justice-room ; and asses had rubbed 
 their coarse sides so assiduously against its corner, 
 that the very bricks were become rounded and po- 
 lished by this practice. It was, besides all this, a 
 great play resort of all the village lads. They 
 bounded their balls against its gable with as much 
 indifference as if no warrant had ever issued thence, 
 condemning thief or murderer to durance in Derby 
 jail till tried by due course of law. They had cut 
 and carved its very door wdth their names, till it had 
 a most mean and paintless appearance, and were even 
 guilty of putting little pebbles in the key-hole, to 
 the no small annoyance of the old clerk when he 
 came to the justice-room, and their equal amuse- 
 ment, as they watched his dilemma from behind the 
 great elm, and from the very concealment of the 
 stocks themselves. 
 
 Within a few years, however — that is, since the 
 present justice's clerk, who had succeeded on the 
 decease of the old one, had come — the place had 
 undergone a thorough metamorphosis. This clerk 
 was a young man of a light make, who dressed in a
 
 THE MrDDLETONS. 9 
 
 neat suit of black, and, as the people of the village 
 said, walked with a little stick, and had a little dog, 
 just like a gentleman. He was in fact the son of an 
 old collier of a place some fourteen miles distant. 
 wlio had given him a better education than usually 
 falls to the lot of village boys, and got him, through 
 Mr. Middleton's influence, into the ofhc-^ of a lawyer 
 in Derby, with an eye to this very situation. 
 
 The old clerk had dropped off, and Seth Wag-, 
 staff had joyfully entered on the office, which was 
 the highest mark of his ambition. He could con- 
 ceive nothing more gratifying than to be looked up 
 to as the justice's clerk of Middleton by the simple 
 people of the whole country round ; to be a welcomo 
 guest at the farmers' houses ; and to be almost on a 
 par with the clergyman himself. And in truth he 
 had well qualified himself for his post ; he had 
 diligently studied th<f practice in his master's office, 
 and was not only competent to advise the magistrates 
 in all that would come before them, but also could 
 lay down the law in all cases which were agitated in 
 the neighbourhood, or appeared in the newspaper, in 
 such a manner as inspired even his best informed 
 hearers with great respect. Mr. Seth Wagstaff was 
 soon set down as an uncommonly "long-headed 
 fellow," and found a profitable business, independent 
 of his clerkship, in making wills, and writing letters, 
 &c., for his neighbours. 
 
 What raised him in general respect was, that ha 
 was of a particularly quiet and sober disposition.
 
 9 MIDDLETOX AND 
 
 fie was never seen to enter the village ale-house, 
 except when some parish meeting was held there. 01 
 as treasurer of the village sick-club. He had mar- 
 ried a very pretty young woman, the daughter of a 
 small farmer in the neighbourhood, and entered on 
 the house occupied by the former clerk, but belong- 
 ing to Mr. Middleton, just on the edge of the green 
 £Uid with its little garden-gate just opposite to the 
 justice-room. This house stood in the middle of a 
 pretty large garden ; and both house and garden, 
 under Mr. Wagstaff 's hands, had assumed an air of 
 wonderful neatness. He had a particular fondness 
 for gardening, and for all that contributed to the 
 embellishment of a countr^'-house. He trained and 
 trimmed the great pear and plum trees that clothed 
 the walls of his house, and had been suffered by his 
 predecessor to run almost wild, into the neatest and 
 most fruitful order. He soon raised a Iktle trellissed 
 porch over his door, which he made quite beautiful 
 with monthly roses and creepers. He found nooks 
 and pleasant corners for seats and arbours, and was 
 early and late busy knocking together rustic chairs 
 and seats out of crooked boughs, and painting and 
 placing them in the best situations. He had con- 
 trived to dam up a little stream at the bottom of his 
 garden into a lovely little pond, with its plug to let 
 off the water when necessary, and had supplied it 
 with fish ; or, rather, the squire's wife had supplied it 
 with tench and carp for him. He had therein also 
 planted a variety of water-plants, as the white and
 
 TBE MIUDLETON'S. 7 
 
 yellow water-lily, the arrow-head, and flowering- 
 rush. He had built by this, under the shade of some 
 thick old trees, a very nice latticed summer-house, 
 in which it was his great delight to take his tea, 
 smoke his pipe — for his quiet disposition had early 
 seduced him into the use of this little machine — or 
 read one of his favourite books ; for IVIr. Wagstaff 
 had a great thirst for various knowledge, which his 
 intercourse with the clergyman here, who was a 
 simple and learned man, had greatly strengthened. 
 In this summer-house they smoked a pipe together, 
 and discussed many questions in a very still and sen- 
 tentious manner, which would have made any of the 
 rustics around them think them wonders of wisdom. 
 But, in fact, Seth Wagstaff was one of those quiet 
 people who have in themselves a great hunger and 
 capacity of knowledge. He had picked up some little 
 Latin, and had read Virgil's Georgics and Caesar's 
 Commentaries with great delight. He had learned to 
 read French, and was very deeply interested in all that 
 related to the French Revolution — ^joining with the 
 vicar in blessing the religious feeling and noble con- 
 stitution which had held up Church and State in 
 England. He had a wonderful talent for calculation, 
 far outdoing the schoolmaster in that respect. He 
 had got a fancy for astronomy and botany, and, 
 with the help of the vicar, had learned to compre- 
 hend the motions of the heavens, and to name a 
 number of constellations in the sky, and of plants on 
 the earth, to the delight of himself and great amaze-
 
 8 MinOLETON ANn • 
 
 ment of the villagers. Besides this, ^'^'*^'J'« to be seca 
 on his little book-shelves volumes of 'I'story and 
 poetry — especially the works of Milton and Oliver 
 Goldsmith — which sufficiently showed, both by their., 
 worn appearance, and the sentiments he often uttered 
 out of them, how deeply they had engrossed his 
 attention and admiration. 
 
 We have thus sketched out the character of the 
 justice's clerk, because we shall have to recur to 
 him again in tracing the origin of the character of our 
 young friend, Mr. Charles Middleton, himself; and 
 we now revert to the fact, that, soon after the instal- 
 ment of WagstafF as justice's clerk, the justice- 
 room itself, both outwardly and inwardly, ha^ 
 undergone a great change for the better. Within^ 
 the place was neatly supplied with a heavy old 
 oak table, covered with green baize and certain big 
 books of reference, and with solid oak chairs, two ol 
 which, cushioned with crimson, and of a massy and 
 stately antiquity, were appropriated to the magis- 
 trates. The floor was warmly matted, and on the 
 walls, which were neatly yellow- washed, hung various 
 portraits of eminent judges. "Without, some neat 
 green posts -and-chains, extending in a circle around 
 the cottage, warded off the intrusion of both cattle 
 and urchins; and within this little boundary were 
 various beds of flowers and flourishing laurels, which 
 gave the whole a very attractive aspect. The walls 
 were kept most snowily white-washed ; the pantiles 
 had given way to a thick and picturesque thatch ;
 
 THE MIDDLETONS. 9 
 
 and a green door, with a bright brass door-handle, 
 and equally bright knocker, testified to the exquisite 
 neatness Avhich to Mr. Wagstaff was as indispensable 
 as his religion itself. 
 
 Here, as we have observed, ]\Ir. Middleton might 
 be regularly seen at ten o'clock on a Monday morn- 
 ing, advancing from his own house, and the assembled 
 rustics rising up and making their reverences. Here 
 Seth "VVagstaff, exact as clockwork, would be found 
 seated at the table, busy writing something in prepa- 
 ration, or going out to the applicants, and taking 
 note of the order of their arrival or the importance 
 of their cases, so as to facilitate as much as possible 
 the business of the magistrates. 
 
 Justice Middleton, in all that appertained to his 
 office, was very attentive, and, according to his 
 notions, very impartial ; for he had a high sense of 
 the dignity of the magisterial function, and a consci- 
 entious desire to do right between man and man, 
 though his judgment was continually warped by con- 
 ventional and hereditary ideas. In all else he displayed 
 a great constitutional apathy and indifference. He 
 surveyed his grounds and his mines ; read his news- 
 paper and his book, generally one of anecdote or 
 topography ; copied out what he deemed curious into 
 a private volume : and over his wine, or amongst his 
 neighbours, was very chatty, and fond of a merry 
 story. For the rest, he let things take their own 
 course. His wife followed her own fancies, and hi.s 
 son liis ; so that tlieir proceedings did not clash with
 
 10 MIDDLETOiV AND 
 
 his regular clockwork round, or make too sensible nn 
 impression on his purse, he took little heed of either 
 
 The mother had a much livelier interest in her 
 son, and secured a much livelier influence over him. 
 She was the very opposite of her husband in mind 
 and disposition. He was all coolness and indifference, 
 except when some great occcasion roused his pride 
 and passions, when he would be terrible ; she was all 
 feeling, warmth and anxiety. 
 
 Mrs. Middleton was the last of an old line of 
 wealthy gentry of the village, who had always been 
 noted for their passionate dispositions^ and yet for tho 
 greatest good-nature. The "W^estons' blood was be- 
 come a by-word for their choleric temperament. 
 She possessed all the excitability of her family, with 
 one of the best hearts which ever beat in a woman's 
 bosom. She had Jieen born, and had lived all her 
 life, with the exception of a journey or two to Lon- 
 don, amid these villagers ; and there was not one of 
 them whom she did not look upon as a sort of rela- 
 tion. She was a perfect image and embodiment of 
 that mother of a village, which usea to be no uncom- 
 mon blessing in the better days of our country, and 
 which — spite of those great changes which have taken 
 place in its social relations, and of the much greater 
 abode of the gentry in the metropolis than formerly 
 — is in many a quiet and happy part of the country, 
 where old minds and old manners remain, no uncom- 
 mon thing yet. 
 
 Her parents and her husband had striven hard and
 
 THE MIDDLETONS. 13 
 
 long, but in rain, to instil into her what they called 
 a necessary pride and dignity ; these, however, were 
 foreign to her nature, and if she could comprehend 
 ^ them, she could not adopt them. The goodness and 
 guileless tenderness of her heart had made her cling 
 with all her soul to the bountiful humanity and hea- 
 venly promises of the Christian faith; and many a rustic 
 eye had seen with wonder the beautiful lady of the 
 squire, for she had a very meek and fair beauty of 
 her own, weeping plenteous tears during the zealous 
 and affectionate sermon of the rector, while the 
 squire himself sat as calm and stately as he did on 
 the bench at the quarter sessions. But it was not 
 here only, that they were made acquainted with the 
 overflowing tenderness of her nature. There was not 
 one of them who had not seen her, one time or ano- 
 ther, as a ministering angel, as a bringer of comfort, 
 of healt^i, or of peace, into their cottages. There she 
 was a daily visitant. In all their troubles, and even 
 in all their sicknesses, she was their councillor, for 
 she had derived from her mother before her a know- 
 ledge of a certain domestic practice of medicine which 
 often made the doctor himself confess its efficacy — 
 though he always professed to style it " ladies' 
 quackery;" but he knew that when it would not 
 succeed, the lady herself would be the first to see 
 that, and send for him. 
 
 So fixed had these habits of attention to all the 
 wants of her neighbours become, that the very 
 poorest, if they needed her presence, made no mora
 
 12 MmnLETox and 
 
 Bcniple to send and request it, than if it had been that 
 of their next-door gossip ; and she would as soon 
 have thought of neglecting a summons to the pre- 
 sence of the Queen as one of these. Nay, even late 
 in life, has she been known not merely to rise 
 from table to hasten to the relief of some suffering 
 neighbour, but even to leave her bed at midnight ; 
 and many a dark and stormy winter's evening might 
 she be seen, wrapped in her thick cloak, hastening 
 along wild lanes and through muddy ways, preceded 
 by a servant with a lantern, or attended by tlie 
 clergyman, to the bedside of some suffering or dying 
 peasant. 
 
 On many of these occasions the poor people have 
 hung fondly for comfort on her, rather than on the 
 clergyman himself; and the good man has sate 
 silently and listened, with tears in his eyes, to her 
 conversations with, and her exhortations to them, to 
 take courage and comfort in the goodness of the 
 Redeemer : for the warmth and enthusiasm of her 
 sympathies often made her forget all besides the 
 needs and sufferings of the dying fellow- creature, 
 and her heart has poured itself out in such a living 
 feeling of the value of the human soul, and the 
 fatherly kindness and promises of God, as has gone 
 like heavenly sunshine to the heart of the eager 
 listener. And had she not in these motherly offices 
 her own exceeding reward ? Was there any exercise 
 of what is called a becoming pride and dignity which 
 c<3uld have filled her with such a flood of constant
 
 THE MIDDLETONS. 10 
 
 happiness, as these humble but still noble duties ? 
 No; she had not that pride, and therefore she could not 
 exercise it ; she had this feeling heart, and she could 
 not, if she would, do otherwise. • 
 
 But if she was thus affectionate to her neighbours, 
 what was she to her only son ? He was the apple 
 of her eye. For him she especially lived, and thought, 
 and felt. She was a woman who pretended not to 
 reason. She knew herself, and made far less claims 
 to be wise than to be good. In fact, she was rather 
 led by her feelings than by her understanding. It is 
 true that she had an intuitive sense of right and 
 wrong, and seldom went very far aside ; but it is 
 equally true that her feelings often carried her 
 farther than was quite prudent, and as often caused 
 her to be wofully imposed on by the designing. She 
 trusted to her heart, and in its pure guidance went 
 boldly on. 
 
 For her son she was fuU of motherly rejoicing and 
 pride ; she gloried in his manly-growing figure, and 
 his ardent, generous, and manly disposition. She saw 
 with delight the smiles which everywhere met his 
 open face and frank address. She longed for him 
 that he should make himself the benefactor as well 
 as the future possessor of Middleton ; she longed that 
 he should be a good man and a sincere Christian; and 
 beyond that, she longed only that he should always 
 be near her — near her liviiig, and close her eyc8 
 when she died. 
 
 It was just at this period that Seth "WagstaflF bc- 
 2
 
 ii. MIDDLETON AND 
 
 came justice's clerk at Middleton. His simple cha« 
 ractev and uncommon good sense made him speedily 
 a great favourite, both at the liail and with the 
 clergyman, the worthy old Jenkinson Millard. The 
 clergyman praised his acquirements in learning and 
 his good taste, and wished that he had come as school- 
 master instead of justice's clerk. He lauded his skill 
 in gardening, and in embellishing his house and pre- 
 mises, and declared that he had a real native genius 
 in such things, which it was a pity should not be 
 exercised, instead of his merely spending his life in 
 making out warrants and summonses. But Mrs. 
 Middleton contended that he was much better as he 
 was, and asserted that she believed Providence had 
 sent him expressly to be a blessing to the neighbour- 
 hood. With all reverence for her goodman and his 
 worthy colleague. Sir Burnaby Pegge, she thought 
 they much oftener decided cases by their ideas as 
 gentlemen than by their feelings as men ; and she 
 hoped that the mfluence of a person so clever and so 
 learned in the law, at the same time that he was one 
 of the people themselves, would have its due weight 
 often in favour of the poor and friendless. 
 
 She took, in fact, an early opportunity to call on 
 Mr. Seth, on the plea of seeing his house and garden, 
 and giving her advice as to making all comfortable 
 at a little expense. She greatly praised the plans 
 which he already told her he had conceived for em- 
 bellishing all with his own hands, and promised him 
 plants and wood, and the occasional assistance of the
 
 THE MIDDLETONS. 16 
 
 gardener. Then, as she was about to come away, she 
 turned suddenly round at the garden-gate before open- 
 ing it, and while he stood with his hat in his hand, 
 with a bow of profound respect, to bid her good day, 
 assuming a very serious air, she thus addressed him: — 
 " Young man, Providence seems to me to have 
 blessed you with a good understanding, and, as I hope 
 and believe, also with a good heart. I think I am 
 not mistaken in you ; and let me tell you I expect 
 much from you. Providence has raised you able 
 friends ;" here Seth bowed very respectfully ; " yes, 
 I say, able friends, young man, who, while you de- 
 serve it, will never cease to be your friends. But 
 remember, where much is given much is required ; 
 and you are not to imagine that you are sent here 
 merely for any good qualities of your own, or to 
 make yourself a pleasant nest in a pleasant place. 
 No ; I am persuaded that nothing is done without 
 the design of a gracious and directing Providence ; 
 and my idea is, that it is Providence which has sent 
 you hither, to be a friend to the fatherless and the 
 afliicted — to be an unflinching friend to justice, and, 
 as far as possible, to mercy. Young man, you may 
 seem to hold but a servant's place here, and may 
 think that it is your duty only to hear and to obey; 
 but while I exhort you to preserve and show all proper 
 obedience and honour to your employers, you must 
 remember that they as well as you are but the ser- 
 vants of a great and righteous God, who is no re- 
 specter of persons, and who will demand a stricl
 
 16 MIDDLETON AND 
 
 account of every action done here, and most espe. 
 cially of every opportunity omitted to show kindness 
 to our poorer fellow-creatures. I say, therefore, ' bo 
 wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove.' You 
 have knowledge, and may often, when you see the 
 way clear, quietly, by your opinion becomingly 
 uttered, turn the course of justice into its purest and 
 most humane channel. Be bold, therefore, young 
 man ; fear not the face of man, when the cause of 
 God and man cries to your conscience, and God will 
 give you wisdom and ability to bring peace to your- 
 self and honour to your employers. 
 
 " Remember," said she, accompanying the word 
 with a significant gesture of her finger, " that as 
 you act, you will be a blessing or a curse here, and — 
 for an influence you will gain — your influence will 
 become a blessing or a curse to yourself !" 
 
 As she thus ceased, she opened the gate, and nod- 
 ding with a kind smile, went hastily away. 
 
 Seth WagstafF stood for some seconds on the spot 
 where she had left him, with his hat still in his 
 hand, and his eyes fixed on the ground. The so- 
 lemnity and suddenness of this address had surprised 
 him; but, besides this, there was something so un- 
 worldly, so holy, so noble and true, in both the sen- 
 timents and the manner of it, that his heart was 
 deeply impressed by it. His heart, indeed, was just 
 the one into which such an address would penetrate 
 and stick fast, so simple, and yet so sensible of all 
 that was good and beautiful. As he raised his eyeg
 
 TOE MIDDLETONS. 17 
 
 the tears glistened in them ; and holding his hat a 
 little elevated above his forehead before putting it 
 on, he breathed silently and fervently to himself 
 these words — " God make me worthy of my many 
 blessings, and of the esteem of this good lady !" 
 
 To his dying day these words were never for- 
 gotten by Seth Wagstaff ; and his first impulse was 
 to rush into the house and pen them down ; but he 
 saw, before he had taken a second step, that they 
 stood all clearly engraven on his heart, and that 
 with all the feeling of her aspect, voice, and manner, 
 which gave them a force that no copy could possess. 
 
 In his old age they stood there with greater bright- 
 ness ; and he often blessed them, as his counsellors 
 and strengthcners to the performance of his duty in 
 many a trying moment. 
 
 CHAPTER II. • 
 
 THE squire's son. 
 
 Scarcely was Wagstaff thus auspiciously installed 
 in his office, in his house, and in the favour of the 
 Middletons, when the son Charles returned from 
 Oxford. He was now arrived at manhood, and was 
 a cheerful and ardent young man, full of the enjoy- 
 ment of existence. As he had been always accus- 
 tomed to contemplate settling down here on the 
 termination of his education, and leading the life 
 which his ancestors had done before him, he seemed
 
 18 THE squire's SOV 
 
 now to have nothing to do but to pass his time as 
 agreeably as he could. 
 
 Young Middleton had always been enthusiast! 
 cally fond of the country and its sports. Riding and 
 shooting and fishing had occupied the greater part of 
 his time at home, and seemed destined to occupy it 
 still. He had made many acquaintances with the 
 sons of the neighbouring gentry and nobility during 
 his college years ; and sometimes he was on a visit to 
 them ; sometimes one or other of them were here 
 with him ; and the days fled on in mirth and active 
 pursuit of sport. Any one would have deemed 
 Charles Middleton unquestionably devoted for life to 
 country and social pleasures. Not a care had 
 clouded his open brow, or dimmed the clear heaven 
 of his glad blue eyes. No one was more gay, witty, 
 or agreeable in society ; no one went with such un- 
 tiring eagerness into the daily enjoyment of the 
 fields and woods. He seemed to have a relish for 
 life and its sunshine, for society and its laughter, for 
 the chase of all that flood and field could offer, 
 which it was quite a pleasure to behold. 
 
 His mother looked on him with eyes of maternal 
 rapture, only throwing in now and then, in hours 
 when they were left to themselves, to be as good as 
 he was happy : and in those hours Charles was as 
 happy in his mother's society, as he was at other 
 times in that of the most beautiful and most spirited 
 of his younger friends. He was fondly attached to 
 his mother, and regarded her, as she rea)ly was, as
 
 THE SQUIRES SON. 19 
 
 the best of women. He entered into all hei tastes 
 most especially for flowers, which she always re- 
 garded with an admiration similar to that with which 
 she contemplated the sky and the beauty of moun- 
 tains. She had indeed the most living and almost 
 passionate attachment to all that was beautiful in 
 nature, and had communicated this feeling in all its 
 fulness to him. Her heart indeed seemed to live in 
 the alternating sensations of thankfulness to the 
 Great Creator for all that he had diffused over the 
 earth of beauty, sweetness, and plenty, and in love 
 and care for those who dwelt on it with her. She 
 would often, as the dusk of evening fell around, and 
 as Charles and she sat in the bay-window of the old 
 hall, or as they sate on a summer noon in some 
 shady arbour in the walks, and gazed on the land- 
 scape — perhaps lively with the cries and activity of 
 the haymakers, or lowering with the dark grandeur 
 of a storm-cloud — talk to him till the tears stood in 
 her eye ; and Charles himself would only answer by 
 a silent pressure or kiss of her hand. 
 
 At other times he went merrily with her to her 
 bees, her poultry, her flower-garden ; and would ac 
 company her to her cottage visits, and make her 
 perfectly happy by the interest he took in everybody 
 and everything which interested her. 
 
 There was but one thhig which Mrs. Middleton 
 wished for her son, and that was to see him suitably 
 married, and fixed, for the remainder of their days, 
 somewhere near. On this head, however, she coun-
 
 20 THE squire's son. 
 
 selled him, with great earnestness, to look well about 
 him, and to choose only one worthy of him in qua' 
 litics of heart and mind. With a mother's partiality, 
 she believed that, with his agreeable person and 
 really great talents, he might choose almost whom 
 he Avould. What he did in this respect we shall 
 see in process of time. 
 
 In the mean time he gradually spent more and 
 more time with the clergyman and S6th \^''agstaif. 
 The greater part of his leisure, notwithstanding his 
 rather extensive acquaintance in that and the neigh- 
 bouring counties, was, after all, to be filled up at 
 home. The worthy old rector had been, from hia 
 boyish days, a great companion of his in fishing and 
 shooting ; and now, both through him and his mother 
 he had come to notice particularly Seth Wagstaff, 
 and the more he had seen of him the more was he 
 taken with him. There was something peculiarly 
 attractive to him in the contemplation of the mind 
 and character of such a person as Wagstaff. The 
 means and steps by which he had gleaned up, out 
 of various fields, and under various disadvantages, 
 his amount of knowledge — the process and the 
 resources of a course of self-education, which, after 
 all, had been the greater portion of Seth's education- 
 had something very novel in them to Charles, whose 
 every step had been attended and directed by the 
 best helps and masters of the time. Then the utter 
 transparent simplicity and honesty of heart which 
 marked his whole demeanour and language were to
 
 THE squire's son. 21 
 
 him a matter of astonishment, and at the same time 
 of admh-ation. The provincial accent, and not only 
 accent, but entire tone, and his still rustic manner, 
 gave a very peculiar character to the very correct 
 language which he used, and still more so to the 
 Bound and shrewd opinions which he uttered in the 
 quietest possible manner. 
 
 Spite, however, of that very quiet manner, and of 
 the generally silent manner of Seth WagstafF — for 
 he was by no means of a talkative turn, and seemed 
 always fonder of listening, with his pipe in his mouth, 
 to the conversation of others than of talking himself^— 
 yet Cliarles soon observed that he would at times 
 take his pipe suddenly from his mouth, and say, 
 " Nay, but look at that again a little ;" and he found 
 that on those occasions he was sure to give such a 
 colour and feeling of truth and undeniable justice to 
 his opinion, that it was not easy to resist it. He 
 saw, moreover, that, quiet as was his manner, there 
 was a wonderful firmness in his tone of mind ; that, 
 without losing his temper or self-possession, he could 
 argue with a logical clearness that soon put all but 
 the most positive wrong -headedness to silence. 
 Charles had been accustomed to hear ail subjects 
 discussed and debated, and that too by some of the 
 sharpest wits of the day ; but in these debates there 
 had always mingled more or less of the bias of party, 
 rank, or education, or of the pride of intellect and 
 strife for rhetorical mastery ; but here he heard tnith 
 and nature as they had grown up in a sound heart, 
 2
 
 22 , THE squire's son. 
 
 living apart froni all corrupting or deluding influ- 
 ences, and in an intellect which, though it was strong 
 and bright as polished steel, had lain in too humble 
 a head to be flattered. The more he saw and heard 
 and felt of this, the more his heart warmed to these 
 sentiments, and he felt assured that this was nothing 
 but the truth, the sound and genuine truth of nature, 
 and deserving of all homage. 
 
 The clergyman and Wagstaff might in an eve- 
 ning be mostly found together, and Charles had 
 only to seek the one to place himself in the company 
 of both. But he soon, with the assistance of the 
 clergyman, induced Seth to join them in a day's 
 shooting now and then ; and though at first he 
 handled a gun in a style which occasioned much 
 merriment at his expense, it was not long before he 
 showed that he could hit a hare or a partridge, as 
 well as he could knock down a specious sophism. 
 In these occasional rounds, or while they were fish- 
 ing together, or in their evening conversations at 
 home, they had a world of discourse on books, in 
 which they in the main agreed extremely well, — 
 though the clergyman and Seth often got into deep 
 though not noisy argument on points in which the 
 clergyman's educational or professional ideas found 
 no sympathy, and sometimes very little mercy, from 
 Seth. Indeed, young Middleton found that the 
 clergyman and AV'agstaff" differed vastly on many 
 points ; and when the clergyman and the squire also 
 were m the company, he and Seth were sure to be in
 
 THE squire's SOP^. 23 
 
 opposition to them on many questions; but when 
 Seth, himself, and his mother were together, it wa4 
 wonderful that they could hardly find matter of argu- 
 ment. There was a somethuig so peculiar in their 
 minds, that the more they pursued any subject of taste, 
 B8 of opinion, the more completely they agreed. 
 
 It was one of the greatest pleasures which these 
 three enjoyed, to compare their opinions of books, 
 or of religion and questions of humanity. Th^ro 
 seemed to grow among them, on such occasions, a 
 warmth and enlargement of heart, a spirit of union 
 and of pleasure, that approached near to their ideas 
 of heaven, and that inspired, without any words to 
 that effect, each individual bosom with a zeal for the 
 good of others, which was itself a high happiness. 
 
 Charles took great pleasure, too, in conversing with 
 Seth on the works of our best authors, and in fur- 
 nishing him with such as he had not read from the 
 library in the hall. By this means he greatly in- 
 creased the range of Seth's knowledge, and added to 
 the sterling wealth of his mind ; but the benefit 
 which he conferred was speedily more than repaid. 
 
 The justice's clerk soon began to see that young 
 Middleton possessed a very different and much higher 
 order of character than he had imagined, or than he 
 or any of his friends, except his mother, was aware 
 of. He had watched him closely, and listened to 
 him attentively, when any matter^which affected the 
 great principles of justice and humanity were under 
 «iiscussion ; and he soon perceived that the ardour
 
 24 THE squire's son. 
 
 with which he threw himself into every field-sport 
 and all ordinary pursuits was a grand part of hia 
 constitution, and displayed itself in everything 
 which seized his attention, and pre-eminently so 
 in all moral and great social questions. There was 
 in him a fire and an im^etaosity which might lead 
 their possessor, without proper guidance, into troubles 
 and personal feuds, hut which are great gifts of Pro- 
 vidence for the demolition of the creeping evils of 
 society, and for the advancement of the highest 
 victories of humanity, and with which no great 
 champion of truth and right ever went unprovided. 
 
 Charles had often attended at the justice-room ; 
 and while he watched with admiration the operations 
 of an intellect in Seth, as clear and sound as a bell, 
 by which, with wonderful apparent coolness and real 
 address, he had gently but firmly led the magistrates 
 to a just conclusion, Seth had not less observed, on 
 his part, the indignant impatience which had flushed 
 in his face, and betrayed itself in his whole frame, 
 when there seemed a danger of a partial decision 
 or infliction of severity on poverty, or a winking at 
 its righteous claims through the seductive influence 
 of wealth, friendship, or neighbourhood. 
 
 Charles Middleton, in fact, possessed a singular 
 mixture of the qualities of his parents. He had the 
 capacity and the reasoning powers which his father, 
 with a very inferior education, had always displayed 
 when he had been roused by any stiiring occasion to 
 their esfercise, and which, had they been cultivated
 
 THE squire's son. 26 
 
 and actively exercised, might have led him to fa? 
 greater honour and estate than he possessed. But 
 with his father's vigour of intellect, Charles possessed, 
 not exactly his apathy, for he was of a restless and 
 indefatigable character, but a certain carelessness of 
 business. Had any one, indeed, told the old gentle- 
 man that he himself had no real taste for business, 
 he would have felt much insulted, for there never 
 was a man who more regularly rode round his lands 
 and visited his mines ; but this, notwithstanding, did 
 not result from a love of business, but from a feeling 
 that it was necessary to prevent things going wrong. 
 Had the old gentleman really possessed a love of 
 business, with the spirit of enterprise which grows 
 Out of it, there had been opportunities in his life of 
 pushing his mining operations to an extent which 
 would have trebled his fortune. 
 
 Charles possessed the same feature of character. 
 He turned from all ideas of actual enterprise and 
 business with an inward and unconquerable repug- 
 nance. He knew that his paternal estate was good, 
 and he thought it easy to maintain it so ; and he 
 asked himself what he needed more. 
 
 But this did not result more from his partici- 
 pation in his father's temperament than in his 
 mother's. He had all the warmth and impatience 
 of disposition of her family, her quickness and sen- 
 Bitiveness of feeling. His contempt of folly or mean- 
 ness, his indignation against anything like injustice or 
 oppression of the vreak, his scorn of sophistry and de- 
 3
 
 26 THE SQL'IRE's son. 
 
 ception, were all his mother's. He had the same intense 
 love of the country, the same passionate admiration of 
 natural and intellectual beauty, the same innate ten- 
 derness of religious feeling, the same open, honest, 
 high, and incorruptible heart. With these he possessed 
 a much higher range of imagination — partly derived 
 from the stronger paternal organisation, and partly 
 because his imagination had been fed and expanded 
 by a wider stretch of reading, and a wider survey of 
 his native country in its finest portions. 
 
 A highly poetical feeling and a tendency to poetical 
 composition had more than once exhibited itself 
 in his mother's family, and there was not a more 
 genuine lover of poetry than his mother herself. 
 This temperament, unknown to himself, he had 
 inherited in a still greater degree. This showed 
 itself in his fondness for the country, even in its 
 sports ; for in fishing and shooting, the beauty and 
 solitude of the scenes into which they led aflfected 
 his imagination, as deeply as the excitement of the 
 chase roused all his ardour of temperament. It 
 showed itself not less in the journeys he had made 
 to most of the mountainous and more beautiful 
 scenery of his native country, especiall^y to such as 
 history or romance had clothed in their rainbow hues 
 — journeys, many of which, with young and joyous 
 companions, he had made on foot, and the memory of 
 which remained with him full of enchantment. 
 
 The great native talent, the strength of under- 
 standing, and the high moral pitch of his feeling, bad
 
 THE SQUIKEJs SON. ^ 
 
 none of them been lost on Seth Wagstaff ; and he 
 had often, in the arguments which they had held 
 with the old gentleman and the clergyman, listened 
 with wonder to the bursts of indignant eloquence 
 which Charles had poured out against what appeared 
 to him oppressive or unworth3\ 
 
 *' That would make a fine sensation in the Court 
 of Common Pleas, in a right cause," Wagstaff would 
 say to himself, and thereafter fall into sundry reflec- 
 tions. These reflections often repeated, as repeated 
 occasions gave rise to them, led him at last to 
 the conclusion that Charles Middleton was capable 
 of something much greater and better than merely 
 to live on his estate, and waste all his vast amount 
 of passion, feeling, and sense on subjects that were 
 not adequately important. 
 
 One evening Charles had been ardently declaiming 
 against the treatment of a young man who had been 
 summoned by a wealthy farmer before the magistrates 
 for an assault, and convicted and fined for it, though 
 it appeared as clear as daylight to Charles that it 
 was the farmer himself who was really guilty of the 
 assault , and though he saw that Wagstaff was of the 
 same opinion, but could get from his father no other 
 idea than the one expressed in his frequent exclamation, 
 " What 1 Farmer Greatrake capable of an assault !" 
 
 It was when Charles had just uttered an indig- 
 nant protest against taking conventional notions instead 
 of plain fact, that Seth suddenly said, — " Mr. Mid- 
 dleton, why don't you make Mr. Charles a lawyer ?*
 
 28 THE squire's son. 
 
 " A lawyer ?" exclaimed the squire, with surprise, 
 and as indignant in his turn as his son had been ; foi 
 he was somewhat ruffled by the plain-speaking of 
 Charles, especially before the clergyman and his own 
 clerk, and more especially as he began to have a 
 secret feeling that his son was right after all, and 
 that, out of preconceived fiiith in Farmer Greatrake's 
 respectability he had very probably done injustice 
 to an innocent person — and there is nothing which 
 makes a person so angry as such a feeling. " A 
 lawyer?" repeated he, kicking away a sleeping 
 pointer that lay at his feet before the fire, and 
 pressed somewhat heavily against the old gentle- 
 man's toe ; "and why so? Are there not rogues enough 
 already in your profession, Master WagstafF ?" 
 
 " Why," said A^agstaff without betraying the 
 slightest symptom of having given or taken offence, 
 though he saw a deep flush mount into Charles's 
 face at his father's words, " it is for that very reason 
 that I should like to see Mr. Charles a lawyer. A 
 rogue he neither would nor could add to the number ; 
 it is out of his nature ; but he might, and very likely 
 would, add a Lord Chancellor to the list of great 
 men that have adorned the woolsack." 
 
 " A Lord Chancellor !" said the squire again ; 
 " stuff and nonsense ! Lord Chancellors, let me 
 tell you, are not so soon made. With all deference 
 to Charles, and his mother too, he has too much of 
 the Weston blood in him to make a good lawyer." 
 
 " Thank you, my dear/' said Mrs. Middleton, with
 
 THE squire's son. 2S 
 
 a pleasant nod and smile, as she sat quietly listening 
 to the conversation at her work- table. 
 
 " What I say is true, my dear," continued the 
 squire, but in a milder tone. " A Lord Chancellor 
 in our family would sound wondrous well ; but my 
 ojnnion of Charles is, that he is just the last man to 
 malce one cut of. Lord bless me ! ^V^hy, if he had 
 once a wig and a gown on, he would kick up a 
 pretty riot at the bar. He would beard the judge 
 on the bench, if he did not agree with him in his 
 opinion, and tax every brother barrister with being 
 a mean, venal, fellow who undertook a cause which, 
 to his fancy, was not all virtue and honour, and I 
 know not what. Is that the way to the woolsack ?" 
 
 The old clergyman smiled. Charles and his 
 mother both laughed outright, for they felt that 
 there was a good deal of truth in the squire's descrip- 
 tion of his son's hasty temperament. Seth WagstafF 
 even smiled too, but drummed gently with his fingers 
 on the table near him, which was as much as to say, 
 that he could add something now if it would do any 
 good. But the conversation was not continued, for 
 the clergyman's maid came to say that he was wanted, 
 and he and Seth went home together. 
 
 " You had rather the worst of it with the squire 
 the other evening, about the woolsack," said the 
 clergyman, a day or two after, as he drew a chair 
 to Seth AVagstafF's fireside, and took his seat, giving 
 Seth, who sat with a book in one hand, and a pipe 
 in the other, a gentle pat on the shoulder.
 
 30 THE squire's son. 
 
 "Not a bit of it," answered 6eth ; "the squire 
 was right enough on one side of the question, and I 
 was equally right on the other ; but it was just then 
 no use arguing the matter. Mr. Charles has great 
 impatience of what he deems mean or wa'ong, and 
 that, without he learns caution, will make him bitter 
 enemies. He has great sense, and the law is just 
 Ae school to strengthen that sense, and to show him 
 file danger of rashness. He would soon, I trust, 
 learn that no man single-handed can reform the 
 whole world, and root- all meanness aud wickedness 
 out of it. A few raps would make him circum- 
 spect, and yet would leave alive in him that generous 
 fire of virtuous indignation which on great occasions 
 would wither u p villany, and champion oppressed virtue, 
 in the most triumphant style. Passion is the food of 
 eloquence, and, united to a fine and high moral sense, 
 is, where there is sense to use it, one of the noblest 
 weapons put by Providence into the keeping of man. 
 Besides, all that irritability which is inherent in the 
 constitution of our young friend, if 1 may presume to 
 call him so, must have a vent, a scope, a field of 
 exercise in which virtuously and usefully to work 
 itself off. The courts of law are this field, where 
 talent and eloquence find daily occasion for battle 
 against meanness, selfishness, and cunning — and that 
 in behalf of the weak, the young, the inexperienced, 
 and the good. By the time that our young friend 
 reached the bench he would have had ample occasion 
 of this kind, for the public is never unobservant of
 
 THE squire's son. 3J 
 
 the right man ; and his mind and his feelings must ^ 
 
 liave acquired a staid, philosophical calm, which, with 
 that pure conscience which Mr. Charles derive* 
 from his mother, and which nothing, I am per- 
 suaded, could corrupt, would produce a judge — " 
 
 " Like another Sir Matthew Hale !" interrupted 
 the old clergyman, smiling. " Upon my word, 
 Wagstaff, you grow quite poetical ; but your castle 
 in the air has no handful of earth in this world to 
 stand upon. Mr. Cliarles will never study the law; 
 he must study mathematics ; they are the thing to 
 steady, and cool a man's judgment !" 
 
 " And he won't study mathematics !" said Setb, 
 with something more than his usual sharpness. 
 
 " Why not?" asked the clergyman; " why 
 shouldn't he ?" 
 
 " And why shouldn't he study law ?" rejoined 
 Seth. 
 
 " Because he won't," rejoined the clergyman ; 
 " and that's why." 
 
 Seth burst out a-laughing : the old clergyman 
 laughed as heartily, and then added — 
 
 " I hope, WagstafF, J'ou find my logic very good ; 
 but, to leave laughter and contradiction, see here. 
 Mr. Charles has a good estate ; and, as far as I can 
 see, though he has much fire and feeling, he has no 
 ambition. The law is a bother ; and when a man 
 has an estate, what need he bother himself?" 
 
 " Because," interrupted Seth, " he may mako that 
 estate — "
 
 S2 THE squire's SOX. 
 
 " Ay, ay — I know what you would say ; he may 
 make that estate a vast deal bigger at the expense of 
 fools — " Seth nodded. " ^Vell, don't interrupt nie then 
 — that I know; but to do that he must go away 
 from home — " Seth nodded again. " WagstafF," said 
 the good old Mr. Millard, " you get tiresome. I 
 think Mr. Charles has inoculated you with his im- 
 patience; how you do interrupt me !" 
 
 '• I said nothing," quietly uttered Seth. 
 
 " Said ! there now, are you not talking again ? 
 Well, to study the law, Mr. Charles must go to Lon- 
 don for at least three years ; he must make up his 
 mind to live there chiefly afterwards. Now, that is 
 not to his taste. He doesn't want that — his mother 
 doesn't want it — and there is no need of it. But 
 mathematics — these he can study here ; you and I 
 can assist him in these. He need not budge a foot ; 
 they will cool his mind, strengthen his judgment ; 
 and, by-the-bye, if he need what you call a noble 
 exercise of his faculties, let him take orders." 
 
 " Take orders!" said Seth, staring at the clergy- 
 man. 
 
 " Yes, take orders ! One flay he will he master 
 and magistrate here ; why not clergyman also ? — and 
 then surely you have an accumulation of duties, great 
 and godlike enough for the employment of any man, 
 or the exercise of any faculties." 
 
 " Ay, too many duties," said Seth, " to be united 
 in one man." 
 
 "Well, then, Wagstaff— well, thenl" said the
 
 THE SQUIRES SON. 3o 
 
 rector, triumphantly ; "let him study mathematics, 
 and not take orders. He will still — " 
 
 " To make short of it," interrupted Seth, "he won't 
 Btudy your mathematics at all ! He hates all calcu- 
 lation as he hates— Satan," added he, after being just 
 on the point of using a worse name. 
 
 '' That's a pity," said the rector, with a shake of 
 the head and a sadder look ; " and yet I am afpaid it 
 is too true. I am sorry to find he has not paid much 
 attention to these studies at Oxford, though in clas- 
 sical ones, and in all that relates to history and general 
 literature, he has made great progress." 
 
 " Ay," said Seth, " that is because in these he finds 
 food for his imagination and his feelings ; he could 
 be by no possibility raised to a senior wrangler, but 
 a judge or a Lord Chancellor — " 
 
 The rector rose, with " Well, well," and began 
 talking of the chill, rainy weather, which, in the 
 middle of summer, made it necessary even to have 
 a fire — and so went away ; but Seth had got his Lord 
 Chancellor so far into his head, that it was not long 
 before he found an opportunity to broach his theory 
 to Charles himself. 
 
 As he was relating, therefore, to Seth the exploits 
 and excitement of a late otter-hunting with some of 
 his young friends, and thence ran on in great praise 
 of all the pleasures of a country-life, Seth sympathised 
 with him : said it was a fine thing to have a good 
 estate, and to be capable of enjoy ingaU the stirring pur- 
 suits of English rural life, but that he often wondered
 
 34 THE squire's sow. 
 
 that Mr. Charles did not get a notion of adding a stiFi 
 higher kind of pleasure to this life — that of serving 
 his country in some great capacit}-, such as his talents 
 and zealous constitution might dictate to him ; and 
 then he "svent on to describe what he might effect in 
 the law — what wealth and distinction he might add 
 to the family estate and name. AV^hat a fine thing 
 it would be, if he himself should be the means of 
 winning a peerage for his house ; of giving his cliil- 
 dren a great and permanent stand in the country ; 
 and, at the same time, of becoming himself a foun- 
 tain, not merely of all this to his own family, but of 
 many blessings and comforts to thousands of others. 
 He drew a most splendid picture of the triumphs of 
 intellect and eloquence in the courts of law; of quail- 
 ing vice and villany ; of maintaining the cause of the 
 injured and the virtuous ; and of sitting as the 
 righteous and honoured dispenser of the laws of 
 his country. 
 
 To all this Charles listened with wonder, and some 
 little amusement, till Seth began to talk of the wool- 
 sack, when he could contam no longer, but burst out 
 into a fit of the heartiest laughter. 
 
 " Me, are you talking of, Seth ? I, Lord Chan- 
 cellor I" said he. "My good Wagstaff, get bled 
 immediately, or get one of my mother's sedative 
 powders." 
 
 Charles ran off to amuse his mother with Wag- 
 staff's romance. 
 
 His mother was equally merry over it, but added
 
 THE SQUtRfi's SOK. 35 
 
 that the vision of the woolsack was not, in her 
 opinion, so ridiculous as he supposed it. It had been, 
 and would be again, the prize of talent and perse- 
 varance; and she had no donl)t that Charles had 
 enough of both these qualities to raise him to great 
 distinction if he chose so to apply them. " But," 
 added she, " you have a fine estate here ; you can do 
 much good, and lead an honourable life, here ; and I 
 hope you will never think of leaving us." 
 
 Charles thought his mother almost as mad as Seth ; 
 and on telling the rector, to amuse him, with their 
 notions of his capabilities, was not the less diverted 
 at the worthy old man's desire, that he should study 
 the mathematics and take orders. 
 
 But though he laughed at these things, they had 
 nevertheless their effect. He began to reflect on the 
 future prospects of his life; to ask himself whetheir 
 he reall}'^ were capable of something higher, and more 
 serviceable to his fellow-men, than a mere country 
 gentleman ? The fuel of honourable ambition, which 
 had till then lain unnoticed in his bosom, had caught 
 the kindling spark : new feelings rushed over him, 
 and a new world opened before him. He became 
 conscious of fears and anxieties, of hopes and aspira- 
 tions, which he till then had never experienced. 
 The light heart of thoughtless youth was gone for 
 ever; care cast its nameless, dim, but indelible 
 shadow on his brow ; and a melancholy, out of which 
 was to rise a new ardour and enterprise of life, hung 
 with a novel strangeness about him. He became
 
 S6 THE squire's son. 
 
 silent and thoughtful. His mother was the first to 
 notice it, and ask if he were not well ; his father 
 noticed it too, and added that he thought he was 
 hypped by the dull weather and the dull time of the 
 year, as he called it, when no field-sports were going 
 on, and advised him to make a journey to see some 
 of his young friends, or to the sea-side. The clergy- 
 man said he really hoped he was beginning to think 
 of studying the mathematics and taking orders ; and 
 Seth hoped that he was thinking of the woolsack. 
 
 It was neither orders nor the woolsack which dis- 
 turbed him. He cast both from him as dreams and 
 fancies with which he had nothing to do ; hut he was 
 not the less miserable. His mind was in a state of 
 fermentation without light, of aspiration without any 
 distinctness. He made his gun his excuse, and 
 wandered for days in the woods ; or rather, he sat 
 and pondered there for hours together, while his 
 terriers lay at his feet and whined with impatience. 
 He was in that most wretched of mental conditions, 
 when the heart has acquired a discontent with its 
 present lot — when the man looks on himself as an atom 
 without value in the creation, and has not yet caught 
 hold of the little clue which is to guide to the open 
 day of hope and honourable exertion. Seth Wagstaflf 
 was to be the lucky instrument to help him to this.
 
 sy 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE JUSTICE S CLERK. 
 
 At the bottom of Middleton Park hung a steep and 
 rounded slope over the little river Erwash, which 
 went wandering on with many windings down an ex- 
 tensive and beautiful vale. Behind, the woods came 
 down in fine masses, and with still opening glades 
 here and there of the loveliest aspect. The land- 
 scape stretching out before was this wide and extensive 
 valley, in Avliich the network of fences and hedgerow- 
 trees divided fields of the richest cultivation. Busy 
 mills turned their sails on distant heights, and villages 
 lay scattered at intervals as far as the eye could 
 reach. Up the vale to the left the blue range of the 
 Peak mountains showed themselves, clad in the 
 brighter or diirker hues of the sky, as the day might 
 be, but always etherial and beautiful. On the knoll 
 from which all this was seen, the turf was short and 
 softly elastic, nature's own velvet. . The fern grew 
 here and there, giving a genuine forest-look to the 
 scene ; and when any one had been there some time, 
 and perfectly still, numbers of rabbits would turn 
 out of their burrows and run about — the pheasant 
 would crow to his mate — and the silent hare or the 
 noisy woodpecker add their charms to those of the 
 llfeoding wood and rippling river. 
 
 This was f spot which had caught Seth WagstafTi 
 4
 
 88 THE JUSTICE S CLERK. 
 
 fancy the very first time that he had traversed the 
 park; and he had requested leave to put down abencli 
 there. His discernment had been liighly praised by 
 every member of the family and the clergyman ; and 
 often as one or more of these individuals walked in 
 the park, did they diverge to this lovely spot, and sit 
 and enjoy for a while the landscape. Seth himself 
 was a great frequenter of it, early and late ; and more 
 than once the remains of a pipe seen near the bench 
 had amused them, and led them to say, " See, Seth 
 has been here." 
 
 It was a splendid summer afternoon as Charles, 
 one day, returning from the woods with his gun on 
 his arm, approached this spot. The rain and dull 
 cloudy sky had disappeared ; a still, glowing sunshine 
 lay over everything. The w^oods, the earth, every 
 object, wasfresh with the late rains: and fresh odours 
 rose up and mingled themselves from leaf and fern, 
 from flower and sward, with a delicious care-expel- 
 ling efficacy. Charles paused a moment ere he issued 
 from beneath the shade of the oaken boughs, looked 
 on the deep blue sky above and the lovely seclusion 
 before him, and felt lighter at heart. At a second 
 glance he beheld ^7agstaff seated on his favourite 
 bench and deeply absorbed in a book. So deeply, in- 
 deed, was he absorbed, that he was quite unaware of 
 Charles's approach on the silent turf; and it was only 
 when, standing close by him, he said, " What book 
 have you there so entertaining, Wagstaff?" that ho 
 looked up and replied : —
 
 TllK JISIICKS CLEIIK. 39 
 
 " "What book have I got ? A glorious Lew poem 
 of Rogers'. Here, sit down ; it is a treat for a sum- 
 mer's day, such as does not often come in one's life; 
 This is just the place to feel all its natural and quiet, 
 yet high and stirring beauty. It is called ' Human 
 Life ;' but it is human life seen through the halo of 
 a great and exalted spirit. It reminds one of sculp- 
 ture, Avith its pure and elevated and intellectual life ; 
 but it has no marble coldness about it — it is full of 
 soul and feeling as the human heart itself. How can 
 people say that Rogers wants passion and vigour ? 
 How can anything be so destitute of rant and bra- 
 vura^ and yet so glowing and inspiring, as this ? It 
 makes me glory that I am a man ; that I have a 
 portion in this human life, with its loves and its 
 sorrows, its wars and its strivings, and its virtuous 
 and glorious principles ? Hear this ! '' and Wagstaff 
 begun reading with all his heart and soul passage 
 after passage, while Charles Middleton became more 
 and more intent, more and more wrapped in it ; and 
 as Setli sounded out, in his most sonorous and impas- 
 sioned manner, the passages in which the youth has 
 arrived at manhood, and everything around him cries 
 " Aspire !" Charles Midileton's eye kindled, and hia 
 cheeks flushed, and he exclaimed, " Thank God, I 
 am a man ! " 
 
 Seth rose from his seat with a glance of triumph 
 in his eye, which he fixed full on Charles, and, in- 
 spired to the abandonment of his usual quiet manner, 
 he lifted the book aloud, and cried, " Ay, thank
 
 40 THE justice's CLERK. 
 
 God, thank God, we are men ! and thank him ten- 
 fold for the poet who stirs God's spirit in us, and 
 makes us feel that we are men, and that it is a glo- 
 rious privilege to live and strive and overcome !" 
 
 Charles seemed to hear the poet himself in Seth. 
 He seized one side of the book, Seth Wagstaff kept 
 firm hold of the other ; and as they stood thus toge- 
 ther, he still went on reading aloud, how the young 
 man fights in the field, glorious as the virtuous 
 patriot, or defends himself in the court, still more 
 glorious, as the suffering martyr of the constitution ; 
 how the pen in his hand becomes the golden arrow 
 of liberty, or in the senate he breathes word§ of 
 power and freedom. 
 
 At the latter passage, Middleton let go his hold of 
 the volume ; a paleness came over his face, and he 
 exclaimed, " Now I see it !" 
 
 "See what?" said Seth, suddenly pausing and 
 gazing in wonder on his changed expression. 
 
 " I see life in its greatness and nobility ; I see my 
 own path ; I know my own duty. Away despon- 
 dency ; away fear. All is now light and bright before 
 me. And, Wagstaff," said he, with a solemn voice 
 and full of emotion, " what do I not owe you !" 
 
 " Nothing, nothing, do you owe me, my dear 
 Charles." said Seth, forgetting his usual attention to 
 the distinction of ranks, and looking rather on his 
 companion as a man and a friend ; " say, rather, that 
 you owe much to the poet ! " 
 
 " To both !" replied Middleton, as he gave Seth a
 
 THE JUSTICk's CLERK. 41 
 
 warm grasp of the hand, wliich he ardently returned, 
 and then the two silently pursued the way homewards, 
 
 From that day Seth WagstafF was firmly con- 
 vinced in his own mind tliat Charles Middleton had 
 resolved to devote himself to a legal career, and that 
 he should some day have to hail him as Lord Chan- 
 cellor. 
 
 A great change was perceptible in the conduct and 
 bearing of the young man. He was cheerful, but 
 with a different kind of cheerfulness to what had 
 been his wont. He was cheerful and yet thoughtful. 
 There was nothing which would be mistaken for want 
 of health or spirits about him. He rode, walked, 
 enjoyed the society of his friends, but through all, 
 one train of thought was working in his mind. 
 
 It was not, however, till some time afterwards, 
 that he spoke to Wagstaff on the subject of these 
 thoughts, and in so doing demolished at a blow all 
 his golden dreams of the Woolsack. He told him 
 he had now considered well his own character and 
 duty, and he had concluded not to devote himself to 
 any profession, but as an English gentleman to advo- 
 cate the cause of his country and countrymen, by 
 tongue or by pen, as time and circumstances should 
 present him with the fitting occasions. He conceived 
 that there were only too many abuses existing in 
 society, which it became a worthy man to expose and 
 assail, and that true fame and the reward of an ap- 
 proving conscience might yet be amply earned by a 
 pen dedicated to the best interests of his countrymen.
 
 42 THK JUSTICES CLERK. 
 
 Seth Wag^stafF sighed over the fallen image of his 
 Lord (/hancellor, but still admitted that much good 
 and honour might be achieved by a place in Parlia- 
 ment, which he supposed Mr. Charles in part alluded 
 to. (Charles admitted that he did ; and that to qua- 
 lify him for judging bettei* of the condition and needs 
 of his own country, he meant, in the first place, 
 to see a little of others. 
 
 One of his most intimate friends at Oxford had 
 been the young Lord Forrester, and another Sir 
 Henry Wilmot. These two young men were prepar- 
 ing to set out on a tour through France and Italy, 
 and Charles immediately requested his father's per- 
 mission to join them, which was readily granted him. 
 
 In a few weeks the time for their departure had 
 arrived. Charles took leave of his parents, the 
 rector, and Seth VV'agstafF, and was soon, with his 
 young friends, treading, the shores of France. These 
 two young men had become at college great com- 
 l^anions of his, much in the same way as such com- 
 panionships are usually made. It was not that they 
 were so much of similar dispositions, but because 
 they came out of the same part of the country, 
 where their families were well known to each other. 
 They had a common knowledge of the same persons, 
 places, and interests. They, too, were at that age when 
 acquaintance does not so much grow out of a compari- 
 son of each other's qualities or talents ; for in early 
 years, those qualities which may be considered as the 
 great roots of the futuic, fixed character, lie ofteK
 
 THE justice's clerk. 43 
 
 unseen, and often indeed undeveloped, beneath the 
 more prominent and general love of gaiety and 
 amusement. It was this common relish for the 
 amusements of youth, which, with the local causes 
 adverted to, brought these youths together, among a 
 numl)er of others of equal age and taste, and gave 
 them the name of friends. They all looked on them- 
 selves and one another as young men of fortune, who 
 had no occasion to bother their brains, as they termed 
 it, with too much study, and had a fund of perpetual 
 conversation in their love of horses, dogs, and sports. 
 
 They, indeed, promised themselves a lifelong 
 friendship from the proximity of their future resi- 
 dences, and a world of delight in the pursuance of 
 these pleasures. They believed that they were as 
 great friends as ever were recorded in history or 
 poetry, while, in fact, they knew no more of one 
 another's master passions, which the pride and the 
 interests of the world would call forth in coming years 
 with startling violence, than if such passions did not 
 exist. They were all what they termed hearty 
 good fellows, and that was enough for them. 
 
 But, in reality, both the habits and the intellec- 
 tual qualities of these young men were very different. 
 The constitution and character of Charles Middleton 
 we have become pretty well acquainted with. Ho 
 had powerful passions, quick feelings, a high tone of 
 mind, and abilities capable of great things. He had, 
 from a real love of knowledge, while enjuying all the 
 relaxations of youth and society, by native quick •
 
 44 THE justice's clerk. 
 
 ness, and in all his private houi-s, made great use ol 
 his college advantages, and laid up much intellectual 
 wealth, and much accomplishment. He must of 
 necessity become a good and great, or most miserable, 
 man. His own zeal and energy must diffuse them- 
 selves far and wide for the good of his fellows, or be 
 blown, like flames in a forest on fire, back on him- 
 self with a consuming and annihilating strength. 
 
 Lord Forrester, on the contrary, had, in truth, no 
 originality of mind, but yet a great deal of shrewd 
 plain sense ; and the maxim then most frequently in 
 his mouth was, " That no sense was like common 
 sense." His passions, which were rather strong than 
 violent or hasty, were always under the control of 
 his understanding, and his understanding always led 
 him to consider what became him as Loi'd Forrester, 
 or was for, what he termed, his real good. 
 
 He was tall ; of a somewhat large make, and had 
 a handsome face, and a frank, hearty manner, which 
 made everywhere an instant and very agreeable im- 
 pression. Everybody praised him as a young noble- 
 man who had no pride whatever ; but in that they 
 were greatly mistaken. He had great pride in his 
 birth and station, and in that splendid earldom which 
 he looked forward to as one day becoming his ; but 
 he knew too well that it became him, and suited his 
 purposes, to seem to count nothing on them, though 
 he never said so. If any one had studied him only 
 a little closely, they would have seen that he had no 
 small share of ambition ; with all his frankness and
 
 THE JUSTICE S CLERK. 4i 
 
 jollity, he always contrived to be the head and leader 
 of everything. He was as cordial to all the young 
 men of his acquaintance, who were of much inferior 
 rank and expectations, as he was to the highest ; but 
 then he thus made these young men liis fast allies, 
 and, in reality, servants; for they did at his sug- 
 gestion all that ever he wanted doing or managing ; 
 Charles Middleton he really liked greatly, and very 
 much admired. He saw better "l^han any other of 
 their comrades the talents and fine tastes in him, and 
 what he was capable of. He used, indeed, often to 
 ridicule Charles's indignation against mean actions, 
 and call him the modern Cato ; or his purity of cha- 
 racter, and term him Scipio the younger ; but, at the 
 same time, he fully remarked the spontaneous exu- 
 berance of fine thoughts and feelings, which gushed 
 from him, as it were, on all sides, like light from a 
 golden lamp, or sunshine through the clouds. He 
 looked upon him as a genial and gifted nature, which 
 gave a grace to his friendship, and within whose 
 influence it was pleasant to live. Besides, he had an 
 idea that much of this grace and those ideas might 
 be gathered up or imitated, and a better observer 
 than the youths any of them were would have re- 
 marked plenty of this. 
 
 They liad in the city ^ debating society, where 
 they discussed a variety of topics, in order to pre- 
 pare themselves for those senatorial duties which in 
 after life might fall to their exercise. In these, Lord 
 Forrester exhibited a fine style of declamation ; bul
 
 46 THE justice's clerk. 
 
 Middleton, a brilliant and impetuous eloquence. In 
 the one case it was genius, in the other common- 
 place ; yet it was wonderful to see what effect Lord 
 Forrester produced with his common-places, properly 
 handled, and by his cool and commanding manner, 
 while Middleton either made a great and decided 
 sensation, or as decided a failure. If the subject did 
 not warm and carry him out of himself, he* was 
 nothing. He hesitated, bungled, grew confused, and 
 sat down. Loi-d Forrester would soon after tal«e up the 
 same topic, and with the very sparks and scintillations 
 which Middleton, in the very midst of his cloudiness, 
 had let drop, would work out a most imposing ha- 
 rangue, and carry off the applause of the audience. 
 
 Wilmot was a much inferior, and, in fact, a some- 
 what insignificant character. He was slender in 
 figure, with a handsome face, wore large and well- 
 cultivated whiskers, dressed with much style, was a 
 very graceful horseman, and perfectly au fait in all 
 that related to field-sports. He had a sort of instinct 
 in the perfection of horses and dogs, was a great 
 admirer of the ladies, and a devoted dancer. But 
 as to mind, he could be said to have but little mind 
 at all beyond these matters. He professed to admire 
 the classic authors and the great poets of his own 
 country, because Forrester and Middleton admired 
 them, and he could talk on matters of general litera- 
 ture to those who had no deep acquaintance with 
 them tolerably well, on the strength of the very 
 shallow light wliich had dropped into his small
 
 THE justice's CLERK. 47 
 
 mind from the discussions of these, his friends. Hig 
 great recommecdation was his excessive good nature, 
 which consisted in his being led about just where 
 stronger heads chose to take him. He was, in fact, 
 the shadoAV and factotum of Forrestei, to whom he 
 was related ; and " my friend Forrester," and " my 
 cousin Forrester," were phrases which he might be 
 said to have stereotyped. 
 
 Such were the companions with whicn Charlea 
 Middletoti set out for the Continent. We shall not 
 follow them on their track more than to state that 
 they agreed most admirably on the whole way. In 
 all that related to their equipage and modes of con- 
 veyance, their comfort at inns, and their selections 
 of lodgings during their adode in the different capitals, 
 "Wilmot, wuth his courier, was most active and effi- 
 cient. In all that related to the pleasures that they 
 were to partake, and the great men of the day that 
 they were to see, Forrester, with his heap of intro- 
 ductory letters, was the leader ; in all that had regard 
 to the fine arts, to the beauties of scenery, to the archi- 
 tecture and productions of various cities, to the anti- 
 quities and the manners of each country, Charles 
 Middleton was the director. He found everywhere 
 boundless food for curiosity, for imagination, and 
 reflection. He came home with enlarged views of 
 the world in which he lived, and with his»poetical 
 and intellectual tendencies still more deeply rooted, 
 strengthened, and refined. 
 
 But as to that insight into men and manners whicb
 
 48 THE justice's clerk. 
 
 travel is so much extolfed for imparting, we really 
 cannot say that our friend Charles had possessed 
 himself of such an amount of that valuable experi- 
 ence as he might flatter himself he had. We are of 
 opinion that the insight derived from travel is, in this 
 respect, much over-rated. That young travellers 
 see great multitudes of men, and a great variety of 
 curious manners, is true enough, and useful enough, 
 when compared with what they see at home ; but 
 that they see much farther into that curious machme, 
 the human heart, than they did before, is greatly to 
 be doubted. They go as strangers, and are regarded 
 as strangers ; they are received with politeness, and 
 shown what it is supposed will gratify them, or give 
 them the highest idea of the country itself; but they 
 are mere birds of passage, here to-day and gone to- 
 morrow, and have no more to do with the crush, and 
 crookedness of passion, and conflicting interests, which 
 are working below the surface of society, than the 
 trees have which grow at the foot of Etna or on the 
 tombs of the CcPsars with what is lying underneath. 
 One short hour in their own country, where they 
 really come into the jostle of human life, as into the 
 vortex of a whirlpool, will show them more of man 
 and his real nature than all their foreign watchings 
 and wanderings put together. 
 
 With all Charles Middleton's acquisitions of know- 
 ledge at home, or the countries he had now for 
 twelve months travelled in, he had yet but small 
 experience of human nature, and was possessed, as
 
 THE justice's CLERK. 49 
 
 we have seen, of a dispositic^ sure to secure him some 
 severe shocks on his way into the real business of life. 
 
 Beyond all this, he had two most dangerous pro- 
 pensities; a thorough open-heartedness, and a dis- 
 position to imagine people all that he wished them 
 to be, "What delighted himself, he was wont to ex- 
 patiate on with all the zeal and energy of his heart. 
 He was anxious that thos around him should feel 
 as he did; and to be in the vicinity of those he 
 called friends, Tvas to him guarantee enough that he' 
 spoke v/ith perfect safety. The experience ofliis 
 journey might have taught him a lesson for life. 
 
 The three friends were now hastening homeward. 
 They were full of what they had heard and seen. 
 Charles Middletun, especially, was all enthusiasm. 
 Visions of England and his future life there rose be- 
 fore him, beautiful as the snowy summits and sublime 
 fronts of the Alps had shortly before stood forth iu 
 the eternal silence of the sky. Spite of Hie gaiety 
 and the military renown of France, of the Elysian 
 beauty and glorious remains of art in Italy, the poli- 
 tical and moral grandeur of his native land grew 
 magnificent on his mind. It seemed the only land 
 where, since Greece and Rome passed away, free men 
 could exert all the powers of their nature, and labour 
 for the common good, and wield interests worthy of 
 humanity and immortal minds. He talked freely, 
 warmly, and eloquently, of all that he proposed to 
 do and to aspire to. 
 
 Lord Forrester professed to think with and to
 
 50 THE JUSTICES CLERK 
 
 sympathize with him, and declared that he would 
 enter into a generous political rivalry with him, a 
 rivalry only for the higher honour, and worthy of 
 their friendship. Wilmot smiled, and applauded. 
 He declared that it would always be the pride of his 
 life tp be tlie friend of two men who, he was certain, 
 would so highly distinguish themselves ; but for him- 
 self, he looked for a much humbler, but hehoped.not 
 less happy, career. It was as an English gentle- 
 man, already in possession of his own fortune, to 
 marry the woman of his heart, and to pass his days 
 in the enjoyment of all those active pleasures, and 
 those refined and domestic ones, which English rural 
 life, above all others in the world, combined in 
 itself. 
 
 " Bravo, ^Vilmot ! bravo ! " cried Forrester, " a 
 beautiful and very attractive little world you have 
 planned for yourself! But what do you take us for? 
 Are we t^ enjoy none of these things? Are we to 
 have no admittance into the English paradise of 
 home and rurality ? Do you think we are dead to all 
 the fine eyes that are beaming, and all the dear 
 amiable hearts that are beating, in Old England, be- 
 cause we love to dash a little into the troubled waters 
 of politics ? jVIy good fellow, do not you imagine, 
 by any means, that you are going to be left alone in 
 the possession of these good things ! I am sure our 
 warm-hearted friend Middleton here, amongst hia 
 other visions, has one of a very lovely and fascinating 
 somebody flitting about his future home : And, by
 
 THE justice's clerk. 61 
 
 the bye, who now are the ladies of our acquaintance 
 that at present appear most of divinities to eauh of 
 usi" 
 
 The young men then fell on the subject of the 
 ladies as zealously as they had done on that of states- 
 manship. Lord Forrester ran over five or six of high 
 rank, all of whom he declared most glorious creatures, 
 but protested that they had so many recommenda- 
 tions of one kind or other, that it was quite beyond 
 his power to decide for any one of them. This one 
 had so much grace : that, so much beauty ; a third, 
 so much sense ; and a fourth, such a splendid estate, 
 that it was enough to craze a mind like his with 
 balancing one thing against another. 
 
 Wilmot, as usual, echoed his lordship's opinion, 
 but added that it was not for him, a mere baronet, 
 to look so cavalierly about him ; and he drew a very 
 sentimental picture of the sort of wife he should like, 
 without naming any one. 
 
 Charles Middleton, with his wonted frankness, 
 warmly vowed, that, spite of the attractions that 
 Lord Forrester had set in array, there was the 
 daughter of a simple esquire with whom he had been, 
 acquainted about a year, who possessed more beauty, 
 and witli it more of the sunny charm of a loving and 
 lively mind than were requisite to fill the home of 
 any man, bo he squire, baronet, or earl, with a life- 
 long felicity ! 
 
 He then went on to speak of this lady in such 
 leruis, that Wilmot at length exclaimed, *' Egad,
 
 52 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINGTON. 
 
 Middleton! yours is the true pearl, after all; take 
 heed I don't run away with her ! " 
 
 The conversation was ended with some sprightly 
 jokes and sparring of wits, and was never after 
 renewed. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINGTON. 
 
 Scarcely had Charles Middleton reached home 
 and embraced his mother, and shaken hands with his 
 old friends, when Seth WagstafF told him he was 
 come in the true nick of time ; that the neighbouring 
 borough of Stockington was vacant, and that he had 
 sounded the leaders of the Whig party for him, and 
 they were eager to have him as a candidate. He 
 added, that his father was quite disposed to his com- 
 ing forward, and ready to support liim with the re- 
 quisite funds. In fact, the old gentleman had his 
 own portion of pride, and was no little gratified with 
 the idea of his son figuring in parliament. 
 
 The thing startled Charles with its unexpected 
 suddenness ; but it was the very honour to which he 
 liad resolved to aspire, and therefore, after a day's 
 reflection, he consented to put himself in communica- 
 tion with the electors. He was informed that he was 
 likely to be opposed by Sir Thomas Clayfield, a stiff, 
 uncompromising Tory, but a man of no character or 
 ability, and therefore not to be feared. It was taken
 
 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINOTON. 53 
 
 for granted that he Mas a ^Vhig, though, for his part, 
 ho had never reflected whether he was Whig, Tory, 
 or Radical. All lie knew, was, that he was for the 
 reform of all acknowledged abuses, for the mainte- 
 nance of the constitution, and the good of the people 
 at large. " Yes, yes," said the agents of the party, 
 *' that is AVhiggism, sound constitutional Whiggism \" 
 
 On the great and leading questions on which he 
 would have to explain himself, he was soon instructed 
 by Scth ^V'agstafF, and found that they sufficiently 
 agreed with his own notions of right and truth, to 
 allow him conscientiously to stand. His name was 
 announced, and the news flew like wildfire through ' 
 the country. There was, somehow, a high idea 
 abroad of his talents and his character, and the 
 greatest enthusiasm was manifest. 
 
 The handbills he issued, and the letters which he 
 addressed to the elector? through the newspapers, 
 containing his proposal to represent the borougli of 
 Stockington, were greatly admired as specimens of 
 manly eloquence. 
 
 The important day of nomination arrived, and on 
 the hustings Charles Middleton beheld as his oppo- 
 nent, not Sir Thomas Clayfield, but — Lord Forres- 
 ter ! His astonishment may be imagined ; — at first, 
 though it seemed strange to him, he thought Lord 
 Forrester had appeared merely to nominate Sir 
 Thomas Clavfield, but a moment cleared away that 
 mistake, for Sir Henry Wilmot stood on the plat-i 
 form, ready to nominate Lord Forrester. A sicken*
 
 64: THE ELECTION OF STOCKIJS GTOX. 
 
 in;T sensation of treachery and unkindness fell xipon 
 him ; perhaps the most miserable feeling of which th<r 
 young heart is capable in its first bitter experience ; 
 but in the next moment he followed the impulse of 
 his generous nature, and, advancing to Lord Forrester, 
 shook him by the hand, and said, 
 
 " My dear Lord Forrester, there is certainly some 
 mistake here. You cannot have appeared here as the 
 opponent of your friend, and that without warning, 
 without allowing him the opportunity to avoid cross- 
 ing any wish of yours, or to withdraw honourably 
 when he found he had done so. But, my lord, as 
 * your friend, it is enough for me to see that you aspire 
 to the honour of representing this borough ; one place 
 is like another to me. I will at once withdraw, and 
 leave you a clear field." 
 
 " No, no," replied Lord Forrester, returning the 
 grasp of Charles's hand most cordially ; " you shall 
 do no such thing. There is no mistake, my dear 
 Middleton — no mistake at all. The fact is this : Sir 
 Thomas has found himself, at the last hour, attacked 
 with a fit of gout, and gives up all ideas of the 
 anxieties of a contested election, and all at once I 
 have been called on to supply his place. But there 
 shall be no misunderstanding between us ; it is only 
 a generous rivalry, as I said to you a while ago a 
 generous rivalry." 
 
 " But what need of rivalry, here ?" replied Charles 
 Middleton ; " what is to be gained ? I apprehend 
 our political opinions are pretty much alike ; take
 
 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINGTON. 55 
 
 you the field, I will seek, another ;" and turning ia 
 the gentlemen on the platform, he began to say — " 1 
 withdraw my intentions. I see here a man — " but 
 he was not permitted to say more ; the whole meet- 
 ing had been thro"v\Ti into confusion and agitation by 
 this singular and unexpected scene. The whole 
 place was filled with a murmur of voices, muttering 
 eagerly to each other, " Sir Thomas Clayfield not 
 here ! " " 'Withdrawn ! " " Withdrawn in favour of 
 Lord Forrester !" " And what is this? Mr. Middleton 
 shaking hands with him !" " Are we betrayed ?" 
 cried some : and " Capital !" cried others ; " the day ia 
 our own — and without a blow — without a struggle !" 
 
 A momentary silence had fallen on the crowd 
 below as Charles Middleton advanced to the front, 
 and appeared in act to speak, but the gentlemen on 
 the platform made noise enough to drown his words; 
 and a dozen springing to him at once, exclaimed — 
 "What are you about? You wont betray the 
 cause ! Here is a juggle ! here is a ruse ! But never 
 mind — the day is yours ! Never mind this young 
 puppy of a lord !" 
 
 " He is my friend," said Charles, in a strange state 
 of wonder, and surrounded by wondering and eager 
 faces ; '^ he is no puppy — he is my friend, and I did 
 not expect this ; and I withdraw !" 
 
 " Withdraw ! what, is it a scheme to delude us ? 
 But no — we tell you, you cannot withdraw ! as a 
 man of honour, you cannot withdraw !" 
 
 " But why should I stand — tell me that I Hero's
 
 56 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINGTON . 
 
 my friend, Lord Forrester, whose opinions are, 1 
 doubt not, like my own ; he is an able man, and will 
 serve you well — " 
 
 " Opinions like your own ! Heavens ! how you 
 talk ! No ! he is nothing better than a Tory ; ou 
 the great question of Parliamentary Reform, he is 
 a mere nibbler ; and then his family, his connexions 
 — why, they are all Tory ! " 
 
 A light began to break ou Charles Middleton 
 He began to feel more than ever that he had been 
 deceived by Forrester ; and a feeling of indignation 
 at the unworthy treatment forced him to action. 
 " Let us seek explanation hereafter," said he to 
 himself; " let us now see who is victorious! " 
 
 " I will stand, then," said he to those who still 
 surrounded him, and who were vehemently urging 
 him on; and a shout of applause burst from the 
 platform, followed by a tumult of mingled huzzas, 
 groans, and hisses, from the body of the people. 
 
 The nomination went on. Sir Henry "Wihiiot 
 proposed his friend Lord Forrester in what was 
 termed, in the Conservative newspaper, a neat speech 
 but which was one of the most wretched little 
 bits of bungled attempt at compliment that ever 
 was made. Lord Forrester made a very clever and 
 reasonable-looking speech ; lamented that he should 
 be found in opposition to a friend that he so much 
 loved and admired ; but that he put the safety of the 
 constitution, and the best interests of the nation, 
 before any private feelings of his own. He contrived
 
 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINOTGN'. 57 
 
 to speak so much in general of his intentions to 
 adrocsiUi whatever was most liberal and British, that 
 you woull have thought there really was need o£ 
 nobody else beside him. 
 
 Charles Middleton, on being proposed, spoke in a 
 very different strain. He was indignant at the deceit 
 which had been put upon him, and he spoke indig- 
 nantly. He asked ""What faith was to be put in the 
 professions of a man who had begun by deceiving his 
 friend ?" He bade them not to trust to generals, but 
 to know really what specific measures this candidate 
 meant to support ; and he then stated his own at 
 once so lucidly and candidly, that almost every sen- 
 tence was folio wea by an astounding thunder of 
 applause. 
 
 The choice of the candidate was put to a show of 
 hands, and the Mayor declared that Mr. Middleton 
 had the majority. In fact, he had nearly all hands. 
 A poll, then, was demanded by the friends of Lord 
 Forrester, and the election was fixed to commence 
 the next morning. 
 
 We need not follow minutely all the riot, excite- 
 ment, and tumult of an election on the old system. 
 i^t first, the tide was wonderfully in favour of Mid- 
 dleton ; he stood fur two days far ahead on the poll. 
 His eloquence and activity were the theme of general 
 admiration. He harangued with a vehement zeal, 
 which carried his hearers with him, as by enchant- 
 ment, and raised the most towering expectation of 
 the sensation he would excite in the house.
 
 58 THE ELECTIOV OF STOCKINOrON. 
 
 But tliat house he was not destined to enter. On 
 the third day, the scale from early morning begun to 
 turn, and mount rapidly for Lord Forrester. It still 
 went on, and the leaders of the Corporation party 
 came in the evening, full of consternation, to say that 
 bribery was going on by Lord Forrester at a high 
 rate ; they must meet it in the same way, or all was 
 lost. This was a new feature of things to 'Mr. Mid- 
 dleton, and one which, although he had often read of 
 with abhorrence, he had never given a thought to 
 as occurring in his own case. He at once spurned at 
 the idea of it with contempt. Never would he him- 
 self sit in the Parliament of the nation to make laws, 
 bemg himself stained with cori-^ption. His sup- 
 porters told him not to trouble himself, it should not 
 cost him a farthing ; the Corporation of Stockington 
 was rich enough, and would pay all. But Charles 
 Middleton could not comprehend such logic. He 
 told them plainly that it mattered not to him who 
 paid and who did not ; he had but one thought on 
 the subject, and if he could not enter the house 
 through an honest channel, he would never enter it. 
 The moment he learned that a single bribe had been 
 paid on his behalf, he would instantly withdraw. 
 
 H is hearers looked strangely and blankly at him 
 as he spoke ; his language was a new and an unknown 
 tongue to them. Some, no doubt, thought he was 
 mad ; but no one made a reply, and the election went 
 on. The scale now turned again in his favour, and 
 ill his partisans began to rub their hands and wear
 
 THE ELECTION OF STOCK INGTON'. 59 
 
 smiling faces. But in the evening, when he went 
 out to address the assembled crowd, he found a scene 
 of the wildest confusion. The thousands of faces 
 which were turned up in expectation towards him, 
 were inflamed with the fiercest passions. He began 
 to express his indignation at the base attempt made 
 by the opposite party to shamefully win tlie election 
 by bribery. There was suddenly the strangest out- 
 burst of laughter, followed by tremendous hisses, and 
 the whole vast throng fell together into the most 
 desperate struggle and contest. Hats were knocked 
 off; coats torn from each other's backs; numbers 
 trodden down under the multitude ; and screams of 
 women and children mingled fearfully in the hubbub 
 of terrible sounds. 
 
 " Gracious Heaven ! " exclaimed Middleton, " is 
 it through such scenes that honourable men enter 
 Parliament V A cold suspicion fell on him that his 
 party, too had been bribing ; and, turning from the 
 hustings, he seized the arm of Seth WagstafF, who stood 
 near him, and escaped secretly to his inn. Here he 
 charged Seth, as an honest man, to tell him at once 
 whether he knew if his party had resorted to bribery. 
 Seth candidly said, that he knew it only too well. 
 
 " Then," said Middleton, " the election is at an 
 end ! •' 
 
 He immediately sat down and wrote two notes ; 
 one was addressed to the electors of Stockington, 
 announcing his withdrawal, and that simply because 
 he was credibly informed that they had resorted to
 
 CO THE ELECTION OF STOCKINGTON". 
 
 bribery on his behalf. The other was to Loitl 
 Forrester, making the same announcement, but add- 
 ing a demand, as he must still hold him in any sense 
 true and honourable, of an explanation of his cond,uct 
 towards him. 
 
 The first thing which, on the following morning, 
 was to be seen all over the town, was the first of these 
 letters in the shape of a handbill . The amazement and 
 consternation which it occasioned may be imagined. 
 
 " Never was there such a madman ! " exclaimed 
 the defeated party. " Never was there such an im- 
 practicable fool ! What ! to resign when he actually 
 had the majority ! What need had he to be so nice 
 about other people's money ! ^V^hat need had he to 
 pry into and know anything about it ! " 
 
 In the meantime Charles Middleton was once 
 more at home, sunk in very diff^erent thoughts and 
 feelings, and which left him no care as to what was 
 the wrath, or what were the opinions, of the electors 
 of Stockington. The beautiful 'ideal of his young 
 and honourable heart, of the truth and dignity of 
 human nature, was destroyed. At one rude shock 
 all the brilliant fabric of his faith in man had been 
 tumbled to the ground. The world, with all its cor- 
 ruption, and base mind, and miserable selfishness, 
 had burst in upon him, and he was lost in an agony 
 of astonishment. 
 
 " So, then," thought he, " the moral feeling of 
 our country is become so deadened and distorted, 
 that people are only amazed that a man can be so
 
 THE ELRCTION OP STOCKINGTON. 61 
 
 simple as to hold those principles of truth and 
 honour which our mothers teach us on their knees, 
 and our preachers preach to us from that sacred 
 volume which is the law and the command of the 
 Creator. Is the whole worW, then, corrupt ? — is there 
 no one honest man left in it ? The miserable elec- 
 tors of Stockington may so long have traded in false- 
 hood and iniquity, that they really do not know 
 what is honest or of good fame ; but my friend For- 
 rester, with his manly understanding, his fortune, 
 which should place him above temptation ; his edu- 
 cation, which should make him spurn it — can he so 
 readily abandon faith, and show himself quick to 
 shake hands with baseness, and to sanction for his 
 personal ambition the vilest practices and the vilest 
 people! My God!" exclaimed he, pressing both 
 his hands on his throbbing temples, " am I in a 
 hateful droam? Can this state of things be— and be 
 in a great and Christian country ? " 
 
 Every lionourable mind can sympathize with him 
 in his distress ; for every one, in a greater or less 
 degree, according to the purity of his feelings and 
 pitch of his moral constitution, has felt the absolute 
 anguish of his first baptism into a knowledge of the 
 actual world, this first stepping out of the sunny 
 fairy-land of youth into the dirty highways of life. 
 It is a bitter dispensation ; but, like all bitters, has a 
 bracing and tonic tendency, and its very painfulnesa 
 yives durability to its effect. 
 
 We need not say that Charles found in his mother 
 6
 
 62 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINGTON". 
 
 a thorough sympathiser and comforter. She under- 
 stood his feelings, and she was proud of him. She 
 embraced him with tears, and declared, that, so far 
 from regarding him as having suffered a defeat, 
 she looked on him as having achieved the noblest 
 triumph : he had realized her proudest hopes in him. 
 He had shown the whole base throng how immea- 
 surably he stood above them as a man. He had 
 worthily cast the dust of his feet off against them 
 and their doings, and he would have the reward of 
 God and his own conscience. But Lord Forrester, 
 and that mean jackall of his — as, in her indignant 
 family temperament she went on to style, Wilmot — 
 " she had not words to express her contempt of 
 him ? " 
 
 But what pleased Charles still more, and in some 
 degree surprised him, was to find that his father 
 most warmly approved of his conduct. He was 
 afraid thai the old gentleman's ambition might have 
 suffered a disappointment, and that he might have 
 blamed him for rashly throwing up a brilliant oppor- 
 tunity, so evidently his own, of entering Parliament ; 
 but he at once declared that he entirely approved of 
 his conduct, and was proud of it. 
 
 " Things," said he, " have come to that pass, that 
 they demand the fullest exposure and reprehension, 
 and he was proud that his son had been the first to 
 read them a lesson on the subject." 
 
 This was a real cordial to Charles's mind. The 
 old rector, too, shook him by the hand wifli a zeal
 
 THE ELECTION OK STOCRINGTON. GS 
 
 Avliich had something so fatherly and affectionate la 
 it, that it brought tears into Charles's eyes ; and he 
 might have seen them stand, too, in the old man's 
 as he said, " My dear young friend, you have preached 
 to the Avhole country such a sermon as has seldom 
 been heard from the pulpit, and that, trust me, will 
 not be lost. But don't be cast down about it ? If 
 you had but studied mathematics a little more, you 
 would have learned to calculate on these chances, 
 and then they would have fallen easier ! " 
 
 Seth W^'agstaff, too, highly applauded his high 
 sense of integrity, and yet added, " Could you, my 
 dear sir, only have held your head as high as your 
 mind is, and not have looked down on what the 
 electors were doing below, you might have entered 
 the House of Commons without having had person- 
 ally anything to do with the bribery that went on." 
 
 " AVhat ! " exclaimed Charles, " Can you, Seth, 
 advocate such doctrine? Shall-I do evil that good 
 may come of it ? Then is the Bible a farce, and 
 the door of every species of crooked policy set open 
 to the cunning and hypocritical." 
 
 A flush appeared on the cheek of Wagstaff, an 
 acknowledgment that he felt himself justly reproved, 
 and with a quiet tone he said, " You are right. A 
 man cannot touch pitch but some will stick to him. 
 I begin to see that things are come to that pass, that 
 nothing but a thorough reform of Parliament will 
 Berve. At all events, I can see plainly that you now 
 cannot submit to get there by the only means that aro
 
 04 THE ELECTION OP STOCKINGTON. 
 
 left open, and 1 wish you had but turned youi attea- 
 tion to the law." 
 
 Middleton smiled : it was the first time since hii 
 return from Stockington ; but when he saw how these 
 worthy men clung each to his hobby, he said to him- 
 self, " Every man sets up for himself an idol of per- 
 fection, and there seem to be few who are lucky 
 enough not to find it rudely overturned by others; 
 why should these good men be disappointed in their 
 hobbies, and I not in mine 1 '* 
 
 He began even to imagine some excuse for Lord 
 Forrester : " He is young," said he, " and has evi- 
 dently great ambition. This may have proved too 
 seductive to him, but he might have been more open 
 with me." He could not all at once give up his faith 
 in his friendship, and he sat down and \\-rote to him, 
 blaming him for suffering any temptation or any 
 circumstances to divert him from that candour which 
 he would have experienced from himself. 
 
 A very few days brought over a servant expressly 
 with this reply : 
 
 "My dear Middleton, 
 
 "I am not at all surprised that you feel keenly my 
 appearance against you, or rather suffering you to 
 appear against me, under such circumstances ; but, 
 I assure you, that, so far fromconsidering it a breach 
 of friendship, or an insult, you ought rather to con- 
 eider it as a great compliment. 
 
 "Now all is over, I will tell you candidly that my 
 family have long been looking forward to my repre-
 
 THE ELECTION OF STOCKIXG TON. 65 
 
 Renting this borough, in -which neighbourhood it has 
 80 much property, and had I known that you would 
 have offered yourself at this time for it, I should 
 certainly have told you, because I know you would 
 readily have yielded the field to me. But I may 
 now let you know that the announcement of Sir 
 Thomas Clayfield's intention to stand was merely a 
 clever ruse of my family's to cover their scheme of 
 bringing forward myself, till they saw who the 
 whiggish Stockingtonians would bring forward on 
 their part. The moment I arrived at home, I found 
 all this settled, and really thought it a very clever 
 scheme. Sir Thomas was not likely to be a very 
 formidable opponent to anybody, and this was there- 
 fore well calculated to infuse security into the enemy's 
 camp. I do own that when I found that you actually 
 were coming forward, it gave me a kind of shock, 
 and could 1 have let you into the secret, I would, but 
 my family would not consent on any terms. ' It is 
 the luckiest thing in the world,' they said. ' Your 
 friend, Middleton, is a fine, spirited fellow, who might 
 be extremely dangerous if he were not a very Roman 
 in his notions of virtue, hon(fUr, and all that ; but as 
 this is his first brush, you'll see he will kick down 
 all the dirty machinery of the Stockington electors, 
 and fling their representations in their faces. If you 
 let him know, he inevitably backs out, and in will 
 come some old stager, wlio will 'go the whole hog' with 
 them, as your friends, tlie Americans, would say ; and 
 you are then done foi-, with a pretty sum to booi! "
 
 C6 THE ELECTION OF STOCKINGTO*^. 
 
 "Here, my dear Middleton, you have the fact. I 
 could not but admire the address of my family. I have 
 been weak enough, or man of the world enough, to 
 yield my judgment to theirs, and the rest you know. 
 I assure you there is no man who honours your 
 heart, your understanding, and your conduct, more 
 than I do, (and, by the bye, you have won more 
 golden opinions by these things than you are aware 
 of — all the ladies are clamorous in your praise,) but 
 I do confess, and I say it as a friend, that if one will 
 not take the world as one finds it, I do not see how 
 one is ever to become of any use in it. I know that 
 you will begin to talk to me of Greece and Rome, 
 Aristides and Socrates, Cato and the Gracchi; but let 
 me remind you that if Greece and Rome had been 
 wholly as virtuous as you think we ought to be, these 
 very men had been no wonders, and we should never 
 have heard of their names. It was because the mass 
 even of these great and glorious states were but in- 
 different fellows after all, that these patriots stood 
 out in such immortal grandeur. I must, however, 
 freely confess that I am not presumptuous enough 
 to compare mj'self prospectively with such perfect 
 models of humanity ; I do not feci any spirit of 
 martyrdom in me, and shall prefer winding my way 
 as decently as I can through life, to driving a-head 
 against rough and smooth, and taking all the kicks 
 and cuffs of every scoundrel upon whose toe I tread, 
 which your honest and impracticable man always gets 
 for his pains.
 
 A DUEL AND A VOyAGE, ETC. 67 
 
 "If, however, my dear Middleton, you are deter- 
 mined to persevere in that heroic but barren and 
 thankless path, I can only say that I shall ever 
 honour but never shall follow you, though I shall still 
 remain, your constant friend and faithful servant, 
 
 " Forrester. 
 
 '* P.S.— If I thought you would bend a little, I 
 would answer to helping you to a seat in the House 
 before many months are over; but I do not expect 
 such a thing. By the bye, what is Wilmot doing so 
 much at Mr. Thornhill's? Is he really looking after 
 hella donna ? I have taxed him with it, and shall 
 think it very mean if it rtilly be so — but again I warn 
 you — men are but men, and are made but of poor 
 stuff, and if you set temptations in their way they will 
 after all snatch at them. If you have really any 
 serious views in that quarter, however, be alive oi 
 blame only yourself." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A DUEL AND A VOYAGE TO AMERICA 
 
 As Charles Middleton read this letter, he said, 
 '' This is candid, I now understand Fon-ester. He 
 is professedly a man of the world, and I shall expect 
 from him nothing higher than he gives himself out 
 for — but what is this ? "V^ilmot !" 
 
 He read the postscript with the feeling as if he
 
 68 A DUEL AND A 
 
 had been stiiick a heavy blow, or afi if a dagger had 
 actually pierced his heart ; for awhile he closed his 
 eyes, flung the letter from him, and, leaning his 
 head on his hand, sat apparently more like a statue 
 than a living creature ; but his whole mind was in 
 such a stupor and yet whirl of passion, as is but the 
 next degree to madness. 
 
 " This is too much," said he at length, starting 
 up, pale as death, " the villain ! — the low, sneaking, 
 contemptible villain. This is worse than all — and 
 this is a man whom I have deigned to call friend ! 
 FoiTester is honest, for a man of his notions, but 
 thisvcrouching hound who at one moment licks and 
 bites one's hand — this is too much !" 
 
 The communication on their way from Italy, 
 flashed to his mind ; he saw that, in both instances, 
 as to his views of life, and to the very inclinations 
 of his heart, he had, while he deemed himself 
 speaking only in the sacred confidence of friendship, 
 been shamefully betrayed. 
 
 " Is there, then," said he, " no such thing as 
 faith and friendship ? Shall a man find no heart on 
 which to rely ?" 
 
 They only can conceive the exquisite anguish of 
 his mind who have possessed a mind as pure and 
 unsuspicious, and felt its dearest hopes and con- 
 fidences thus rudely shaken. It is true that he had 
 made no formal proposals to the young lady in ques- 
 tion, but he believed that they perfectly understood 
 each other: and had it not been for his invmediate
 
 VOVAGK rO AMERICA. 69 
 
 entanglement in the affairs of the election, he would 
 have immediately flown to her and made her an 
 offer of his hand. 
 
 The young lady was truly a lovely and amiable 
 person, not more than nineteen, full of life and 
 vivacity, but of that soft and gentle nature which 
 at such an age is easily swayed one way or another. 
 Charles Middleton had entered into all her tastes 
 for flowers, for the country, for music and poetrj", 
 and in their many walks around her father's estate 
 had seen witli admiration how her eye had kindled 
 and her whole soul had responded to his delight in 
 the fine scenery and his discourse on poets and lite- 
 rature. His warm heart and glowing imagination 
 had speedily surrounded her with all the charms and 
 fascinations which a young heart so readily confers. 
 
 There was an enchantment to him in her very 
 name, and through the whole of his continental tour 
 his fancy had reverted to her in her beauty and 
 goodness, casting sunshine, as it were, through her 
 father's hall ; and many a day-dream had he indulged 
 of the future in his own, where she should constitute 
 the glory and happiness of his existence. 
 
 And could he have deceived himself in her character 
 too ? Could she really so soon forget him, and conde- 
 scend to such a creeping thing as this Wilmot ? 
 
 How far he had deceived himself in elevating her, 
 
 in his entimsiastic mind, beyond her real value; 
 
 how far Wilmot might have succeeded in convincing 
 
 her tliat Ciiarles had no serious intentions regarding 
 
 5
 
 70 A DUEL AND A 
 
 Tier; how far he might really have rendered himself 
 agi-eeable by using at second-hand the sentiments 
 and language of his more gifted friend ; how far, 
 under these circumstances, she might have yielded a 
 reluctant or unreluctant consent; or how far the 
 influence of her family or the brilliant fortune of 
 Sir Henry might have weighed with her, we do not 
 pretend to know ; what we do know is, that Mid- 
 dleton himself, smarting thus under accumulated 
 wounds, sat down, and in the fire of the moment 
 wrote thus' to Wilmot : — 
 
 " Middleton, Sept. 3d, 18—. 
 
 " Sir, — A few lines in a letter from Lord Forrester 
 bid me beware of your possible proceedings in the 
 family of Mr. Thornhill. As I, believing I was 
 only in the company of men of honour, and of sure 
 friends, weakly perhaps, but in full faith in you, 
 avowed my sentiments towards Miss Thornhill, I 
 ask you now, point blank whether, knowing this, 
 you have taken any steps to win the affections of 
 Miss Thornhill ; whether any formal matrimonial 
 negociation has taken place between you ? 
 
 " I demand a positive and true answer, and I tell 
 you, that if you answer in the affirmative, that you 
 do inot deserve the name of man, much less of a 
 friend or a gentleman, but that you are a villain of 
 the most contemptible stamp. 
 
 " Yours, as you shall prove yourself, 
 
 '" Charles Middleton."
 
 VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 71 
 
 To this, which was immediately despatched, the 
 aext morning brought him the following : — 
 
 " Dale Park, Sept. Mh, 18 — . 
 
 ^* Sir, — Had the tone of your note been different, 
 1 might have entered into explanations that might 
 or ought to have sufficiently excused myself ; but 
 as I see that you are not in a temper to hear any 
 reason whatever, I shall content myself with stating 
 only facts, and those such only as you demand. 
 
 " I have sought to win the affections of Miss 
 Thornhill, and that through your own glowing 
 representations. I could not learn that anything 
 very definite had passed between you, and I conceive 
 that ladies, as well as seats in Parliament, are mat- 
 ters of fair rivalry. However, I am happy to say 
 that my position with Miss Thornhill is quite secure, 
 and that however you may speak of me, I shall, I 
 hope, have to thank you for pointing me out a good 
 wife. 
 
 " If 1 might give a hint to a person so infinitely 
 my superior in talent, I would say, that if you do 
 not mean your purse to be picked up, you must not 
 fling it into the high- way; and that an ounce oi 
 prevention is worth a pound of repentance. 
 
 " For the rest, I am bound to demand satisfaction 
 for the injurious terms you apply to me, and await 
 your answer. 
 
 '''' Your obedient servant, 
 
 " Henry Wilmot."
 
 72 A DUEL AND A 
 
 It is much easier to conceive than to describe the 
 sensations of Middleton in the perusal of this letter. 
 The cold sneering tone, the assumption of advice 
 in a persoy of such a calibre, and the cool avowal of 
 his villanj^, without betraying the least conscious- 
 ness that he was a villain,— these, with the fact that 
 he was deceived in every respect, as much by her 
 whom he had deemed little less than divine, as by 
 this base man, and that he had contributed by his 
 own simple openness to his own deception, drove him 
 almost to distraction. He despised himself for ever 
 having given the proud name of friend to such a 
 man. He half resolved not to fight with him, but 
 to avow, as was his real opinion, that fighting was 
 the most irrational mode of settling a quarrel ; but 
 in the certainty that in a first instance such a course 
 would be branded as cowardice, he hastily accepted 
 the challenge, and determined to put Lord Forrester s 
 honesty to the test, by requesting him to become his 
 second. He found, however, to his increased mor- 
 tification, that here again Wilmot had been before- 
 hand with him, and secured him. 
 
 Selecting therefore another second, and time and 
 place being settled, he proceeded on the third moming 
 to the appointed spot. It was on a solitary heath, 
 lying midway between the residence of Lord For- 
 rester and his own. The ground was marked out in 
 silence, and without a word passing between any of 
 tlie parties the signal was given, and both pistols were 
 fired into the air. It appeared like the result of pre-
 
 VOYAGE TO AMERICA, 73 
 
 fious agreement, but in truth Lord Forrester had 
 persuaded Wilmot to do this, on his part, and jNIid- 
 dleton had never intended to do otherwise. lie had 
 long ago made up his mind never to aim at the life 
 of a fellow being, however he might be induced to 
 risk his own, in compliance with what he deemed the 
 absurd and worse than absurd laws of modern honour. 
 Wilmot declared himself satisfied ; the antagonists 
 shook hands in the usual manner, and then Middleton 
 said, " Gentlemen, allow me now to say that I deem 
 all this ridiculous nonsense, if it be not deserving of 
 a much worse name. I have conformed to what you. 
 call the laws of honour, for no man shall be able to 
 charge me with cowardice, and Sir Henry Wilmot 
 declares himself satisfied. But can any of you tell 
 me in v/hat respect the firing of these pistols has in 
 the minutest degree altered or determined the merits 
 of the question ? I take therefore this opportunity 
 to announce in your presence, that this is the first and 
 the last time that I will ever resort to fire-arms for 
 the adjustment of a question which ought to be decided 
 by reason. It is high time that men of education 
 should decide their disputes by their heads, and not 
 like barbarians, by their hands. If any one supposes 
 I have given him just offence, or done him actual 
 injury, I am at all times ready to submit the case to 
 the arbitration of a number of sensible and disin- 
 terested men. If I feel myself injured or insulted, I 
 will offer to my opponent the same mode of decision ; 
 and if he refuse it, 1 will hold him as a man of no 
 7
 
 74 A DUEL AND A 
 
 honour, and every worthy man must regard him in 
 the same light. But to risk my life, or the life of 
 my enemy to no rational end, is only making had 
 worse, and is against my understanding as a civilized 
 being, and my conscience as a Christian." 
 
 A few days afterwards Lord Forrester rode over to 
 call on C'harles Middleton, and though the old gentle- 
 man received him with a stately and cold dignity, 
 and Mrs. Middleton, with her accustomed warmth and 
 frankness, told him plainly that she could not regard 
 his conduct in the matter of the election (of the duel 
 she knew nothing) as at all in accordance with his 
 professions of friendship for her son, he took all in 
 very good part, mollified Mrs. Middleton a good deal 
 with saying that he did not pretend at all to place 
 himself in comparison with her son, either for talent 
 or high tone of mind ; and was treated by Charles 
 with a generous forgiveness that made an evident 
 impression on him. Lord Forrester said, but pri- 
 vately to him, that he could not help coming to say, 
 that he had expressed to Sir Henry Wilmot his total 
 disapproval of his conduct, and had Charles's letter 
 reached him in time, should certainly have stood as 
 his second ; but that he was glad it had not so hap- 
 pened, for it had enabled him to induce Sir Henry to 
 show some sense of the wrong he had done by firing 
 in the air. He endeavoured, at the same time, to 
 excuse Wilmot in some degree by weakness rathei 
 than badness of character, and trusted Middleton 
 would not think too nmch of it: for that, a& to
 
 VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 75 
 
 ladies, lie had only to look ahout and choose ; and 
 that his behaviour, both in the afEair of the election 
 and of the duel, however people might differ from him 
 in opinion, had raised him very high in the general 
 opinion as a bold and able man, who dared to defy 
 public notions and customs, however fixed, if they 
 opposed his own conceptions of right and honour. 
 
 This behaviour, and the sentiments of Lord For- 
 rester, tended not a little to mollify and sooth 
 Charles's exasperated state of mind ; but the charm 
 of existence was not so soon recalled. He had suf- 
 fered too violent a shaking of all his youthful fancies, 
 hopes, and feelings, and ideas of men and things, to 
 be soon himself again. There was a coldness and a 
 desolation in his feelings; a gloom and a solitude in 
 all about him that made life a burden to him. 
 
 Neither the conversation of Seth Wagstaff nor the 
 clergyman could interest him, nor his gun afford him 
 his wonted excitement. He was spiritless and de- 
 pressed, and yet far too proud to wish that any one 
 should notice it. 
 
 Under these circumstances, he again turned his 
 mind to travel, and particularly to an old fancy of 
 his, a voyage to America. 
 
 When he was about sixteen, his father had purchased 
 a book, which became for a long time the favourite 
 reading and favourite theme of the old gentleman, and 
 from this cause Charles also had been induced to look 
 into it, and before long became equally enchanted with 
 It. This was "VVinterbotham's History of America.
 
 76 A DUEL AND A 
 
 Winterbotham was the Pastor of a Baptist church 
 at Devonport, who, in the year 1792, having 
 preached two sermons in favor of religious and civil 
 liberty, was indicted for sedition, tried, and con- 
 demned to imprisonment for four years in Newgate. 
 During his confinement, he compiled a History of 
 the United States of America. Being an authentic 
 work, partly from the novelty of the subject, and 
 from sympathy for the author's unmerited punish- 
 ment, combined with his superior acquirements and 
 unimpeachable character, as a sincere, inoffensive 
 Christian, the four volumes were issued with great 
 advantage to the prisoner, as it provided for himself 
 and his family a comfortable support during his 
 protracted exclusion from his pastoral functions. 
 After the term of his incarceration in Newgate ex- 
 pired, he resumed his charge ; and during several 
 years he there fulfilled his official duties. He used 
 to dilate upon Psalm xci. with peculiar pathos ; the 
 consolatory truths of which his own memorable ex- 
 perience had illustrated and confirmed. The perse- 
 cution of Winterbotham was a great political error. 
 From the cell of his prison he roused a far wider spirit 
 of political freedom than he ever could have done at 
 large, and his work sent more emigrants across the 
 Atlantic than any other individual cause whatever. 
 
 Young Middleton was not less bewitched with Us 
 perusal than thousarfds of others. The charms of those 
 new countries; the solemn grandeur of those primeval 
 forests; those singular, and in many respects, noUc
 
 VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 77 
 
 Indian tribes wandering there ; the chase of the bear 
 the buffalo, and the deer; the idea of possessing a 
 whole territory, where you could collect around you 
 those whom you most loved and honoured, or wished 
 to assist and see flourish ; — there was something so 
 entrancing in all this, that, seeing his father's delight 
 in the book, he even begged him to sell all that he 
 had, to go over and p.urchase a mighty tract of country. 
 The old gentleman, however, had no such romantic 
 thoughts, and only smiled at his son's enthusiasm. . 
 
 But the beautiful imagination of this Transatlantic 
 Elysium fixed in his brain at this romantic period of 
 life, had still remained there in unfading colours. 
 Often had he built charming castles in the air, or, 
 rather, in America, where he possessed his great sylvan 
 territory like another Lord Fairfax; was as great patron 
 of the poor emigrants and the Indians; s})read around 
 him prosperity and happiness ; and cleared fields and 
 made maple-sugar at home, or hunted with a lordly 
 train, pitching their tents in the valleys of the Alle- 
 ghany hills, or on the shores of Lake Erie or Ontario, 
 
 Since his recent experience of the state of things 
 and political morals hete, these dreams had come 
 back upon him with renewed force. He called to 
 mind the fine moral principle and single rectitude 
 which had been displayed by the champions of tho 
 revolution and the framers of the republican constitu- 
 tion, comparing these things and the want of them 
 in the bloody revolution of France. He had a great 
 desire to tread the laud where the Christian states*
 
 78 A DUEL AND A 
 
 mansliip of William Penn, the disinterested heroism 
 of AV^ashington, and the shrewd social philosophy ol 
 Franklin, had displayed themselves in such splendid 
 results. He even cherished the fond hope that there, 
 still, a standard of pure integrity and uncorrupted 
 political principle might he found, which would do his 
 heart good to contemplate. At all events it would 
 tend to dissipate the weight of wretchedness which 
 lay on his mind. He requested, therefore, hia 
 father's permission, which was gladly granted to him, 
 and prepared to set out. The old gentleman, indeed, 
 the more the project was made palpable to his own 
 thoughts, seemed to take an ever livelier interest in it. 
 He put down a number of particulars which had 
 occurred to him from the recollection of his reading, 
 on which he suddenly found himself extremely de- 
 sirous of being satisfied, and enjoined his son to attend 
 to these, and to be able in his letters or on his return 
 to satisfy him most entirely. Especially was he to 
 observe how the republican principle seemed to work ; 
 whether there was really a gentry there ; and whe- 
 ther the magistracy was conducted with as much dig- 
 nity and decorum as in this country. 
 
 In a few weeks Charles had all in readiness, and 
 after many tears and embraces from his mother, he 
 set out, taking one servant with him. 
 
 And, irj truth, nothing could have exerted a more 
 beneficial influence on his mind than this American 
 expedition. The novelty of the voyage and of tha 
 scenes which met him on landing, quickly dissipated
 
 VOVAGE TO AMERICA. 79 
 
 that cheeiless and despondent feeling which lay sc 
 miserably upon him at home. He seemed to breathe 
 again new life and youth. The great and busy cities 
 into which he first entered charmed him with a feel- 
 ing of the mighty progress which civilized life had 
 made in even so comparatively sliort a period here. 
 The many kind and amiable families to whom his 
 letters introduced him, and who not only zealously 
 Bought to make him acquainted with everything 
 worthy of his notice, but also furnished him with 
 introductions to agreeable and influential people in all 
 parts of the Union, tended not a little to restore his 
 favourable opinion of human nature. 
 
 In New York he met with some young country- 
 men, who were about to make a similar tour of 
 pleasure and observation through the States, and with 
 them, in the buoyant spirits which young minds com- 
 municate to each other, ascended the Hudson, ex- 
 tended his progress northward as far as Quebec, and 
 with his lively associates not only stood on the spot of 
 "Wolfe's victory and death, but afterwards visited all 
 those scenes on the borders of the St. Lawrence and 
 the lakes where the British and American forces had 
 contended in the earlier period of tlie war with such 
 desperate valour: Fort Detroit, Fort Ticonderago, 
 Crown Point, Saratoga, on the Hudson, the melan- 
 choly scene of General Burgoyne's surrender, and the 
 scene of poor Andres capture and execution, all 
 deeply interested him. He afterwards traced, with 
 his gay friends, sou thward, almost every location of great
 
 80 A DUEL AXD A 
 
 note in the war from Bunker's Hill and Lexington, on 
 the Delaware, the Schuylkill, the Chesapeake, and 
 other scenes, to Charlestown in Carolina, and York 
 Town in Virginia, where the grand termination was 
 put to the war by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis- 
 
 It was with many and strong sensations that he 
 trod these localities, and reviewed in his mind the 
 causes, progress, and results of this novel contest 
 between a great country and her colonies. The 
 injustice in which the contest was founded on the 
 part of the mother-country, the incapacity with 
 which it had been carried on, and its humiliating close, 
 were all mortifying to his national pride ; but when 
 he reflected again that it was only by the spirit of her 
 own children, backed by almost all Europe, that 
 England had been defeated in the worst days of her 
 public management, and when he saw what great and 
 just principles of political science had been elicited 
 and established by this mighty event ; that it is not 
 by the arbitrary dominion over colonies, but by trade 
 with them, that the parent-country is benefited ; that 
 regions so immense as America must, most naturally, 
 sometime cease to depend on the original country, if 
 they have the spirit in them necessary for their 
 growth into great nations ; and that however a fine 
 old nation like England may be humbled in the vain 
 and wretched contest to hold in subjugation such a 
 territory, yet even in the hour of this loss and dis- 
 memberment, she is a match for a whole envious 
 world in anus. When he considered, indeed, how
 
 VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 81 
 
 England rose single-handed against the envious and 
 exulting powers of all Europe, as they thought, by her 
 unsuccessful American contest, that the hour of her fall 
 was come ; how she at once assumed a prouder posi- 
 tion than ever ; how she chased from the whole wide 
 ocean the mighty fleets of France, Holland, and Spain; 
 and, when the day of general French domination on 
 the continent was come, she alone stood erect and 
 triumphant ; she alone was looked to among the 
 nations whiith had endeavoured to sink her in her 
 native ocean, for help and salvation ; and that she 
 stood out to the last hour against the conqueror who 
 had put all other heads under his feet, and struck at 
 him the last annihilating blow : — that her fame rose 
 above all, unparalleled, the alone free and unshackled 
 nation; that her trade and her colonies had gro^vn 
 mightier than ever, and connected the whole wide 
 earth, his heart swelled with a high and filial pride 
 towards his own peerless land, and he felt that there 
 was no other home on the earth for him. 
 
 His friends bade him adieu in the Eastern States, 
 and, with his servant, he took his solitary way west- 
 ward. Sometimes he traversed the vast forests on 
 horseback, stopping here and there to enjoy the chase, 
 as the beauty of a mountain country attracted him, 
 or he fell in with settlers and solitary hunters^ Some- 
 times he dropped in his little canoe, purchased for the 
 occasion, down the Ohio, or other streams, with hia 
 dried venison and his tea for provision. His man, 
 Nathan, or more familiarly, 'Than Hunt, though a fina
 
 82 A DUEL AND A 
 
 gentleman's servant, in England, turned out a most 
 capital fellow in these expeditions, accustoming him- 
 self to all circumstances, and showing an ingenuity 
 which was wonderful. In fact he had a keen relish 
 for this wild sort of life. There was not a more eager 
 or indefatigable lover of wild sport in existence. He 
 was like a very Indian in his power of enduring 
 fatigue, and was never so happy as when he was 
 crawling on all fours in bushes to surprise some herd 
 of deer or buffaloes, or in fierce contest with a bear. 
 Again, on the rivers he was busy making his fire, boil- 
 ing his kettle, or while they stopped the boat and lay 
 to for some hours of refreshment in an opening of the 
 woods on the river's bank, cooking and serving up a 
 savoury little dinner of venison killed in the woods, 
 or of fish pulled from the stream as they came along. 
 At night when they halted at an Indian encampment, 
 and Charles himself in vain endeavoured to get a 
 sound or a motion from the Indians, who sat smoking 
 in profound and imperturbable silence in their wig- 
 wams, Hunt would get among the squaws, and with 
 his native humour, expressed by signs, put them — 
 especially the young ones — for he was a very good- 
 looking and merry-looking fellow — in the most merry 
 mood, and get milk, and Indian corn, and potatoes in 
 plenty for supper, or as supplies for the next day. 
 
 With such a capital travelling companion, aa 
 well as servant and purveyor, Middleton realised in 
 a great measure the visions of his younger daya 
 regarding America. He penetrated its wilds in many
 
 VOYAGE TO AMKRICA. 89 
 
 directions, lived with the settlers, and saw them iij 
 their busy labours of clearance, and all that primitive 
 life which he had so fondly imagined to himself; but 
 the desire of settling there never now took possession 
 of his mind, but, on the contrary, grew more distant 
 from it. England rose more and more, distant as it 
 was, into a lovely and poetical atmosphere, such as 
 that which wraps the azure peaks and slopes of far-oflF 
 hills. Corrupt as it politically was, he beheld it as 
 the greatest nation of the earth, and as worthy of the 
 strongest exertions of every one of its sons, to purge 
 out its defects, and raise it to a still nobler elevation 
 in the scale of nations. 
 
 Here all around him was divested of its poetry, and 
 its realities often stared too nakedly and coldly in his 
 face. He saw here that the grand enthusiasm of the 
 contest for independence, like all other effects depend- 
 ing on a temporary cause, however exalted, had died 
 in great measure away. Faction, and the tricks of 
 merely worldly cunning, had Iti too great a measure 
 taken their place. Federalist and Democrat were in 
 bitter contention. 
 
 There were also great blots on the fair shield of 
 American Republicanism that his inmost heart recoil- 
 ed at. There were the once noble Indians, the pos- 
 sessors of the soil, corrupted, degraded, and driven far 
 backwards, by the remorseless policy of the States, 
 and the equally remorseless tide of western emigration. 
 He gazed in wonder and pity on the scanty and 
 miserable hordes of these red men which he sometimes
 
 84 THE JUSTICES CLERK AGAIN. 
 
 encountered in the vicinity of the white population. 
 How fallen were they ! How unlike the grand idte 
 which their race had presented to his mind ! There 
 were, too, irf the midst of the land of the highest 
 assertors of liberty, swarms of the enslaved negro ! 
 
 These were not things likely to reconcile themselves 
 to the high moral conceptions of Charles Middleton. 
 He had no interest in endeavouring to ber.d his mind 
 to an agreement with such gross anomalies ; and much 
 as he admired the active spirit, and consequently 
 rapidly-growing strength of this great country, his 
 heart began to yearn warmly towards his own. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE JUSTICE S CLERK AGAIN. 
 
 A LETTER which Middletou found on his arrival at 
 New York, made him hasten on board at once, and 
 with an anxious hearH 
 
 It was from Seth Wagstaff, written at the request 
 of old Mr. Middleton, informing him that his mother's 
 health was in a very critical state. WagstafF stated 
 that Mrs. Middleton had taken cold in going out early 
 one morning in April to visit a poor man who was 
 considered in great danger, and on whose labour a 
 large family of children depended. The cold seemed 
 to have settled with a firmness on her chest, that the 
 doctors could not in the slightest degree influence. 
 The old gentleman was very anxious about her, and
 
 THE justice's clerk AGAIN. 83 
 
 constant in liis attendance on her. He had not felt 
 himself able to write on the subject to his son, and had 
 desired Seth to do it, and to urge his immediate and 
 speediest return. Seth himself added on his own account 
 that he would not wish to alarm Charles unnecessarily, 
 or add to his distress at such a distance, but that he 
 could not avoid expressing his fears on the subject. 
 
 This intelligence filled Charles's miu'l with the 
 most intense anxiety. His affection for his mother 
 had always resembled, in its tenderness, far more that 
 of a daughter than a son. He immediately imbibed 
 the darkest forebodings, and could not avoid blaming 
 himself, as those who love warmly always do, for 
 wandering about and enjoying so many exciting things 
 when his motlier was thus sufiFering, and perhaps 
 dying — perhaps was dead. 
 
 His state of mind on the voyage was most miserable. 
 The vessel seemed to make no way ; every wind 
 seemed contrary ; and though this voyage was one of 
 the most quick and favourable that was ever made, it 
 not only then, but ever afterwards, remained in his 
 imagination as of a most tedious and intolerable length. 
 
 When he landed at Liverpool, he threw himself 
 into one of the first coaches which left for the Midland 
 Counties, without even staying fcir an linur's refresh- 
 ment, though he had been pacing the deck most of the 
 night as the vessel had come up the Mersey, and 
 longed to fling him.self into the sea and swim to shore, 
 Fo insupportably wearisome did the slow progress and 
 making port seem. 
 8.
 
 B6 THE justice's CLEIlK AGAIN. 
 
 On arriving at Derby he hurried to the house of a 
 friend, who he knew would be in possession of the 
 latest intelligence from Middleton ; but, as he ap- 
 proached the door, the fears of fatal news so overcame 
 him that he suddenly stopped, gazed on the dwelling a 
 moment, with a strange oppressive feeling of the secret 
 of which it might be in possession, and turned away. 
 For half an hour he traversed the streets in an agony 
 of mind indescribable, and at length rushed into an 
 inn, called for pen, ink, and paper, and addressed a note 
 to his friend requesting him to come to him there. 
 
 'Than Hunt, who had followed his master to and 
 fro in the streets in silence, and as mechanically, for 
 he knew all that was working in his mind, and there- 
 fore, seemed to take no notice of it, hastened away 
 with the note, and in less than ten minutes returned, 
 announcing that the gentleman would be there imme- 
 diately. The state of Middleton's mind during the 
 interval which had passed since he sent off Hunt, and 
 which now ensued till his friend made his appearance, 
 was one of intense torture. At one time he paced the 
 room in agitation, stopping and listening fearfully to 
 every footstep ; at another, he sate down on the sofa 
 trembling as with intense cold. 
 
 He watched Hunt's countenance, when he brought 
 back the message, curiously, and a shivering fear went 
 through him, as Hunt, with a peculiarly solemn for- 
 mality, delivered it and withdrew. But the moment 
 lie saw his friend enter, he started up and exclaimed, 
 " My God ' My mother then is dead !"
 
 THE justice's CLERK AGAIN 87 
 
 His friend had not indeed littered a word ; but 
 Charles had fixed his eye with a feverish anxiety on 
 the door, and at the first glimpse of his friend's face, 
 he felt, from its not being bright with the eager joy 
 of such an occasion, what was the fact. 
 
 In reality, Mrs. Middleton had been dead more 
 than two months ; and Middleton, sending forward his 
 servant to announce his being in Der])y, remained 
 there some days to indulge his grief m secret, and to 
 nerve himself sufficiently for his melancholy return 
 home. But every day only increased his reluctance 
 to this last trial ; and one morning, therefore, mount- 
 ing his horse he rode rapidly to Middleton, and flung 
 himself into his father's arms. 
 
 We will pass over the first weeks of his finding 
 himself at home. We can imagine how blank and 
 melancholy they were. He saw that his father was 
 much changed and aged by his loss. The old clergy- 
 man seemed little less so ; and not only from Seth 
 "\Vagstaff\, but with every one, where his mother 
 had been so yniversally loved, the smiles for his 
 welcome were obscured by tears and sorrowful sobs. 
 It was moreover a season of the year to deepen gloomy 
 impressions ; it was late in the autumn, and the mists 
 and damps which hung about, and the masses of yel- 
 low leaves which every night's frost cut down as with 
 shears from the trees, and scattered suddenly on the 
 earth, gave the most cheerless aspect to all out of 
 doors. The little justice-room stood as usual, neat 
 and white on the green, but the justice never went
 
 88 THE JUSTICES CLERK AGAIX. 
 
 near it; he sate carefully, shunning too much thought 
 by pondering on his book; and the silence in the 
 house fell heavily on Charles's heart. 
 
 It was from the rector and Seth '\\''agstafF that he 
 learned the particulars of his mother's illness and end, 
 and both agreed that a man must travel far before ho 
 found such another woman. 
 
 That winter Charles Middleton employed himself 
 closely in writing a work, on which he had reflected 
 much on his journey, on the state of political morals 
 in England ; on the condition to which they had re- 
 duced her ; and on the means and prospects of a 
 genuine reform. As he went deeper into his subject 
 his interest in it grew every day more vivid ; his 
 imagination kindled at the view of the vast achieve- 
 ments which England, by her position and her energy 
 of character, was capable of accoinplisliing for her 
 own glory, and the advancement of knowledge and 
 civilization over the whole earth ; and he called on 
 all the lovers of their country, and their race, to set 
 their shoulders to the work, with a zeal and eloquence 
 peculiarly his own. 
 
 This, and the preparation of his volume for the 
 press, buoyed his spirit above the brooding thoughts 
 which would otherwise have crushed it. He dis- 
 cussed these subjects with the rector, and with his 
 friend Seth "W'agstafF, with much animation, and 
 found himself capable even of diflFusing a cheerfulness 
 over the mind of his father. 
 
 The winter was not yet over when his work wa«
 
 THE JUSTICE S CLERK AGAIN. 89 
 
 published, and the instant avidity \vitli which it was 
 haHed, and the high encomiums which it received 
 on all hands, had something magical in its effects on liis 
 spirits. Edition after edition was called for with won- 
 derful rapidity ; letters of thanks and congratulation 
 poured in from every quarter, and many of them from 
 men of such exalted station and fame, both literary, 
 religious, and political, as quite astonished him. This 
 was more than he had calculated upon. He looked on 
 this communication thus at once opened with minds for 
 which he had the highest veneration, as a proud re- 
 compense for all former mortification, and as shewing 
 him that he had done gross injustice to the hearts and 
 virtues of his countrymen, from judging only of those 
 mingled in the uproar of interested strife. His father, 
 his ^friends, the clergyman, and Seth, were not the 
 less proud of his success : it cast a cheering sunshine 
 all round them, and they ceased to sigh, except when 
 they thought how the heart of Mrs. Middleton would 
 have beat at this fair fame of her son. 
 
 Spring was already sending out its tender and beau- 
 tiful harbingers ; the snowdrop appeared with the 
 thaw, and the strengthening and lengthening light of 
 the days, called out the spirit to glance to far-off 
 hills, and to see a greenness creeping over the land- 
 scape, as the hues of returning health kindle in the 
 face of a young invalid. 
 
 Charles Middleton one day — under the influence of 
 these things, which sent as it were a soft and tender 
 pring also into the heart — had been walking into the
 
 -©0 THE JLSTICe's CLERK AGAIN. 
 
 neighbourhood of the village, and was retummg 
 through the churchyard, when a strong desire sud- 
 denly seized him to enter the church, and pay a soli- 
 tary visit to his mother's tomb. He sent a boy, who 
 was playing by himself on the footpath, to the clerk 
 for the keys, and entering the chancel, shut himself 
 in. He had been of late often considering with him- 
 self what would be the most fitting monument and 
 mehiorial of his beloved parent ; but what was his 
 surprise when, on raising his eyes to the part of the 
 wall, where it ought to be, to behold one already 
 there ! 
 
 There was something painful in this surprise ; a 
 feeling of anger even banished from his mind that of 
 tender grief, with which he had entered. Could his 
 father have done, this without consulting or even 
 apprising him of what he was about? But as he 
 drew nearer, and surveyed it more narrowly, this 
 sensation gave way to another and more subduing 
 surprise. The monument which he beheld was a 
 simple mural tablet of white marble, containing in the 
 centre the profile of his deceased mother, of the size 
 of life, in bas-relief of the most exquisite execution , 
 he recognised it as derived from the painting in the 
 hall ; but the expression of that pure and beautiful 
 spirit seemed so much more etherialized in the 
 marble, and so accordant with his ideas of her now, 
 as a glorified being in the presence of her Creator, 
 that he fell at once on his knees before it, and sunk 
 his face in his hands bathed with his giisliing and
 
 THE justice's CLERK AGAIN. 91 
 
 plenteous tears. His heart was melted with the 
 deepest love and tenderness : and as he gazed again 
 on that beautiful work of art, he beheld that, below 
 the profile, ran, at the bottom of the tablet, a sort of 
 broad band, on which was represented a scene in 
 relief that most powerfully moved him. His mother, 
 perfect in figure and action as in life, was advancing 
 towards a cottage, at whose door a poor woman, with 
 her apron raised to her eyes, was awaiting her 
 approacli. It was the scene of that visit which had 
 laid the foundation of her last illness. A little boy 
 and girl, in whom he recognised striking likenesses of 
 the children of Seth Wagstaff, were presenting his 
 mother with spring violets which they had gathered 
 from the banks, a touching memorial of her love of 
 flowers, and behind, other little children were stealth- 
 ily approaching and kissing her garment. 
 
 The beauty, the fitness, the happy design of this 
 little monument filled the mind and heart of Charles 
 Middleton with the liveliest sensations. He did not 
 knov/ whether to admire most the true genius which 
 had dictated the design, or that of the hand which 
 had executed it. He could not conceive who had 
 furnished the idea; how and why all this had been done 
 with such secrecy. He seated himself opposite, and 
 attentively gazed at it, wept for some time, and then 
 hastened to the parsonage, to learn the particulars. 
 
 His wonder here was only the mare increased. He 
 learned that the idea was entirely that of Seth Wag- 
 staff; that he had submitted it to the squire before
 
 82 THE JUSTICES CLERK AGAIN. 
 
 Charles had returned home, and had been commanded 
 by him to see it executed as quickly as possible. It 
 had been put up only the day before, and that very 
 morning the rector had been to seek for Charles to 
 conduct him to see it, and had found him gone out- 
 His father, \7agstaff, and himself had all calculated 
 on giving him a most agreeable surprise. 
 
 But how and where had Seth AVagstalF got all 
 this done ? 
 
 When lie was a boy, he had, when working with 
 his father in sinking a well at a gentleman's house 
 near Sheffield, Ijccome acquainted with a boy of the 
 village who had since turned out a fomous sculptor. 
 This was no other than Chantry. Seth had heard of 
 the beautiful monument which he had erected to the 
 two children in the Cathedral of Lichfield, and had 
 been, while Charles was in America, to visit it. He 
 had come back with the highest admiration of the 
 feeling and power of the sculptor, and since Mrs. 
 Middleton's decease had proposed this subject to the 
 squire. As we have stated, he instantly received the 
 squire's sanction of his design, and he had hastened to 
 London, where the artist then lived, and explained 
 his views to him. Chantry had entered into the idea 
 and the feeling of his old comrade with the greatest 
 ardour. Seth had sent down for the portrait neces- 
 sary for the work, and soon hastened down himself 
 with a sketch of the design, v.ith which the old gen- 
 tleman was enraptured, The result was '-^hat he had 
 now seen. 
 
 %
 
 THE LYNDENS AND A WEDDING. 93 
 
 This account gave Charles Middleton a liiglier idea 
 of the taste and the innate i^finement of ^Vagstaff 
 than he had before ; he hastened away to liis house, 
 seized him warmly by the hand, and as he shook it 
 again and again, thanked him, with tears in his eyes, 
 for this inestimable proof of his good heart and true 
 poetical feeling. 
 
 It was for a long time Middleton's greatest delight 
 daily to visit and admire this monument ; but, be- 
 sides the pleasure which it never failed to afford him, 
 it led to after results which are quite important 
 enough to have a whole chapter to themselves. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LYNDENS AND A WEDDING. 
 
 It is curious how the events of our lives are linked 
 together, and how one circumstance, often a small 
 one, is inevitably bound to an unseen train of otherg 
 of the most lasting consequence to us. 
 
 From admiring this monument to his mother'a 
 memory, Charles conceived a great admiration of the 
 genius of the artist, and soon after resolved to ride 
 over to Lichfield to behold that of which Seth had 
 spoken so much. The tender and beautiful sentiment 
 of this has been made universally known to the public 
 by visits to it or by repeated descriptions. Charles 
 was extremely captivated by it. 
 
 As he was about to return homeward, however, ho
 
 94 THE LYNDENS AND 
 
 suddenly called to mind that the son of a very old 
 friend of his father's resided in Needwood Forest, and 
 he determined to call on him on his way home. He 
 had himself never seen this gentleman. His father 
 had been dead many years, and the acquaintance of 
 the family, he hardly knew how, seemed to cease. 
 But he recollected with so much pleasure the old 
 gentleman's visits at Middleton, in the happiest of hii* 
 boyish days, how he had strolled with him through 
 the fields, and how his father had never ceased to 
 speak of him with the most sincere feelings of respect 
 and regret. 
 
 Mr. Lynden, the son of this old gentleman, had, 
 in ftict, been engaged in many and important specu- 
 lations in distant parts of the kingdom, into which he 
 had been led very early in life, and it was only within 
 a few years that he had returned to his patrimonial 
 property, and settled down to the quiet enjoyment of 
 the remainder of his life among his native scenes and 
 his old family connections. 
 
 Middleton felt momentarily astonished to find this 
 gentleman an old and venerable man ; for he had not 
 reflected on the years that had fled since old Mr. 
 Lynden was at Middleton, and that he was a very old 
 though hale man at that time. But though the sons 
 of these old friends met, the one with gray hairs and 
 the other as a youth, the meeting was not the less 
 joyous and cordial. 
 
 Mr. Lynden seemed charmed at Middleton's having 
 thus renewed the family friendship. He said he had
 
 A WEnniNG. 9.5 
 
 often M-islicd to do it liimself, but had al\va}'s been 
 prevented by his distant and pressing occr.pations ; 
 and that wish had of late, he said, been great!}- 
 increased by the fame of the talents and virtues of 
 the eldest son of Mr. Middleton, with wliich the 
 whole country nad ning. The old gentleman did 
 not stop to ask whether Charles was that son, but 
 introduced liim to his family, his wife and two 
 daughters, by whom he was received with equal evi- 
 dences of pleasure. 
 
 jNIiddleton himself had scarcely looked round him, 
 when he felt a secret pleasure and satisfaction in his 
 visit, such as he had never before been conscious of. 
 There was something in the tone and appearance of 
 the whole family which delighted him without his 
 stopping to inquire what it was. There was an atmo- 
 sphere about the house, which was an extremely 
 cheerful one, and looking forth into a lovely garden 
 that struck him as peculiarly sweet and homelike. 
 But the greatest charm lay in the persons themselves. 
 There was an open and most cordial manner about 
 them, that made him feel as if he were really amongst 
 those whom nature or Providence meant for his 
 friends. There was, too, a quiet and repose, the sure 
 attendants and evidences of hearts at ease and above 
 the petty vanities and ambitions of the world. 
 
 Mrs. Lyndcn was a particularly quiet and matronly 
 woman, who seemed rather inclined to listen than to 
 talk, and who was yet, Middleton found, when he 
 entered into conversation with her, fuUof intelli^^'encc.
 
 90 THE LYNDENS AXD 
 
 Her family connections lay in different parts of tht 
 United Kingdom, and she had, therefore, not only 
 merely seen a good deal of the best society, but a good 
 deal of the finest parts of the country. Middleton sooa 
 found that they had a common Icnowledge of many 
 persons and places, which was very delightful. 
 
 It was naturally, however, on the daughters that 
 he turned his more particular attention, and these 
 •wonderfully attracted him. The two sisters were 
 both lovely, but of very different appearance. The 
 elder was under twenty, and the younger just turned 
 eighteen. They had in common an air of health 
 and freshness, both of mind and body, which they 
 had derived from their simple and pure country life ; 
 but the elder had evidently more softness of character, 
 the younger more fire. The taller figure, soft rosy com- 
 plexion, and mild blue eye of Lucy, bespoke the most 
 gentle and affectionate character; but the more sharply 
 and intellectually defined features of Edith, and the 
 warmth and quickness of feeling wliich displayed 
 itself in her whole manner, had an inconceivable 
 charm for Middjeton. To the one his heart warmed 
 as to a dear sister, to the other he was drawn as by a 
 destiny. He saw her whole transparent being at one 
 glance ; he seemed to have known her for years in 
 his dreams and his fancy. His heart embraced her as 
 the great desired treasure of his life ; and, from the 
 first day of their intercourse, he had neither doubt 
 nor fear but that she was, and would be his own. 
 
 He saw .that that heart was all fire and enthusiasm
 
 A WEDDING. 87 
 
 for everything that was beautiful and noble, and felt 
 that it would respond with one passionate impulse to the 
 same feelings in himself ; and he was not deceived. 
 
 Unlike the course of ordinary true love, there is 
 little for us here to describe. No fears ; no falling on 
 the knee ; no surprises and difficulties, and subsequent 
 clearing away of involving clouds, and tears, and 
 raptures. The characters of both were so similar and 
 so transparent, that they at once, as by a heavenly 
 instinct, saw and loved each otlier. Middleton saw- 
 in Edith Lynden the companion spirit of all his 
 heart's noblest sentiments and aspirations, and he feit 
 that she recognised the same in him. He became, 
 nobody seemed exactly to know how, as an old and 
 dear friend of the family. 
 
 Mr. Lynden now rode out with him and showed 
 him the neighbourhood, and now he drove out the 
 sisters to the parts of the forest Avhich they particu- 
 larly admired, and was introduced by them to the fami- 
 lies they most loved. He saw rapidly the whole simple 
 life and character of these attached sisters. They 
 had lived only among the fairest scenes of nature and 
 the best portion of society. Of the real world and all 
 its crimes and strivings, they knew only from books, 
 in which they were extensively read. But, both by 
 the cares of their parents, and the high character of 
 the friends with whom they had associated, their 
 minds were full of the warmth and the purest inno- 
 cence of youth. Nature and poetry were their daily 
 food ; and, to their young hearts, all thoschigli feel- 
 9
 
 88 THE LYNDEKS AND 
 
 ings of truth and honour, which Middleton wor 
 shipped, were as their owti life's blood. They had nt 
 conceptions of anything else in persons who were not 
 thoroughly contemptible. 
 
 Middleton soon discovered that Mr. Lynden, though 
 a man who had large dealings with the world, had 
 retained through all the utmost tenderness of con- 
 science. There was no principle for which Charles 
 Middleton had contended which did not grow naturally 
 out of Mr. Lynden's religion. But without Middle- 
 ton's sanguine temperament, Mr. Lynden had made 
 many and heavy sacrifices for his conscientious up- 
 rightness of character, and had been bitterly deceived, 
 and basely treated, without its liavmg in the slightest 
 degree lowered his estimate of human nature. He 
 had set out in life with no Utopian notions of the 
 general virtue, and though he had been deceived in 
 particular cases, he had never been so in his general 
 view of mankind. He contended that this was a 
 world of rt-ial in every way, and that if human nature 
 had not been made weak and imperfect, there was no 
 need of such a world at all. That we are here but as 
 in the cradle of our existence ; we have here to learn 
 to walk, and that it is over our own selfishness and 
 weakness that we have to learn to triumph. 
 
 Tlie very wickedness of the mass, he contended, 
 but calls forth the exercise of virtue ; daily forbear- 
 ance and heroic self-sacrifice in individuals ; and these 
 individuals thus become burning and shining lights to 
 others. -.]f all were good, and walked erect and
 
 A W ADDING 99 
 
 straightforward from the very first and weak steps ol 
 our existence, it must be because it required very little 
 exertion to do so ; and thus virtue would cease to be 
 virtue. But it was by the general falling short that the 
 glorious beauty of virtue is made manifest; and instead 
 of spurning our weaker fellow creatures, it becomes 
 the godlike task of the good to pity them, to love them, 
 and to toil unweariedly, amid all the cruelties and 
 the ingratitude of common life, for their restoration. 
 
 There was something wonderfully cheering and 
 strengthening to Middleton in this doctrine, seeing, as he 
 did, its results in the pure and beautiful life of him who 
 maintained it, and reflected as it was by the affectionate 
 and happy hearts into which it had been instilled. 
 
 A week of the most blissful days of his existence 
 had fled on like a dream. Though Mr. Lynden had 
 not thought to ask him at first if he wei-e the author 
 of the work on " Political Morals," which had given 
 nim more pleasure than any work he ever read, the 
 sisters had decided instantly that it was he ; and on 
 his being introduced, had at once exclaimed, '' What a 
 pleasure to see Mr. Charles Middleton, whose name 
 is so well known to us ! " 
 
 The young author had not only the gratification to 
 see the very sentiments which had burned and glowed 
 in their passage from his heart, here marked by the 
 admiring pencil of the fair sisters, but to hear them 
 read in tones that seemed to give them a beauty ten- 
 fold more than he had imagined in them. 
 
 Everywhere in that uncorrupted s^vd reBned society
 
 100 THE I.YNDENS AND 
 
 to which he had been introduced by thera, he had 
 been warmly welcomed as one of the most high- 
 minded of writers ; and strong in resolutions of fresh 
 exertions in the cause of humanity, and wrapt in the 
 day-dreams of happy affection, he rode home. 
 
 We need not say that this was the most delightful 
 summer of Middleton's life. The offer of his alliance 
 had been accepted with the most undisguised gladness 
 by the Lyndens. His father was equally pleased with 
 it, and immediately made over to him a* handsome 
 income. Growing acquaintance had only strengthened 
 the satisfaction and the friendship of all parties. 
 
 In the autumn the marriage took place; and 
 Charles, with his wife and her sister, immediately set 
 out for a tour on the continent. On this tour it was 
 settled, that though they would spend a good part of 
 the year at Middleton, so as to contribute as much as 
 possible to the comfort of the old squire, they would 
 fix their own home near London, where they could 
 enjoy literary society, and where old Mr. Middleton 
 could during the season visit them, and thus enjoy not 
 only their society, but that of such of his old friends 
 and neighbours as regularly came to towa. 
 
 As it turned out, however, the old gentleman, 
 though enjoying a trip to London now and then, soon 
 showed that it was at Middleton that his heart chiefly 
 lay, while, on the contrary, Charles and his wife 
 became more and more bound to the vicinity of Lon- 
 don. Middleton's talent and high character, as was to 
 be expected, speedily called him forth as an invaluable
 
 A WEDDING. 101 
 
 i-hampion in all those great plans for the good of 
 society, which are always in activity in London. 
 Literati, philanthropists, and politicians flocked round 
 him., His pen, his purse, and his personal exertions 
 were soon zealously engaged in so many great ohjects, 
 as while they ^ave him the persuasion that ho was ren- 
 dering the greatest possible benefit to his fellow men. 
 left him neither time nor inclination for aught else. 
 
 In the great struggle for Parliamentary Reform, 
 his eloquent pen and enthusiastic zeal were univer- 
 sally allowed to have efiFected the most brilliant 
 results ; and tliat triumph once won, he was on all 
 sides importuned to enter Parliament. But he firmly 
 resisted the flattering temptation. He had acquired 
 a deep insight into his own character. He knew his 
 own sanguine temperament ; and was aware that once 
 cast into the rapid and fascinating current of parlia- 
 mentary debate, his love of eloquence, and his vehe- 
 ment longing for right and truth, would absorb his 
 whole heart and soul. He might, he did not doubt, 
 win the palm of a high oratorical renown, but it must 
 be at the sacrifice of many human interests which were 
 dear to him as life itself, and to which he was now 
 daily devoted. Besides, he felt that he possessed in his 
 pen a mighty instrument not only of permanent 
 reputation, but of social good. It had become to him 
 a high and serene enjoyment from the occasional 
 seclusion of his study — from the very heart of calm 
 peace and silence — to launch the fiery arrows of hia 
 eloquence, and see the vast human multitude without,
 
 102 THE LYNDENS AND A WEDDING. 
 
 thrown into the commotionof a tempest, -which, rolling 
 on far and wide, bore down before it the barriers of 
 baseness, which selfish natures were always piling up 
 against the advance of *,ruth and knowledge. 
 
 To his own mind he had realised all the wishes 
 which in his most ardent years he had conceived. He 
 felt that he possessed that proudest power, intellect, 
 and that it was exerted in its most blessed and legiti- 
 mate direction — that of advancing human good — and 
 he was happy. Human nature had vindicated itself 
 in his eyes in the noblest manner, in the virtues of 
 those great and eminent men amongst whom his tastes 
 and labours had thrown him. His writings had won 
 him a wide reputation, because they were not the 
 merely cold and sarcastic, or as coldly calculating 
 effusions of the day's politics, but were quickened 
 with the warmest fires of fancy and energy of soul. 
 
 In his wife, time had shown him as fortunate as he 
 had at first deemed himself. With talents equal to 
 working out for herself a brilliant fame in the regions 
 of poetry and fancy, her fondest desire was to increase 
 the fame and usefulness of her husband. Her praise 
 was his best stimulus to high exertion ; her instinctive 
 tact often gave this its best direction ; and her fancy 
 and talent continually suggested and supplied him 
 with matter which conferred still more effective 
 power on his compositions. 
 
 Under these circumstances time fled on ; and wa 
 shall let him flee on for a long space of years, only 
 noticing two little affairs by the way.
 
 » 
 
 SHALL TROUBLES AND GREAT GlIAKQES. lO.*? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SMALL TROUBLES AND GREAT CHANGES. 
 
 In one of the visits which INIr. Charles Middleton 
 and his wife made to Middleton, he found the old 
 rector grown so feeble, both in mind and body, that 
 it had been necessary to engage a curate to do his 
 duty. This was a Mr. Brandling, a young man 
 who appeared to be much in favour with almost 
 every body, but who did not very much take the 
 fancy either of the young sq^uire or his lady. 
 
 Charles Middleton had always contemplated, when- 
 ever the old rector should die, securing the living, if 
 it fell vacant in his father's time, or giving it if it fell 
 in his own, to a college friend of great taste and piety, 
 and whom he thought of all men calculated to become 
 a blessing to the parish and a pleasant companion for 
 himself and his family. It was therefore a matter of 
 chagrin to him that lie had not been consulted about 
 this; but he found that neither his father nor Wag- 
 staff, who was now become steward, had had a voice 
 in it. Out of delicacy to their old fiiend, they had 
 never hinted even that he was in any way incapable 
 of his usual duties, because he was not, in f^ict, 
 really troubled with any actual indisposition or decre- 
 pitude, but was sinking into a state of superannua- 
 tion which would in a while render such a step aa 
 this both kind and necessary. At present, however,
 
 l04 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 the good old man had sho^vn a particular sensitive* 
 ness to any hints from any quarter at any inability to 
 perform all his duties, as well as in his best days. 
 While, however, they were thus waiting, the bishop 
 stepped suddenly in and appointed this young man, 
 who ^^■as a nephew of his own, and who it was whis 
 pered had, himself, pointed out the necessity of the 
 act, and requested the appointment. 
 
 This information materially increased Charles Mid- 
 dleton's vexation and dislike to the curate. There 
 was nothing that he could object to him in a moral 
 point of view. He was strictly regular in his duties, 
 but in a religious one he thought there were great 
 objections to him. He could not, in fact, trace in 
 him any decided and palpable religious impressions 
 at all. 
 
 The curate was of some five or six and twenty 
 years of age, of a middle size, dark complexion, and 
 with dark and crisped hair. On both hair and person 
 generally, great care was evidently bestowed. He 
 always wore the handsomest gloves, had the most 
 beautifully cut collars and wristbands, and wore ex- 
 quisitely shaped boots. Yet no one could call him 
 any thing of a dandy, but on the contrary everybody 
 said he was a very gentlemanly man — a very res- 
 pectable man. He gave himself, indeed, no fine airs, 
 but had a smiling, somewhat sociable and conversa- 
 tional manner, particularly with the ladies. He read 
 the newspaper regularly, and was always au fait in 
 what was going on in parliament and the ministry ;
 
 GREAT CHANGES. 106 
 
 and as he was very regular in his calls on all the good 
 families in the neighbourhood, he was not the less so 
 on all the little affairs and on dits of the country 
 round. He was a remavlcably pleasant and chatty 
 person at the dinner table ; and this and his other good 
 qualities procured him no lack of such invitations. 
 
 In fact Mr. Brandling was become a general 
 favourite before Mr. Charles Middleton knew that 
 he was there at all. Even with his father he was not 
 tne less so, with whom he played all the long winter 
 evenings at chess, and made one at a rubber at whist, 
 and to whom he brought daily the newspaper. 
 
 " But why is the man such a favourite ?" asked 
 Charles Middleton impatiently, "for what merits? 
 What are his talents, or his principles \" 
 
 Nobody pretended to say what were his merits or 
 his talents particularly. They were sure he was a 
 sound and orthodox churchman, and he had the merit 
 of making himself very agreeable. 
 
 Charles Middleton put these his impatient questions 
 to ^7agstaff, and he saw that WagstafF did not seem 
 more to admire him than he did himself. 
 
 " I cannot find," said Wagstaff, " that he has any 
 very decided intellectual tastes, and what he really 
 knows or does not know, it is not easy to ascertain ; 
 for he is too much of a gentleman to suffer a person 
 like myself to catechise or draw him out. He evi- 
 dently stands on his guard in such matters, and one 
 feels that one cannot go on with him further than he 
 pleases, without giving offence, la short." added
 
 106 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 "Vragstaff, -who was a great reader of John Bunyaa, 
 " I call him Mr. Worldly Wiseman." 
 
 " There," said Mr. Charles Middleton, " you have 
 given me his character in a word. That describes the 
 whole man. And is such a man to fix himself down 
 here for life, for that is what I dread, and are the people 
 to be fed on his chopped straw, instead of the living 
 aud inspiring viands that my friend Phillips would 
 give them ? I look upon him in no better light than 
 what the Scotch call a "Thigger and Sorner." A man 
 that has actually thrust himself in here, and here means, 
 with or without our consent, to establish himself." 
 
 " And in my opinion," said Wagstaff, " he will do 
 it. It is wonderful how he has worked himself into 
 the good graces of all the gentry round. Even *he 
 squire is quite taken with him, and is never easy 
 if he do not regularly come in of an evening, to his 
 chess. Good old Millard cannot last long, and then — " 
 
 " By Heavens ! " exclaimed Charles Middleton, 
 carried out of himself, by seeing all his fears con- 
 firmed by Wagstaff, " by Heavens ! it never shall be, 
 if I have power to prevent it !" 
 
 He made Wagstaff promise to keep a strict eye on 
 what went forward, and give him the speediest intel- 
 ligence of any new move. He then hurried off to 
 his father, and talked the matter over with him, 
 endeavouring to procure a promise, in case the living 
 fell vacant in his time, for his friend Phillips. 
 
 " Why, Charles," said his father, " I think you 
 are quite unreasonable. I certainly should be sorrj
 
 GREAT CHANGES. 107 
 
 to do anything disagreeable to you, or prejudicial to 
 your friend Phillips ; but at the same time, I do 
 really think Mr. Brandling a most meritorious young 
 man. Your prejudice is, I repeat, unworthy of you. 
 and till you have seen more of Mr. Brandling, do^ 
 not let us say any more on the subject. You must 
 make yourself acquainted with him, and then if 
 your objections remain, I will give my promise; till 
 then I do not wish to say more about it." 
 
 This conversation greatly increased Charles's dislike 
 to the curate. He saw that his father would gladly 
 give him the living, if it were left entirely to his 
 inclination, and he regarded Brandling as a cunning 
 adventurer, who had crept most adroitly up the old 
 gentleman's sleeve. This was enough to prevent his 
 making any farther acquaintance with him. He felt 
 a strong prejudice against him, and for him to feel it, 
 was in some degree to show it. 
 
 Mr. Brandling appeared desirous to be on good 
 terms with Charles and his wife, but he immediately 
 observed their coldness, and became himself cold and 
 reserved also. He was a keen sportsman, and the old 
 squire proposed, as a good means of creating a feeling 
 of fellowship, that he should accompany his son to 
 the marshes to shoot snipes ; but Charles Middleton 
 excused himself, on the plea of of her engagements, and 
 the proposal was never again renewed by the curate. 
 
 It was in this state of things that Mr. Charles 
 Middleton returned to town. 
 
 Time went on. Whenever Charles went down to
 
 108 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 Middleton, he found the curate in as high favour a9 
 ever with everybody. He always expressed his 
 wonder what people could see in him, and took care 
 to praise, on all occasions, before his father, the 
 talents and virtues of his friend Phillips. He even 
 threw out, as a strong attack on the old gentleman, 
 how his mother would have gloried in the prospect 
 of having such a pastor for the parish. 
 
 " Well, and what hinders it," the squire would 
 say, with a tartish sort of manner, on such occasions, 
 " have I refused the living to you ?" 
 
 During his visits, Mr. Brandling seldom came in, 
 except to bring the squire the paper, saying that as 
 he had his son's society, he did not need his to cheer 
 him in an evening, but that he would come as soon 
 as he was alone and needed it. 
 
 It was, in fact, and that everybody soon came to 
 feel, a regular and understood, though unavowed 
 contest between the young squire and Mr. Brandling, 
 who should be the future rector of Middleton. 
 
 Two years still went on, when Wagstaff wrote to 
 London to Charles, to say that the old clergyman 
 was evidently going fast, and that Mr. Middleton 
 must hold himself in readiness to come down at a 
 moment's warning, or all would be lost. Nay, he 
 would recommend that he should come down in 
 readiness, and stay till all was over and secure. But 
 this occurred at the period when the contest for the 
 Reform Bill was at its height ; when the very fate of 
 the kingdom for years seemed hangina; on a day ^8
 
 GREAT CHANGES. 109 
 
 event, and every man was on the stretcli of intensest 
 excitement. Charles Middleton replied, that he could 
 not by any possibility be away from London for more 
 than a day at such a crisis ; he trusted the rector 
 would last till this was over, when he would come and 
 stay at Middleton as long as necessary, or in case of 
 extremity he would tear himself away and hurry 
 down. 
 
 Scarcely had he dispatched this letter, when 
 another arrived from Wagstaff, announcing that the 
 rector was dead ; the bishop had been with his father 
 to solicit the living for his nephew, and that Mr. 
 Brandling had been himself to tell him that he had 
 the squire's promise to that effect. 
 
 The vexation of Mr. Charles Middleton at thi? 
 news, exceeded all bounds. It was the sole gift he 
 had, or was ever likely to have, to bestow on his 
 friend. He had always calculated on this, and till 
 lately, as on a certainty. He had promised Phillips 
 that it shonld be his if it lay in his power, of which 
 he did not doubt, and he knew that Phillips had no 
 single patron or hope of preferment besides. He 
 could not help looking upon his father's giving it 
 away under these circumstances, as particularly 
 unkind. He wrote and told his father this, and felt 
 as though he should never be able to bear the place 
 again. Towards the new rector, a feeling of resentment 
 and contempt as an impudent interloper, was intense. 
 The thought that this man was for his whole life to 
 bo planted in the very spot of his own abode, as an 
 10
 
 ^10 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 annoyance, if not a nuisance, was more than his 
 impatience could well bear. 
 
 It was, in fact, months before he could endure the 
 thought of going down to Middleton ; but then better 
 thoughts took the place of his resentment. He deter- 
 mined that nothing should make him neglect his duty 
 to his father, or to cherish hard thoughts of him ; and 
 when he went down and saw how much the old gentle- 
 man had sunk, and heard from liim that the Bishop 
 had only prevailed on him to give this living to his 
 nephew, on a written promise that one as good, and 
 not more than two miles distant, should be conferred 
 on his son's friend, Phillips, when it fell in, and the 
 incumbent was now near ninety, and very infirm, he 
 was much appeased. 
 
 " But why," asked he nevertheless, " colild not the 
 Bishop have given the reversion of that living to his 
 nephew, and have left this alone ? " 
 
 " Ah, my dear son ! " said the old squire, smiling, 
 " Bishops are mortal as well as other men. The 
 Bishop himself is old, and I will do Mr. Brandling the 
 justice to say that he is too calculating not to prefer 
 a bird in the hand to two in the bush. Not but that 
 I thmk there is every chance of the incumbent ol 
 I^angley going before long. The Bishop — but as Mr. 
 Brandling says, if the Bishop should die before I 
 get preferment, all my hopes die with him — and sure 
 IS doubly sure." 
 
 " Hang him and his proverbs !" said Charles ; *' he 
 is Worldly Wiseman with a vengeance."
 
 GREAT CHANGES. IH 
 
 Fully as his generous heart forgave his father, for 
 he saw that he was fast sinking, and was evidently so 
 much weakened in mind, that it was an easy matter 
 for the strong and cunning to overpower him, espe- 
 cially when they, as the new clergyman had done, 
 contributed so much to his comfort, he by no means 
 abated his dislike to Mr. Brandling himself. 
 
 There were also many circumstances which tended 
 rapidly to exasperate his feelings. He and his wife 
 went down, and continued at Middleton, in order tc 
 contribute as much as in them lay to the comfort and 
 amusement of the old squire, who grew very feeble. 
 Here tliey were necessarily placed, as it were, as the 
 watchers of certain and rapid changes whichwere 
 going on at tlie rectory. 
 
 Great numbers of workmen appeared on the ground. 
 Old walls were soon thrown down; old trees, here 
 and there, felled. There were men with measuring 
 lines and measuring tapes, measuring here and 
 measuring there. Tilers soon appeared astride the 
 roof, and the roof itself rapidly disappeared. In fact, 
 it appeared that the whole place was about to undergo 
 a thorough change. In the course of the summer 
 this change became very manifest, and went on with 
 rapid strides under the hands of a host of workmen. 
 The house was raised a siory, and enlarged ; stables 
 and offices added, lodge-gates put up, gardens au<i 
 pleasure-grounds on an ample scale were laid out 
 and, in short, instead of the old rectory, a new hall, 
 rivalling that of the squire itself, rose on the spot.
 
 112 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 The living was one of the richest in the county, and 
 it was said that by a pretty strict attention to tho 
 tithe claims, and Mr. Brandling was not the man to 
 neglect them, the income would be trebled. The 
 following spring the house was habitable ; a consider- 
 able establishment oF serf-^wits was engaged, the men 
 in smart clerical livery, and .ue rector was himself soon 
 after seen issuing from his gates in a handsome chariot 
 on his way to dine with a neighbouring nobleman. 
 
 All this excited no trifling interest and talk in the 
 neighbourhoods The poor praised the new rector 
 for empiji^^'ng so many men, and for engaging their 
 sons and d-iughters as servants, but the farmers shook 
 their heads, and said they knew very well who was 
 to pay for it. All, however, paid the most profound 
 respect to the rector when they met him, and Mr. 
 and Mrs. Charles Middleton were not so much above 
 the common feelings of humanity as to witness this 
 without a certain chagrin. 
 
 " How different," said they, " would all this have 
 been had poor Phillips had the living ! We shall 
 now have a proud priest instead of a fatherly pastor ; 
 and pride and worldliness will be infused into the 
 parish instead of piety." 
 
 A little time showed that things did not end here. 
 The old squire died in the autumn, and Charles and 
 Mrs. Middleton, after the funeral, returned to town, 
 where they meant to stay the winter. Here thoy 
 had scarcely arrived when they read in a morning 
 paper the marriage of Mr. Brandling with the
 
 GREAT CHANGES. • 113 
 
 youngest daughter of a neighbouring nobleman, and 
 soon after heard from WagstafF that he was put into 
 the commission of the peace, and now regularly offi- 
 ciated at the justice-room. 
 
 There is no man who can bear with indifference to 
 witness the growth of what he regards as a cunning 
 and worthless upstart, and that, as it were, under his 
 very eye, and least of all a man of such quick feelings 
 and contempt for mean natures and actions as Mr, 
 Middleton. Of all things he detested the union of 
 clergyman and magistrate. 
 
 " How can this man," said he to his wife, " preach 
 with proper effect to people whom he plagues with 
 warrants and mittimusses? How talk to them of 
 love and loving-kindness, when he is fining and im- 
 prisoning them for the petty capture of hares and par- 
 tridges ? And as for ourselves, dear Edith," he would 
 add, "we are become mere cyphers on our estate. 
 "What are we to this great and reverend divine ? " 
 
 " What are we !" would his wife reply , " you are 
 Charles Middleton, and I am his wife ! and I would 
 not change these titles for the proudest in the coun- 
 try I My dear Charles," she would say, putting her 
 arm round his neck, and kissing him, '* you ai-e not 
 yourself as regards this man." 
 
 " Really it is great folly," he would reply with a 
 smile ; " but when I think that we might have had 
 PhUlips here, I am very far from a Christian." 
 
 It was just at this crisis of affairs, and while he 
 was very irritable about everything at Middleton thaA
 
 114 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 he recei \'ed a letter from his bankers in Stockington, 
 sxpressing great regret that Mr. Middleton should 
 have thought it necessary to withdraw his money and 
 countenance from their bank. They added, that they 
 hoped it was indeed not his own act, but that of his 
 steward, of whom they would not wish to give Mr. 
 Middleton any unjust cause of suspicion, but they did 
 tliink it only their duty, as a firm which had been 
 so long and so much honoured by the favour of Mr. 
 Middleton's family, to say that there were strange 
 reports of the close proceedings of this man, who, 
 though he wore a very fair face to his employer, was 
 well known in a few years to be grown from nothing 
 to actual wealth, and, if rumour were correct, was, at 
 that moment, making very extensive secret invest- 
 ments in the north. 
 
 "Vipers!" exclaimed Charles Middleton, as he- 
 read this letter thus far, and flinging it on the floor : 
 " What ! do they think to make me believe Wag- 
 Btaff^ to be a villain ? As soon would I believe the 
 rector of Middleton a Fenelon ! " 
 
 He crushed the letter with his heel, and then 
 kicked it from him as he went out of the room. He 
 never designed to take further notice of it or the 
 writer, till some months afterwards, first one and 
 then another anonymous letter, with different post- 
 marks and in different handwritings, reached him, 
 containing hints that Mr. Middleton, whose generous 
 and un uspicious character was well knouTi, would do 
 well to look into his state of affairs in the country.
 
 GREAT CHANGES. lift 
 
 " There is some cursed plot here ! " said he one 
 da}'', laying these letters before his wife ; " I must see 
 into it, or they who write these letters will not fail 
 to use other means to destroy the character of an 
 honest man. Or can it be that I am really too con- 
 fiding in human nature ? Can AVagstafF have proved 
 80 weak as to let the temptations of money corrupt 
 his naturally noble nature ! I regret now that I 
 destroyed that detestable letter from the banker." 
 
 " Here it is," said Mrs. Middleton, who had the 
 peculiar practice of keeping all papers in the greatest 
 order, and never, if possible, destroying a letter , 
 " it was found under the sofa, and brought to me. 
 But, dear Charles, banish every suspicion of Mr."SVag- 
 stafF; 1 will answer for him as I would for my own 
 soul. Go down at once, dearest, and know the truth." 
 
 " Thank you, dear Edith, for that word ! " said 
 her husband, looking into her face with a smile of the 
 sunniest delight ; " I will be off this very day, for to 
 think that Seth Wagstaff were capable of a flaw or taint 
 of corruption, would destroy my faith even in myself." 
 
 He instantly set off, and travelling all-night by 
 coach, posted from Derby early in the morning, and 
 appeared, to the general surprise, thus unexpectedly 
 and unattended, at Middleton before nine o'clock. 
 He ordered the housekeeper to have breakfast imme- 
 diately prepared, and having dispatched it, walked 
 over to Seth WagstafF's. Seth was as much surprised 
 as all others had been who had seen him, and asked 
 if anything serious had occurred.
 
 116 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 " Look at these," said Mr. Middleton, laying dowi 
 the letters concerning Wagstaff before him — the 
 banker's letter uppermost. WagstafF first took up 
 one and then another, and read them in silence, while 
 Charles Middleton stood by and watched his coun- 
 teuance. At first there was a flush as of painful sur- 
 prise on his brow as he read the bankers', but a3 he 
 went through the following ones, a paleness spread 
 over his features, which, before he had finished the 
 perusal, became ghastly and sickly. Charles ?»Iid- 
 dleton could see that his hand shook as he held the 
 papers, and his teeth, though he strove to fix all his 
 features firmly, chattered in his head. 
 
 Mr. Middleton himself became pale as he witnessed 
 the struggle. " Can this be ? " said he to himself. 
 " Can this man then really have fallen V 
 
 As AVigstafF closed the last letter he laid it down 
 in silence, sank into a chair, and laying his face in 
 his hands, burst into a convulsion of tears. 
 
 Mr. Middleton felt himself to tremble from head 
 to foot, and a most miserable feeling oppressed him. 
 It was not anger ; he gave not a moment's thought to 
 what extent he might have been injured, but it was 
 the deadly anguish of believing a noble nature de- 
 stroyed by the base influences of the world. 
 
 " Have you nothing to say to these letters, "\Vag" 
 staff?" at length he asked. 
 
 " Say ! " returned Wagstaff", rising up with a face 
 no longer pale, but burning with a crimson glow of 
 passion — " to say ! yes ! that they are the work of a
 
 GREAT CHANGES. 117 
 
 devil* "ilr. Middleton, they are false, they are— ^ 
 but, my God! that you have thus for a moment 
 credited them. Can you for a month — for the first 
 letter is so long ago dated — have been entertaining 
 such thoughts of me ?" 
 
 " Thank God that you are innocent ! " cried Mr. 
 Middleton. "Oh, what a weight have you taken from 
 ray heart, WagstafF! No, I could not believe you 
 guilty — I could not believe it, WagstafF. That in- 
 fernal letter I trod, as it deserved, under my feet, and 
 it was only on the receipt of the last of these name- 
 less and Satanic things that I determined to come down 
 and throw them before you." 
 
 As he said this, WagstafF 's colour changed again, 
 and again sinking in a chair, he gave way to another 
 fit of crying. 
 
 " Be a man, Seth !" said Mr. Middleton, kindly : 
 *' Wliy do you thus agitate yourself? There is no 
 need for such distress; and, indeed, your emotion for a 
 moment gave me a feeling that I would not again 
 experience for my whole estate ; it almost made me 
 imagine what your enemies never have and never can." 
 
 Seth rose up at once, and wiped the tears from his 
 face. 
 
 " It is not the vile papers," said he, speaking with 
 all the honest indignation of innocence, " which dis- 
 turbed me — they are soon disposed of; but it was the 
 idea that shot through me that you had believed them, 
 that you and Mrs. Middleton believed me a villain." 
 
 " On the contrary," returned Mr. Middleton, " my
 
 118 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 hastening hither, and putting them into your hands, 
 may assure you that that was not the case : as to my 
 wife" — here he repeated her words, and the warm 
 emphasis she had used ; but at these words poor 
 Seth's tears again hurst forth in a fresh stream, and 
 rushing out of the room, Mr. Middleton saw him 
 hurry down the garden, and traverse the shady long 
 walk at the bottom to and fro with hasty steps. At 
 one time he paused behind a bush for a few moments, 
 and Mr. j\Iiddleton, who had risen to the window, saw 
 him in the act of prayer ; he then moved on, and with 
 a calm and more measured step returned to tlie house. 
 
 " Excuse my weakness, sir," said he, on entering, 
 " I am now myself again ; let us proceed to business." 
 
 He then handed Mr. Middleton a chair, and seat- 
 ing himself at his writing-table, proceeded to explain 
 all that the letters could refer to in the most metho- 
 dical and clear manner. In the first place, Wagstaff 
 reminded him of the entire confidence he had placed 
 in him, and that he had given him the most fuU 
 authority to make investments of any surplus capital 
 as he considered most advantageous, giving him credit 
 for a better knowledge of them than he himself 
 possessed, and only requiring that each half-year a 
 statement of affairs should be submitted to him, and 
 all books be in readiness to refer to, whenever he 
 should think necessary. He then added, that the 
 balance in the bank had become very large, and that 
 as within the last six months certain matters had 
 come to his knowledge, which placed the affairs of the
 
 OREAT CHANGES. 119 
 
 bank in no very favourable li.ght, he had deemed it 
 his duty to withdraw the balance ; but, in order not 
 unnecessarily to embarrass the firm, he had done this 
 by easy instalments and at considerable intervals. 
 
 This money, he went on to state, he had invested 
 In certain gas and water-works in a northern town, 
 where the security was most unquestionable, and the 
 interest would certainly be ten per cent. 
 
 He then laid before him all the papers and corre- 
 spondence connected with this business, and laid before 
 him also the book in which this capital was entered 
 in the inventory of the Middleton property. Nothing 
 could be more regular or satisfactory. 
 
 " That I may," said ^T^agstafF, " have made ene- 
 mies among speculative men, who now see tlie value 
 of these investments, is possible ; but my opinion is 
 that all these anonymous letters proceed from the 
 bankers." 
 
 He then stated that it was true that he had acquired 
 a handsome property. 
 
 " That is no business of mine, "Wagstaff," said 
 Mr. Middleton, interrupting him. " What you have 
 I am sure is your own, and honestly got, to a stiver, 
 and may God bless you with it : but 1 desire to pry 
 into none of your private affairs." 
 
 " No," said he, earnestly, " excuse me, it is not for 
 any satisfaction of yours, but of my own. 1 can have 
 no money affairs which should be any secret between 
 us. What I have I owe to the kindness of your 
 father and yourself, and I am proud to acknowledge
 
 120 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 it. But that no one malicious person may be able td 
 say again that I have what you know not of, let mo 
 beg you to see a statement of my affairs." 
 
 On this Mr. Middleton reseated himself, and in a 
 few minutes Seth showed him to a penny what he 
 was worth. It was a handsome sum, but all the 
 sources from which it flowed were so clear, so 
 honourable, and so well deserved, from the indus- 
 try, good sense, and economy by which it was 
 amassed, that, on rismg, Mr. Middleton took his hand 
 in both his. 
 
 " Honest Wagstaff," said he, " I am a prouder aad 
 a happier man than I know how to express. Proud 
 to possess the friendship and the services of a man 
 like you, and happy to be able to contribute in any 
 degree to the prosperity of such a man. For these 
 evil-intentioned bankers, write simply to theni that I 
 have handed this letter to you, and begged you to 
 acknowledge its receipt." 
 
 If there were two men on the face of the earth who 
 that day might be envied, they were Mr. Middleton 
 and his steward. 
 
 The moment Mr. Middleton was gone, WagstafF 
 hastened to tell his wife all that had passed, and Mr. 
 Middleton only went away to sit down and write an 
 account of it to his wife. That done, he felt that he 
 wanted some fresh vent to his feelings, and he marched 
 off now to different cottages, especially to those of 
 old pensioners of his mother, and sat down, and in- 
 q?nred how they were, and how they got on, in so
 
 GREAT CHANGES. 121 
 
 kind a manner, that they all declared they had never 
 seen the young squire so pleasant in all their days 
 before, nor so much the picture of his blessed mother. 
 Wherever he went, he left glad hearts and a hand- 
 some gift behind him. 
 
 But if people were charmed with the squire's calls 
 on them, they were not a little surprised to see him 
 go also up to the rectory and enter there. The fact 
 was, in the course of his visits to the cottages, he had 
 heard of so much good done by the rector, and espe- 
 cially by his lady, that his heart smote him as if he 
 were really doing some injustice in that quarter. He 
 was in a mood to forget and to forgive all injury 
 against him in this world. He recollected the present 
 rector's wife as a young and laughing gui at her 
 father's, though he had never seen much of her ; and 
 he resolved to sink all his past feelings towards her 
 husband, and to see what they both really were. 
 
 That they were both greatly surprised may be 
 believed, but they received him with evident gratifi- 
 cation. He stated frankly that he had felt much 
 chagrined by Mr. Brandling's succeeding in securing 
 the place which he had held sacredly for his friend, 
 but that there was a proper limit to such feelings ; and 
 what he had heard that morning from various quar- 
 ters had determined him at once to seek a better 
 acquaintance with them. 
 
 The rector acknowledged tlvat he had, perhaps, 
 been too eager in his desire to push himself in the 
 world, but that he did not know, when he first cast 
 11
 
 122 SMALL TROUBLES AND 
 
 his eyes on this living, that Mr. Middleton had it ill 
 view for so dear a friend ; and there had been induce*- 
 ments for him to press on, and perseveringly, in this 
 locality, " which were more powerful" — here he cast 
 a look at his wife — " than had been his consideration 
 of other circumstances." He begged sincerely that 
 Mr. Middleton would excuse what in this had hurt 
 him, and assured him that he would use every means 
 in his power to secure the interests of his friend." 
 
 In the mood in which Mr. Middleton then was, this 
 candour worked wonderfully upon him. He really 
 began to think the rector quite a pleasant man, clever 
 man of the world though he might be ; and then his 
 wife — he was perfectly charmed with her. It was 
 impossible to see her without acknowledging that she 
 was a very lovely and fascinating woman. In fact, 
 she was a thoroughly kind-hearted and accomplished 
 lady, of great ease and sweetness of manners; and 
 Mr. Middleton could not help believing that her mind 
 and influence had greatly and most advantageously 
 wrought on her husband. They parted on both sides 
 evidently delighted at the interview. 
 
 Mr. Middleton wrote again to his wife, begging her 
 to come down at once. He was eager to introduce 
 her to Mrs. Brandling, for he felt sure she would find 
 a friend in her. 
 
 The result of all was, that Mrs. Middleton was as 
 much charmed with the rector's lady as her husband 
 was. The husbands themselves soon were on the 
 most friendly terms. They shot together, and rode
 
 GREAT CHANGES. 123 
 
 together ; and Mr. Middleton, who was now looking 
 for nothing more than " a gentleman" in Mr. Brand- 
 ling, soon felt that, with all his self-seeking, he bad 
 really much good nature in him. The two ladies 
 went hand in hand in all their projects for the good 
 of the people. j\Irs. Brandling had a very loving 
 heart as well as elegant mind, and soon clung to Mrs. 
 Middleton as to a sister. 
 
 Whatever the squire or his lady p/oposed to do for 
 the general good was sure to be warmly seconded by 
 the rector and his lady. A school was set on foot by 
 the ladies, for which the two husbands jointly built a 
 house ; and work and instruction in work were distri- 
 buted through the parish in such a manner, that even 
 in the time of the late Mrs. Middleton the poor were 
 never so well off, or their children so well taught. 
 
 During this period Mr. Middleton resumed his 
 acquaintance with many of the surrounding families ; 
 amongst them with that of Lord Forrester, who had 
 now a handsome wife, and a troop of handsome chil- 
 dren. He had made a good figure in parliament, and 
 was a man of great weight in the country, and to the 
 Conservative interest. Everywhere tlie Middletons 
 were received with the honour which their well- 
 known talents and virtues entitled them to ; and in 
 the sunshine of such kindness, he was glad to acknow- 
 ledge that, in the sweet retirements of his native 
 neighbourhood, there was to be found much to love 
 and to esteem. 
 
 Even to Sir Henry "W'ilmot he did not refuse to
 
 124 UTOPIA DISCOVERED. 
 
 extend his hand when they met. He had learned 
 that Sir Henry had suffered much in his domestic 
 life, the consequence of that deceit which he had put 
 on his wife with regard to Middleton's affection for 
 her. This had come to her knowledge, and if. had for 
 a time overset her reason, and nearly cost her her 
 life. Her health had suffered many years, but the 
 contrition and the passionate affection shown by her 
 husband towards her through all, had finally produced 
 a great change in her feelings towards him. She had 
 recovered her health in a great measure, and she had 
 exercised a strikingly beneficial influence on Sir 
 Henry's disposition, which was made to be guided ; 
 and, amid her children, seemed no longer a person to 
 be pitied. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 UTOPIA DISCOVERED. 
 
 The circumstances related in the last chapter have 
 brought us now to the middle-life of Charles Middle- 
 ton. Time and much intercourse with the world, 
 though it had corrected some of his Utopian notions 
 of human nature, had not in the least dimmed his 
 admiration of whatever was noble, or his contempt for 
 what was mean. 
 
 Mrs. Middleton, who, with equai quickness of 
 feeling, had not the same impetuosity of passion with 
 himself, had often managed to soften down his resent-
 
 UTOPIA DISCOVERED. 125 
 
 ments, and to give him time to reflect that it was not 
 worth while to waste his emotions on natures which 
 ■were not capable of being altered by them. She had 
 often reminded him, with good effect, of his amuse- 
 ment at the account given by Hezekiah Godkin, the 
 village saddler, of his adventures in the purchase of 
 an ass, which, though he had bought, he found impos- 
 sible to bring home. After various tricks and fits of 
 desperate stubbornness, it at length trotted into the 
 middle of a pool, with poor Hezekiah on its back, 
 where it stood stock still, and whence neither kicks 
 nor blows 'could move it. "My wrath," said the 
 unlucky saddler, " was roused to a terrible pitch. I 
 dismounted and vowed to kill it ; but as I drew my 
 knife, I suddenly bethought myself that the creature 
 was but an ass : so I gave it a kick, and left it to be 
 the p'ague of somebody else." 
 
 The Middletons had often laughed, and said Heze- 
 kiah's philosophy was the only one to be observed 
 with asses ; and a word from Mrs. Middleton would 
 often bring this to her husband's mind. 
 
 " You are right, Edith," he would say ; " they are 
 no better than the saddler's beast. I will preserve 
 my own peace of mind, and leave them to be the plague 
 of somebody else." 
 
 No two beings, perhaps, ever were better suited, or 
 had enjoyed move happiness, than Charles and Edith 
 Middleton. In taste, in feeling, in love of whatever 
 vras intellectual, and in desires for the advance of 
 humanity, they were but as one heart and one soul j
 
 ]26 UTOPIA DISCOVERED. 
 
 and yet, as no mortal, or mortal pair, arc perfect^ 
 there was one point on which they were only too much 
 alike. AVith all their sense and all their experience, 
 they were for ever looking out for something Utopian, 
 if not in individuals, in whatever was to them new 
 and untried ; they were too uncalculating in many 
 cases where calculation would have saved them much 
 vexation, and too confiding where suspicion would 
 have been the conservative virtue. They were too 
 apt to see things in a poetical light, and not in the 
 plain common sense one. They were always glad to 
 see good in people, and did not always wait to see 
 whether that good was genuine, or whether it was 
 not mixed up with an amount of evil or of folly, 
 vv'hich often made intercourse with such persona 
 extremely dangerous. Had the old rector been alive, 
 he would have said that all this came from not study- 
 ing of mathematics. 
 
 Twenty years, however, of their married life had 
 passed on — twenty years of singular usefulness, indus- 
 try, and felicity. They had not been exempt from 
 the trials and disappointments of human life. They 
 had lost several children, and their only surviving one 
 was a daughter, now about sixteen. 
 
 Lucy — as she was called after her aunt — was a 
 fair and lovely girl — a perfect compound and embo- 
 diment of the qualities and tastes of her parents 
 The oame quickness and ardour of feeling — the samt 
 admiration of everything beautiful in nature or in intel- 
 lect — the same scorn of mean natures. The quality
 
 fTTOPIA DISCOVERED. 127 
 
 of good sense she might be said to possess in an extra* 
 ordinary degree for her age. She had seen a vast 
 deal of society and variety of human character, as a 
 mere child ; for she had been always the companion 
 of her parents, and brought into the circle of their 
 guests. She had, therefore, been disciplined in an 
 experience which gave her an air and tone of mind 
 beyond her years. She had heard so much discussed 
 and talked of, and had read so much, or heard so 
 much of the books read by her parents, that her 
 judgment had acquired a degree of maturity that 
 made people forget that it was with one scarcely more 
 than a child with whom they were conversing. 
 
 It was a matter of the greatest satisfaction to her 
 parents to see the sound and pure taste which she 
 universally displayed in all matters of poetry and art, 
 and still more, that with all the vivacity and merri- 
 ment of a young girl, and love for the amusements of 
 the young, shp was still more attached to whatever 
 was solid and domestic. She was now become tiieir 
 greatest companion — especially so of Mrs. Middleton, 
 who seemed rather her affectionate elder sister than 
 her mother, so complete was the union of feeling 
 and confidence between them. 
 
 In the plans now in progress for Lucy's education ; 
 that of giving her a thorough grounding in the most 
 useful and elegant languages of the Continent ; French, 
 Italian, and German, formed, of course, a part. The 
 taste for the latter, which within a few years had so 
 liecidcdly shown itself, and the wealth of literature
 
 128 UTOPIA DISCOVERED. 
 
 and learning in various departments which it was now 
 known to contain, induced Mr. and Mrs. Middleton 
 to commence the study of it at the same time with 
 their daughter. With their characteristic imagina- 
 tiveness, they became speedily captivated with this 
 study. It seemed to open a new and a primitive 
 world to them. The first book put into their hand 
 by their teacher, who was also a young English friend 
 of theirs, as enthusiastic respecting Germany and 
 German literature as themselves, was Grimm's Kin- 
 der und Haus Marchen. The simple and old- 
 fashioned language of these stories went at once to 
 their hearts, and through the whole region of their 
 fancy. There was such homely picturesqueness and 
 pathos in it : they were never weary of remarking on 
 and pointing out the words which were still those of 
 our own speech. But if the language delighted them, 
 how much more did the stories themselves. Here 
 was a new and delicious world, indeed ! Old forests ; 
 people as simple as our very Saxon ancestors them- 
 selves, abounding in and believing in the most simple 
 of legends and supernatural agencies. It seemed to 
 them a very fairy-land of old-fashioned simplicity, 
 and they thought what a charm there must be in 
 rambling among such a peasantry, and sitting by their 
 fire-sides, and listening to stories such as these ! They 
 read Tieck's Tales, and Herder's Legends, and many 
 others, and their impressions were only confirmed. 
 Then came the Life of Jung Stilling, and completed the 
 impression. Here was a peasant of the very present
 
 UTOPIA DISCOVERED. 129 
 
 Bge, the son of a poor tailor, who had raised himself 
 to fame and high station by his talents and virtues. 
 What a fine old fellow was that brave-hearted old 
 grandfather of his, Eberhard Stilling ! who would not 
 wish to be acquainted with such men? Then they 
 plunged into the poetry of Herder, Goethe, and Schil- 
 ler, and found equal charms in it. AVhat a pathos, a 
 deep feeling, and, at the same time, what a limning 
 of a state of things so much more unsophisticated than 
 with us ! They read of the little Court of "Weimar, 
 whose princes and literati lived together in a new state 
 of harmony and equality ; and concluded that, in 
 high, as in low life, this beautiful simplicity prevailed. 
 They had entertained the idea of spending some 
 years in France and Italy, that their daughter might 
 make herself thoroughly mistress of these languages 
 by intercourse with the natives themselves ; why not 
 then also hasten at once to Germany, where, in the 
 first instance, this new German world of primitive 
 goodness and splendid literature might be equally their 
 own ? Scarcely was the idea suggested than it was 
 adopted. All their arrangements were made for 
 sojourn of some years abroad ; and we must now see 
 them, wrapped, alas ! in a poetical delusion, sailing 
 up the Rhine. Anon, and they were driving onwarda 
 towards Plauderheim, charmed at eveiy step, and 
 with not one fair fancy of this land of promise shaken 
 a3 yet
 
 l«l 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ADVENTURES IN" A GERMAN LODGING-HOUSE. 
 
 The weather was splendid, and the Middletons 
 sallied forth to make, like all other trav(!llers, an 
 early visit to the old castle, and were, of course — 
 as who is not ? — enraptured with the same. The city, 
 the river, the wide-stretching plain, and the woody 
 hills and vineyards around. The more they saw of 
 this lovely neighbourhood, the more they were 
 charmed with it. 
 
 " Why need we go farther for the present ?** said 
 they ; " let us settle down here." 
 
 The next day they were conducted to a large house 
 without the city gate, belonging to one "\Fidow 
 Picket. The widow was not at home, but two of 
 her daughters were, the eldest bordering on forty, 
 with a curious mahogany complexion and red hair ; 
 the other red-haired likewise, but much younger ; 
 ana under the conduct of these two, the Middletons 
 surveyed the place which was proposed for their 
 future residence. The rooms were spacious, aifd 
 looked across the river to vine- clad hills on the 
 other side. At the back, ascended a steep wooded 
 hill, with zigzag walks, so as to conduct, by a tole- 
 rably easy ascent, to the castle ; and, from the upper 
 part of the wood, a pleasant view of the valley and 
 town presented itself. In the garden a fouatain
 
 ADVENTURES IN A GERMAN LODGING-HOUSE. 13l 
 
 Was playing, the sun was shining glowingly over all, 
 and they promised themselves much enjoyment in 
 the place. 
 
 Having settled themselves down, they made excur- 
 sions, day after day, into the neighbouring hills and 
 country, and were more and more delighted with 
 them. They now engaged masters for their daughter, 
 and commenced anew with her a thorough study of 
 the language, and soon deeply interested in their 
 studies which were to prepare them for better in- 
 tercourse with the natives, and never weary with 
 driving and strolling about the neighbourhood, they 
 thought themselves for the time Very fortunate in 
 their location. 
 
 It was about this time that they were not a little 
 startled by the entrance of a person into their break- 
 fast-room one morning, announcing herself as widow 
 Picket, who had the night before returned from a 
 watering-place with her second daughter, a fearfully 
 slender young lady, with fearfully weak eyes, who 
 accompanied her on this morning call, and who was 
 introduced as Thusnelda Adelaide Elizabetta ; and, 
 by the bye, we may as well here remark, that the 
 Germans are as fond of long names as the Spaniards ; 
 as the names of the Pickets may testify, the eldest 
 being Hedwig Charlotte Elizabetta, the youngest Wil- 
 helmina Maria Elizabetta. But tlie Middletons, on 
 the morning of this call, were not thinking so much 
 about names as about the unpleasant impression 
 which the widow Picket made upon them. She was
 
 1,32 ADVENTURES IN A 
 
 a somewhat tall, pale, hook-nosed lady, with a lack* 
 a-daisical air, and who, with her head first on one 
 side and then on the other, amid sundry low bows, 
 spoke in a whining and nasal tone. 
 
 This was anything but the face of an honest, sim- 
 ple-hearted, simple-minded German. For a moment, 
 the whole of Utopia was in danger ; but their second 
 thoughts corrected this. Mrs. Picket was only a 
 lodging-house-keeper — no specimen of the brave and 
 unsophisticated German — they would be civil to her, 
 but have no intercourse with her. These were the 
 thoughts which passed through the minds of the 
 Middle tons for the first five minutes ; what then were 
 their surprise and annoyance when Mrs. Picket went 
 on to inform them, that, as they were strangers in the 
 country, she begged to make some explanations, which 
 might prevent them falling into mistakes, which the 
 English, from the very difference of their customs, were 
 very apt to. In the first and most important place, 
 although she let part of her house, she was no common 
 lodging-house-keeper, but a lady of rank and com- 
 petent fortune ; and then she ran over a list of learned 
 professors and doctors, and even barons, of great 
 wealth, who did the same. Her house, she said, wos 
 not only larger than she wanted, but she felt it an 
 additional comfort and security, seeing she was a 
 •widow with daughters, to have a family in it. She 
 then ran over a list of various English names, some 
 of high note, who, she said, had been her inmates, 
 and with whom she had lived on terms of great intn
 
 GERMAN LODGING-HOUSE. 133 
 
 macy, and ended all by proposing that the same 
 friendly intercourse should exist between them and 
 herself, and more especially as her daughters could 
 be instrumental in teaching Miss Middleton, or even 
 the whole family, German. 
 
 The Middletons, among themselves, laughed at first 
 at the idea of being on visiting terms with the 
 Pickets ; but then, did they not come to Germany 
 in the idea of intercourse with charcoal-burners and 
 tailors' sons, as well as with simple-hearted princes; 
 why then not look for some virtues even among 
 lodging-house-keepers? The Middletons endured 
 them, and hoped for virtues, spite of physiognomy. 
 
 \7eek3 and months rolled on ; they were deeply 
 absorbed in their studies and reading of German ; 
 in enjoying the fine autumn and exploring the woods 
 and vallies, which, with their love for nature, was a 
 never-ceasing enjoyment to them. They watched 
 with great pleasure the industry of the peasants, and 
 returned with cordiality their cheerful and open salu- 
 tations. They never were more happy in their lives ; 
 for their reading, and what they saw, only tended to 
 renew their poetical enthusiasm, although, as yet, 
 they had found neither an Eberhard Stilling nor a 
 Duke, like the friend of Schiller and Goethe ; all, 
 however, as yet, contributed to keep them in good 
 humour, and they even began to exchange occasional 
 visits with widow Picket and her daughters. All was 
 smooth ds yet, and perhapsmight have remained smooth 
 much longer, had not a new actress come on the scene 
 12
 
 134 ADVENTURES IN A 
 
 Amongst the many politicians and philanthropist 
 with whom Mr. Middleton was acquainted, was a 
 merchant of considerable wealth, named Oakley. Mr. 
 Middleton took great pleasure in his broad and liberal 
 sentiments. He met him in various committees of 
 societies for the promotion of political reforms and 
 philanthropic objects, when he was sure to advocate 
 the most energetic measures, and thus a sort of public 
 friendship grew up between them. More intimate 
 and familiar acquaintance, however, made known 
 sundry facts, which, esteemmg Mr. Oakley as he did, 
 he regretted, especially for the sake of his children. 
 
 Mr. Middleton was firmly attached to his ovm 
 church and his faith in Christ, and his religion he held 
 with a peculiar feeling of sacredness. It was a shock 
 to him, therefore, to find that though Mr. Oakley 
 avowed himself to be now a believer in Christianity, 
 he had for the greater portion of his life been other- 
 v.-ise, and had yet taken no pains to induce this belief 
 into the minds of his children. Mrs. Oakley pro- 
 fessed to think exactly as her husband did ; that is, 
 to be convinced of the truth of the Christian reli- 
 gion ; but to hold with him, also, that truth was not 
 to be arrived at by education, but by self-examination 
 and consequent conviction. Mr. Oakley held so sa- 
 cred the freedom of opinion, that he would not limit it 
 in the slightest degree, even by endeavouring to per- 
 suade his children of the truth of Christianity, lest 
 the weight of paternal influence should be the cause 
 of conviction, and not the intrinsic weight of evidence
 
 GERMAN LODGING-HOUSE. 135 
 
 itself. The oonsequence of this was, that the son, 
 who, nevertheless, was a most warm-hearted and 
 amiable youth, with every tendency to nobility of 
 mind, avowed, in the most frank and innocent 
 manner, his infidelity ; and the daughters, highly 
 accomplished girls, though they professed to be Chris- 
 tians, held a curious mixture of extraordinary, not 
 to say libertine, notions mixed up with their religion. 
 
 Whilst these discoveries were being made, however, 
 a family friendship had grown up. The Oakleys 
 courted the IVIiddletons from many causes, and the 
 Middletons, wishing to effect good in young people 
 whom they believed capable of being ornaments to 
 society, could they but be influenced and guided 
 aright, permitted and even encouraged great intimacy. 
 
 The younger daughter, Julia, had established her- 
 self as the bosom friend of Lucy Middleton, and, on 
 their leaving England for Germany, had made her 
 promise to continue their intercourse by letter. The 
 eldest daughter, then approaching thirty, had always 
 appeared to the Middletons singularly domestic. 
 Much plainer in person than her sister, and much 
 less accomplished, she had always exhibited a cha- 
 racter of household self-forgetfulness, which won in 
 an especial manner on Mrs. Middleton. 
 
 One of the peculiarities of the Oakleys was their 
 intense love for everything foreign — foreign literature, 
 foreign music, foreign fashions, foreign manners, all 
 came recommended to their feelings ; hence, at their 
 house were not only to be found every grade, and
 
 136 ADVENTURES IN A 
 
 shade, and rariety of opinion whatever — Socialists 
 and Socinians, Infidels and New Lights, both in phi- 
 losophy and religion; but every variety of people, 
 false or true, under the sun — bearded and long-haired 
 Germans, converted Jews, unfortunate Poles, and 
 Italian carbonari. They were great lionizers, were 
 the Oakleys, and anything with a claim to notoriety 
 or singularity came recommended to them. The 
 Middletons laughed at this weakness of their friends, 
 and begged that they themselves might be permitted 
 to visit them only when alone. 
 
 Thus the Middletons had been now some months 
 in Germany, and, as we have seen, to their great 
 delight. Lucy wrote, as she had been requested, to 
 Julia Oakley, and her letters produced the greatest 
 sensation among them all. 
 
 " Oil, what would we not give to be with you in 
 this darling country ! " wrote Julia, in her replies ; 
 " to study with you the language ; to sing with you 
 the songs ! What a happiness would it not be ! " 
 
 Mr. ar«J Mrs. Middleton read these letters too ; — 
 the}'- thought of poor Jemima, who tended her poultry, 
 knit woollen stockings for her father, and had, appa- 
 rently, so few pleasures, and yet withal whom they 
 thought so capable of turning favourable opportuni- 
 ties to advantage. " Poor Jemima never will marry," 
 said they : " her life is monstrous ; and, good ami- 
 able soul, she never complains. Let her come and 
 spend the winter with us, and study German with 
 Lucy, and music too. Poor thing! we may thus 
 give her pleasant memories for life."
 
 GERMAN LODGING- IIOUSK. VM 
 
 To plan a generous thing and to act upon the idea, 
 was one and the same tiling with the Middletons. 
 The invitation was despatched. The Oakleys were 
 all gratitude ; and in less than a fortnight, Jemima, 
 escorted by her brother and her sister Julia, drove up 
 to the door. 
 
 The Middletons, we need not say, received them 
 with great kindness : they felt a benevolent pleasure 
 in the gratification they had given, and the benefit 
 they were about to confer. 
 
 Not many days, however, had elapsed before a mis- 
 giving arose in Mrs. Middleton's mind. The quiet, 
 self- forget ting Jemima Oakley was no more ; there 
 was something wild and insolent about her that was 
 incomprehensible, and, at the same time, alarming. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, dear Julia, take her back 
 with you," exclaimed Mrs. Middleton to that young 
 lady, whom she found in tears one morning, and who 
 confessed that she wept from anxiety about her sister 
 — acknowledging that the Middletons had been mis- 
 taken in her character — that quiet as they had seen 
 her at home, it was merely from the absence of excite- 
 ment — that in new scenes and among new people she 
 was quite beside herself; and then the poor girl, in 
 the candour of her distress, went on to tell such a 
 variety or anecdotes of Jemima's folly and weakness, 
 as quite astounded her auditor. 
 
 " Why, then, did you bring her here ? Why did 
 your parents permit her to come V asked Mrs. Mid- 
 dleton, almost angry ; " she must go back with you I"
 
 133 ADVENTURES IN A 
 
 "Back with us!" exclaimed Julia, turning pale 
 and clasping her hands. " Oh, that is what I 
 dreaded from the moment your invitation came! 
 Dearest Mrs. Middleton !" said Julia, weeping anew; 
 "our parents know nothing of this her weak- 
 ness ; we guard the knowledge from them as we 
 guard their lives ! They have had many troubles of 
 late — Oh, spare them this ! Oh, what may not the 
 influence of Mr. Middleton, and you, and dear Lucy, 
 effect upon her : do try her yet a while ; she is not 
 wicked, but weak : it is her calamity, and not her 
 crime. I will speak to her ; she will control herself, 
 and all may yet be well !" 
 
 " I must speak with my husband on the subject," 
 said Mrs. Middleton, rising; deeply moved, neverthe- 
 less, by Julia's entreaties and distress. 
 
 " Oh, no ! in Heaven's name, no ! " exclaimed 
 Julia ; " I know Mr. Middleton too well : I know 
 bis high and indignant disposition. Dear — dear Mrs. 
 Middleton, be our friend — keep it from his knowledge! 
 You can do much with Jemima. You have untold 
 influence over her. Spare us all, and keep it from 
 Mr. Middleton's knowledge ! " 
 
 The intense distress of the young girl operated, and 
 Mrs. Middleton consented to have it kept a secret 
 from her husband. 
 
 Julia spoke with her sister, and the effect waa 
 apparent. Jeniima begged the pardon of Mrs. Mid- 
 dleton, and promised never again to give htr cause oi 
 Krief.
 
 GERMAN LODGING-HOUSE. 1 Si) 
 
 The Oakleys were all charmed to be in a foreign 
 land, and among foreigners ; Mrs. Picket and her 
 many-named daughters exerted themselves to the 
 very utmost to win them, and to give them pleasure ; 
 and to the no small amusement and temporary surprise 
 of the Middletons, the Oakleys were wonderfully 
 taken by them ; — the temporary surprise, we say, for 
 they soon remembered all the " Medes, Parthians, 
 Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia " — " the 
 Btrange-visaged, bearded, moustachioed, red-headed, 
 and black-lieaded," embroidered- coated, belted, and 
 bandit-looking beings who frequented the Oakleys, 
 and they ceased to wonder. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE PICKETS AND THE OAKLEYS. 
 
 Three or four days before the time fixed upon 
 for the return of the Oakleys, Mrs. Picket invited 
 them and the Middletons to " tea, bread and butter, 
 and a dance," according to the German mode in word- 
 ing an invitation, which implies that it is to be the 
 very grandest affair of the kind which the inviters can 
 manage. The Oakleys had expressed a wish to dance 
 a regular German cotillon, and Mrs. Picket and her 
 daughters said they should do so. 
 
 At tliis ball there dropped, from some unknown 
 region, another Picket — a son ; a young rnan of some 
 two (T three-and-twenty, with the family red hail
 
 140 THE PICKETS AND 
 
 and sanguine complexion, and who was introduced to 
 the Middletons as Potemkin Frederick Ludwig Per- 
 cival. " A prodigy of learning and genius he was," 
 said his admiring mother ; " and one who was about 
 to produce a new philosophical theory which would 
 astonish all Germany ; he was called Potemkin," she 
 said, " because one of his ancestors had seen an Empe- 
 ror of Russia, and Percival because he had an uncle 
 in England." 
 
 The Miss Oakleys danced in many a remarkable 
 toui of the cotillon with the fiery Potemkin ; liscencd 
 to him singing the most admired of the Burschen 
 songs; and sang with him others which had made 
 their way to England, and become favourites with 
 them there. The next day the Pickets formed a 
 walking-party for the Oakleys, in which Potemkin 
 made a distinguished figure — the whole family think- 
 ing to flatter the Middletons by devotion to their 
 guests. Two more days and the Oakleys went — but 
 Mr. Potemkin stayed. 
 
 " What is this flaming young fellow doing here so 
 much'?" asked Mr. Middleton — as he had found him 
 in the drawing-room several times on coming in from 
 his walks. 
 
 " His visits are extremely unpleasant, my dear 
 Charles," returned his wife ; " not but that he con- 
 ducts himself perfectly well — but I do not like the 
 family. I disapprove of all this intercourse ; but he 
 brings the young ladies books, and always is so desirous 
 to clearing away difficulties from their progress in 
 German."
 
 THE OAKLEYS. 141 
 
 t 
 
 " The German master can do this," returned he. 
 "And what, 1 should like to know, is this Potemkin 
 doing here ? Has he no profession — no business 1 — 
 and where is his abode ? " 
 
 " Jemima tells me," said Mrs. Middleton — for her 
 husband knew as well as she did how intimate this 
 lady had become with the family, and how every 
 day seemed to increase it — " Jemima says," there- 
 fore, she replied, "• that he is preparing for a professor- 
 ship. He is writing some thesis or other, and is 
 come hither to spend the winter and complete his 
 studies." 
 
 " Every day," said he, " increases my dislike of these 
 Pickets. They are, 1 am sure, an artful, designing 
 set of adventurers. This young man is called hither 
 for some plan. There will be an attempt made on 
 the affections of Lucy or on Jemima Oakley — I 
 know not which ; but both are under our care, and 
 it is our bounden duty to guard both from danger." 
 
 Mrs. Middleton was too much of her husband's 
 mind. She had declared the same suspicions to her 
 daughter and their guest ; but the latter laughed at 
 the idea. ''She was in the confidence of the Pickets," 
 she said, " and there was no danger." 
 
 It is impossible to describe Mrs. Middleton s secret 
 uneasiness with regard to Miss Oakley ; the fami- 
 liarity with the Pickets annoyed her extremely. She 
 endeavoured to influence her — to persuade her to 
 settle down to her studies ; but it was vain. She 
 told her of the promise she had been entrapped into
 
 142 THE PICKETS AND 
 
 by her sister to keep the knowledge of her folly from 
 her husband, and besought her to act differently. 
 She reminded her of the character she had borne at 
 home, and in consequence of which she had been in- 
 vited by them ; but all was to no purpose. Hei 
 very countenance, as well as her tone of mind, had 
 become changed ; her cheeks were a crimson flush, 
 as if she were rouged, and her laugh — a laugh that 
 inspired the strangest sensations, came from the dis- 
 tant part of the house with a wild loudness that ter- 
 rified all who heard it. 
 
 " What can have come to that girl V exclaimed 
 Mr. Middleton many a time ; " I really do not know 
 her." 
 
 His wife could have told him ; but she remembered 
 the entreaties of her sister, and was silent. Besides 
 this, she knew that if she made the full discovery to 
 him, he would set off himself with her to England. 
 The winter had set in with unexampled severity, 
 ^nd Jemima's return home under such circumstances 
 must bi-ing all to her parents' knowledge — must 
 perhaps disgrace her with all her friends. Her kind 
 heart could not bear the thought of this. She strove 
 with her again — mourned in secret over her — and 
 felt that of all the winters of her life, this was the 
 most unpleasant. 
 
 " Cannot you, dear Charles, find something to em- 
 ploy this Mr. Potemkin 1" said his wife to hira one 
 day. " He seems to have nothing of his own to do ; 
 he comes every day now to read with Jemima.
 
 THE OAKLEVS. 143 
 
 Better by far find him employment than have him, at 
 a loss, end thus." 
 
 Mr. Middleton was deeply occupied in writing a 
 work which required reference to a great variety of 
 German authoi-s. He approved of the idea, and gave 
 him full employment. This for a time seemed to 
 have the best effect. Potemkin, sensible of the pe- 
 cuniary advantage thus set before him, was particu- 
 larly careful to behave before Mr. and Mrs. Middle- 
 ton, so as to insure their good opinion ; and Jemima, 
 seeing plainly the altered feeling with which even 
 Mr. Middleton regarded her, became somewhat more 
 circumspect. But all this did not check for a moment 
 the wheels of intrigue which were in motion, and 
 which Mrs. Picket was always watching and always 
 urging on. Nor was it long before poor Mrs. Middle- 
 ton was plunged into fresh consternation and distress. 
 
 Mr. Potemkin addressed a passionate declaration of 
 love to Lucy, which the astonished girl indignantly 
 laid Ijcfore her mother. Mrs. Middleton upbraided 
 Jemima with her endeavours to deceive her on this 
 subject ; and, rising up, declared she would lay all 
 before her husband. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake ! wait a moment — reflect a 
 moment;" exclaimed Miss Oakley; "to tell tliis to 
 Mr. Middleton will be dreadful. Oh, dearest Mrs. 
 Middleton, for Heaven's sake, do wait a moment !" 
 and witli these words she ruslicd out of the room. 
 
 Mrs. Middleton and lier daughter sat in amaze, and 
 presently after she re-entered. *' It is all a mistake," 
 said she ; " all a mere joke ! "
 
 144 THE PICKETS AND 
 
 " A mistake ! a joke !" cried Mrs. Middleton and 
 Lucy in the same breath, and with the utmost indig- 
 nation. 
 
 " Yes," said Jemima, " I have seen him. He saya 
 it is nothing but the most harmless of jokes. This is 
 a sort of Valentine's day : he will send the very same 
 to me — he says he will. It's all a foolish piece of 
 business ! But, Oh, if you could only see the distress 
 of the poor young man, now he knows what a grievous 
 mistake he has made ! " 
 
 " A joke," repeated Mrs. Middleton ; " I know not 
 what you may or may not call a joke ; but if this be 
 a joke, it is fit only for a Cossack." 
 
 " But see him, my dear Mrs. Middleton," said 
 Jemima, entreatingly ; " and as yon value my happi- 
 ness, speak not of this to Mr. Middleton ; " added 
 she, clasping her hands tragically. 
 
 " I will see him," replied Mrs. Middleton in indig- 
 nation, and left the room. 
 
 The poor confounded young man, who was more 
 weak than wicked, and was a mere tool in his 
 mother's hands, flung himself at her feet, and with 
 prayers and tears besought forgiveness, protesting that 
 the whole of his future life should show his eternal 
 gratitude. 
 
 " Get up, then, and show that you are a man ! ** 
 exclaimed Mrs. Middleton, who could not help dis- 
 pising so mean-spirited a creature, and who hated 
 scenes, of all things. " One more such folly, and 
 nothing shall save you."
 
 THE OAKLEYS. 145 
 
 She left the room ; and knowing her hushand'g 
 indignant temperament as well as Jemima Oakley 
 did, and believing that poor Potemkin was now fright- 
 ened into propriety, she thought of Hezekiah Godkin 
 and his ass, and determined to be silent, nor provoke 
 her husband by so pitiful a being as this. 
 
 The winter went on. Jemima Oakley and the 
 Pickets were as intimate as ever. Thusnelda and 
 she practised music together ; Potemkin presented 
 her with bouquets when she went to a party ; and 
 Mrs. Middleton, who submitted rather than acqui- 
 esced — having vainly reasoned and insisted on tliia 
 intimacy ceasing — adopted now the idea that she, and 
 not her daughter, was the object of his desires. She 
 told her husband this, and both grew more and more 
 impatient for the early spring, when he might take 
 her back to her friends in England, and they them- 
 selves might leave a house in which all their Utopian 
 notions of German guilelessness had been so completely 
 upset. 
 
 Things looked all outwardly quiet. Lucy was 
 actively proceeding with her studies, and Jemima 
 Oakley passed more of her time with the Pickets 
 than with the Middletons; which, while it grieved 
 the Middletons, certainly left their own circle much 
 calmer. This seeming quiet, however, was speedily 
 and unexpectedly interrupted by the foolish Potemkin'a 
 breaking his word, and again declaring love to Lucy. 
 
 Mrs. Middleton that morning entered her hus- 
 band's study, with an open letter in her hand, and 
 13
 
 i46 THE PICKETS AND 
 
 ■with a countenance Avhich betokened bcth anger and 
 deep concern. Mr. Middleton read the letter which 
 she laid before him with surprise, but not with the 
 fiery anger which she had expected. 
 
 "Fool !" said he to himself; and then turning to 
 his wife, " My dear Edith," said he, " this is no 
 more than we might expect." 
 
 " It is not, my dear Charles," replied she, "but I 
 blame myself for much of this ; I have acted wrong 
 in keeping much from j'our knowledge. You must 
 forgive me, for indeed I have suffered much." 
 
 She then told him all, and how she could not but 
 consider the unhappy Jemima Oakley to be in some 
 way or other an actress in this intrigue. She told 
 her husband all that her sister Julia, while with 
 them, had confided to her of her foolish conduct, 
 and how vain had been all her own strivings with 
 her: "and now, thank God," said she, when all this 
 miserable avowal had been made, " that there is not 
 a secret between us ; but we must consider, Charles, 
 what is best to be done." ^ 
 
 " This foolish fellow must quit the house, of 
 course," said he. " He says he intends to go to 
 Vienna, to study something or other. I will give 
 him this," said he, writing an order on his banker 
 for a hundred guineas; "it will amply repay hira 
 for all he has done for me. I w411 instantly inclose 
 it in a note, ordering him to quit the house ; that is 
 answer enough for him. As to Jemima, I will 
 take her home — take her home immediately ; she
 
 THE OAKLEYS 14? 
 
 fcnows what part she has had in this affair ; she 
 knows the unhappiness she has occasioned to us all, — 
 especially to you ; she shall go — go instantly," said 
 he, growing angry. 
 
 His wife mollified him ; she dreaded her husband'a 
 anger, for Jemima's sake, and she said many a pal- 
 liating word for her. " Let her stay out the term 
 of her visit," said she, " for the sake of her family ; 
 you shall take her in April, as you proposed ; there 
 need not be a word to be said to her parents. Mrs. 
 Oakley, in her last letter to me, speaks of many 
 troubles which have overwhelmed them of late. 
 Take her home, Charles, quietly, and when she is 
 safe at home, our responsibility ends." 
 
 Her husband assented, on condition that Jemima 
 Oakley dropped all intimacy with the Pickets. 
 
 The greatest commotion existed in the family of 
 the Pickets, and the next day it was given out that 
 Potemkin was ill. The mother was heard crying 
 aloud, which among the common Germans is the 
 usual mode of exhibiting distress, and the student 
 friends of Potemkin were seen coming and going, in 
 a state of the greatest activity ; while Jemima 
 Oakley, angry and mortified, if not humiliated, that 
 so much of her true character had been made known 
 to Mr. Middleton, kept almost entirely in her own 
 room. 
 
 Unhappy girl ! lier follies were not at an end. On 
 the second day Potemkin rose from his sick bed, and 
 presented himself again in Mr. Middleton's study
 
 148 THE PICKETS AND 
 
 and he too came with an open letter in his hand. He 
 came with an air of assurance, and requested that 
 Mrs. Middleton might be- sent for, as he had some- 
 thing extraordinary to communicate. Mrs. Mid- 
 dleton came— the parties all stood. " There," said 
 Potemkin, " read that !" The Middletons read it ; 
 it was a declaration of tender sentiment from Jemima 
 Oakley to himself. 
 
 " This is truly grievou* ! — This is indeed humi- 
 liating !" said Mr. Middleton, in a melancholy 
 and self -addressing tone, " the poor, unfortunate 
 creature !" 
 
 " You see it !" said Potemkin, with an air of 
 offended dignity, and almost bursting with vanity, 
 " you see it ! — what am I to do 1" 
 
 " To do !" thundered Mr. Middleton, raising his 
 eyes suddenly, and darting a fiery flash on poor 
 Potemkin, who started back as if a stone had struck 
 him. " To begone this hour, this instant, for all this 
 shall be made known to her ; and never let me see 
 you again, or I will not answer for the consequences !" 
 
 Terrified by these words, and still more by their 
 manner, Potemkin clutched the door-handle in a 
 spasm of afi^right, and lied from the room ; and that 
 very evening, the Middletons had the satisfaction to 
 see his boxes wheeled off to the city, and very soon 
 likewise to learn that he himself had departed some- 
 where by the diligence. 
 
 A few words may suffice to relate what farther 
 concerned the unhappy Jemima Oakley. Humbled
 
 THE OAKLKYS. 149 
 
 at what she considered, and justly peiliaps, tliia 
 treachery of Potemkin's, and pursued by the ])itterest 
 rage and contempt of his family, who not only 
 imagined she had steeled Lucy's heart against Po- 
 tcmkin for her own purposes, and who hoped like- 
 wise, by this means, to win favour again from the 
 Middletons, she set about making preparations for 
 her return to England. 
 
 All her insolence and arrogance was now gone, and 
 deploring the loss of the IVIiddletons' esteem, her 
 efforts to reinstate herself, at least in some measure, 
 in their regard, were really quite affecting to them. 
 She deplored her weaknesses, she candidly acknow- 
 ledged her errors, and besought their forgiveness. 
 Whatever was kind and soft in her nature now exhi- 
 bited itself, and she was like the Jemima Oakley of 
 former days; and though the Middletons told her 
 candidly they never could confide in her more, they 
 showed her kindness to the last day of her stay. 
 
 Mr. Middleton took her to England. Not one 
 word was breathed to her parents of what had 
 occurred ; and had it not been for Julia, who wrung 
 and extorted from Mr. Middleton some little of the 
 truth, not one word would have been whispered on 
 the subject. 
 
 How quiet, pure, and holy did his return to his 
 hearth seem, when he was received by his wife and 
 daughter, with glad hearts and improved looks ! 
 
 One chapter of German experience had been gone 
 through, which convinced the Middletons that tho
 
 150 THE PICKETS AND 
 
 Utopia of life was not universal in Germany, — hat 
 the chapter was not quite ended, although the Middle- 
 tons ceased to be actors in it. They had now left 
 Plauderheim some months, and were spending some 
 gay and happy weeks in Vienna. 
 
 We beg our readers' pardon &r introducing them 
 into bad company, but we will not detain them long. 
 Let us see then Mrs. Picket and her daughters sitting 
 together at tlieir work ; Thusnelda, however, was 
 not working ; she was lying on the sofa, having just 
 recovered from a fit of " true love which had not run 
 smooth." 
 
 They were talking of the Middletons, and their 
 intractability ; and how they had been so out of 
 their reckoning with regard to them ; from the Mid- 
 dletons they went to the Oakleys, and talked of the 
 time of their coming, when the brother and sister 
 were there, and they had a ball, and all was so gay 
 and merry. " The Oakleys were rich," they said ; 
 " Jemima herself had said so, richer even than the 
 Middletons — why, Jemima spent twice as much in 
 clothes as Lucy Middleton ! What a nice young 
 man Edward Oakley was !" 
 
 Mrs. Picket was reckoned a perfect mistress of 
 intrigue by her family, and they always thought that 
 her words had double-meanings. At the mention of 
 Edward Oakley, therefore, accompanied as it was by 
 a look at Thusnelda, that young lady raised her spare 
 figure from the sofa, and said, " Oh yes, a very nice 
 young man was Edward Oakley ! " — " Yes, indeed,
 
 TIIK OAKLEYS. ' 15^ 
 
 that he was!" said the other sisters; and tlie ])La.i 
 began to work — " and Jemima really was very fund 
 of Potemkin," pursued Mrs. Picket ; " and after all 
 she was a very clever girl — or there's Julia far before 
 Jemima ; — I should not wonder — " 
 
 We will not finish the mother's sentence. The 
 scheme was laid — let not our readers think it incre- 
 dible, for all that we write is true. Two letters went 
 to the post that day; the one from Thusnelda to 
 Jemima Oakley, begging to explain many things ; 
 professing affection ; talking of iwhappiness ; hinting 
 of bitter things which the Middletons had said 
 against her; "and, Oh, if she could but once again 
 practise music with her as they had done — and, Oh, 
 if Jemima — or Julia — would but come again ! " The 
 other letter was to Potemkin, from the mother, 
 bidding him to return home, as he was needed on 
 important business. 
 
 Mr. Middleton s behaviour to the young Oakleys, 
 though it had been kind, was not, and never could be 
 again, as friendly as formerly ; and when he was 
 gone, though they did not confess it, they felt that 
 their pride was wounded. 
 
 Thusnelda's letter arrived, too, at a fortunate time 
 for the writer. The Middletons were in Vienna, and 
 on their way to Italy; they would not return for 
 some time, and beyond this, they wanted just then 
 somebody to lionize. Instead, therefore, of accepting 
 the invitation from the Pickets, they obtained from 
 their parents an invitation to them as friends of the
 
 152 THE PICKETS AND THE OAKLEYS, 
 
 Middletons; and in less than a month Thusnelda 
 and Potemkin, on the promise of proving liow basely 
 the Middletons had behaved, set out on their journey 
 to England ; and in another week were presented to 
 an admiring circle of the Oakleys ; he as a celebrated 
 young German poet, and she as a miracle of musical 
 talent. 
 
 News of all this came to the Middletons, in a letter 
 from Julia Oakley herself, who wrote to Lucy in a 
 strain of high indignation against her parents for their 
 unkindness to her slater, and their double-dealings to 
 the Pickets. 
 
 Lucy ^^•^pt as she read the letter, for she had loved 
 Julia. 
 
 " ^Feep not, my dear girl," said her mother, when 
 she, too, had read it ; " we have all of us had a lesson 
 which w^ shall profit by — not to expect too much 
 from common natures." 
 
 " And not to mix ourselves up with common 
 natures," said the father sternly ; " and not to look 
 for Utopian existence either in this land or that. 
 While there is an honest Seth Wagstaff in England, 
 however, I can forgive the Oakleys ; and our noble 
 
 friends, the s and the s, will vindicate the 
 
 virtue of Germany."
 
 163 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER I 
 
 In the beautiful regions to which the Middletons 
 were advancing, they soon forgot the petty annoy- 
 ances of the Pickets and the Oakleys. They were 
 now amid the sublime regions of the Alps, and the 
 lovely lakes and vineyards of the north of Italy. 
 Every step forwj^rd into that classic and Elysian coun- 
 try was to them a field of interest and admiration. 
 There was not a spot which, beside its natural beauty, 
 was not the scene of remarkable deeds. 
 
 The stern old Romans, the Goths, the Lombards, 
 the Franks, rose around them everywhere. They 
 trod in tlie track of Hannibal and Charlemagne. Aa 
 they advanced, it was not only into the regions where 
 every field and rock was illustrious as the memorials 
 of some striking event in the domestic history of old 
 Rome, but it was into the native land of Cicero, 
 Virgil, and Horace, of Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch 
 and Tasso, of RafFael and Michael Angelo ; and tlie 
 sojourn of our own noblest spirits, as Milton, Byron, 
 Shelley, and Keats. In Rome, one of the first places 
 they visited was the graves of the two last unfortu- 
 nate but kindred spirits. In Rome they passed the 
 winter, every day being one of high gratification and 
 acquirement.
 
 154 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ' 
 
 111 spring they proceeded southward. They passed 
 the bleak and naked Apennines, — how unlike the 
 splendid descriptions of Mrs. RadclifFe ! beheld the 
 scenes of Elysian and Tartarian renown in the 
 works of Virgil ; wandered amid the sublime ruina 
 of Paestum, and lingered enchanted in the vicinity 
 of Naples. 
 
 They returned slowly through France ; and in 
 about three years from the date of their leaving Eng- 
 land, once more set foot on their native soil. Mr. 
 Middleton, who had traversed all this ground before, 
 had been their delighted guide. It had been to him 
 an indescribable pleasure to see how thoroughly both 
 his wife and daugliter entered into the spirit of the 
 scenes and objects they surveyed, and how perfectly 
 they sympathised in all liis feelings. Every object, 
 too, for which they had gone abroad, had been accom- 
 plished ; Lucy had not only made herself mistress of 
 the languages of the countries where she had been to 
 a high pitch of fluency and elegance, but had amassed 
 a vast fund of knowledge and of sound taste ; and, as 
 is the effect of genuine knowledge, this had not given 
 her an air of pride or conceit, but of the most un- 
 assuming modesty. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Middleton felt that, in their daughter, 
 the blessings of their life were greatly increased, and 
 they thanked God for it daily. They looked forward 
 now witli impatience to the time when they should 
 be settled down again in their English home, and 
 amid their E:i<;lish friends. In London they had
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ! 156 
 
 much to hear of the progress of arts, and of tlie cause 
 of knowledge and philanthropy, but they were impa« 
 tient to hasten down to Middleton. They wrote, there- 
 fore, to WagstafF, to announce their coming in ten days. 
 
 The news spread universal joy through the whole 
 hamlet ; and AVagstafF was in a bustle of delight and 
 preparation. 
 
 " I have been trying to think," said he, as he and 
 his wife were sitting together at breakfast, " of some- 
 thing by which we may particularly nlease Mrs. 
 Middleton. The house is all in order, and the gardens ; 
 the pines, and the grapes never were finer ; the school 
 will please her, for Mrs. Brandling has looked well 
 after that, and there never were so much knitting and 
 sewing done among the girls in this parish since yam 
 and needles were invented : the lads, too. get on 
 famously, fo^- Ephraim Brown, the master — I am 
 very fond of that man ; really he is one in ton thousand 
 — he has made them all enthusiasts, not only in read- 
 ing and writing, but in gardening, joinering, farming, 
 and everything else ! All this is capital," said the 
 good Seth, rubbing his hands and scratching his head, 
 " but still I want a something — let's see — what can 
 it be ? Can't you help me, Nancy, to a bit of an idea ? 
 for you women have often such famous notions — " 
 
 " ^Vhy, dear me," returned his wife, " what is so 
 plain ? as plain as the nose on your face ! " 
 
 " What ! How ! What is it ?" exclaimed he, star- 
 ing joyfully at her, and then at the clock-case, as if 
 the idea were to come to him from that quarter.
 
 156 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ! 
 
 " Why," said Nancy WagstafF, with a smile sc 
 bright and sunny, that her husband thought she had 
 never looked so handsome in all her life, " "\7hat 
 does Mrs. Middleton love next best to her husband 
 and her daughter ? " 
 
 " What does she love next best ? " pondered he. 
 " The school ? to make the poor people happy ? 
 Poetry ? I don t see what I can make out of that," 
 added he, with a bewildered look. " The school and 
 the poor folks — all that's arranged. Oh, there are 
 those new volumes of exquisite poetry by the grand 
 new poet, Tennyson ! Ah, they do go to the heart — 
 they are fine ! But," added he the next moment, in 
 a tone of disappointment, " Miss Lucy and she get 
 all the good poetry as soon as it comes out." 
 
 " Goose ! " exclaimed his wife, starting up and 
 seizing his great bushy head of black hair between 
 both her hands, and shaking it well, and then looking 
 with laughing triumph into his face — " Schools, old- 
 folks — poetry ! Why, ^VagstafF, what a norp* you 
 are ! Why, has Mrs. Middleton no other relation 
 but her husband and daughter — has she not a sister 
 that she loves dearly ? " 
 
 " Odszoons . ' cried Seth, hitting the table a great 
 knock with his fist, and kissing his wife, " What a 
 norp 1 am — that's the very thing ! I knew there 
 was a something, if I could but hit upon it — and I 
 fancy I was very near it all the time ! " 
 
 * A common Derbyshire phrase for a simpletoQ. derivco— 
 but we leave that to the pliilologist.
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER I 157 
 
 *' There now ! " said his wife, laughing again . 
 •' You had better say at once that you hit upon it — 
 that's always the way with you men ; by to-morrow 
 morning you'll say ' Now that was a bright idea of 
 mine ! ' I know you, Wagstaff." 
 
 He did not stop to argue the point, but sat down 
 to write to Mr. Amersley Brownlowe, the husband of 
 Mrs. Middleton's sister, who resided in Cumberland, 
 begging that his lady would be at Middleton ready 
 to give her sister an agreeable surprise on her return. 
 
 In a few days not only Mrs. Brownlowe, but her 
 husband also, arrived at Middleton ; he was a fine, 
 hearty country gentleman, of whom Wagstaff was 
 very fond. They had brought witli them also a son 
 and daughter — a fine boy and girl of fourteen and 
 sixteen years of age. There began at once to be an 
 air of gaiety about the Hall, and Wagstaff was in his 
 glory. 
 
 The day of arrival at length came. It was towards 
 the end of August ; the corn was nearly all gathered 
 in ; the weather was bright and still, and over the 
 landscape, varied with the golden stubble-fields and 
 the dark green of pastures and of foliage, lay a sort 
 of festal solemnity that thrilled to the hearts of the 
 homeward travellers. 
 
 When they came to an eminence that showed them 
 Middleton lying below, amid its tall trees, the sound 
 of merry bells swelled at once upon the ear, and the 
 tears started to their eyes at that loved and familiar 
 music, because tliey knew that it indeed was the 
 14
 
 158 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVEb! 
 
 voice of heartfelt welcome from the expecting inhabi 
 tants of their own home and village. 
 
 As the carriage, covered with dust, drove into the 
 village, all the simple people, old and young, were a^ 
 their doors. There was a shout of " Welcome ! * 
 Tears were plentifully shed on all sides, and the car- 
 riage was obliged to halt again and again, that old 
 and well-known hands, which were held forth, might 
 be shaken. * Is there a scene in the world so beau- 
 tiful as this 1 Have we felt one hour of our absence 
 so truly happy before ? " asked they, as the carriage 
 drove up to their own door — but there, what a joyful 
 surprise awaited them ! 
 
 *'Ah! my dearest sister!" — "My dear aunt 
 and uncle ! " exclaimed Mrs. Middleton and Lucy at 
 the same moment. There was a hasty springing from 
 the carriage ; there were kisses, embracings, and shak- 
 ing of hands, such as are worth a world of trouble to 
 enjoy, or even to witness. 
 
 Scarcefv had the happy Middletons embraced their 
 relatives, when they saw Mr. and Mrs. Brandling 
 within the Hall, and poor Wagstaff and his wife stand- 
 ing a little apart, both of them crying for joy. All 
 were shaken hands with, and all welcomed them 
 home. " And now," said Mr. Brandling, who having 
 stepped back a moment, returned with Mr. Middle- 
 ton's friend Phillips, " let me present the rector of 
 Langley, your nearest neighbour, who is most impa- 
 tient to bid you welcome ! " 
 
 His promotion to this living, which had onljf
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER? lo£ 
 
 occurred within the last few months, had been kept 
 secret for the purpose of this pleasant surprise ; it 
 had its desired effect, and it is hard to say which of 
 the hands of the two rectors was most warmly grasped 
 by Mr. Middleton. 
 
 As this little company were seated at dinner that 
 evening, Mr. Middleton thought on the garlanded 
 homes of Italy and Germany on such occasions of 
 family festival, and reminded his wife and daughter 
 of them. "But," added he, "to me, with these glad 
 bells in ray ears, and these bright faces round me, I 
 think there is no welcome like an English one !" 
 
 " Wagstaff," said he that evening to him, as that 
 worthy individual again made his appearance, " to- 
 morrow let every cottager have an order for a piece 
 of beef, and five shillings for a plum pudding ; let 
 there not be a creature without substantial means for 
 a day's holiday and rejoicing." 
 
 ^V''agstaff said he would see that it was done. 
 Mrs. Brandling smiled significantly at him, and then 
 said to Mr. Middleton, " I am glad that you did not 
 think of giving the women tea ; for do you know we 
 are going to invite you all to take tea with us at the 
 school, where all the children are to be our guests. 
 We would have had all the parents too, but the 
 school would not hold them." 
 
 " Then," said Mrs. Middleton, " I invite the 
 parents; and, as the weather is so sunny and fine, 
 the tables shall be set out on the green under tha 
 great elm."
 
 160 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ! 
 
 " Delightful !" said Lucy ; and she and her young 
 cousms promised themselves much pleasure in help- 
 ing to arrange all. Lucy and the cousins were soon 
 seen talking eagerly together ; and whatever she 
 was saying, there was a burst of delight, and " Fa- 
 mous ! famous ! that will be delightful !" were re- 
 peated again and again. 
 
 Seth WagstafF stopped talking a long time, for 
 he had a deal to say ; he stopped a deal longer 
 than Lucy wished, for she had a many little com- 
 missions to give him on her own account, and to 
 enlist him privately as her assistant. At last, how- 
 ever, he went. 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad he is gone ! " said Mrs. Brand- 
 ling, the moment he was out of the room, springing 
 up as she spoke, and giving the door-handle a little 
 push, as if to make sure that he was aciually gone. 
 
 " Glad ! why ?" exclaimed Mr. Middleton ; who, 
 liking Wagstaff so much, felt jealous for him. 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad !" repeated Mrs. Brandling, 
 with a countenance of amiable exultation. *" I do 
 want to tell you what Wagstaff has done." 
 
 " Done ?" asked Mr. Middleton. 
 
 " Yes, done," said she ; " but do you tell it, 
 George," said she, addressing her husband ; " you can 
 tell it best, and I am never weary of hearmg of it." 
 
 Mr. Brandling smiled on his wife, and complied. 
 " T was, some weeks ago," said he, " called to attend 
 a dying man, at least he was su]>posed to be dying. 
 It wfis a man that I had but seldom seen, and that only
 
 OLD KNGr.AND FOR EVKn! IGl 
 
 when 1 liappened to be in that part of the parish 
 •where he lives, or to pass the ah-liouse-door on the 
 common, for he never came to church ; and when 1 
 say that he had the worst character among your 
 tenantry for wild habits and unprincipled transac- 
 tions, you, Mr. Middleton, can, I am sure, name liiin 
 yourself." 
 
 " It was Ned Hankey," replied he. " Is he dead 
 then? A dreadfully wild fellow he was, but a very 
 clever fellow, and might have been one of the first 
 and richest men of his class, had he been a better 
 man. In his youth he was a very handsome fellow, 
 and was much admired, not only by the young 
 women, but by those who led him into cock-fighting, 
 horse-racing, and all kinds of sporting and betting. 
 Nothing but the fact of his family having been 
 tenants of mine for many generations, an-l, till this 
 unfortunate fellow, all sober, creditable people, kept 
 him on his farm in my father's time or mine. So, 
 then, poor Ned Ilaiikey has finished his wild career!*' 
 added he, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Yes, he certainly has," returned the rector; 
 " but you shah hear. I hastened to obey the sum- 
 mons, for I knew the desperate character of the man, 
 and I thought one moment might prevent the last 
 chance of hope or comfort to one who must have such 
 terrible need of them. It was early morning when 
 I rode rapidly into Hankey's yard. I know not when 
 I ever saw any spot which gave me such a melan- 
 choly idea of ruin, utter ruin, and stripped decay.
 
 162 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ! 
 
 The house, you know, is a tall, dark, red-lirick 
 house, of a very old-fashioned style, and to which 
 nothing for years had been done, because, as I learned 
 from WagstafF, the man owed much rent, and you 
 would be glad to be rid of him altogether. In the 
 yard stood a green and noisome pool, but there was 
 neither pig nor poultr3% Instead of good wagons 
 and cai-ts, there were only heaps of old wood, wretched 
 remains of former carriages, ploughs, and harrows. 
 The only living creatures seemed two dogs, a huge 
 mastiff and a pointer, chained under the steps leading 
 up to the door. The outbuildings were in a state of 
 decay, and the gate, through which I passed, oflF the 
 hooks, and standing half open. 
 
 " I found nobody, spite of the loud barking of the 
 dogs, to come out and take my horse, which I led 
 into a stable equally desolate with the rest of the 
 premises. When I came out again, I saw some 
 children standing staring at me on the steps before 
 the door ; these were boys and girls of naturally very 
 handsome forms and faces, but so neglected, dirty, 
 and wild, that I regarded them with wonder. I 
 asked them where their mother was; and they said, 
 ' I' the parlour wi' feyther, who was very badly.' The 
 room that I entered was what the country-people 
 here call the house-place ; that is, as you, my friend, 
 know, though your relations from the north may 
 not, the common sitting-room and also kitchen of tlie 
 family. Under its wide chimney lay smouldering in 
 ashes a little fire of sticks, which the children had
 
 OLD KNGLANL) FOR EVEr! Kk^ 
 
 probably gathered ; and the room itself, with its 
 naked shelves and worn brick floor, was desolate 
 beyond description. 
 
 " I knocked at the door of the room, which I knei* 
 to be the parlour by the low groans which proceeded 
 thence, and by a female voice, as if weeping and 
 speaking at the same time, in low and distressed 
 accents. The door was opened by a tall woman, who, 
 with her apron held up before her face to hide her 
 tears, though she could not suppress her sobs, ad- 
 mitted me in silence, and pointed towards the bed. On 
 this lay the sufferer. He was lying with his back to- 
 wards me ; but as I approached him, he turned his head 
 and gazed at me for a moment with a face such as I 
 had never seen in my life before ; it was that of a 
 man burned and wasted down by fever and agony of 
 various kinds to that of a skeleton, over which the 
 skin was stretched like sallow parchment. The 
 hollow cheeks, the more hollow eyes, and the thin and 
 parched lips, were altogether a fearful spectacle. His 
 dark but grizzled hair was wild and rough, and his 
 nose stood prominent and ghastly, and gave a look of 
 death in its most appalling form ; but the eyes, which 
 he turned on me with their large whites sunk in their 
 deep sockets, were the most awful. After a moment's 
 anxious and haggard look on me, he turned his head 
 again, with a deep groan and restless action of his 
 skeleton hands, denoting a condition <^ mental and 
 bodily suffering that could not long endure. 
 
 '* I need not and will not harrow you with the par-
 
 1<54 OLD ENGLAN1> FOR EVER { 
 
 ticulars of what passed ; of the entreaties I made him 
 to tell me all that he was able of his wishes and hia 
 feelings, in which I was joined by his wife on her 
 knees by the bed, who wrung her hands in the most 
 heart-rending distress, and implored him to open his 
 mind, and to listen to my exhortations and prayers 
 for him. It was not without a long and dreadful 
 struggle with himself that he could be brought to 
 speak to me on the very subject for which I had been 
 sent, during a paroxysm of terror and despair. But 
 it is enough to say, that partly from him and partly 
 from his wife, I came to receive the revelation of 
 such a life of sin, of fearful passions, and unhallowed 
 courses, as I trust never to hear again. But last and 
 most oppressive of all lay on him his conduct to 
 Wagstaff. A\'agstaff, it appears, had often and seri- 
 ously talked to him, and warned him of the ruin he 
 was bringing on himself and family, and had tried 
 even what threats of dismissal from his farm would 
 do. These had sunk deep into his mind, and he had 
 brooded over schemes of vengeance. His circum- 
 stances were desperate, and he was deeply indebted to 
 his bankers, who were sternly demanding payment or 
 threatening an arrest, when it seems Wagstaff, who 
 had come to learn from a safe quarter that the bankers 
 themselves were on the eve of ruin, sent to the 
 tenants, and privately warned them, in order that if 
 they had any money in the bank, or hsld any of its 
 notes, they might save themselves. T.i Hankey he 
 did not need to go, because he knew he was not in a
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ! 166 
 
 condition to be injured, but, as he suspected, on the 
 contrary. Hankey, however, soon learned this from 
 some of the farmers, and that Wagstaff was the 
 authority. An opportunity of vengeance now rushed 
 on his mind. He instantly hastened to the bank, and 
 communicated this proceeding of the steward. What 
 took place in consequence, you, Mr. Middleton, 
 know. Hankey hoped that this information would 
 soften ihe bank towards him, and procure a delay ; 
 but in this he was deceived. Their affairs were too 
 desperate ; they arrested Hankey for their money, 
 who being not only a man of fierce passions but des- 
 perate strength, had knocked down the sheriiTs- 
 officer who had served the writ, mounted his horse, 
 and rode off. He had hidden for months in various 
 disguises, and among various of his comrades, often, 
 it is said, coming home by night in a state of lawless 
 desperation, more like a famished plunderer than a 
 husband and a father. An execution was, in the 
 meantime, brought against his effects. Wagstaff, 
 who, on belialf of the landlord, could claim only for 
 one year's rent, took crops on the ground on that 
 account ; and everything else, furniture, stock, every- 
 •thing, to the wife's bed itself, was swept away. 
 
 " The fury to which these hard proceedings aroused 
 this impetuous man had brought on a violent fever 
 and delirium. In this state he had been brought out 
 of his hiding-place by his comrades, and carried at 
 midnight to his house and wretched family. The 
 poor wife, who is still a very fine woman, and who la
 
 166 OLD ENGLAND FOR t:.VER? 
 
 said to be of a very respectable family of a distant 
 part of tbe country, wbo had married him in' oppo- 
 sition to her friends, had thus alone to watch over 
 him in this fearful state, and to care, as far as care 
 was possible, for her children. A situation of more 
 poverty, anxiety, and thorough misery, is not to be 
 conceived. 
 
 "When I was thus called in," continued the 
 rector, " it was when the delirium had left him, but 
 the terrors of conscience had taken hold of him. He 
 had had no doctor, and he believed himself dying 
 Of all things, he implored the pardon of Seth Wag- 
 stafF, who it appears had often sought him out in his 
 hiding-place, and offered him help, or even the 
 promise of a farm, which he had refused with angry 
 violence. I assured him of WagstafF's ready forgive- 
 ness, and rode myself for him. He speedily gal- 
 loped there, and flinging himself on his knees by 
 the repentant sinners bed, said, seizing his bony 
 hand in both his, ' Forgiveness ! — Ay, with all my 
 heart, Hankey, and ten thousand times!'" 
 
 The rector here was too much affected to proceed, 
 and looking round, he saw that all his auditors were 
 dissolved in tears. When he had again calmed him- 
 self, he continued : — 
 
 " I have heard a great deal of women's hearts, but 
 I never saw a woman with such a soft heart as that 
 great, burly Seth Wagstaff. He remained kneeling 
 by Hankey 's bedside, squeezing his withered hand, 
 and looking at him, and crying like a child. Hankey
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ! J 67 
 
 himself had ceased to groan so bitterly, but held fast 
 by Wagstaff, as if his touch was salvation, and Han- 
 key's wife knelt also, weeping and gazing at' her 
 husband, as if she saw something heavenly in his 
 ghastly countenance ; and something heavenly there 
 was, for even then his scorched and hollow eyes had 
 gushed healing tears, which rolled in huge drops 
 from his face to the pillow. 
 
 "'But what are we about T said Wagstaff, springing 
 up, 'you will not die, Hankey — I am persuaded you 
 won't ; we must have help, instant help.' 
 
 "'Oh God !' exclaimed the wife, clutching Wagstaff 
 by the coat, as if by her eager grasp she could thus 
 keep her husband in the world ; * Oh ! will he not 
 die? — will he not die, Mr. Wagstaff?" 
 
 '"I think not;— I verily believe not,' said he, 
 looking with great compassion on the poor, half- 
 frantic, half-believing woman ; and then added, as 
 he gazed round the apartment which, beside the bed 
 and a box or two, was destitute of any article of fur- 
 niture, and smelt strongly of vinegar, with which and 
 water the poor woman had been keeping cool her 
 husband's forehead. ' But what a scene is this ! Mer- 
 ciful Heaven ! there must be help.' 
 
 " He hurried out, and in half-an-hour the doctor, 
 who had been sent ofFby him, arrived. He pronounced 
 that there was a good chance of life, if the room was 
 kept quite still, and the directions which he gave 
 vere carefully followed. He immediately hastened 
 
 "ay again, to prepare and send his medicines, and
 
 168 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER.! 
 
 the poor wife knelt down ag^in by her husband, bent 
 over him, and kissed him passionately on the fore- 
 head. The patient lifted his feeble and shrivelled 
 arm, folded it about her neck, and pressing her 
 bowed face to his o-vnti, held it for some seconds in that 
 position, "\rhether it was an act merely of affection, 
 or of that mingled with a silent prayer, I cannot say, 
 but I could perceive that his breast heaved almost 
 convulsively, and he uttered deep-drawn sighs. His 
 wife, meantime, was lost in fresh sobs and tears ; they 
 were, however, those of an overpo weringhappiness. She 
 saw that a blessed change had come over her husband ; 
 she felt that she was again beloved by him ; there 
 was a hope of life, and a better life ! Let those 
 imagine her feelings who can ; for my part, I sate in 
 silence, and in that time learned a great lesson in the 
 holy mystery of the human heart. 
 
 " But as I was about to take my leave for a while, 
 I heard sudden and eager feet running up the steps, 
 and then as eager outcries, ' Oh, bread ! bread ! the 
 gentleman has brought us bread!' 
 
 '^ I ran out to moderate these joyful but exciting 
 sounds, lest they should reach and agitate the invalid. 
 The children who had thus exulted, had again 
 disappeared ; and looking out into the yard, I saw 
 WagstafF hurrying along it, loaded with a great 
 basket, and the children following him like so many 
 hungry fowls. "^Vith his quick sense and prudence 
 he had foreseen the very thing which'I had feared, and 
 now was conducting the children to the barn, where
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER! IGO 
 
 he speedily seated each on an upturned scuttle oi 
 corn-measure, and forbade any one to move from the 
 spot till he gave them leave. He then dealt out to 
 each of them a good piece of bread and a can of milk. 
 Whilst they devoured these with silent voracity, he 
 stood lecturing them with a solemnity that was worthy 
 of a schoolmaster. The whole scene would have had 
 something extremely ludicrous in it for one who did 
 not know the occasion of it. WagstafF, not a slim 
 youth, as I have heard you say he came hither, but a 
 broad and somewhat heavy man, in his suit of roomy 
 blackand wide-brimmed hat, pointing and gesticulating 
 with his foretinger, most solemnly, to first one and 
 then another of those wild children, who thus seated, 
 and thus greedily eating, kept at the same time casting 
 the most astonished looks at their monitor. 
 
 " * He is badly — very badly ! ' I heard him say, 
 as I drew near ; ' his life hangs on the turn of an 
 aspen leaf. If you make the least noise, it may all 
 be over with him, and then who will have been the 
 death of him ? You ! I tell you — ^you ! So, you 
 must promise me that, as soon as you have eaten and 
 drunken what I have given you, you will all run 
 do^vn to the bottom of the common, and play and leap 
 about there as much as you will, but never come on 
 this side of the little foot-bridge till I or your mother 
 send for you ! You mind, eh? You promise, all of 
 you, eh ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, sir ! yes, sir ! ' vociferated all their voices 
 at once • and half longing for another hunch of bread, 
 15
 
 170 OLD KNGLAND FOR EVER ! 
 
 and half glad to get away from the awful man, thej 
 started off, and soon were seen scampering down the 
 common like a little flock of wild colts, but ever and 
 anon looking behind to make sure that the man was 
 not coming after them. 
 
 *• ' There ! * said Wagstaff to me ; ' there's quiet 
 secured in the house, I think, for an hour at least ; 
 and when I go away, I will see if old Mary Kater can 
 take charge of these youngsters for a week or two.* 
 
 " ^V^ith this he took up his basket again and hastened 
 towards the house, no doubt having also something 
 in it in store for both the wife and the invalid. In 
 the meantime, his wife had been busy getting out of 
 the gig bundles of linen, and such things, of which the 
 house had only too much need. 
 
 " To bring my relation to a close, Seth set himself 
 down as a sort of director, and his wife as housekeeper. 
 They soon had a nurse there; and in a few days 
 the doctor pronounced the patient out of imme* 
 diate danger, but to be kept quiet and judiciously 
 treated." 
 
 "So, then, Hankey is not dead?" said Mr Mid- 
 dleton. 
 
 "Dead! no!" replied the rector. " His wicked 
 career is ended, not his life. I believe he was never so 
 much a living man as he is now, though still somewhat 
 weak and pale. But the whole man is changed. He 
 has shown a particular liking to listen to Wagstaff ; 
 and he, on his part, has shown an indefatigable zeal 
 in reading to and talking to him, and giving him a
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVEIl! I7l 
 
 world of religious information, of which he was 
 lamentably deficient, but which he has received with 
 a quickness, and yet not without weighing and object- 
 ing with an acuteness, that shows a mind of great 
 native power. 
 
 " The whole place is changed, botli within and 
 without. His wife is like a new creature, and truly 
 is a most comely and clever woman ; she seems 
 always to have possessed the best of sentiments, and 
 has suffered enough to make her now cling to them 
 more fondly than ever. She often looks on her hus- 
 band, in his altered mood, with tears of grateful joy 
 in her eyes. Her children are sent to school, and 
 her house again has an air of thorough comfort and 
 good management." 
 
 " But whence have come the means for all this ?" 
 asked Mr. Middleton. *' How is it that the bankers 
 still leave him at large?" ^ 
 
 " The bankers are bankrupt," replied the rector ; 
 " and were their assignees disposed to be severe on 
 Hankey, as they are not, he would soon have been 
 put out of their power; for, to tell you the most 
 wonderful part of the story, "Wagstaff has discharged 
 his debts, and restocked his farm for him." 
 
 " That is noble ! that is AVagstaff's chcf-d'ceuvre !" 
 exclaimed Mr. Middleton: a sentiment which every 
 one warmly re-echoed. 
 
 " The only thing, however, which surprises mo 
 most," said Mr. Brandling, smiling archly, " is, that 
 Wagstaff has done all this in the landlord's name, yet
 
 172 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVEr! 
 
 the landlord knows nothing about it, though it mast 
 have involved a very heavy sum." 
 
 " Oh, does he say so T cried Mr. jMiddleton eagerly, 
 *' then it is so, depend upon it. He has my permis- 
 sion to do what he likes almost in the affairs of the 
 tenants. I am glad that he has done this ! " 
 
 The parties here all separated for the night in the 
 happiest spirits for their glad meeting, and for having 
 heard of this noble conduct on the part of Wagstaif. 
 
 Early in the morning, Mr. Middleton sent over for 
 his steward, and expressed himself impatient to look 
 into the statement of affairs. He glanced over the 
 general balance-sheet ; he turned to the account of 
 Hankey's farm, but nowhere could he find one shil- 
 ling placed to the account of the matters related the 
 night before by the rector. 
 
 " ^Thy, Wagstaflf, how is this ? " asked he hastily . 
 " I see no account of the money paid on account of 
 Hankey.'"' 
 
 " For Hankey 1 " returned he, with a sudden 
 flush on his cheek, " what of him ? He has found a 
 friend — and his rent is all paid up ! " 
 
 " Yes, but how ? By whom, I want to know % 
 I understand from Mr. Brandling, that the poor fellow 
 has been helped out of his difficulties in my name ?" 
 
 " That is too bad of Mr. Brandling now!" said 
 WagstafF, somewhat impatiently — "so as I begged him 
 to keep my confidence on that score. But if I must 
 speak, / have set Hankey straight again. I did it to 
 please myself, and had never a thought of making 
 you pay for it."
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVEr! 173 
 
 "Honest AVagstaff!" exclaimed Mr. Middleton, 
 taking his hand; "you are fairly caught this time — you 
 have given me a share of the credit of this good 
 action, and a share I am determined to have in it. 
 The discharging of his debts I leave to you, but the 
 restocking of his farm shall be mine ! " 
 
 That day all work was suspended in the village of 
 Middleton. The bells rang as for a festival. The 
 Squire, Mr. Bro^^•nlo\ve, and Seth A\^agstaff, rode over 
 the home-farm, and through the plantation to Lang- 
 ley, to call on Mr. Phillips, whom they found amid 
 his charming family, and in his fine old vicarage, one 
 of the happiest men in England. The ladies and 
 children in the meantime had gone through the 
 gardens, conservatories and hot -houses, where all was 
 in the nicest order. 
 
 In every cottage was a family feast. It was a day 
 never to be forgotten. 
 
 At four o'clock the children were assembled in the 
 school-house for tea, where, when the ladies and 
 gentlemen entered, they saw that Lucy had been at 
 work with her cousins. With the aid of the gardener 
 and Ephraim Brown, the schoolmaster, the school- 
 room was hung with festoons of flowei-s and ever- 
 greens, and amid a large wreath at the head of the 
 room were displayed, in flowers of the richest hues, 
 the words Welcome Home Aoai.v. 
 
 When they had witnessed the children all seated
 
 174 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER ! 
 
 at their tea, they went out to receive the gro%\Ti pcoplo 
 on the Green. There they found that the Continental 
 experience of Lucy had been equally introduced. 
 The tables were tastefully ornamented with flowers, 
 a6d with blossoming shrubs in pots brought from the 
 conservatory. From the lower boughs of the tree, 
 (and the ordering of these had been Lucy's commission 
 to Wagstaff the night before) hung many little lamps, 
 which in the thicilc shade of the foliage already cast a 
 soft and glow-worm lustre among the dark leaves, 
 while the bole of th*e old tree itself was covered with 
 the finest moss and wreathed with flowers. Nothing 
 so pretty had been seen in all Middleton before. 
 
 The rector and Wagstaff" had already arranged and 
 seated the people. The tables were placed in a great 
 circle around the tree, \a ith spaces between for the 
 waiters to pass to and frc«. 
 
 The Middletons and iheir relations, with the rector 
 and his lady, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, and Seth and 
 Nancy Wagstaff", dispersed themselves among the 
 company, one or more sitting at the head ^ of each 
 table ; and when all had pretty v.-ell enjoyed them- 
 selves, the children all marched out of the school, 
 with Ephraim Brown at their head, and surroundiDg 
 the tables in a still wider circle, burst forth with a 
 song of welcome which had been written for the 
 occasion by Ephraim Brown, who was, in fact, one 
 of those genuine poets of the working class which 
 have sprung up so richly on the English soil, and 
 never so successi'ully as in the present day. 'I'ho
 
 OLD ENGLAND FOR EVKR ! ] 75 
 
 effect was dcliglitful. All parties appeared equally 
 charmed, and the poor people could hardly tell which 
 to admire most, the abilities of the schoolmaster or of 
 their own children. 
 
 Wonderful was the clatter of tongues and the 
 merry gossip which was heard under the old elm, 
 whose lamps grew brighter and brighter, till the ladies 
 beginning to dread the chill evening air, arose, and 
 bade every one a good night. All arose at this ; and 
 *' Good night ! God bless you ! " sounded on all sides 
 as the squire and his friends walked away towards 
 the Hall. Those of the old men and women who 
 had a salutary fear of rheumatism, moved off also, 
 but others still clustered round the tables in eager talk, 
 and to admire the lamps and the flowers, and edifying 
 one another with wondering at the wonderful things 
 which '^ the family" must have seen in foreign parts 
 All declared that it had been a finer feast than the 
 Wakes itself ; and it might be safely said, that for one 
 day, at least, there was not a sad heart in Middleton. 
 
 But Mr. Middleton determined to diffuse the feel- 
 ing of satisfaction still fartnor. The next week he 
 gave a great dinner to all his tenantry at the Hall. It 
 was a jovial scene of hearty goodfellowship. There 
 was not one tenant missing, except Ned Hankey, who 
 was not allowed by the doctor to attend, but great 
 interest was expressed on his account ; and in the 
 midst of this, Mr. Middleton rose, and said, " I pro- 
 pose the health of the finest fellow in the parish — ■ 
 need I nan^e him ? "
 
 170 OLD E.NOLAXD FOR EVER ! 
 
 There was at once a deafening thunder of applause, 
 and " Seth Wagstaff ! SethWagstaflF!" resounded on 
 all sides. 
 
 Mr. Middleton felt that the man was understood 
 and estimated as he deserved, and he said no more. 
 When it came to him to give the last toast, he said : 
 " I have travelled mucli and seen much, but through- 
 out Europe I liave seen nothing like the wealth, in- 
 telligence, and skill of an English tenantry, nor any 
 situation of life where more genuine blessing and 
 happiness may be diffused than by an English land- 
 lord. Old England for Ever!" 
 
 "SVith a Hear ! and an Hurrah ! sent from proud and 
 happy hearts, that shook the rery roof of the old 
 Hall of Middleton, the company responded to thk 
 ■entiment, and then hurried forth to return home.
 
 OCSS ilBRARY
 
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