Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2010 witli funding from Dul At length, by hearing the point constantly insisted on, old HoUoway began to be convinced that, to do justice to his family, he ought to do violence to his prejudices. His younger son Cyril, in the enjoyment of a living of two thousand a-year, fancied his name wanted only the recommendation of Honourable, to acquire the still more flattering qualification of Arch- deacon and Dean ; while two superannuated Misses Holloway (whose tart tempers, united with their scraggy ugliness had condemned them to spinsterhood even under circumstances so propitious to matrimony, as being great ladies in a large country neighbourhood,) trusted that the preference; usually conceded to youth and beauty, might for once be accorded to precedence. Aware that Closeman of Cinna- mon Lodge, the wag of the neighbourhood, distinguished them from the other " maids of Kent," as the old maids of Kent — just as one sees the Old Blue Boar distinujuished from the New, — they trusted that a peerage in the G 3 130 STOKESHILL PLACE, family would make nymphs of them at once. On all sides, they beset their father. Even poor old Mrs. Holloway's eyes twinkled through her spectacles, at the notion of hearing herself addressed as " your ladyship." What passed on the subject between stupid George and old HoUoway, and old Holloway and the quick-witted minister, did not tran- spire. Perhaps the Bacon of Tory times may have been of opinion that old Holloway of Withamstead was too substantial a man for the commons ; — that though the old dog was an exceedingly safe beast while stretched at ease before the fire with the whole hearth-rug at his disposal, he might turn and snarl should his tail be trod on ; for the honourable member for Westerton was the very man to resist any- thing like encroachment on the agricultural interest. In short, a peerage was accorded with heartier good will than it had been asked ; and thovigli to keep up the charter of cabinet treble-dealing, OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 131 much was said of the immensity of the claims on government for such concessions, old Hol- loway went back to Great George Street, as sure of his Barony of Withamstead, as he was of repenting the demand before five years were over his head. A large and severely canvassed creation having occurred only a short time previous to the arrangement, it seemed unadvisable to appear just then before the public, a single spy, when the " battalions" had been so hooted. Holloway agreed to wait; and the suspense, as in most other instances, served to increase his estimation of the thing waited for. Having armed himself with courage to undergo an operation, it was a hard thing to sit bound in his chair, waiting the convenience of the ope- rator. The ministry might change ; or he might himself pay the debt of nature, before the premier paid the debt of gratitude ; and go down to the family vault, without having a coronet engraved on his coffin plate. 132 STOKESHILL PLACE, Thus, the dilemma which fidgetted poor Barnsley month after month on the threshold of parliament, kept the whole family of Hollo- way in a most amphibolous position ; — with a two-fold aspect, like the shield set up in the crossway, which was one side gold, one side silver. The two prim Misses were afraid of appear- ing suspiciously dignified, or superfluously con- descending. The family coach wanted repara- tion, but it was absurd to launch a new one that might require revarnishing after its armo- rial illustration ; and Mrs. HoUoway, when look- ing at her tea-spoons, or her hall-chairs, could scarcely resist the temptation of issuing pre- mature orders for the grand reform. Yet to the inquisitive congratulations of her humdrum country neighbours, the old lady was invariable in her reply of — " Bless your heart, — even if it was so, — for you I should always remain plain Mrs. HoUoway !" Such was the situation of affairs when the OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 133 epoch of Lord Shoreham's majority arrived ; and it was tacitlj'^ understood that old Holloway would be gazetted as Lord Withamstead of 'Withamstead, in the County of Kent, between the ensuing prorogation of parliament and its re-assembling for business. The two elderly young ladies heaved a sigh as harsh as a north- wester, at the disappointment of having to appear among the Hon. Misses Devereux and Drewe undistinguished from the vulgar herd of SuUivans and Barnsleys ; little suspecting that the proud family of Hawkhurst looked down on such distinctions from refinement of mindj as much as Closeman of Cinnamon Lodge, from coarseness ; — that while Close- man gave his old neighbour a punch in the side wherever he met him, exclaiming — " Well, so you're going to be made a lord ? — much good may it do you \" Sullivan would not have ad- verted to such a thing as a newly created peer in the squire's presence, any more than have " jKirU de corde dans la inaison d'un petidu." 134 8TOKESHILL PLACE, Meanwhile, in their uncoroneted faiiiily- coach, the Holloways were making their way to Wynnex, — the respectable old couple, and the two sharp-edged Misses ; — while, driven by his servant in a handsome phaeton, came stupid George, the future ornament of the aristocracy, looking thicker and more consequential than usual. " Lady Shoreham seemed to wish us to come early," said old Holloway to his wife. " She wants me to be acquainted with the young Viscount previous to our formal meeting with the lawyers. Barnsley's accounts have been some days in their hands ; so that there will be nothing for Lord Shoreham and his mother to do to-morrow, but give us our discharge. I venture to say, Barnsley has been as exact in all the forms of the business, as if he had been professionally employed. It has cost him much time and pains. No executorship was ever more conscientiously performed." " Mr. Barnsley, Sir, you know, tvas formerly OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 135 ill business," observed Miss Holloway, who had never forgiven his resistance to her pro- ject of settling herself as mistress of Stokes- hill Place. " The ability to execute and the will, are two things, my dear," said her father. " Few men would have set aside their own convenience and interest, as my friend Barnsley has done. Lord Shoreham can never repay all he has effected for the property. One hundred and forty-three thousand pounds do we transfer to- morrow to that young man's hands, as the savings of his minority !" " A large sum, certainly," said Miss Felicia Holloway, the sentimentalist of the family. " Still, if the late Lord Shoreham had united with yourself in the executorship and guardian- ship, his own two brothers, it would have relieved poor dear Lady Shoreham from the labour of participation in the education of her son. Mr. Drewe, who I fancy is in the diplomatic line, and Mr. Alfred Drewe in the 133 STOKESHILL PLACE, church, would have been more competent judges of the graces to be bestowed on a young nobleman, than a mere attorney." " Come, come, ■ — not a word agamst my friend Barnsley," interrupted the old gentle- man. " Ask Lady Shoreham how she would have liked her two brothers in-law for guar- dians ? When the young Lord was given over in his infancy, Alfred Drewe was known to have large bets pending upon his survival. The mother of an only son is not likely to par- don such an outrage." " Still," persisted Miss Felicia, " it would have been a great thing for an inexperienced youth of Lord Shoreham's expectations, to be guarded through the rocks and shoals of Lon- don life, by eyes so vigilant and hands so care- ful as those of his nearest relations. Lady Shoreham can do a great deal for her son ; but she cannot escort him to clubs, or be his moni- tor at " " Pho, pho, pho!" cried the old gentleman. OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 137 " You are talking of what you know nothing about. Pray did you ever see Alfred Drewe or his brother ?" " Many years ago, Sir ; — twenty years, I fancy, when I was such a child that I remem- ber nothing about them," said Miss Holloway, so accustomed to prevaricate about her age, that she forgot the impossibility of deceiving her own father. " I conclude Mr. Alfred resides at his deanery, in Lincolnshire ?" Even sober old Holloway could not refrain from a laugh at the idea of the flashy Alfred Drewe, confronting the fishiness of the fens ! " You have guessed pretty wide of your mark," said he. " Do you recollect old Dr. Dodwell, the rector of Wynnex?" " Very faintly, Sir ; he was very old when I was a girl, and is now, I fancy, imbecile." " He has not done duty these ten years," resumed her father. " He became so unin- telUgible in the pulpit after losing his last tooth, that the parish threatened to memorial 138 STOKESHILL PLACE, the archbishop; and Lord Shoreham was obhged to provide an efficient curate. All I wish to explain is, that he obtained the living from having been tutor to the late Lord and his brothers, most imprudently chosen after being buried his whole life in college, up to his chin in books. Knowing that the two younger Drewes were to fill fine family- livings, he fancied that what was good for Peter, was good for Paul; and tried to qualify them, as he had been himself qualified — by pedantry. But unluckily, old Dodwell, who was a very absent fellow, never perceived that it was his eldei' pupil, the future Viscount, who was becoming as addicted to black letter as the Gentleman^s Magazine ; while Alfred and Augustus became addicted, to the Lord knows what ! The tutor was the only man in Oxford who did not know them to be the most dissipated young dogs in the university. In short, it seemed to wake the reverend divine from a dream ^ when Au- gustus was at length expelled from college ; OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 139 while Alfred, with the greatest difficulty, accom- plished his degree.'* " Expelled from college ? — How very dread- ful !" exclaimed Felicia, with an air of girlish innocence. " But it was on the education of his eldest pupil (then Lord Shoreham) that Dodwell relied for absolution," exclaimed her father. " When taxed with having made the young peer a pedant, he did not reply like Buchanan of King James, that ' 'twas lucky he had been able to make so much of him,' but cited the number of learned bodies of which Lord Shoreham was a member, and, like Quin of George III, exclaimed, ^ / taught the boy.* " " I have always understood," said Miss Hol- loway, (at all events not understanding her father) " that Lord Shoreham was an eminent man. Did he not write that very thick book in your library about the arts cultivated among the Celts ?" " He wrote a thick book or two, — 1 know not 140 STOKESHILL PLACE, upon what subject — I am no antiquarian," said the old Squire. " But I was talking of Dod- well. Many iU-natured people used to say that, absent as he chose to seem, his wits were smartly at work in this affair of Alfred and Augustus 5 for as the latter could not take his degree and it was impossible for Alfred to hold all the family livings, Wynnex fell to the share of the old tutor. And there he has been planted for the last five-and-twenty years like a pollard willow in a ditch, superannuated the greater part of his time." " What a sad incumbrance on the parish !" said Miss Felicia. " Lord Shoreham had as much to answer for in presenting a mere scholar and a man of sixty to such an office, as Dodwell in tlie care- less education he bestowed on the two Drewes. For Alfred has turned out that flagrant charac- ter, — a buck-parson ; while Augustus, an idle, dissolute, inefficient man, has only been retained in his office to keep him out of the King's OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 141 Bench. Such are the men whose example you thmk would have been more advantageous to their nephew, than that of my steady friend, John Barnsley." " I was not aware, Sir," repUed Miss Hol- loway, solemnly, " that the English aristocracy was thus unworthily represented.^' ^' Then, my dear, I don't know where you put your eyes and ears," said her father. " The gentleman in the straw-hat who drove his drag against our carriage last spring as we were airing on the Hounslow Road, was parson Drewe ; and the blockhead taken into custody behind the scenes the night of the riot at the opera, Augustus." " You don't say so ! — I saw in the papers that it was an Honourable Blank Blank. What a pity that Mr. Drewe should forget what is due to his caste !" " Or due to himself," added her father. " However, Lady Shoreham has wisely kept the young lord out of their way. Had they been 342 STOKESIllLL, PLACE, admitted to any share in his bringing up, in- stead of the bank- stock receipts which my friend Barnsley showed me the other day, I would not give the young Viscount credit for a year's solvency. Between gamblers, horse- jockeys, and opera-dancers, poor Wynnex would have had but a poor chance." " All's well that ends well !" observed Felicia. " A mis-directed education made the last Lord a bookworm ; I trust his son wiU not turn out a miser. Barnsley, no doubt, will ob- tain complete ascendancy over him ; and in- stead of encouraging him to field sports and manly pursuits, make him fancy an inkhorn a finer thing than a star to hang to his button- hole." " My dear, you mistake John Barnsley," said her father, mildly. " Dearly as he loves a bit of red tape, you never saw him try to inspire any other man with the love of business. Barnsley can scarcely bear that a game cer- tificate or excise-permit should be filled up in OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 113 the county by any one but himself. Had he been Lord Chancellor, he would have grudged his Vice a single cause. Aha ! Here we are, I declare, at the lodge-gates of Wynnex Ab- bey !" 144 STOKESHtLL PLACR, CHAPTER VIII. Use a more specious ceremony, I pray you, to the noble lords ; for they wear themselves in the cap of the time ; they muster true gait — eat, speak and move under the influence of the most received star ; and, though the devil lead the measure, such are to be followed. SHAK8PEARE. Lady Shobeham, at the period of wel- coming her guests from Withamstead, was a very happy woman : — she had attained the brightest epoch of her life. The being who, from the moment the bells of Wynnex church announced that an heir was born to the Abbey, had formed the aim and end of her existence, was again about to be proclaimed by those iron tongues, as having attained to man's OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 145 estate; and thrilling with the two-fold pride of being mother of a son and mother of a peer, she felt conscious (like the militia cap- tain reviewing his troop, in the anecdote,) that the eyes of Europe were upon her ! The Viscountess was of opinion that in her son she had achieved a chef-d'oeuvre. Nothing on her part had been neglected to render him perfect, according to the acceptation of those with whom she lived. A handsome looking, high-spirited lad, he had accomplished a pony when other boys of his age can scarcely manage a donkey ; and been seen at the Italian Opera, when other boys limit their enjoyments to a Christmas pantomime. He had been sent to Eton and Oxford, nearly tAvo years younger than Browns and Smiths are considered strong enough for the tug of school-boy wear and tear ; and, finally, was known at Tattersall's and Crockford's, when young gentlemen of his years scarcely attp.in a tail to their coatee. He had, in short, l^een admirably brought up ! VOL. I. H 146 STOKESHILL PLACE, When spending his vacations with his family at Paris, Mesdames the Countesses of this, that, and the other, used to whisper to each other that so charming a creature deserved to be Parisian born ; and not a tradesman in Bond Street but had issued a certificate of celebrity, that young Shoreham was one of the most promising chaps about town. The Viscountess was enchanted ! — Few wo- men are invested with such absolute authority in the education of a son, and no woman could have exercised it more entirely to her own satisfaction. She had affected no tyrannic control over Shoreham ; but left it to the ad- mirable school of morals and manners in which he was placed, to form his disposition. He had lived in the best company; he had acquired the best tone. He was (as the beau- tiful Comtesse de Fremont had called him at fifteen — and as Lady Catalpa called him now) — a charming creature. The results of so much forbearance on his mother's part, would OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 147 doubtless be repaid by the concession of un- limited influence over his conduct. He would fall in with her expectations, and increase the small fortune of his sisters ; and perhaps, of his own accord, replace the advantages and allowances she forfeited by his attaining his majority. But this was of secondary importance. Lady Shoreham*s main object was, that her son should become a leading man in fashionable society. It is true that, for the last year, she had experienced occasional uneasiness which she confided neither to her daughters, nor to Barnsley. Lord Shoreham had chosen to pass the preceding winter at Melton with Parson Drewe, and was familiarly known at Newmarket; had a particularly private box at the Olympic Theatre, and a particularly public one at the Italian Opera. He was seen in the park, and reported in the newspapers, as the companion of flashy foreign counts, living on their wits, and having very brilliant wits to live on ; and H 2 H8 STOKESHILL PLACE, the cavalier of married ladies, of somewhat equivocal notoriety. All this, Lady Shoreham held to be but part of the routine inevitable to his social position. But she knew from long observation that there is a crisis in a lordling's life, when, like the frost-hemmed French soldiers in Russia, they must either march on, or march no more. A little touch of Crockford's, Newmarket, and the corps de ballet, would do poor dear Shoreham no harm, provided it were touch and go ; but if the attraction proved too much for him, and he attached himself for life to hazard, the turf, and the green-room, there was an end of his prospects. She appreciated the dangerous charm of bachelor society. She knew that, if once settled as a star of that glaring galaxy, there was no hope of retrieving him to become the centre of a system of his own. Such was the motive of Lady Shoreham's assiduity in furnishing the Abbey in a style to remove all aifectation of the hunting box. Oil THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 149 Had she left A¥ynnex in the rough-and- ready style of disorderliness to which it was reduced by the lapse of years, there would have been a pretext for quartering all St. James's Street within its gates ; but the Alhambra saloons, and EtruscaTi bathing- rooms, and moyen age galleries and vestibules she had created, rendered it too luxurious and enervate a retreat for hunting-coats, and pilot-jackets. There could be now no excuse for not inviting her and his sisters to become his guests ; and she was determined to profit by the privilege to the exclusion of less desir- able inmates, until the choice of some creature as charming as himself to be Lady Shoreham, should reduce her to the humbled position of Viscountess Dowager. She would then be content to depart in peace. Once married, there was no probability of Shoreham's falling into a system of dissipation derogatory to his place in society. It has been already admitted that, next in 150 STOKESHILL PLACE, her Ladyship's estimation to her own children, stood her brothers and sisters. She would have been delighted that Shoreham's choice should fall on one of Lord Tynemouth's daughters; and the frank liveliness of her nieces seemed highly in favour of such an event ; shy boys of one-and-twenty, being so readily captivated by the manners of persons easy of access. The f6tes at Wynnex would throw the young man into Flora and Jessie's society more than he had ever been in London ; and she determined to favour every opportunity of bringing them together. The HoUoways, Barnsleys, and Sullivans, accustomed to live in close and intimate neighbourship, woidd doubtless herd together; while the Devereux girls, Brereton, and her nephew Sir Ross, would as naturally form a coterie apart. Meanwhile, she was in the highest spirits. The tradesmen had been punctual in achieving their preparations ; the servants were all ac- tivity, in expectation of the customary gra- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 151 tuities of the morrow ; and though Lady Shore- ham would have preferred that her son should arrive a few days before the eventful 22nd, in order to fix the extent of these and similar benefactions, she was too much accustomed to content herself with Shoreham's proceedings to find fault on such an occasion. Barnsley had complied with her hint, to leave five thousand pounds floating, in the hands of Messrs. Closeman and Co. of the Westerton bank, to meet unexpected exigencies ; and all that was requisite to draw it forth, was the magic signature of " Shoreham." The sun shone, — a bright searching October sun, — over the dahlia beds, and clustering China roses. The conservatories were in admirable bloom ; the newly fitted rooms wore their brightest gloss ; — and fires sparkled and logs crackled within doors, though the woods and plantations had scarcely yet lost a leaf. All was mirth and merriment at the 152 STOKESHILL PLACE, Abbey. In the village and servant's hall, no less than in the gilded saloon Lo ! all went merry as a marriage bell ! Even Margaret Barnsley, at first so shy and strange, was now made quite at home by the familiarity of the Devereux, and the good breeding of their cousins ; and instead of the anxiety with which she had looked forward at first to the arrival of her father and the Hawkhurst family to give her courage, she began to feel extremely uncomfortable, at the idea of seeing the SuUivans. She had discovered with some satisfaction from Brereton, that poor Edward was gone into Norfolk ; but Helen ! — how should she ever be able to sup- port the coldness of Helen ? — While the ladies were sitting together in the library, waiting the arrival of the expected guests, these ideas weighed on poor Margaret's spirits. At length, her attention was roused OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 158 from the book she was attempting to read, by Jessie Devereux's inquiries of lier cousin Lucilla concerning the people who were coming. " This guardianship business is a sad bore," was the first sentence Margaret overheard, " because it obhges Shoreham to have his lawyers down. But, after to-morrow, all that will be over, and we expect the Walmers, — the Marstons, — and a good many people from the other side of the country.^' " The mere neighbourhood of Westerton, does not seem to present much in the way of attraction ?" observed Flora. '' Nothing whatever. The Holloways are horrors ; and Mr. Brereton is the only one of the Sullivan's of the family who has mixed in the world. After our first popularity-civilities mamma intends advising Shoreham to drop the neighbourhood as much as possible, and depend on London for society. Scarcely forty miles H 3 154 STOKESHILL PLACE, from town, you know, one need not squirefy ourselves to death, for want of a soul to talk to !" And when, ten minutes after having uttered this speech, Margaret saw the Drewes receive Mrs. Holloway and her two stiff daughters almost as graciously as they had received herself, she trembled to think how near she had been bestowing her regard and friendship, in return for such hollow civilities. " My son is not yet arrived," said the Vis- countess, in reply to the inquiries of old Holloway. " Young men always find so much to do at the moment of leaving town." Soon afterwards she had to renew the same apologies, with greater ceremony, to the SuUivans; the solemn formality of old Sul- livan and the personal claims of Mr. Brereton's mother, seeming to entitle them to higher consideration. Helen, indeed, was received by the young ladies with more than their usual mechanical courtesy j but instead of appre- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 155 elating it with the timid humility of Margaret or the vulgar obsequiousness of the Misses Holloway, she accepted their attentions as her due, and crossing the library towards the spot where Margaret stood blushing and un- easy, shook hands with her young friend so cordially, as to leave Margaret in doubt whether she could be aware of what had been passing at Hawkhurst during her absence. But the unembarrassed manner in which Miss Sullivan, after a few minutes' desultory conversation, observed, — " Edward is gone to my uncle's in Norfolk. He left home before we returned from St. Leonard's, or I should have persuaded him to postpone his visit till after the gay doings here," satisfied Margaret, that the old gentleman and his son had kept their disappointment a secret from the rest of the family. The Drewes and Devereuxs with Margaret and Helen, were soon clustered together at the conservatory end of the library cheeping, of a thousand young 156 STOKESHILL PLACE, lady-like topics — new music, new works, new patterns; questioning Miss Sullivan of her sailing, and boating, and bathing expeditions at St. Leonards, and recounting former ex- ploits of their own. Even the inexperienced Margaret could not help admiring how Helen Sullivan's superiority in mind and manners over those to whom she was inferior in rank and superficial accomplishments, shone out, in the first half-hour they passed together. Helen seemed inaccessible to the raptures with which the Drewes spoke of the sea, the shore, the delights of yachting, the enchant- ments of bathing ; and Mdien Flora and her sister questioned her of the society of St. Leonards, whether the Duchess of Avon still gave parties, or Lady St. Lawrence was to pass the winter there. Miss Sullivan replied with so unculprit-like an air, that she was unacquainted with either and had heard nothing of them at St. Leonards, — that the Miss HoUoways, who from a distance caught OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 157 phrases of the conversation of the young party they dared not join, wondered at her heroism ! They felt that, in her place, they should have lacked courage to expose themselves to the contempt of their noble associates. But it would have been difficult to despise Helen Sullivan! — There was something so high-minded in the speaking glances of her eyes, something so prompt in her movements, so decided in her step, — and above all, some- thing so candid in every word she uttered, — as to insure respect and admiration. Margaret, who had been for a moment dazzled by the lively indiscretion of speech of Flora and Jessie (arising less from frankness than the difficulty of holding their tongues,) now recognised once more the beauty of that high-toned sincerity of character, which her timid nature bad long looked up to with veneration in the sister of Edward Sullivan. Even when the group of girls were talking together of such nothingnesses as fashions, 158 STOKESHILL. PLACE, dances, and the morrow's ball, the distinction of Helen above her companions was thoroughly apparent. Although she interested herself in all that seemed to concern them, an intelligent observer might have detected at once the superiority which was said to be distinguishable in Edmund Burke while sheltering from the rain under an archway. Her brother Brereton came in from the billiard-room, and after a supercilious salutation to the Hollo ways, pre- sented to his sister, at that gentleman's request, his friend Sir Ross Carmichael ; when Helen, neither drawing back into primness after the Hollo way style, nor launching into the flippancy after the Devereux style because a fashionable young man was added to their circle, addressed a few words to the new comer ; then returned to her previous conversation. " Shoreham is late," observed Sir Ross, addressing his cousin. " I should not be sur- prised if he was not to arrive till after dinner." " Oh ! he is not the last,'' said his sister OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 159 Mary, putting up her glass to investigate how many might be missing. — " Mr. Barnsley has not yet made his appearance ; and the dressing bell has not rung." " My father is usually late," Margaret ventured to observe, *' but he is always so busy !" " And Shoreham so idle !" — said Jessie Devereux. " Extremes meet, you see." " I wish they may ; nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see Mr. Barnsley and Shoreham enter the room," said Lucilla, lowering her voice, " for I see mamma is growing uneasy at my brother's non-appear- ance." And Margaret, who had not hitherto ven- tured to look towards the side of the room where Lady Shoreham was placed, lest she should encounter the eye of Mr. Sulhvan, now hazarded a glance in that direction, and noticed that an anxious flush was indeed over- spreading the cheeks of the lady of the house. 160 STOKESHILL PLACE, But old Sullivan was not by her side. She could discern the outline of his spare lofty figure, as he stood pompously engaged in county-talk with his brother member of Wit- hamstead Hall ; — looking very much like what he was called by Closeman, the wag of West- erton, — Pompey's pillar in a mist. Mr. Sullivan, indeed was a personage awful in the sight of many besides Margaret Barns- ley ; reserved, haughty, and soured by an habitual gout, which he took care to designate as " hereditary ,'' as if anxious to have it un- derstood that it was a gout peculiarly his own, distinguished from the plebeian disorder afflict- ing his coachman and butler. Always unso- ciable, since the death of Lord Shoreham and the migration of the Woodgates, he felt that there was not a soul left in the neighbourhood worthy of unloosing the latchet of his gouty shoe. Barnsley, an object of especial detesta- tion to him, had made himself endured only by the officious zeal with which he saved OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 161 the great man of Hawkhurst Hill, (a des- cendant of Witikind the Great, and brother- in-law to Lord Brereton, and the Duke of Grantville,) a thousand disagreeable encounters with the pitiful littlenesses of borough-bothera- tion ; and when his son Edward demanded permission to pay his addresses to Miss Barnsley, it needed all the young lady's heir- ship to five thousand a year, to reconcile the proud old gentleman to the notion of the alliance. But it was not till Edward had again and again protested that he felt sure of having made an impression on the affections of Margaret, that Mr. Sullivan condescended to write a letter of proposal; the rejection of which caused him the bitterest vexation he had ever been fated to experience. That the ci-devant attorney should be insen- sible to the honour of his alliance, had not entered into his calculations. He could not forgive himself for having courted such an affront, — he could not forgive Edward as its 162 STOKESHILL PLACE, origin ; and his son was forced to take refuge for a time from his father's reproaches, in a visit to his uncle the Duke. Mr. Sullivan would gladly have fled there too, to escape the annoyance of an encounter with Barnsley at the Wynnex fetes. But he felt it his business to be there, maintaining among the county families the high station he was entitled to hold ; nor could he, at that moment, have quitted Hawkhurst without making a confession to his wife and daughter of a humiliation, which he had exacted a promise from Edward to keep a profound secret, even from his sister and mother. The hateful point was the necessitiy of eating at the same board and dipping in the dish with Barnrley. They had met but once, — " 'twas in a crowd," — since the catastrophe ; and now, as he stood in the window listening to his brother member's rigmarole about some town- hall dilemma of " Smith insisted upon it, but Brown would not hear of it," his anxious eye OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 163 glanced ever and anon beyond old Holloway's portly outline, to the door through which Barnsley was to enter. He had, however, nothing to fear. Barnsley, — who, though he felt the necessity of being early at the Abbey in order to impart assurance to the noble minor receiving, for the first time, so large a party, had no mind to expose his coolness with the Sullivans to the notice of their neighbours — determined to dress atStokes- hill for dinner, and arrive at the last moment. In short, the dressing-bell rang and the party dispersed towards their several apartments, before either the Viscount or the executor made his appearance. Poor Lady Shoreham was now in a panic. She felt the strange appearance it would wear to the county and her friends, if her son should fail her at such a moment ; and began to fear that the prospect of having to do the honours of his house for the first time, to four or five hundred guests, besides making a speech to tlie 16*4 STGKESHILL PLACE, tenantry, and a civil acknowledgment to the executors, had been too much for his courage. As soon as she had escorted Mrs. Sullivan and Mrs. Hollovvay, as in precedence bound, to their rooms, she returned hastily to the library ; for the welcome sound of a carriage had reached her ear. But, alas ! it was only the London solicitor in his chaise and four ; summoned by the fidgety Barnsley to attend upon the occasion. Scarcely, however, had she turned Mr. Fagg over to the butler to be conducted to his dressing-room, when Barnsley himself was an- nounced. " My dear Sir," she exclaimed, cordially ex- tending her hand, " you see me in the greatest perplexity ! — Not a word have I heard of my son for some days past. He promised to be here on the 2 1 st, early in the day ; and now it is nearly six o'clock, and I begin to tremble lest the horror which all young men of his age have of the word ' business,' should keep him OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 165 away altogether ! Between ourselves, I fancy we had better have put off signing these ex- ecutorship and guardianship accounts till next week. But it is too late to think of it now ; and, if my son should not make his ap- pearance to-day, I must trouble you to take the head of the table. My brother Lord Tynemouth is so complete a stranger here, that he would be very httle resource to me on such an occasion." Barnsley bowed assentingly; and Lady Shoreham, about to quit him to hurry through her dinner toilet, was gratified to observe that in his, Lord Shoreham's executor wore a highly respectable country-gentlemanlike appearance. Barnsley was really a handsome looking man, when his brows were unbent and his pockets dispossessed of the packets of papers too often imparting squareness to his waist. At the present moment, indeed, his countenance shone with redoubled lustre. To do the honours of Wynnes Abbey, in presence of the Sullivans of 'l6G STOKESHILL PLACE, Hawkhurst, the dear friends and relatives of the Woodgate family, was all he could desire ! For once, he anticipated as much delight from cutting up a haunch, as from drawing up a case for counsel's opinion. But while he stood bowing to the Viscountess, a sudden tumult arose in the great hall ; and the yelping of dogs, the swearing of grooms, the neighing of horses, and the vociferous laughter of several strange voices, caused the colour to rise in Lady Shoreham's face. " It is my son !" cried she, full of joy, yet full of apprehension. And at that moment, a pretty-faced, under- sized voung man, with a velvet travelling-cap on his head, and a pea-jacket on his shoulders; — his hands in his pockets, and a cigar in his mouth, shuffled into the vestibule ! OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. IG7 CHAPTER IX. The one is too like an image, and says nothing ; — the other too like my lady's eldest son — evermore talking. SHAKSPEARE. "My dear boy! — I was afraid you were lost!" — cried his mother. " Mr. Barnsley, Lord Shoreham ; Shoreham, my love, Mr. Barnsley, to whom we are all so much in- debted." Barnsley bowed encouragingly to his young protege ; and Lord Shoreham, taking the cigar from his mouth, but not the cap from his head, muttered some unintelligible civility while his mother led the way into the library. " You are very late," said she, addressing 1G8 STOKESHILL PLACE, Lord Shoreham. " The dressing-bell has rung. Every body is come ; it wants only five mi- nutes of six, and we dine at six precisely" " They must put off dinner,'^ replied Lord Shoreham, coolly. " My fellows will be a quar- ter of an hour getting out my traps ; and Gus won't be here these ten minutes." « Chis f— " He chose to come with the parson in his britschka, on account of my smoking ; and, by Jove ! I smashed them like fun, giving them the go-by at the turnpike." " Gus ! — The Parson !" — faltered Lady Shoreham. " You surely have not brought down your uncles ?" " Didn't you get my letter ?" — demanded her son, planting himself before the fire on the hearth rus;, with his hands again ensconced in the pockets of the pea-jacket. " What letters ?"— *' Saying that my uncles must be present at the celebration of my coming of age. — Just OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 169 like the parson !" he contmued, perceiving from his mother's wondering face that this was the first intimation she had received of such a calamity. " I gave it him to put into the letter-box at Crockford's, as he was going up the steps ; and I dare say 'tis still in his pocket, unless his rascal took it out at night to light his pipe.'^ Lady Shoreham stood for a moment aghast. " But, my dear boy, this is really a most un- reasonable proceeding !" faltered she, at last. " There literally is not a bed in the house. I had the greatest difficulty in making out one for our friend Mr. Barnsley.'^ " Why who the devil have you got here 1" inquired Lord Shoreham, with an air of dis- gust. " All the famihes of the immediate neigh- bourhood ; besides my brother Tynemouth, and " " Well, well," interrupted Lord Shoreham, " let who will be turned out, room must be VOL.. I. I 170 STOKESHILL PLACE, made for Gus and the parson. My uncles are the only people / have mvited, and they must be properly accommodated. How deuced un- lucky that you did not get my letter." " Rather say, unlucky that you did not— — " " Shorehanij my boy P' shouted a strange voice, as a strange head, in a strange straw hat, was thrust into the library, — " are you here or hereabouts ?" " Come in, Alfred, come in !" cried the dutiful nephew, without stirring from the hearth-rug; while Lady Shoreham escaped through the saloon, to recover her self-pos- session and give the necessary orders; and Barnsley bowed and stared, as the extra- ordinary figure of Parson Drewe advanced into the room, gaitered and jacketed for his journey as other men equip themselves for a shooting expedition. " Where's Gus ?" inquired Lord Shore- ham. " In confab with the head coachman — finding Oil THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 171 out whether there's a tailor at Westerton he can trust to mend the spring of the britschka," said Alfred Drewe, throwing himself into a chair, and placing his muddy leather gaiters on a beautiful ottoman embroidered by the fair hand of his niece Lucilla. — " That was a clever smash you gave us at the toll-bar ; — ^and faith, my fine fellow, you must pay for it !" " By Jove, — I thought you were over !" cried Lord Shoreham, laughing heartily at the recol- lection. " But, I say, Alfred, what the deuee did you do with that letter of mine ?" " What letter ?— To Lady Catalpa ?" " No, no — to my mother. " " Your mother ? — Devil a word do I remem- ber about the matter ! — I took Lady Cat's my- self, as an excuse for a call. If you trusted me with anything for the post, I dare say I gave it to my tiger to drop in ; and the young dog (who is apt to take a drop too much) seems to have dropped all recollection of the busi- ness." i2 172 STOKESHILL PLACE, " Very unlucky !" said Lord Shoreliam. " But we must make the best of it.'^ " By George, — how they have ruined the place,'^ ejaculated Parson Drewe, looking round. " How easy to see, by all these gimcracks, that a woman's finger has been in the pie ; — (hope it won't prove a pigeon pie — eh ! Shoreham ?) — Not a chair for a fellow's legs, when he comes in from shooting ; — and, instead of a good comfortable rug before the fire, for man and beast to stand or lie on, a strip of A^elvet painted to look like a leopard's skin ! — Why not a real leopard's skin at once ? — Except, now I think of it, that they're all bought up for the Bloomsbury hammercloths. Tigers are sure to sport a leopard's skin.'^ " Come, come, don't put your foot into it," cried the young peer. " 111 take odds that the mayor of Westerton has got one, at this moment on his family coach. But here comes Augus- tus. Take it coolly — for he's in a devil of a wav about the britschka." OR THE iMA\ OF BUSINESS. 173 Barusley felt uncomfortable; and but that his black silk stockings and white waistcoat left no pretext for retiring to dress, would have been heartily glad to get out of the room. The "devil of a way" of a man recently taken up as disorderly in a row at the opera, ex- cited fearful surmises in his mind. What, therefore, was his surprise when, the library door having opened an inch or two and shut again, a spare, middle aged man, of formal demeanour and immoveable countenance, tra- versed the room like clock work, seated him- self gingerly in a chair, and began filipping off the dried spots of mud contracted by his nether habiliments during his journey. " Well, what do the fellows say ; — is it much of a smash?" — inquired the parson. " Not much," replied Augustus, in a calm, dry, voice. " We shaU get back to town with it, and then it must go to Hobson, (Hobson's your man, I think ?") addressing his nephew, " and be done up. The linings are ruined, 174 STOKESHILL PLACE, and the scratch can't be got out without var- nishing." Barnsley, startled by the quiet apathy of the modern dare-devil, was shocked to perceive the proverb reversed, and that for " Nunky pays for all," was in future to be read " ne- phew." — He almost shuddered when he thought of the hundred and forty-two thousand pounds to be transferred on the morrow! " We have but five minutes to dress for dinner," said Lord Shoreham, deferring to a more convenient season any remarks he might have to make on this summary arrangement. " Then I shall wait for supper !" was the quiet reply of Augustus. " Between a journey and a meal, a bath is indispensable. Is it Lady Shoreham's custom to dine at six o'clock V " The custom of the country, I fancy." " And a deuced good custom, too ?' cried Alfred. " Shoreham, my boy ! I hope you're not ass enough to have a French cook? A OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 175 French cook may be a good thing in France; where the devil sends the meat, no matter where the cooks come from. But ^pon my soul, to see one of those frog-faced fellows larding a side of venison, or stewing down a fine turbot tiU you might card it into wool, is enough to drive one distracted." " I know nothing, at present, of the system here," said Lord Shoreham, spoiling a fine solid glowing fire by a superfluous poke; "but let me hear of any thing French in my kitchen except truffles or capers, and out of the win- dow it goes — neck or nothing." And after a vehement, master of the house- like-ring, he desired the groom of the cham- bers to show him to his room, following him across the hall arm in arm with the parson ; while Augustus remained stationary before the fire, gently caressing his own shins. " A very fine young man. Sir !" observed Barnsley, after a silent t^te-a-t^te of some minutes. 176 STOKESHILL PLAC^, " Who, Sir, — my brother?" — demanded Au- gustus in the same quiet voice. " I meant Lord Shoreham," said Barnsley, with a patronizing smile, amazed at the gen- tleman's dulness. " I had the honour of knowing the late Lord well." " Sir, you have the advantage of me: — I never knew any one less !"' observed Augustus, as impassive as before, but beginning to stroke his chin instead of his legs. " Have you brought down any thing new Sir?'^ — demanded Barnsley, after another trying pause. " Nothing but a pair of pumps," replied Augustus Drewe, as drily as ever. " You misunderstand me, my dear Sir," said Barnsley ; " I wished to inquire if there was any thing new in town M^hen you left it }" " Asparagus is in, and, I fancy, sea kail," replied Augustus vacantly; and Barnsley perceiving at length that he was mystified, and doubtful whether to resent as an affront OR THE MAN OP BUSINESS. l77 what might be only the common place of an eccentric, like " Gus," wisely took up the news- paper to screen his irritation. In the course of a few minutes, he heard the party assembling in the adjoining saloon in which it was the custom of the house to await the ringine; of the second bell; and was about to proceed thither, leaving the silent gentleman to the enjoyment of his own inefFability, when Lord Tynemouth, entering the library to deposit a pamphlet he had taken to his own room, be- stowed a more than commonly civil Avelcome on Barnsley, whom he considered an invalu- able friend to the widowed Viscountess, " Ha ! Drewe, my dear fellow," cried he, perceiving Augustus, in the midst of his saluta- tions to Barnsley, " what are you doing here in boots, with the second bell about to ring? When did you arrive?" " In the course of the morning/' "You did not come, then, with Shoreham?^^ — " We came together." I 3 1}8 STOKESHILL PLACE, * " But he arrived only half an hour ago." ^' Indeed ? — I never wear a watch." " Better go and dress," said Lord Tyne- mouth good-humouredly. " We shan't wait for you." '• Most likely I shall have to wait for you," replied Mr. Drewe, " I always dine on the second course.'^ " Ay, ay ? — stick to your old Oxford stint, ell? — roast fowl and apple pie?" *' Certainly a modern dinner does occupy a most unreasonable space of time," observed Barnsley, in a deprecating tone. " But, my dear Drewe," resumed Lord Tyne- mouth, who did not wish the harmonies of the evening to be interrupted by the oddities of his nephew's uncle, his own college friend, " we have half a dozen pretty women of our party ; — sure- you don't intend to appear in dishabille ?" " Why not? — They have my full permission to appear in theirs!" — " I don't speak on their account," said Lord OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. \79 Tynemouth, with a significant glance at Barns- ley ; " but Sir Horton Losely, who is staying here, appears every day at dinner in his shoot- ing jacket; and if you favour us with your travelling-dress, the ill-natured world will say, as it has so often said before, that you are aping him." " Thank you, for the hint," said Gus, lei- surely rising. " I would not have it said I dressed my stable-boy after Loseley." And without further remonstrance, he quitted the room. " I'll lay my life," said Lord Tynemouth laughing heartily at the success of his strata- gem, " that Drewe will appear at table in a court dress, lest his originality should be sus- pected. Considering how strange a fellow he is by nature, I can't understand why he should affect strangeness ! Most eccentric people are so from absence of mind, and not taking note of the customs of the world ; my friend, Drewe, takes note of them only to bid them defiance.'^ 180 STOKESHILL PLACE " A very singular person ! I never saw him before, except at the late Lord Shoreham's funeral. He does not seem to recollect me," observed Mr. Barnsley. Lord Tynemouth, who felt certain that Drewe not only perfectly recollected the inter- loping executor, but that much of his recent oddity arose from dissatisfaction at finding himself in Barnsley's company, replied eva- sively — " His whole life long Augustus Drewe has been doing the most outrageous things, as methodically and quietly as a quaker. With all the parson's slang and noise, he is less of a rake than Augustus, who never speaks above his breath or moves faster than a tortoise." " I trust in Heaven,'^ said Barnsley, more energetically than was his wont, " that they will not lead their nephew into mischief. It will be a sad thing if, after all the pains Lady Shoreham has taken with and for that young man, his two uncles should persuade him to turn the house out of windows.'^ OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 181 " Or his mother and sisters out of doors," thought Lord Tyneraouth; but notwithstanding his respect for Barnsley's financial abihties, he did not think it necessary to trust him with the dawning apprehensions of tlie Viscountess. The dinner, meanwhile, in spite of the con- trariety by which it was preceded, jjassed off brilhantly. There were enough county people to make it pleasant to each other, and enough ex-county people, to lend animation to the natives. The two honourable uncles and Sir Ross being of the family, and in some measure at home, Lady Shoreham was supported by Hollo-w^ay and Sullivan who talked to each other across her, throughout dinner, one of himself, the other of his farm, fancying them- selves extremely attentive to their neighbour. But Lady Shoreham took no heed of her two elders. Her eye was fixed upon the chair which poor Barnsley had been so near tilling, and which, to her horror and disgust, she saw occupied by Alfred Drewe. As they were tak- l82 STOKESliiLL PLACE, ing their places, her son had retreated from the seat assigned to him, exclaiming — " Come, come. Parson, — we must have you in the chair ! — Nobody can say grace here but you; and nobody cut up a haunch like you in the three kingdoms." And having thus constituted him his dele- gate, the young Lord placed himself between Jessie and Flora Devereux; the only extenuat- ing circumstance that could have pacified the wrath of his mother. Opposite to him and next to his sister Mary, a chair was left vacant, into which Augustus glided towards the end of the first course, attired in the per- fection of a gentlemanly toilet; and as he con- cluded that his antipathy, Loseley, was seated out of sisrht on the same side of the table as himself, he made it a point to he as chatty and agreeable as possible. Miss Felicia Hollo- way, beside whom he was placed, could not reconcile it to herself that this well bred, well dressed, demure individual could be the dis- OR THE MAN OF BUSIXKSS. 183 solute Augustus Drewe, of Avhom lier father had spoken in the mornmg, in terms of sucli severe rejjrobation. Margaret Barnsley had now ample oppor- tunity of gratifying her curiosity relative to the long dreamed-of Phoenix of Wynnex Abbey. Seated exactly opposite to Lord Shoreham, she found courage, while his atten- tion was engrossed by his cousins, to take a survey of his person, and had no difficulty in deciding, that Lord Shoreham was almost as good-looking as his sisters had announced him. But even while admitting this, Margaret felt conscious of an unfavourable impression. There was an overljearing positiveness in every word he uttered ; and a self-sufficient elation of manner, — a bold investigating expression of eye, — which revolted her. Her fancy had endowed the young Lord, educated under petti- coat government with sisters only for his early associates, with a half-timid, half-chivalrous tone of romance; but Lord Shoreham sat 184 SrOKESHILL PLACE, conversing with his pretty cousins in the tone of coarse raillery adopted by one school-boy towards another. Meanwhile, poor Barnsley felt less at ease than he had ever expected to feel at Wynnex Abbey ! In that room, where he had been accustomed to receive the tenants, and audit the accounts, — to issue his unimpugnable ukases and make his rules absolute, — he found himself suddenly sunk into nothingness, and sat on the well-stufFed red morocco dining chair, as uneasily as though it had been of red hot iron. The fates had placed him between Mr. Sullivan, towards whom he stood in so disagreeable a predicament ; and Miss Hollo- way, whose personal dislike he fully returned. The previous impertinence of Augustus Drewe had disconcerted him. The ungraciousness of the young Lord, made him apprehend that he might have difficulties to encounter in tlie winding-up of his executorship accounts. He felt that Stokeshill liad gained a disagreeable OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 1S5 neighbour; and Wynnex Abbey lost all its attractions. Even Margaret displeased him. Seated between the supercilious Brereton and Sir Ross, both more disagreeable than usual from their desire to merit the approval of the three fashionable men added to their party, she never opened her lips. Her fluttered countenance and unassured deportment, so different from that of the lively chatterers around her, — so diflferent from the frank self possession of Helen Sullivan, — were inconsist- ent with her claims on society, as heiress of Stokeshill. Among other vexations at that moment stirring up his ire, he felt that Miss Winston was not the preceptress he ought to have chosen to polish the manners of his daughter. A moment's collison with the world will sometimes serve to depreciate, in our esti- mation that which, by our own fireside, we have regarded as beyond the reach of censure ; and could Mr. Sullivan have guessed the secret mortification of the man from whom he sat 186 STOKESHILL PLACE, pointedly averting his dignified countenance, his desire of vengeance would have been amply gratified. A momentary glance of satisfaction, however, passed over his countenance, when he saw Lord Shoreham not only invite his daughter to take wine with him, but in the course of dinner repeatedly and pointedly addressed her. Margaret's replies, though flurried, were rea- sonable and lady-Hke; while the blush that overspread the delicacy of a skin to which the dark braids of her hair imparted almost dazzling whiteness, added wonderfully to her beauty. Of all the girls present, Margaret Barnsley was decidedly the prettiest. But even her father was surprised that Lord Shore- ham should so soon have made the discovery, under so many disadvantages of manner. A still more flattering distinction awaited her, when, after dinner, the party re-assembled. Lord Shoreham, — passing hastily through the drawing room, (in which Holloway, Sulli- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 187 van, and Lord Tynemouth, were pottering over their coiFee among the elderly ladies,) to the library, where the young people had taken refuge, — at once descried Margaret, alone, at the furthest end, turning over, for the twentieth time, Brockedon's Alpine scenery as a pretext for keeping aloof from the lively circle by whose sprightliness her spirits were overpowered. That he should condescend to take immediate possession of the vacant seat upon the sofa by her side, would have filled her with amazement, had she not remem- bered that, though only slightly presented to him before dinner in a group including the Miss HoUoways and Helen Sullivan, the name of Barnsley must have appealed to his grati- tude and sensibility. It was her father who was honoured in her person. Margaret felt shocked indeed for not being more gratified by his attentions, when Lord Shoreham laughingly protested that her name and countenance were blended with his earliest 188 STOKESHILL PLACE, reminiscences ; and that it did not need the praises he had recently heard of her in the letters of his sisters, to bring her at once to his remembrance. " Edward Sullivan and I have talked you over a thousand times/' said Lord Shoreham, with an arch smile. *' I say nothing of Brereton ; because he talks so much of every thing and every body, that one never listens to half he says." " The Miss Devereux are going to sing," said Margaret, by way of a signal of silence to her voluble companion. " With all my heart, if it amuses them," said Lord Shoreman contemptuously. " Are you fond of music P' " Passionately ! — We have had music every night since I have been here. Your sisters sing and play delightfully!'^ " I am afraid they have sadly bored you ?" replied Lord Shoreham, so accustomed to the persiflage of his gay associates, that he con- cluded her to be quizzing. " But young OR THE MAX OF IJUSIXESS. 189 ladies who lose half their lives 411 acquiring accomplishments, must of course lose the other half in displaying them. I shall take care they don't bore me with that sort of thing at Wynnex." '■^ Bore?'" reiterated Margaret almost terrified at his inference; — " you surely do not imagine that I intended to " " Oh ! you intended nothing but what was right and proper. I shall profit by your hint, and put a stop to their exhibitions." " If you did but know how welcome what you call exhibitions are at Westerton ! We never hear any good music. Your sisters first introduced to us that of Bellini, and Donizetti." " Mightily obliged you were to them, no doubt, for the introduction !'' said the Viscount, still fancying himself sneered at. " But if you want music, get my uncle Alfred to sing for you. The parson has the finest voice you ever heard ; — equal to Braham's '." 190 STOKESHILL PLACE, " In what style does he excel ? — Itahan, like your sisters, or English glees, or — " " Alfred ? — ^Alfred sings any thing — every thing — either at sight or sound. His ear and memory are the most astonishing things !" " Could he not be persuaded to take a part with your sisters in some trio ?" — " Oh ! d — n trios ! — Alfred will sing you something of his own; — or if you like it better, something of Tommy Moore's. Alfred sings some capital things ; ' the Dogs'-meat man/ the—" " The dogs'-meat man ?" faltered Mar- garet, fancying in her turn that she was quizzed. ^ " Do you sing it ?" — inquired Lord Shore- }^am. — " Oh ! do sing it," — cried he half rising from the sofa, as the extreme confusion of his companion seemed to give consent. " I can teach you two famous new verses." " Indeed I cannot, — I never even heard of itbefore,"— cried Margaret, her whole counte- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 191 nance brightened by the effort which brought vivid blushes to her cheeks. " Lucilla shall sing it you to-morrow," was his compassionate reply. " You live a great deal in the country, I fancy ?" " Wholly in the country. My father goes to town ; but we always remain in Kent." " So much the better, — for I mean to re- main a vast deal in Kent myself," he resumed, sprawling on the satin cushions of the sofa, with a degree of familiarity that would have dismayed Miss Winston. " Lu and Mary tell me I shall be bored to death here ; that there's not a soul worth a hang in the whole neighbourhood. But, by George, they may say what they will, that girl of old Barnsley's is deuced handsome." Margaret started. Her ears must certainly deceive her ! " Don't you think so ?" — persisted Lord Shoreham ; and his eyes fixed upon the fine figure of Helen Sullivan, who was crossing 192 STOKESHILL PLACE, the library, after having accompanied her valetudinarian mother to her own room, served in some measure to explain the strange apos- trophe of her companion. In the flurry of a first introduction to so many strange faces, he had evidently mistaken her for the daughter of Mr. Sullivan of Hawkhurst, and Helen for herself! — To undeceive him on this point was urgent. But how to begin ? — Margaret's cheeks tingled — Margaret's voice faltered — she had not a word at her command. " The attorney's daughter has none of her father's shoppy underbred look," he added. " One might mistake her for a gentlewo- man." " I fear you are under some mistake," stam- mered poor Margaret. " Mistake ?— no ! no mistake !" — cried Lord Shoreham, laughing, " I never saw a finer girl !" " I meant to say, " faltered Margaret, ^'that- " OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS, 193 But at this moment, Brereton approached with a supercihous air, to request Margaret would join Miss SuUivan at the piano. " My sister wishes you to accompany her," said he, addressing Margaret with unceremo- nious disdain. " Indeed she must excuse me !" rephed the trembhng girl ; — "I cannot sing to- night." " My dear," interrupted her father, offering his hand to conduct her to the group of young ladies, " Lady Shoreham begs you will oblige Miss Sullivan, who has a cold, and cannot be prevailed to sing anything but a second." Margaret was again about to remonstrate, but a look from her father, — a look such as she was not accustomed to disobey, — sent her trembling to the instrument; and the Drewes, astonished at the excellence of her performance, and the purity of style acquired from the able organist of Westerton, could not recover their surprise at the difl&dence VOL. I. K 194 STOKESHILL PLACE, with which, during her stay at the Abbey, she had disclaimed all pretension to musical accomplishments. But what was their surprise compared with the amazement of their brother ? OR I'HE MAN OF BUSINESS 195 CHAPTER X. There are but two ways of doing anything with great people ; by making yourself considerable with them, or by making yourself agreeable. ADDISON. Never did a sovereign on the eve of ab- dication retire to rest with such elation of spirit as Barnsley, on the eventful night pre- ceding Lord Shoreham's attainment of his majority ! He had noticed the t6te-a-Ute between the young Lord and his daughter ; he knew that Margaret had been especially dis- tinguished — but nothing wherefore. Already the vague matrimonial plot of his imagination seemed to thicken ; and on the K 2 196 STOKESHILL PLACE, eve of relinquishing power and greatness, greater greatness was apparently about to be thrust upon him, in the face of the whole county of Kent. If a fine thing to have been executor to the old Viscount, it Avould be far finer to become father-in-law to the young one. To do Barnsley justice, such notions were not the only ones tending to his gratification. He enjoyed the consciousness of his own well- doing. The noble roof over his head, so en- hanced in prosperity under his administration might at that hour have been dismantled and dilapidated, under the executorship of the two Drewes. He had not only done his best, but his best was eminently meritorious. Rejoicing like a Chancellor of the Exchequer over the returns of a favourite tax, he felt entitled to congratu- late himself on the soundness of his head no less than the soundness of his heart. He had, in fact, done for conscience's sake, more than many an auditor of many a noble house per- OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 19/ forms for the " con-sideratioii" of a thousand or two per annum ! He had noted, in the course of the day, the confidence entertained by the Wynnex tenants in the influence he was likely to exercise over their young Lord. In passing for the last time as a potentate through the three villages of the domain, he was stopped here, and arrested there, with entreaties for his interest at the Abbey. The conciliation of speech attempted by himself towards his intended constituents at Westerton, characterized the various peti- tions offered up to him at Wynnex. A word from him to my Lord, was to drain marshes, rebuild hovels, construct bridges, and reple- nish alms-houses 1 Barnsley laid his head upon his pillow filled with visions of a Viscountess's coronet adorn- ing that of his daughter; and satisfied that though he should now have leisure for the legislation aud improvement of Stokeshill, his ]9H STOKESHILL PLACE, influence at Wynnex Abbey was to be greater than ever. And Sullivan had seen all this ! — Sullivan, by whose incivility he had been so pointedly aggrieved at the Magistrates' meeting ! The arrogant esquire of Hawkhurst Hill could not but have observed that the damsel whom he had scarcely thought worthy his younger son, was courted with attentions far more flattering than those of Edward Sullivan ; nor could poor Barnsley refrain from exultation at the thoughts of the distinction likely to be lavished u^jon Margaret on the morrow. Such, and similar cogitations, kept the man of business waking till a late hour. Yet he was the earliest astir next morning ; Lady Shore- ham having commissioned him to see that all was right, — that the bonfires were properly stacked, — the pitch-pots in train for lighting up, — the ox likely to be warmed through, — the champagne to be thoroughly iced, — the OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 11)9 Roman candles to burn blue ! — Relying on his activity, she wished to be at liberty to bestow her courtesy on her guests in satin and bro- cade ; leaving to Barnsley the frieze coats and calimanco petticoats. But, on this occasion, Barnsley experienced for the first time from the upper servants of the Abbey and their London coadjutors, those resistances and impertinences which upper servants are apt to bestow upon interfering friends of the family. Perhaps they had gathered sufficient indica- tion of the altered aspect of affairs from the " own gentlemen^' of Parson Drewe and his brother, to warrant suspicion that Barnsley's kingdom was taken from him and given to the Jews and money lenders ; — for their hints that all would be done properly and in its place, whether or no Mr. Barnsley of Stokeshill put himself out of his to interfere with them, were as " plain as way to parish church." Judging it better not to signalize his exit 200 STOKESIIILL PLACE, from office by an explosion, he satisfied him-' self with sniffing silently in and out of the marquees, galleries, and ball-rooms, till break- fast was announced. An early one for the guests in the house was^ to precede the grand affair prepared for those assembling from the four quarters of the county ; and between the two, the Viscounty Viscountess and executors were to proceed into the steward's room, attended by the family solicitors, and by a scratch of the pen, set each other at liberty. Nothing could be worse- timed than the ar- rangement; but as Mr. Holloway had a jour- ney to perform into Shropshire on the mor- row, Lady Shoreham coincided in the plan. She had got up a handsome gilt vase and inscrip- tion for Barnsley, — and Barnsley had got up a neat and appropriate speech in return ; accusing himself of every executorial virtue, and recom- mending the young Lord to restrict himself to ready-money payments ; — to fear God, honour OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 201 the king, and augment the portions of his sisters. The sohcitors employed by Lady Shbreham declared that never had they seen a trust more ably or conscientiously executed than Barnsley's ; and he felt entitled, after such a display of financial economy, to crown his works with a sermon. Scarcely however were the tea and choco- late, ham and chicken, dispatched, when old Hollo way, with a face as long and doleful as an undertaker's bill, took Barnsley aside to inform him that, greatly to Lady Shoreham's mortifi- cation, her son would not hear of putting pen to paper till the whole of the minority accounts had been gone over by his attorneys, Messrs. Centpercent, of Cork-street, St. James's ; that her Ladyship's solicitor had already left the Abbey in high dudgeon ', that the vase was returned to its green baize, and the speech stifled in embryo ! " I owe the lad no ill-will for what he is ■doing," observed old Holloway; who, having K 3 202 STOKESHILL PLACE, never interfered in so much as the pruning of a plumtree at Wynnex, was wholly uncompro- mised by Lord Shoreham's mistrust. " Those two knowing uncles, you see, have put him up to the notion of never meddling with pen and ink till he is quite clear what he is about. The fact is, my dear Sir, that the boys of this age, instead of being dupes as they were in my col- lege days, are keen and shrewd as if they had been twenty years about town ! For a moment, I felt inclined to resent the poor young man's proceedings ; but when I saw the deep concern of my old friend Lady Shoreham, and that very little incitement would produce, on her part, a violent out-break against her husband^s brothers, I said to myself, — ' Blessed are the peace makers,' and agreed to defer the winding-up of the accounts till after my return from Bridgenorth." " Strange that her Ladyship should not have consulted me on the occasion," said Barnsley, looking exceedingly nettled. OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 203 *' My dear Sir, Lady Shoreham had not courage to talk to you on the subject. She deputed me, in order to spare your feelings as well as her own ; and if you are as kindly dis- posed towards the widow of our old friend the Viscount as I have always considered you, you will set the poor woman^s mind at ease, by seeming to take the thing in good part.'' And Barnsley was by no means sorry to re- ceive this exhortation. He did not wish to parade himself under the review of Sullivan as a defeated general ; he did not wish, by taking oflfence, to overcloud the brightening prospects of his daughter. — < Nay, though aware that a couple of money-scrivening attor- neys might raise up delays and molestations to protract the settlement of the estate, he knew that he had only to claim the protection of Chancery to embalm his cause in the tears of Lord Eldon, and perhaps obtain a monu- ment in the Chancery court to his integrity, as 204 STOKESHILL PLACE, tlie most upright of modern guardians and executors. Barnsley's concluding sentence, therefore, was for peace ; and when Lord Tynemouth, goodhumouredly fastening upon his arm, pa- raded him among the groups of guests to the archery- ground and new pheasantries, he felt that his cause was supported by the heads of the family. He met Lady Shoreham with cordiality ; and was only grieved to perceive, from a certain flush on her cheek and unquiet wandering of the eye, that she was experiencing great un- easiness on account of her son. George Holloway kept folloAving her about to tell her that " Lord and Lady Walmer were inquiring for Lord Shoreham ; — that Lord and Lady Henry Marston were in the saloon look- ing after Lord Shoreham ; and that the tenant's dinner was about to be served and waiting only for Lord Shoreham." oil THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 20 5 Instead of the gratification to her pride she had often anticipated of presenting to these Kentish dignitaries individually, and to the county collectively, her handsome son, accom- plished into a finished gentleman hy foreign travel and British scholarship, she stood alone upon her solitary lawn ; while the young hero, in whose honour the bells were ringing and the squibljs squibbing, was locked up in the billiard-room with Gus and the Parson, and one or two of their St. James's Street espe- cials. Meanwhile, poor Margaret Barnsley was of neither the breakfast party nor the archery. Confined to her bed by an overpowering head- ache, she revolved again and again her morti- fications of the preceding night. Neither the ringing of the village bells, nor the salvos of the field battery erected in the park, nor rumbling of carriages, nor clanging of military bands, nor swearing of footmen, nor slamming of doors. 206 STOKESHILL PLACE, nor stir and hum of the gathering multitude, could supersede the recollected tone of disdain in which the words " old Barnsley" and " the attorney's daughter" had been uttered by Lord Shoreham. What was the meaning of this ? — Her father was a man of fortune, — of character. — In what was he inferior to the Mr. Sullivan, whose name had been pronounced by the young Lord in a manner so much more respectful ? — Little as she knew of worldly distinctions, Margaret could not l^ut discern the truth ; — that she was living among people of a rank su- perior to her own ; and that Lord Shoreham re- garded the daughters of Lord Tynemouth and the niece of Lord Brereton in a different light from the daughter of Mr. Barnsley of Stokeshill ; — an attorney bred, and born of parents, the existence of whose progenitors was proved only by the immutable laws of physio- logical nature ! OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 207 Such, then, were the opmions and usages of society ! — Margaret did not rebel, — she did not even murmur. It was scarcely possible to form a lower estimate than she had ever done of her personal claims to consideration. But she was sorry her father and Miss Winston had not made her more fully aware of the conventions of polished life ; and spared her the humiliation of being overthrown from a false position. To a man first wakening to the conscious- ness of obscurity of birth, a thousand ladders present themselves by which to climb up into light and distinction. He may fight or y write himself into a name ; and the very peer- age itself is open to those who approach through the paths of legislative or military eminence. But a woman has only one mode of achieving greatness, — a mode how infinitely little !— She must marry for rank ; and more than one girl of sensitive temper and an ambitious spirit, has been taunted by such affronts as that under 208 STOKESHILL PLACE, which Barnsley's daughter was smarting, into flinging away her youth, beauty, and fortune, upon such things as an Alfred or Augustus Drewe ! There was no such fear, however, for Mar- garet. All she felt was double gratitude for the distinctions she had received from Mrs. Sullivan, Helen and Edward ; and the kind- ness recently shewn her l)y the Drewes and Devereuxs. She could easily refrain from those circles where her inferiority might pro- voke humiliation. She had her own sphere ; — an honourable and a useful one, — where it would depend upon herself to l3e happy. She only wished herself away from Wynuex, — back at unpretending Stokeshill, — back with the quiet governess, who, if she exerted herself little to give her pleasure, at least had never given her a moment's pain. Margaret felt that in the fresh air of her own secluded flower garden she should soon set rid of her head-ache. At the OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 209 Abbey, there was no remedy but Godfrey's salts, and a darkened chamber. At length, late in the afternoon, came Lady Shoreham^s confidential maid, with my Lady's regards and hopes that Miss Barnsley was better, a splendid ball dress, and garland of French flowers, exactly like those to be worn by her own daughters ; and an offer that the young ladies' Parisian lady of the bed-chamlDcr should officiate at her toilet. It was in vain Margaret protested that to rise and dress was impossible. " La ! Miss, my Lady would be so terribly disappointed !" seemed to the waiting-woman a sufficient plea to raise the dead. Margaret was still debating, when a low knock was heard at her chamber door ; and her father, preceded by her own maid Gladstone, made his appearance. Margaret's pale cheeks became flushed as she half rose from her pillow with gratitude, to think that papa should have been at the trouble to find her out in all the 210 STOKESHILL PLACE, confusion of the day ; but when, on seeing Lady Shoreham's beautiful and considerate presents he decided that she must rise and at- tempt to do them honour, she almost wished he had missed his way to her apartment. The decree, however, had gone forth; and as soon as he quitted her, the dutiful daughter arose, and with a heavy sigh commenced the preparations for her toilet. A set of opals and diamonds substituted by her father for tlie promised pearls, did not dazzle her into better spirits ; nor could even the raptures into which the French maid was thrown by the beauty of the long black silken hair she was deputed to arrange, divert her from her cares. Papa had insisted upon her trying to look her best, and her best she was trying to look. But though surprised (when obepng the orders of the soiihrette, she cast a look on the swing glass) to see the alteration produced in her appearance ])y the first fashionable costume in which she had ever figured, — by the lustre of the satin OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 211 and blonde, the close-fitting elegance of the waist, the lustre of her jewels, the delicacy of her flowers, — Margaret did not so much as no- tice the brilhancy imparted to her countenance by the flush of fever, or the exquisite contrast between her raven hair and the dead and pearly whiteness of her skin. The notion that she was beautiful had never entered her mind. The French maid was the first person who had ever told her so ; and the French maid aj^peared to her inexperienced judgment something between a mad woman and a monkey. The second bell rang. The band of the Cinque Ports Militia had long been clanging in the great hall with cymbals (anything but " tinkhng") — the gastronomic hymn of " Oh ! the roast beef of old England ;" and Margaret, after divers false starts from the dressing room into the corridor, at length gained courage to glide rustUng down the stairs, the balustrades of which were adorned with garlands of laurel and china roses. * 212 STOKESHILL PLACE, She passed the guards, the gate, the hall, with panting bosom and compressed lips, threaded the long array of servants waiting at the door of the saloon ; and the butler, some- what elated by the twenty-one years' old Octo- l)er, broached in honour of the day, gave out the name of" Miss Barnsley" in a tone con- siderably louder than became his accustomed breeding. Margaret heartily wished herself back in her own room when she found that the company were pairing off in couples to the dining room; — the first twenty of which were already out of sight, and among them, all her friends. Lucilla and Mary, indeed, remained with the six or eight young ladies still to be led out. But they were laughing and chatting with Brereton, Carmichael, and several strange young men ; and Margaret stood alone in the group of men nearest the door. , At last, it was her turn to go. The murmur OR THE MAX OK BUSINESS. 213 of inquiry excited by her extreme beauty, over- awed her. She dared not stir alone across the room. She wanted only courage to retrace her steps, and run away. Her cheeks were flushed of deepest crimson, — her eyes fixed on the floor. Every one eemed waiting for her to move ; when a friendly arm silently presented itself, and without waiting to see from whence it came, Margaret accepted it, and hurried on after the rest. The noise of the room into which they passed, and the blazing lights with which it was illuminated, seemed to restore her to herself. Not a syllable was uttered by her companion. Having placed her in a vacant seat next to stupid George HoUoway (beside whom the wiser maids of Kent were too wary to place themselves), he bowed, and ceding to the pres- sure of the throng of servants, moved towards the other side of the table to a chair next Helen Sullivan ; and Margaret had only leisure to dis(;over that her valiant, though not very 214 STOKESHILL PLACE, courteous knight, was no other than the ugly stranger who had intruded into the library on the day of her arrival at Wynnex, concerning whose mysterious disappearance it had never occurred to her to make inquiries. On the present memorable occasion. Lord Shorehara, complying with his mother's private entreaties, condescended to occupy his fitting post; where he was of course flanked by the two great ladies of the county — the Countess of Walmer and Lady Henry Marston. Margaret, accustomed to hear these per- sonages so obsequiously spoken of by her father and the Westertonians^ was amazed to observe the easy familiarity with which they were treated by their host. There was very little difference between the tone in which he addressed them, and the flippancy of his man- ner to herself the preceding night; and in spite of his good looks and good humour, she decided him to be the most unlordly young gentleman with whom she had ever been in company. OR THE MAN OK BUSINESS, 215 Stupid George Holloway, pure, at least, from slang and the vulgarities of club jargon, rose by comparison. Even Helen Sullivan's ill- looking friend, whose countenance, though for- bidding, was all intelligence, and whose man- ners, though ungraceful, were strictly gentle- manly, seemed far better qualified to adorn the annals of the peerage than Lord Shoreham. 216 STOKESHILL PLACE, CHAPTER XL Kent, in the commentaries Caesar writ, Is call'd the civU'st place in all the isle ; The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy. SHAKSPEARE. Short leisure was allowed for sitting after dinner; for Lord Shoreham, as by custom established, was to open the tenants' ball, previous to that for which the musicians soon took their place in the orchestra of the painted ball room. " Lucky that such a day as this comes but once in our hves !" — cried he aside to OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 2l7 his uncles, as he proceeded to the discharge of his duties. " What up hill work ! —By Jove, I'd rather be wheeler in the York heavy !" While Gus and the Parson, in spite of the assurances of the maitre-d' hotel that the dinner-room must be cleared to make way for the supper tables, ordered more claret, took out their cigar cases, and " made them- selves comfortable." These proceedings were duly reported to the Viscountess ; but offen- sive as they were to her notions of elegance and decorum, she saw that the uncles were too positively supported by her son, to render interference safe. Her influence had kept their names out of the old Lord's will ; but she saw it would avail nothing to keep their persons out of the young Lord's dining-room. Her task with her son was in fact sufficiently difficult, without the introduction of any such thorny theme of contention. Besides, she Avanted him, by way of amende honorable to Barnsley, to open the ball with Margaret. VOL. I. L 218 STOKESHILL PLACE, Neither Lady Walmer nor Lady Henry had daughters present. The Devereux were, in a sort, at home; and though many of the squires^ daughters stood higher in importance than Miss Barnsley, none of them had posi- tive pretensions to precedence such as might not be set aside. Lord Shoreham objected of course ; — it was his cue to object to everything proposed by his mother. " He was engaged to dance with Flora Devereux !" Lady Shoreham, " under- took to settle all with her niece." " Li that case, he should ask old Sullivan's daughter. Miss Sullivan was a fine thorough-bred crea- ture, with capital paces. ^' Lady Shoreham had the satisfaction of informing him that Miss Sullivan had been engaged, for a week past, to Sir Ross Carmichael. " In that case he should not dance at all." " But, my dear boy — the thing is unheard of!" remonstrated the too long indulgent mother. " It will be thought an offence to OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 219 the county if you do not dance. Pray oblige me by standing up for just one dance with Miss Barnsley: then, if you choose, you can go and join your uncles." Still Lord Shoreham grumbled, and still Lady Shoreham entreated ; but at length the prospect of buying off his release from the ball so as to finish the night with a rubber with the two Drewes and Brereton, prevailed. When Barnsley, who was stationed in the ball room in conversation with Lord Henry Marston, (about obtaining a charter for Den- ton Bay, a new harbour on the estates of the latter,) was startled by his companion's sud- den inquiry — "Who is that lovely creature with whom Lord Shoreham is dancing ?" — he had the satisfaction of perceiving all eyes fixed with admiration upon his daughter, little suspecting how repugnantly accepted as a partner by his ungracious ward ! Few of those in the habit of seeing Miss Barnsley in her dull routine of studious seclu- l2 220 STOKESHILL PLACE, sion at Stokeshill^ plainly dressed, and unas- sumingly mannered, — had anticipated the sen- sation her beauty was destined to produce. It was immediately set down by two, out of the three hundred guests, that she was en- gaged to Lord Shoreham ; and a great dis- position to indulgence prevails towards a pretty girl on the eve of an advantageous marriage. The young ladies, apprehensive of appearing envious, protested that Margaret was all grace and loveliness ; the old ones, anxious to pique their daughters for having missed such a match, declared that it was no wonder a girl of such gentle manners and excellent deportment, should make so fine a connexion ; while the men, really captivated l)y her delicacy and softness, exclaimed on all sides that she was the prettiest girl who for many a year had done honour to the county of Kent. Barnsley, accustomed to think so little of his daughter, could scarcely believe his eves and ears : and Ladv Shoreham. con- Oa THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 22i sidering herself sole creatress of Margaret's momentary triumph, began almost to regret the interference which proved the means of throwing her own girls and nieces completely into the shade. In spite of the fashionable airs of her daughters, those of Barnsley and Sullivan were decidedly the belles of the Wyn- nex ball. Meanwhile Helen, who was left without a chaperon by Mrs. Sullivan's habits of early retirement, and her pompous father's habits of button-holding the greatest man present, — M'as compelled to have recourse to her brother for protection ; and having retreated for a few minutes into the library from the heat of the ball room, she could not forbear reproaching him Avith his incivility towards her friend Margaret. " Margaret Barnsley was nearly left to come into dinner alone !" said she, to the contemptuous Brereton. " She is such a good 222 STOKESHILL PLACE, creature ! Do, my dear William, show her, for my sake, a little attention/' " What would you have more?" replied Brereton. " Your protegee engrosses the honours of the evening ?" " No wonder ! — she is so fresh looking — so prettv ! — Margaret reminds me of a china rose-bud.'^ " A girl, with as much character as a sheet of white paper !" " Remember her age ; — seventeen, — totally ignorant of the world." " I recollect you, Helen, at seventeen — ^tis no such mighty length of time ago !" — replied her brother ; " and you were never such a yea-nay specimen of young ladyism as that girl of Barnsley's V " That girl of Barnsley's ! — Yes ! — that is the motive which prevents your admitting her perfections. Were she not the daughter of a low-bred father, you would see, at OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 223 once, that she is worth twenty Miss Drevves, and—" " A thousandth part of a Helen Sullivan," said Brereton gallantly — for he was really proud of his sister. " Do not think to disarm me with flattery. Consider the advantages Helen Sullivan has had, compared with that girl of Barnsley's ! Consider the careless father, the dull gover- ness. — " " The unincidental home — the narrow cir- cumscription of her studies" — continued Bre- reton. " Yes ! all that demands indulgence. She has seen nothing and read nothing ; has had neither parents nor brother to enlarge her experience, and strengthen her character. While you were reading, that girl was stitching — eternally stitching, — under the eye of the most common place dolt that ever miscalculated the doctrine of passive obedience." " And what is the consequence ? That 224 STOKESIIILL PLACE. Helen Sullivan is a self-willed, ungovernable girl, who presumes to find fault with her elder brother and keep him prisoner by her side that she may escape such a partner as George Holloway; — while Margaret, — all patience, — all humility," — " Carries her insignificance of spirit so far as to refuse, at her father's command, a man she ought to have jumped high as the moon to accept!" *' Margaret ? — Margaret Barnsley ? — why whom in the world has she ever known in- timately enough to refuse ?" " If I tell you, you will never forgive her, nor my father meT " You cannot mean Edward ?'' — exclaimed Helen, becoming gradually enlightened, " No ! — Margaret cannot have refused Edward Sul- livan ! " " With very little ceremony, I assure you ! While you and my mother were at St. Leo- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 225 nard's, he was always at Stokeshill; and at length felt so sure of her, as to persuade my father to write proposals." " If Edward felt sure, he deserved to be refused," said Helen firmly. " On the whole, too, Margaret decided wisely. In obtain- ing the influence of a young and pretty wife over Edward's timid nature, she might have dragged him down to her own level. She is a dear good girl ; but not the person to draw out the retiring disposition of Edward. I am glad she refused him." " If my father could but hear you ! My father cannot even forgive Ned for having betrayed him into the proposal. My father, who found Barnsley a useful country neigh- bour but never could bear him as a man, no longer mentions his name without foaming at the mouth. He is afraid Barnsley will fancy his alliance was courted as a matter of interest — afraid he will fancy his refusal has been a source of mortification to us. I really l3 226 STOKESHILL PLACE, think my father would go all lengths to annoy him." " Do not say so ; — remember in how un- handsome a light you are placing my father !" " Remember rather, what a position we occupy in the county compared with that fellow, Barnsley ! Now that the Woodgates are gone, Sullivan of Hawkhurst is the most an- cient landed proprietor in this part of Kent. These people at Wynnex would give their co- ronet to possess such a pedigree. Even Lord Walmer is only of Elizabeth's time." " But, after all, Avhat is pedigree ?" cried Helen. " Did it prevent Sir Richard Wood- gate from having an execution on his pro- perty ?" *' I only Avish it had prevented his selling Stokeshill till my uncle's death placed me in a position to make the purchase,'^ answered her brother. " There is no end to the mis- cliief of having such people as the Barnsleys introduced into a respectable neighbourhood. OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 22/ See, — only in the second generation, it has all but produced an alliance between us and them ! If one could but get Barnsley to sell the place, with a little help from my father, I might compass it, and get rid of my cursed Irish property." '' Compass it rather by marrying my pretty, docile friend," cried Helen, jokingly ; " and then you might keep both." " Marry that fellow, Barnsley's daughter ? Thank you ! The proverb says that beau sang ne ment jamais ;■ — but base blood is equally a truth-teller. The girl is just bearable now, under the extenuating circumstances of youth and prettiness : but rely upon it the cloven foot will one day start out. ,As a married woman, she will grow mean and vulgar ; — the pettifogging spirit will betray itself." " Well ! do not marry one of the Drewes, and I will let you off from marrying Margaret," said his sister with a smile. " I have no thoughts of marrying any one 228 STOKESIIILL PLACE, at present," replied Mr. Brereton, consequen- tially. *' I saw a good deal of the Drewes last winter at Paris, and last spring in town. There was the connecting link of country-neighbour- ship to draw us together ; and Shoreham and I, you know, belong to the same clubs." " Rely upon it Lady Shoreham supposes you to be paying your addresses to her daughter." " So have many women, and found out too late that they were mistaken ! If a man of family like myself, — independent — having property, happens to dance twice with a girl, the family insist that he is paying her his addresses ; while, after a younger brother like poor Ned, has actually proposed, they persist in never having seen or understood a word of the matter ! But by Jove ! here is that fellow Barnsley making his way towards us." " Come into the ball-room j^' said Helen, rising. " 1 am quite cool and rested now." " I can't make out Barnsley,'^ continued OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 229 Brereton, as they bent their way together out of the Hbrary to avoid him. " For the last fortnight, he has been pumping me about my intention of standing for Westerton. Why the deuce should he fancy / wanted to stand for Westerton? — Are there no boroughs to be had in England or Ireland, but Westerton ? The brute is so borne! — Parliament is his monomania, — just as the peerage is that of your one-idead ass of an admirer, George Hol- loway." " Hush !" interrupted his sister ; " they are both within hearing." 230 STOKESHILL PLACE, CHAPTER XII. Thou, like the hindmost chariot wheels art curst, Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first ! DRYDEN. After all the varying emotions of that day of days, Barnsley began to feel that (pending the anticipated day of his return for the ancient and loyal borough of Westerton,) it was the proudest of his life. The young Lord of Wynnex Abbey had opened the ball with his daughter, and the whole county applauded his choice ; but even that satisfaction was now obliterated. In the very teeth of old Sullivan, OR THE MAN OP BUSINESS. 231 the Earl of Walmer had presented him as his friend Mr. Barnsley of Stokeshill, to Lord Henry Marston, as they all stood together talking Poor-laws with Lord Tynemouth. Lord Walmer had expressed himself anxious for Barnsley's opinion on the Dovor rail-road, ere he made an investment ; while Lord Henry was no less eager to consult him concerning the dieting of the Westerton House of In- dustry, one of the pattern poor-houses of the county. Was it wonderful that under such flattering circumstances, he should remain un- observant of Margaret's escape from the ball- room, or oblivious of her morning's head-ache ? Old HoUoway too, on the eve of his Salopian journey, had a thousand duties to charge upon the back of his brother magistrate. There were poachers to be recommended to the utmost rigour of the law; and an old half-doting woman, once a servant in the fa- mily, to be let off easy for stealing turnips in a field. As the sapient George was included 232 STOKESHILL PLACE^ in the family caravan, the Squire even re- quested his faithful coadjutor to look in at Withamstead in the course of his morning rides, at some new drains in progress near the house; — and added a hint of the laziness of the fellows employed in re-tiling the gar- dener's house, who, having been recommended by Barnsley for the job, his interference seemed to be a mere matter of justice. Even Closeman of Cinnamon Lodge, one of the pests of Barnsley's existence, contri- buted on this occasion to his satisfaction. Punching him in the side just as HoUoway relinquished his button, the wag of Westerton whispered jocosely : '^ Why is Miss Margaret Barnsley likely to become a woman of letters ? — Do you give it up ? — Because she's going to Win X." " Psha ! you are really too bad," replied Barnsley, vexed to perceive that Closeman's apostrophe had been overheard by a very tall, sallow, haughty-looking young man, who had OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 233 sat by Miss Sullivan during dinner and held her in animated conversation at other moments of the evening. " Pray, who is that tall gentleman?" — in- quired Barnsley of the Westerton banker, as the lofty stranger passed on with a sneer. " Don't you really know ?" — " If I did, why should I ask you ?" " Well, then, between ourselves, — if you won't mention it to any body — he is the Board of longitude." " Closeman, you are really too bad !" " I ask your pardon — I meant the Dunge- ness light-house." " Now, my dear Closeman !" " Joke for joke, my dear fellow ! — You ask me whom he is, when I saw your own daughter go in with him to-day to dinner, cheek by jowl, as familiarly as the Siamese twins." The eyes of Barnsley still pursued the re- treating stranger ; for he now noticed witli 234 STOKESHILL PLACE. surprise, that every Westertonian head bent down reverentially in salutation as he passed. Dobbs ducked, while Mrs. Holdfast curtsied with never-ending iteration, like the bobbing lady at the wax-work. Here and there, the stranger paused condescendingly with inquiries after catarrhs, rheumatisms, puppy-dogs, and parrots ; and to Mrs. Dobbs, who with her face resplendent with smiles awaited his ap- proach, his address was of more than royal affability. Barnsley was completely puzzled ! He knew every soul in the neighbourhood ; nay, from its narrow limitation, found him- self acquainted with the very acquaintanceships of the Dobbses and Squillses. It was part of his vocation to know and play upon the stops of Westerton ; to be aware that Mr. Dobbs had an extensive cousinship among the dis- senters, and that Mrs. Squills rejoiced in relations well to do in the West-India con- nection; — the interests of his election demanded this vast diffusion of knowledge. OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 235 But of the haughty stranger, the object of the jocose Closeman's bad jokes, — at which his electioneering interests also compelled him to get up a laugh — he knew no more than of his own grandfather. Lord Henry had a word for the youn^ man as he went by; Lord Walmer one of those courtier-like bows, redo- lent of the Chesterfieldian odour of aristocratic sanctity now all but evaporated from the face of the land ; and, above all, old SulUvan, the formal Sullivan, stiff as a baronial eSigy on a tomb in Westminster Abbey, relaxed from his rigidity, and with a stony smile perpetrated something almost amounting to a jest with the illustrious stranger. " I think you dance the supper dances with Mary ? — Supper will be announced in half an hour," said Lady Shoreham, hurrying at that moment towards Sullivan and the great un- known. " You will find my daughter with Lady Walmer, near the orchestra." And away she went again — leaving no time 236* STOKESHILL PLACE, for Barnsley's intended interrogations. But his curiosity was now excited to the utmost, and seizing the sleeve of Dobbs, he would fain for once have placed the lawyer's information under contribution ; while Dobbs, who having heard their lady hostess' announcement respecting supper, was impelled towards the dining-room by a forty horse power of gluttony, exclaimed to Barnsley as he pushed on : ^' By and bye, my dear Sir, I am at your service. At present, I am engaged to take in Mrs. Closeman to supper." Poor Barnsley ! — The God of knowledge seemed, like Coleridge's God of Love, to clap his wings upon the shore, mocking the esquire of Stokeshill as he sailed onwards on the stream of time 5 and as the black knight had now disappeared with the current of human heads pouring out of the ball room towards the sa- voury hall, he had no longer the means of pointing out the object of his curiosity. He was desperate, as well as defeated; for by OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 237 one of those intuitive warnings that often oceur in novels and occasionally in real life, he felt by intuition like the fat nun Catherine on first beholding the fat mOnk Luther, that the master of his destinies was before him ! It suddenly occurred to him that if, as Close- man asserted, his daughter had been led in to dinner by the strange gentleman, she must be at least cognizant of his name ; and thus re- minded of Margaret's existence, away he went in search of her. But neither in gallery, library, nor ball room, was Margaret to be heard of. Lady Shoreham was too busy marshalHng her guests to supper to be interrupted; but Mr. Squills, who entertained a professional interest in the subject, informed him that, having no- ticed Miss Barnsley looking extremely pale and indisposed, he had recommended her to retire to rest. As soon as the despatch of supper would allow, Barnsley, accordingly proceeded, for the second time that dav or for the last half 238 STOKESIIILL PLxVCE, dozen years, to Margaret's bed-side, waking her from a heavy sleep which not all the tu- mult of the house could interrupt, to in- quire, — " How are you now, my dear? — Pray, what is the name of the gentleman with whom you went in to dinner ?"- — " I — I, believe I am better," faltered poor Margaret, pressing her hand to her forehead. "The gentleman's name, papa? — I cannot tell you. He gave me his arm, because, I was going in alone. I never saw him but once before, for a moment, in the library here." " You know nothing of him, then?" — " Nothing whatever. But I have some idea that he is a friend of the Sullivan's, and has been staying lately at Hawkhurst." " Indeed ? — well, good night, my dear. Vou will be better to-morrow ; try to get a good night's rest." And closing the door into her dressing room as loudly as if to ascertain the solidity of the foundations of Wynnex Abbey, he went back to the scene of festivity ; reaching OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 239 the great hall in time to see his perplexer wrapt in his cloak, stand bowing at the open door in reply to Mrs. Dobbs's offers of set- ting him down, " Your carriage is open. Sir, and you are heated, with dancing," said the polite old lady. " We shall pass the Winchelsea arms. Pray, allow me the honour of putting you down." But Barnsley's attention was instantly with- drawn from aU idle conjectures. He was sent for, as usual, by Lady Shoreham whenever she was in a dilemma. There was confu- sion in the state of Denmark ! The fire works were not the only source of explosion in honour of the young Lord's birthday. The discretion of the .tenantry appeared overflooded by the spring tide of October that had set in ; — after drinking, had come fighting, — and after fight- ing, the constables. Two of the most up- roarious of his Lordship^s health-drinkers were in the cage, and their victim in the infirmary ; even the ffood order of the ball in the steward's 240 STOKESHILL PLACE, room had been interrupted by the unautho- rized intrusion of Parson Drewe; who, after his third bottle of claret, had insisted upon drinking a glass of punch with Mrs. Timmins, of the Market Place, with an audacity of as- siduity by which the complexion of her hus- band the brazier, was converted to the hue of one of his own copper saucepans ! " Do, my dear Sir," said the agitated Lady Shorehara, '' exert your usual kindness to get these unpleasant matters settled for me. I cannot persuade Shoreham to leave his rubber ; and, even if I could, he knows nothing of the people here, and has at present no influence over them." It needed only a hint like this to carry Barnsley to the field of action; whence the parson and his gin punch had been removed to bed, and the belligerents to durance vile. He poured oil upon the billows of Mr. and Mrs. Timmins; — he shook his head with the constables, and hands with the steward : — end- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 241 ing all with a charge to the subordinates in the court yard, pecuUarly characteristic of the magisterial wisdom of Mr. Barnsley of Stokes- hill Place. To Stokeshill Place, meanwhile, after ex- planations that set poor Lady Shoreham's mind at ease, Mr. Barnsley hastened his return. Having business to transact at the town hall of Westerton early on the following morning, he had ordered his carriage immediately after supper ; but perplexed by a certain or uncer- tain number of glasses of iced champagne, and a red reflection on the sky caused by the bea- cons and bonfires still smouldering on the hills, he began to fear he had overstayed himself, and that morning was already break- ing. But no ! — some hours of rest were still before him; and though his eyes smarted and his brows ached wh6n he woke at Stokeshill on the morrow, sufficiently to excuse his careless replies to the questions concerning Margaret's VOL. I. M 2i2 STOKESHILL PLACE, aj^pearance and deportment, hazarded at break- fast by Miss Winston, he contrived to be on horseback betimes, and sniffing his way through the hop market at Westerton, by eleven of the clock. The gleam of certain brazen skillets dang- ling before the door of a house in the market place, reminded Barnsley, as he passed the hardwareman's shop, that he had promised the night before to give Timmins a call of inquiry after his hysterical lady. Now Richard Timmins was a man by no means to be neglected ; the crack orator of the True Blue Club, — the Mira- beau of the Westerton hustings, with logic as luminous as his plated candlesticks, and sono- rous as his own brass warming pans. Timmins was weighing an ounce of ten-penny nails, when his respected customer from Stokeshill hurried in; but, with a knowing jerk of the thumb, he pointed to the back shop in which, on market days, Missus Timmins did the ho- nours of her currant wine to all visitors of OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 243 repute. The handle of the glass door yielded to Barnsley's touch; and while with the other hand he removed his hat in deference to the hysterical hardware woman, he saw that Mis- sus Timmins was not alone. Opposite to her in the arm-chair of honour, sat the memorable stranger of the Wynnex ball! — What candidate on earth, but would have smelt a rival candidate, at such a moment, in such a place ! — " Pray step in, Mr. Barnsley, Sir," said the Timmins, pointing to a seat, with a very diffe- rent air from that with which she was accus- tomed to receive him. " Not fatigued, I hope, Sir ? — Poor affair last night, in my opinion, to have been so much talked of! — -1 expected things in a tiptop style." " I fear," said Barnsley, good naturedly, " that the impetuosity of Mr. Drewe may have left a disagreeable impression on your mind; but—" " Bless your 'eart, I was not thinking of M 2 214 STOKESHIL.L PLACE, that !" said the lady mincingly; while her dignified visitor disguised a smile by fixing his eyes on two curs in the street snarling over a bone. " I was thinking, Sir, how different things was done at 'Awkust, when Mr. Sul- livan as was, Mr. Brereton as is, came into his fortun'."' " I can assure you, Madam, that every thing was provided on the most liberal scale,'^ observed Barnsley, rather nettled. " Fifty cases of champagne ; and a hogshead of old port — '" " Bless your 'eart, I was not thinking of that /" cried the lady again, " not but what, betwixt fi-iends, I must say, the 'ams at our supper was the worst I ever tasted ! — But such a sad mixture. Sir! — My Lady, I s'pose, is above attending to them things, or had enough to do with her own company ; and what was the consequence? — we really had folks in the steward's room, as was no how fit for our society ! — Things can't go on well, Mr. Barns- . OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 245 ley, wnere there's no distinction of classes. For my part, I can't abide low company. At Mrs. Sullivan's, Sir, orders was gin' that no one was to be admitted to the steward's table, but such of the old tradesmen of the family as kept their chay, and had things a little gen- teel. The hoy polloy, as Mr. T. calls 'em, was with the livery sarvants in the hall. But last night, who should T see the first person stuck up next to Mrs. Tomlinson, the housekeeper' like who, but she — ^but Mrs. Trollope, as keeps an oil and pickle shop in Shoe Lane; whose husband was fut-boy, at the Vicarage, no such great times ago ; — a person belonging to a class as Mr. T. and I is not in the habit of demean- ing ourselves to sociate with." " I am convinced Lady Shoreham would be greatly concerned did she imagine. Ma'am, that your feelings had been hurt by any thing occur- ring under her roof," said Barnsley gravely. " Why you see, Mr. Barnsley, Sir, as I've just been remarking to Sir 'Enry, here, the 246 STOKESHILL PLACE, neighbourhood ben't by no means what it was. I've heard my mother say, she remem- bered the time when, except Canterbury and Maidston', there warn't a genteeler town than Westerton in the county of Kent; thirteen hvery footmen, in the gallery, at church of a Sunday; and reg'lar routs and card parties all winter long. And now. Sir, what becomes of them widder ladies and single ladies, as used to settle here ? — why they sets up at Brighton, or Hastings ! — While, as to the families round- abouts, saving and excepting one or two old 'uns, such as the Sullivans of 'Awkust — " But poor Barnsley was spared an harangue such as scarcely even electioneering patience could have supported ; his name being loudly called on from the shop, by his friend Close- man, who at length thrust his head into the fusty boudoir of the dainty Mrs. Timmins. " Why Barnsley ! — what are you about? — Out of the frying pan into the fire, eh? — and a fire with such a deuced number of irons in it, eh ? OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 2i7 — Come, come, we've been waiting for you these ten minutes at the town hall." And dragging Barnsley through the shop, without giving him time for so much as a last glance at the perplexing Sir Henry, he was soon Kentishly deep in the jargon of the hop- pocket, with the growers who stood wrangling together in the market place. The business to be dispatched at the town hall, which regarded a defaulter in a branch of the turnpike trust, was productive, like most similar discussions in a squirearchal synod, of much heat, much irritation, much recrimination, and as little rational purpose as can be conveniently imagined. After talk- ing for four hours, and acting at last as if they had not talked for one, Barnsley found himself at liberty to remount his favourite mare, ride off to Withamstead, and consult old Hollo way, who was to depart for the metropolis on the morrow, concerning some point of legal etiquette relative to the guar- 248 STOKESHILL PLACE, dianship affairs at Wynnex ; but it was six o'clock before he entered once more the lodge- gates of his own particular domain. He had declined dining at the Abbey under the equivo- cal aspect of Lord Shoreham's conduct ; and it was not till the following day that the Stokeshill carriage was to be sent to bring home Margaret, Great, therefore, was Barnsley's surprise, on entering the stable yard, where it was his practice to alight when unaccompanied, to see a ser- vant in the Drewe livery, and a smoking hack which he recognized as belonging to the Abbey. As he gave his horse to the groom, a letter was placed in his hands ; which, having hastily opened, he perused on his way into the house. Wynnex Abbey, Thursday. " Dear Sir, " I am under the painful necessity of request- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 245) ing that you will hasten hither as soon as possible. Miss Barnsley having passed a very restless night, I thought it right she should see Squills this morning, who is in daily atten- dance at the Abbey. He owned to me, at once, that there was a tendency to sore throat which he thought alarming; and this afternoon, does not hesitate to affirm, that my young friend's illness is scarlet fever, and I fear of a mahgnant kind. The dear girl is in a high fever, and can scarcely speak to be intelligible. " Under these circumstances, my dear Sir, Miss Barnsley's nearest relative being at hand to watch over her welfare, I consider it my duty to my own family to remove my daughters without delay out of the reach of infection ; and my brother and nieces are setting oif with us for Ramsgate, where we shall sleep to- night. Shoreham, who has had the scarlet fever, remains with his uncles at the Abbey ; but they will offer no disturbance to the M 3 250 STOKESHILL PLACE, dear invalid, and I trust you will bring Miss Winsley, and contrive to make your daughter as comfortable at Wynnex till her recovery, as in your own commodious mansion. Pray let me have a line from you to-morrow^ addressed to the Royal Hotel, Ramsgate, and believe me ever, dear Sir, i Most faithfully, your obliged, L. Shoreham." For a moment, Barnsley stood aghast. The thought of Margaret, in danger and already abandoned at Wynnex Abbey, touched even his callous heart. She might die, — ^his child, — his sole heiress; — she, for whose sake he had been amassing riches, and storing up his personal consideration; she whom, but the night before, his busy fancy had already saluted Lady Viscountess Shoreham ! He thought less of the docile child — the mild companion — than of the inheritress of Stokeshill and its honours. OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 251 Miss Winston was instantly summoned^ and desired to hurry her preparations during the time the carriage was getting ready ; while Barnsley, who in the midst of his parental woes could not forget that he had eaten nothing, and talked much since an early breakfast, sat down to his cod and oyster sauce, calling for Chili vinegar and Harvey, as if his mind were perfectly at ease. The poor governess, loving her pupil as much as it was in her nature to love, was speech- less, meanwhile, with anxiety ! During her whole attendance on Margaret, scarcely a day's indisposition had intervened ; and her terrors rose in proportion to the novelty of the case. She was ready for departure long before the coachman, and very long before Barnsley ; who, once in process of restor- ing exhausted nature, did not seem inclined to abridge himself of his sHce of pheasant, his angle of apple pie, or even a dig of Stilton. To watch him emptying his last 252 STOKESHILL PLACE, glass of port, and leisurely picking his teeth, no one would have supposed that the carriage was at the door to convey him to a dying daughter. In the course of their drive from Stokeshill to the Abbey, Barnsley replied without reserve to the interrogations of the poor terrified governess, concerning the commencement and progress of Margaret's illness. He even avowed, in the excitement of the moment, the speculations to which the evident admira- tion of Lord Shoreham had given rise ; and under the cheering influence of his glass or two of port, admitted a hope that the Vis- count's pertinacity in remaining at the Abbey during her illness, might betoken favourably for the realization of his projects. But this conjecture was lost on Miss Wins- ton ; she seemed to assign as little importance to Barnsley's matrimonial scheme, as if she had been hid behind the curtain when Lord Shoreham received from his mother the first OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 253 intelligence that Margaret was attacked with the scarlet fever. " Well, — send her home, then, — it is no great distance to Stokeshill !" was his reply ; chalking his cue, without interrupting his game of billiards. " Miss Barnsley is much too ill to be moved/' " The devil she is !" cried his Lordship, attempting a canon. " So, after making your house his own for the last ten years, the attorney is going to convert it into his family hospital !" sneered Augustus Drewe, who was officiating as marker. " Well, never mind ! — The girl might have had the small pox," resumed Lord Shoreham. " I've had the scarlet fever — I don't care for the scarlet fever !" " But you surely will not think of remaining at the Abbey ?" interrupted his mother. " We are all off immediately for Ramsgate." 254 STOKESHILL PLACE, " I detest Ramsgate ! — The air is so deuced keen that I once ate a brood of chickens for breakfast !" — observed Gus, in a low tone, as if talking to himself. " Of course, you will accompany us ?" observed the Viscountess, addressing her son. " Not I, indeed !— I have promised my- self and my uncles a fortnight's shooting at Wynnex. I would not stir an inch, if the plague were in the house." " And so it is !" murmured the honourable marker. " But your sisters and I will be alone ?" resumed Lady Shoreham. " Take Brereton then; — I make you a present of Brereton. Brereton is too good a shot, for me to wish to keep him at \^'^ynnex. We shall get through our dummy whist very well without him. Take Brereton \" Lady Shoreham saw that all she had to do was to submit Seriously alarmed for her OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 255 daughters, her chief desire was to get them out of the house. She had not even leisure for remonstrance. " Good bye, mother, — good bye. Flora, — good bye, girls !" — said Lord Shoreham, as they re-appeared in their shawls and bonnets, on the eve of departure. " Amuse yourselves at Ramsgate ; and recommend Miss Margery Barnsley to get well as soon as convenient. I have got aU Crockford's coming down to me for the first day's hunting 3 and it would hardly be decorous to honour a young lady's wake with a view-halloo ! — I should strongly recommend her to cut the apothecary and her stick without delay. — Gus ! mark fifteen !" 256 STOKESHILL PLACE, CHAPTER XIII. She weeps not for the wedding day Which might have been to-morrow ; Her's was a further-looking hope And lier's a mother's sorrow. WORDSWORTH. In process of press, the County Chronicle announced in two flaming columns the par- ticulars of the Wynnex f&te, — from the number of guns and rockets discharged in the park, to the number of marabout feathers in Mrs. Dobbs's bonnet. Stereotyped phrases in- separable from such occasions, of '^ diamonds whose lustre was only to be surpassed by the OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 257 eyes of the lovely wearer," and indefatigable dancers,, " tripping it on the light fantastic toe, till the rosy morn," &c. &c., were duly read and laughed at, from one end of the county to the other, — from Deal to Dartford. One paragraph, however, connected with the recital, was considered no laughing matter. When the county of Kent saw it written down in malice, that the " ball was opened by the young and noble proprietor of Wynnex and the only daughter of his worthy guardian, the lovely heiress of Stokeshill Place," it felt half prepared for the plausible announcement that appeared on the morrow, of — " We learn that a matrimonial alliance is on the tapis between the Right Hon. Viscount S — , and the lovely and accomplished Miss B ," — a mystery cavalierly expounded by the London evening papers into — " Lord Shoreham is about to receive the hand of Miss Barnsley, a Kentish heiress." • This they took seriously enough. The Wal- 258 STOKESHILL PLACE, mers, Marstons, and Fitzgeralds, shook their heads, and thought it a pity the young man had not formed a better connection ; while the subordinate coteries, more envious of Margaret and her father than careful to preserve his Lordship's purity of caste, entered into further particulars. Some thought Barnsley's conduct scandalous ; others, who had been warned off the premises of Wynnex for poaching, had always guessed what the fellow was at ; while one called him an upstart, — a second a humbug, and a third (the third cousin of a Welsh Baro- net) whispered that she had been credibly in- formed Mr. Barnsley's sister was married to a " wholesale linen-draper in Fleet-street." Poor Barnsley, in short, was that day more roughly canvassed in the county, than he had been during the whole twenty years of his residence at Stokeshill. But, after all this heat and excitement, The third day carne a frost— a chilling frost, OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 269 Three days after the Wynnex celebration, there appeared — " We regret extremely to state that the festivities consequent upon Viscount Shore- ham's attainment of his majority, have been interrupted by the appearance of malignant scarlet fever at Wynnex Abbey ; and that the daughter of Mr. Barnsley of Stokeshill, one of the brightest ornaments of the recent gala, lies there without hope of recovery." Here was oil for the waves ! Here was an appeal to the sympathies of a soft-hearted pub- lic ! Young, rich, beautiful, on the eve of marriage with a charming young nobleman, — who could withhold their pity from the gentle Margaret ! From Westert\,n, where she was known and liked, to Canterbury and Maidstone, where she was only guessed about, everybody had a '^ poor thing !" to bestow upon the dying girl. The serious moralized, — the gay grew serious. Not a guest of the Wynnex ball, but had noticed 260 STOKESHILL PLACE, and admired the sweet partner of the young hero of the day ; but one and all now dis- covered that they had never before been so struck, so fascinated ; — that they had discerned something angelic in the soft humility of her air; — that she bore the impress of peculiar interest said to be attached to those predestined to an early death. Poor Margaret was the idol of the whole county. Had Sir Edward Knatch- bull or one of his coadjutors been gathered just then to his forefathers, the name of Barns- ley might almost have offered itself in succession for the representation of Kent ! The County Chronicle, meanwhile, as if conscious of the interest it had created, kept up the sensibilities of its subscribers by further paragraphs. " Viscountess Shoreham and the Hon. Misses Drewes, with the Earl of Tynemouth and his daughters, arrived on Friday night at the Royal Hotel, Ramsgate. The young Vis- count remains at Wynnex Abbey, with the OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 261 family of his intended bride, in unremitting at- tendance on this lovely and unfortunate young lady." The day following, the lovely and unfortunate young lady was announced (though still in imminent danger) to be " slightly amended." But this announcement was only one among a thousand inventions to which the unlucky ill- ness of poor Margaret gave rise. She was not even " slightly amended." Both Squills and the London physician, sent for at his request, pronounced her condition to be hopeless. Barnsley stationed himself, from morning till night, in an adjoining room, forgetting that there existed such a thing in the civilized world as a Stock Exchange, a court of law, or a hop market ; while poor Miss Winston con- trived to move like an automaton in the dis- charge of her attendance on the sick chamber, — her faculties thoroughly overpowered by the heaviness of her affliction. Margaret lay insensible to the sudden sym- 262 STOKESHILL PLACE, pathies she had excited, — unconscious that all Kent sorrowed for her, — for her the obscure, unseen, unknown, Margaret Barnsley ; — or that the father to whom she had instinctively devoted the fervour of her innate filial piety, was repaying it with a tardy tribute of tender- ness. What momentous lessons had she not been fated to acquire during her short visit to Wyn- nex ! First, — that the love which had induced Edwa,rd Sullivan to amble in the green lanes by her side, was a passion by which hearts are broken, and to which lives are sacrificed : — next, that a man may be rich, intelligent, vir- tuous, yet a mark of contempt for certain or- ders of society ; — lastly, that at seventeen, in the prime of youth and enjoyment, a christian soul may be summoned to render up its ac- count to the judgment seat of God ! It was this last consciousness that sat heavy upon her gradually-awakening faculties, when, after many days of insensibihty, she became OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 263 once more sensitive to pain, and accessible to reflection. It was only on a restoration to life that she felt herself to be dying ; her first per- ceptions being excited by the sight of two female figures standing within her darkened curtains, one of whom whispered in firm but silvery accents to the other, that all was not yet hopeless. '' No human being can appreciate what I should have to sufier under such a bereave- ment !" faltered, in reply, the softened voice of the governess. " In earUer years, I loved no- thing but her mother, — and she grew up only to be taken from me ! Since then, I have de- voted every moment of my life to the child she left behind ; and, behold ! she, too, is going, — and I shall be alone." To such an apostrophe, even Helen Sullivan had nothing to reply ! But Margaret, deeply penetrated by the affection of which she had been unconsciously the object, found strength to extend her burning hand towards the 264 STOKESHILL PLACE, mthered and trembling one resting upon her pillow, and drawing it towards her lips, im- printed a kiss of gratitude which thrilled through the frame of the poor governess, as though bestowed by one uprising from the tomb. " She is sensible ! — my child is saved I" faltered the good woman, bending her knees beside the bed, with words of fervent thanks- giving. "^ Do not agitate her !" said Helen, surprised to find herself reproving emotions which, for the first time for fifty years, were breaking bounds. " Compose yourself, my dear Madam. Margaret, do you feel better ? — Are you in pain ? — are you thirsty ?" And it was a welcome task to Helen to bear to Bamsley the tidings of bis daughter's amend- ment, ere she hurried back to Mrs. Sullivan, who was waiting in the carriage at the gate. But Margaret, though amending, was still in a precarious state. A change of weather, — an accession of feeling, — might shake the leaves OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 265 from the frail and delicate flower, and strew them withering upon the earth. Miss Winston sat by the bed side, with her eyes strained to watch through the dim and un- certain light, every change upon the counte- nance of her nursling. Unaccustomed to ex- ercise her imagination, she now began to ponder in the watches and darkness of the night, upon the mysterious fortunes of " Mary," and Mary's daughter. She had not been present at the death-bed of Mrs. Barnsley 5 but fancied that just as Margaret appeared inanimate before her, her mother must have looked in death. The resemblance between the two was, at all times, striking. Were their fortunes, alas ! to prove thus sadly similar !^ — Meanwhile, whenever Margaret was able to pronounce a few articulate words, she tried to make them words of comfort to the discon- solate woman attending upon her ; and at the close of nine days' incessant watching all went well. Miss Winston was enabled to say VOL. I. N 266 STOKESHILL PLACE, " God be thanked !" and Barnsley to observe, — " To-morrow, I shall be able to ride over to Stokeshill. Every thing there must be at sixes and sevens" for Margaret was pronomiced to have surmounted the crisis of her disorder. But with the sweets of that happy turn of events, came bitterness to Barnsley. Even the blindest of men of business, (next to lovers the blindest of the human race,) must have per- ceived that, since the commencement of her iUness, his hopes and the County Chronicle had been deceived; and that the young Viscount had no more thoughts of " leading her to the hymeneal altar," than of marrying his dairy- maid. Instead of " a matrimonial alliance on the tapis," the only tapis just then claiming Lord Shoreham's attention, was that of his new billiard table. But it was not even this conviction that added such strange contraction to the brows of Barnsley, as he sat by the fire-side of his daughter's dressing room, on returning to the OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 267 Abbey after dining at Stokeshill on the first day of her convalescence. A letter, lying on his desk at home from old Holloway, had acquainted him that, in conse- quence of an understanding with ministers, his new peerage would be gazetted on the Saturday ensuing, and a new writ taken out for the borough of Westerton. In pursuance of this hint, Barnsley had stopped at the door of his friend Dobbs on his way back to Wynnex ; and found, actually issu- ing from its brass-plated portal, his enemy Giles Hawkins of Longlands Farm, accom- panied by no less a personage than the myste- rious " Sir Henry," who, for the last week, had suffered an eclipse in his mind. " You have had one of my Stokeshill neigh- bours with you, I perceive," said Barnsley, trying to address Dobbs junior in a cheerful voice, as he entered ; " and at ex-official hours, too. Nothing has happened at Longlands to bring him here so late ?" — n2 26S STOKESHILL PI.ACE, "" I might almost reciprocate the question with regard to Wynnex Abbey?" — repUed Dobbs junior, facetiously. " But Miss Barnsley, I am happy to find, is recovering ?" " Much better, thank you." " With respect to Sir Henry Woodgate," continued Dobbs, in a more confidential tone, " we have had him here, as you may supj^ose, at all hours, since our respected friend, Mr. HoUoway's elevation to the peerage transpired at Westerton." " Woodgate ? — Why, what has Sir Henry Woodgate to do with Hollo way ?" — "With Holloway, nothing; — with Wester- ton, much. His ancestors, as you well know, were among the earliest benefactors of the borough. Touty's meadows, (the best thing belonging to the Grammar School) were ori- ginally conferred on the foundation by Sir Ranulph de Woodgate." " Yes, yes, — I know — I am aware. But what signifies that to this young man ? — Does he want to recover them back again ?" OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 2C9 " The thing will make a clap-trap for Dick Timmins on the hustings." " The hustings ! — Timmins !" — cried Barns- ley, aghast. " The brazier will work con amore, on the present occasion. Timmins will be worth listening to. His wife, you know. Sir, was daughter to the favourite waiting-maid of the last Lady Woodgate." " Am I to understand," said Barnsley, tunn- ing deathly pale, " that Sir Henry Woodgate is going to stand for Westerton, and to be pro- posed by Timmins, the brazier ?" " Proposed by his relation, Mr. Sullivan of Hawkhurst, my dear Sir," said Dobbs, setting him right ; " or rather, I should say, put for- ward by his relation Mr. Sullivan, and propesed (for form's sake) by his friend Lord Henry Marston. But all this cannot be news to you^ Mr. Barnsley r" " Contest the election with me I" — faltered Barnsley. 270 STOEESIIILL PLACE, " With you ? — Why, my dear Sir, you surely do not mean to stand ?'^ said Dobbs, incredu- lously. " I was aware that such a project had been vaguely in your thoughts. But you never formally canvassed us, or ^" " I had Hollo way's promise to give me timely warning, — I had not the slightest notion of an opposition, — I considered myself virtually secure.^' " Ah ! virtually secure !" said the lawyer, with a significant emphasis. " Do you mean, that you think my chance is now doubtful ?" — " Do you mean that^ if Sir Henry starts, you have any idea of asking for a poll ?" " Not ask for a poll ? — Not find courage to reap the harvest I have been sowing for the last twenty years at Westerton ?" " My dear Sir !" resumed Dobbs, in a low voice, as if to expostulate mildly with the in- fatuation of a madman, " I speak to you as a friend. You will have to contend against the OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 271 influence of one of the most ancient names in the county of Kent." " And pray where was the influence of that ancient name, in the year 1796' ; when Richard Woodgate polled only 36, — and — " " Times and opinions are altered. The Woodgates were then living at Stokeshill, — their distresses and improvidence the theme of general reprobation ; but that which was resented as misconduct on the part of old Sir Ralph, is commiserated as the misfortune of his grandson." ^' A young man of five and twenty, — an inexperienced boy !" " A young man, you must admit, of the most extraordinary promise." " Admit ? — I know nothing whatever about him." " Not in your individual character, perhaps, but as one of the public ! — No young felloAv, since Canning, has so distinguished himself at Eton and Oxford. Young Woodgate is one 272 STQKESriILL PL\CEy of the first political economists of the day. That last article of his in the Quarterly '' " It is all up with me !" — reiterated John Barnsley, in a tone of concentrated rage. " This is Sullivan's doing P' " And if it were, we must acknowledge that Mr, Sullivan's conduct is only natural. The Woodgates and Sullivans have been neighbours and friends, with occasional inter- marriages of the families, for the last four centuries. The grandfather and father of this very rising young man, were Mr. Sullivan's friends; and the young man himself, was educated and has been travelling in Greece with Mr. Sullivan Brereton. Sir Henry Avishes to be in parliament — ought to be in parliament. What can be more reasonable than that he should turn his eyes to the county, from a high station in which he is banished only by the prodigality of his progenitors ; r.nd where the influence and associations of his name are still predominant?'^ — OR TFIK MAN OF BUSINESS. 2/3 " You speak with warmth, Mr. Dobbs,'' said Barnsley; suspecting, and with reason, that the young attorney was already primed for a speech on the hustings. " Why certainly, as being retained on the occasion by Sir Henry Woodgate." — " Retained ? Why surely, Sir^ you must have felt yourself pledged to me ?" " Indeed my dear Sir, you never definitely prepared us to support your interests. We conceived that the return of Sir Henry Wood- gate from abroad, must have overthrown the vague projects you were supposed to have been forming ; more especially when we found Sir Henry's cause supported by your intimate friends, Mr. SuUivan of Hawkhurst and my Lord Shoreham, by whom he was first accom- panied to our office." " You have deceived me Sir ! — Where is your father?'^ said Barnsley, in heroic dud- geon. " My father. Sir, is dining at Hawkhurst, n3 274 STOKBSHILL PLACE, with the gentlemen of Sir Henry's committee. But, in reply to the observations that have fallen from you, suffer me to say, Mr. Bamsley, that, on receiving the application of Sir Henry Woodgate's friends, my father waited upon you personally at Wynnex Abbey, to sound your intentions ; when, in consequence, we are to conclude of your daughter's indis- position, he was refused admittance to your presence. In short, the altered state of things, seemed to have your concurrence ; and I fancy we have now so clenched it, that opposition would simply bring down mortification upon yourself." " That remains to be proved !" — cried the now infuriated Barnsley. " Though I have been thrown over by my professional adver- saries, — misled by the inertness of Holloway, — and—" " Pardon me, Mr. Barnsley! — I speak from authority in stating that Mr. Holloway has lieen altogether taken by surprise by the pre- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 275 cipitation with which at last his patent has been made out." ^^ I am wilUng to think so. Mr. HoUoway is an honest man ; I should be sorry to enter- tain a diiFerent opinion of my Lord Witham- stead. But, at least, you will not deny that my cause has been undermined by the revengeful spirit of Mr. Sullivan ?" — " Sir Henry Woodgate has certainly been staying at Hawkhurst on and off for the last four weeks. But there was no mystery, nothing underhand in the case. Sir Henry, at the period of the Wynnex ball, resided openly here, at the Winchelsea Arms. You constantly met him. Sir. I myself more than once saw him in your company. My worthy friend, Mr. Closeman of Cinnamon Lodge informed me that he actually found you debat- ing together in the back shop of Timmins the brazier ; and that, by the deference of your manner towards young Woodgate, you seemed 276 STOKESHILL PLACE, to be supporting his canvass with Mrs. Timmins." " I was not even aware of his name !" " Oh ! Mr. Barnsley !" " I never even heard of Sir Richard Wood- gate's decease ! — What had I to do with the Woodgates ? — What was the family to me, that I should go prying into their affairs and investigating their projects ? — For the first ten years, after I purchased Stokeshill, with cash down on the nail and on liberal terms, my life was embittered by the sprouting of thorns, the germs of which they had sown to spring up and perplex me ! — At length I got them under : — I subdued, if I did not root up the evil. — I made the people about me sensible that a living dog, was l^etter than a dead lion ; that I held in my hands the means of bene- fiting or crushing them. They came to con- sider me, ai last, master of my own house; they suffered me to have the disposal of my OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 2/7 own property. The name of Woodgate ceased to be dinned from morning to night into my ears." Dobbs gently pushed a chair towards Barns - ley, who was still standing, and whom he had never before beheld in so explosive a mood. But Barnsley did not even notice the concilia- tory movement. " And having thus far succeeded, why Was I to go in search of the people, and push my inquiries into the state of their views and finances? — They have been living in Flanders or Germany. How was I to suppose that a branch of the family was fostering up silently, in England, as if for the express purpose of gathering renown and strength to sting me home ? — Mr. Sullivan's motives of enmity I perfectly understand. I presumed to consider his younger son, with a paltry thousand pounds per annum, a bad match for my girl, the heiress, first and last, to eight ; — yes, Mr. Dobbs, to eiglil thousand a year. So little do 278 STOKESHILL PLACE, I resemble your friends, the Woodgates, that my ignoble blood has permitted me to im- prove the means which God had given me. My fortune has increased in my hands as fast as theirs diminished. And since this rash young man thinks to make his profit of the animosity between the Hawkhurst family and mine, you may tell him, from me, that did the intended contest reduce John Barnsley to the same penury which forced his own family to sell their over mortgaged property, he would hazard all on the trial. — Yes! — to the last stick on the estate \" The twinkling eyes of Dobbs junior would have warned an orator less excited than Barns- ley, that the promise of an expensive contest for the borough, was not a particularly appal- ling menace to its leading attorney. " You may tell him, that this election, — (a type of the times, Mr. Dobbs, a struggle be- tween feudal influence and moral strength, — I mean the strength of money, 8ir, the fruit of OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 2'JV commercial or professional industry,) — you may tell him, that this election will serve fully to establish me in that very station in the county, in which it was my happy fortune to super- sede him." " I will lay before Sir Henry Woodgate any statements with which you may be pleased professionally to entrust me," said Dobbs, determined that not a syllable of Barnsley's harangue should damp the rising ardour of the Hawkhurst committee ; but pray excuse me from repeating grievances. Such an office en- ters neither into my profession, nor my cha- racter. You are heated now, my dear Mr. Barnsley, and it would be superfluous to expose to you the interest that the tory party must naturally feel in strengthening the hands of government with a member in the full vigour of youthful talents, a man who has already given rise to such prodigious expectations, a man whose name carries with it the force of historical associations, a man " 280 STOKESHILL PLACE, " I understand your sneer, Sir !" interrupted Barnsley " But had you given your attention, Mr. Richard Dobbs, as I have for tlie last twenty years, to the dispatch of parhamentary business, you would find that the times are past wdien oratorical talent afforded a sufficient pass-key into the House of Commons. The House has ceased to be a debating society. The extension of public interests necessitates a more active dispatch of business; while the diffusion of knowledge, the equalization of public instruction, renders what is called ta- lent a drug in the market." " I spoke of genius. Sir, rather than of ta- lent," smirked the pragmatical Mr. Dobbs ; " and as a professional man myself, I may be permitted to remark that one man of genius is worth his weight in men of business, to a party so responsible as our own. We have pledged ourselves to so much, Mr. Barnsley, that it is only by dazzling the eyes of " " I did not come here. Sir, to debate the OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 281 state of parties, with you!" cried Barnsley, enraged to hear a whipper-snapper of young Dobbs's age conjoin himself, by a collective pronoun, with the great authorities of the state. " I came to require your father's professional services in my election . He has pledged himself elsewhere ; it is sufficient. I wish you good night." " Perhaps, Sir, you will make an appoint- ment with my father, to confer upon the mat- ter?" — said Dobbs, following Barnsley, candle in hand, into the hall ; under the apprehension that certain tin boxes bearing a painted in- scription of John Barnsley Esq., Stokeshill Place, might find their way out of his office ; and that, in snatching at the shadow of an election, he might lose the substance of a good client. " No, Sir, I shall confer upon it elsewhere !" cried Barnsley; and having put aside the starveling footboy who rushed with one arm in his jacket to open the door, he made a majestic 282 STOKESHILL PLACE, exit out of the house, and entrance into his carriage. " To Wynnex Abbey !" was his almost mechanical instruction to the servants attending it. The command sounded \Yell to Dobbs ju- nior, but hollowly to himself. Barnsley knew that his occupation at Wynnex was gone, and that he had a peremptory one else- where; but like many other excellent deskmen of business, the laird of Stokeshill was a bad man of council ; not ready in expedients, not prompt in decision. It was not till he had rattled along the high street of Westerton, at that hour thronged with workmen whistling homewards from their day's labour, and en- tered the level road leading across the bridge and water meadows up to the higher grounds adjoining Wynnex Abbey, that the muffled sound of the wheels on the fibrous soil, seemed to allow free scope to his meditations. What was he about to do? — To lose a whole night, or rather to throw a whole night's OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 283 action into the hands of his adversary! — The committee already formed at Hawkhurst, was about to assume its public posture. His own address might still forestal that of Sir Henry Woodgate. A fee to the Westerton printer might complete his own within an hour after day-break. The draught of the address he had carried for many months past, in his pocket book; and lo, he jerked the check string, and the coach- man was bidden back to the town. In a few minutes, Barnsley was standing in the printing- office of Westerton. 284 STOKESIIILL PLACE, CHAPTER XIV. Is it not pity that tins goodly youth Should lose his birthright by his father's fault; And long hereafter say unto his child, What my great grand-father and grand-site got My careless father fondly gave away? — Ah ! what a shame is this ! — look on the youth And let his manly face that promiseth Successful fortune, melt your stubborn hearts. SIIAKSPEARE But by the time Barnsley attained tlie point at which he has been already described, musing before his daughter's fire with his considering cap upon his head, he began to repent at leisure of all that he had said and OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 235 done in his haste. Besides offering a couple of guineas, in bribery to the corrector of the Westerton press, to produce a thousand ad- dresses on the morrow before nine o'clock, he had hurriedly modified his address to meet the new position of affairs, while standing perplexed in the printer's office, listening to protestations of the difficulty of disencumber- ing their presses to throw off" the precious document. But this was not the worst! — Westerton, — like most semi-manufactoring towns, whose river hath mills and factories to manufacture quarrels as well as cotton-twist, cloth, calico, or paper — had the advantage of possessing in addition to Messrs. Dobbs, Dobbs junior, Snobbs and Co., whose cliency and brass plate were the largest in the town, a house of busi- ness, established thirty years later upon a very slight capital either of money or respect- ability, by two clever, dashing, thick-and-thin attorneys ; ready to undertake any job that 286* STOKESHILL PLACE, presented itself, without examining the colour of their fingers after the business had passed through their hands. Among such people as the Walmers, Marstons, SuUivans, and Holloways, the county families, as they were called at Westerton in contradistinction to those of the town, there was small demand for the services of such people, and they were denounced as nuisances and a discredit to the place ; espe- cially immediately after having been the means of obtaining justice against these great mono- polizers, for certain of the worms whose labours served to produce the silk brocade of which their gaudy robes were spun and woven. The attorney with the small brass plate did, in short, at high remuneration for the poor, all that Barnsley executed gratuitously for the rich; re-establishing dormant rights, and recti- fying established abuses. Such lawless individuals as these lawyers, had of course an indifferent reputation. After the " county families" had set their faces OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 287 against them, the small gentry and leading tradesmen made proof of their gentility by following the example of the Magnats. Won- derful tales were related of the misdoings of Messrs. Harpindon and Hill; how, having the disposal of the savings of certain small farmers and thrifty widows, they had dropped the amount into everlasting darkness through the yawning mouth of securities, in Van Dieman's Land or mines in South America, or the moon, — no matter which, — to the ruin and indignation of the layers up of those treasures, which lawyers and thieves are too apt to break through and steal. There was no end to the rumours of their malefactions ; and it came to pass, that so vile were the epithets bestowed upon them in the polite conversation of the neighbourhood, that all who, after hearing them denounced as monsters in the human shape, took courage to come in contact with them, were amazed to tind in Messrs. Harpindon and Hill, two well- mannered, intelligent men, seeing the abuses 288 STOKESHILL PLACE, of the world in a strong light, and attacking them in a straight-forward way. The indivi- duals thus enlightened, began of course to surmise, that the rumours circulated against these interloping brethren by Dobbs,Dobbsjun. Snobbs and Co., might resemble the manoeu- vres of the SAvell mob, who cry out " stop thief!" while they are picking a pocket. Meanwhile Barnsley, who was good lawyer enough to discover that Harpindon and Hill were even better, and who, on more than one private and public occasion had found them plucking him by the skirts, no sooner found war declared against him in the names of Woodgate, Sullivan, Dobbs and Snobbs, than he hastily made up his mind to transfer his custom to their rivals ; and already, Harpin- don and Hill had received instructions, which served to new point every pen in their office ! They desired no better sport than to make war upon Messrs. Dobbs and Snobbs with the money men and ammunition of the proprietor OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 289 of Stokeshill Place ; and were delighted to find Barnsley, like all men in a passion, make a much louder declaration of hostilities than the occasion required. Nothing was easier than to aggravate this martial ardour: they man- aged to make their knight prick himself with his own lance, and fancy himself wounded by the enemy. Few people are at the trouble of ascertaining under whose influence they move through life, or whether they are doing the will of others or their own. In these times of statis- tical demonstration, when even the number of newspaper readers in the kingdom is shewn by a table, it would be an excellent problem for some under secretary of an under secretary of state, wanting to document himself into noto- riety, to set forth the moral influences which control various districts and parishes. The rural population would usually be found under the dominion of the clergy ; but the small towns would prove subjected to that of the attorneys, VOL. I. O 290 STOKESHILL PLACE. In times of war, the priest and the warrior have the upper hand ; but in the piping times of peace, the law allies itself to the church, to secure good order among the people, and the lion's portion of their spoil. The influence of a thriving country attorney is, in fact, prodigious ! — He is the holder of every man's secrets, — the comptroller of many men's property. The farmer deposits his hoard with him ; the squire his animosities ; and family disgraces, family afflictions, are shut up under padlock and key, in those Pandora's boxes, the tin cases of his office. He might publish a tariff of the consciences of the dis- trict ; and estimate to a pennyweight the prin- ciples, political or moral, of a whole population of clients ! The lawyer's confessional is, in fact, one of wider avowal than the priest's ; for the client who refrains from telUng the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, may lose his cause ; while the penitent reserves a portion of his crimes, trusting to some saving OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 291 grace to facilitate a future confession. If there be truth in the dictum that " knowledge is power/' Harpenden and Hill were unques- tionably great men ; for they knew all that could be known of the families in and near Wes- terton. But no sooner did Barnsley escape to home and reflection, from the specious promises with which they had fed his hopes of revenge, than he began to feel that he had been precipi- tate; that he had undertaken a prodigious effort, a prodigious expense, — with the cer- tainty of provoking a thousand personal vexa- tions, and fixing a great gtJf betwixt the families of Sullivan and himself. — Hitherto, nothing had occurred between Hawkhurst and Stokeshill that might not be eflaced and for- gotten. But, in the heat of an election, brand- ing irons would be made hot to impress an in- effaceable token of enmity between them. — Lord Shoreham, too, had evidently taken part with the friend of his friend Brereton, and was o 2 292 STOKESHILL PLACE, adding his weight to the scale ; — and whether Sir Henry Woodgate should obtain his seat or his defeat, the event of the contest must detach John Bamsley from the Holy Alliance, to ce- ment which he had dedicated twenty years of his existence. Dear as were his parliamentary projects, they chiefly regarded the consolidation of his dignity as one of the aUied powers ; and second thoughts suggested, that the choice of some other seat would have constituted him M.P. without so much offence to his neigh- bours. The time, however, for second thoughts was over. Barnsley had overstepped their modesty, to plunge at once in medias res. He was pledged to come forward. His protestations were about to come flying all abroad on the wings of one thousand addresses, in two-line pica. Harpenden and Hill had pasted him to the wall : — it only remained to screw his own courage to the sticking place ! — After such pro- digious protestations, how could he dare with- OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 293 draw, with his new attorneys ready to circulate through the country, tidings of his shabby re- traction ; for Harpenden's brother, alas ! was editor of the County Chronicle ; and Hill, the intimate friend of Closeman of Cinnamon Lodge, who would never cease from punchhig him in the ribs for the remainder of his days, with a query of " Why is the Arctic expedition like a friend who shall be nameless ? — Do you give it up ? — Because it showed us its Back, and couldn't find its way to the pole !" — No ! it would be impossible to provoke the retalia- tions of such people as Harpenden and Hill ! He had already placed in their hands a cheque for one thousand pounds on the Westerton bank, of which Closeman was the leading part- ner; had ^already instructed them to proceed with certain proposals, needless to particularize, to a certain carpet-manufacturer, who had lately got up in vestries, clubs, and other public meetings, a sort of patriotic opposition to brazier Timmins. As far as the bond of 294 STOKESHILL PLACE, common Toryism would permit, it was in- tended by Barnsley and his advisers to set up their cause as that of the people against the aristocracy, — the most plausible character to assign to the struggle between the Woodgates with their parchments, versus Barnsley with his stock receipts. While these notions were revolving in his mind, with his feet resting on the fender, Barns- ley, like all people who in winter build castles in the air, seemed to be building them in the fire. At length, he was interrupted by the mild voice of Miss Winston, who had quietly taken a seat by his side. " Mr. Squills has been here, during your absence. Sir," said she. " He considers Miss Barnsley much better this evening," " Thank God !" " She has had many hours' undisturbed restj The sore throat is subsiding, — her pulse is — " OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 295 " Yes, yes ! — You did not say anything to him of what you were mentioning to me at breakfast ?" " About Margaret's anxiety to be moved to Stokeshill ? — Yes, indeed, Sir. As you were not here, I made all the inquiries you desired ; and Mr. Squills assures me that the day after to-morrow (if the weather prove fine), there will be no difficulty in removing Miss Barnsley, well wrapt up, and carried down stairs in her cloak. He offered to come and assist in her removal, and accompany us in the carriage to StokeshiU/' " How vastly unlucky !" — was Barnsley's ejaculation. " But it will be easy to postpone it. I wiU thank you, Miss Winston, to say nothing on the subject to Margaret, or in the house." " I fancy, Sir," replied the governess, hesi- tatingly, " that Mr. SquiUs himself apprized Lord Shoreham of the arrangement. I saw 296 STOKESHILL PLACE, him walking with my Lord and one of his un- cles, on the lawn." " Very officious on the part of Mr. Squills," observed Bamsley. " Who told him to say anything about the matter ?" " I suppose he thought it might be gratify- ing to his Lordship to learn that poor Margaret was out of danger." " Rather say gratifying to get her out of the house," cried Bamsley, with bitterness. " But no matter ! — Removal at present is out of the question. I am satisfied that removal would be death to my daughter." " Mr. Squills is of opinion " " Mr. Squills knows nothing about the mat- ter ! Stokeshill is about to become a scene of uproar and confusion." Miss Winston looked alarmed. " Stokeshill, for the next fortnight, will be a most unfit residence for a person in a delicate state of health. I shall myself be prevented OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 297 giving you the least attention ; and, under all circumstances, Margaret cannot be better than where she is. Lady Shoreham writes me word that they go straight to Tynemouth Castle from Ramsgate, and will not be back here till after Christmas. In this remote wing, you are no restraint upon Lord Shoreham, nor Lord Shoreham upon you. I shall liberally remu- nerate the trouble of the servants ; and " " But Margaret, Sir ; — poor Margaret is so extremely anxious to get home ! I never saw her impatient on any subject before ; but it is impossible to express her desire to get away from the Abbey." " Merely the irritation of her disease — no- thing in the world else !" repUed the father. " I am sure she is very comfortable here,'^ he continued looking round at the handsome fur- niture of the room. " You have every thing you want ?'' " Every thing, Sir;— the housekeeper is ex- tremely attentive.'' O 3 298 STOKESHILL PLACE, " And now you have got old Mrs. Molyneux from Stokeshill to sit up, you can take a niglit^s rest. Margaret is fond of Mrs. Molyneux; and Squills considers her the best nurse in the country." " I intend, Sir, to go to bed to-night. Now all anxiety is over, I shall be able to sleep. Mrs. Molyneux has already taken up her post. Have you any further orders for me, before I retire }" " None. — I am for bed myself. I must be at Stokeshill by seven o'clock ; and shall pro- bably pass to-morrow at Westerton." After a glance into the sick room, to ascer- tain that the night lamp was trimmed, the bar- ley water in its place, and due preparation made for Mrs. Molyneux's green tea, the father and governess accordingly retired ; leaving the formal old lady in her pinched cap and snow- white apron, to preside over the rest of Mar- garet. But the rest of invalids who slumber by day, OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 29^ is apt to be disturbed by night ; and it is part of the charter of sick-nurses to keep their patients awake, by snoring or gossipping. Mrs. Molyneux belonged to the latter class of dis- turbers ; and after having made up the fire at midnight, and smoothed the restless pillow of Miss Barnsley, she drew her arm-chair forward and began, in a low voice, to recapitulate all the village news of Stokeshill. Margaret was glad to listen : glad to escape from her own weary recollections. She was fond of Mrs, Molyneux, — who had officiated as her nurse, previous to the arrival of Miss Winston ; and it was from her Margaret had then gathered such miraculous legends of the virtues and graces of the Woodgate family, — legends since repeated whenever Margaret stood to gossip for ten minutes in dame Molyneux's cottage. " Well, Miss Margaret, my dear, we have had strange doings at Stokeshill since you have been away," said the old lady in an audible whisper. 300 STOKESHILL PLACE, " Indeed," said Margaret faintly. " 1 thought the rejoicings at Wynnex had sufficed the whole neighbourhood." " Oh ! I'm not speaking in the way of bon- fires or strong beer, or them sort of things. We have had Sir Henry up at the village." « Sir Henry ?" " Sir Henry Woodgate, my dear. His grandfather, you know, died last year in foreign parts ; — and the young barrynet's come to his title, — more's the pity one can't say to his estate." " I shall be very much affronted, my good nurse if you give me that hint again," said Margaret, playfully. "■ Lor' bless you, my dear Miss Margaret, you know very well there's nobody but just yourself we could bear to see at Stokesell in the room of them as should be thei-e. But sartainiy it was a sight to make our hearts glad (that is them what is of the old times and can remember the real family up at the Place,) to OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 301 see a fine grown gentleman coming among us, with a kind word for one, and a shake of the hand for t'other, reminding us as he was the little Harry what had just begun to canter his pony through the village when the family troubles came, and all was forced to be sold off." " Sir Henry was born, then, before the Woodgate family left the Place ? — Yes, I re- member it was his rocking-horse was left in my nursery, and his little play-garden to which I succeeded." " To be sure it war ! I used often to tell you so, my dear, when I came to be with you. Sich a fine sperity boy as 'twas. — I've seen the men set Master Harry on the colts about the Place without saddle or bridle, when he was scarce more than three years old, and he'd a seat then as firm as a man grown. And such a noble heart of his own ! Such a parting ^twixt him and his nurse what took him from a babby. 302 STOKESHILL PLACE, — old Mrs. Woods of Woods End, her as you sometimes calls on Miss, who's got such a breed of bantams." " Yes — I remember, — an old friend of yours whom you used to take me to visit when a child ; and who had always so much to say of the grandeur of the ladies of the Woodgate family ; of Lady Woodgate's jewels when she went to court" — " And well she might," interrupted the old l^dy, smoothing down her apron ; " for good friends they'd been to her. For all the want they'd fallen into, nurse Wood's pension is reg'lar paid her by lawyer Dobbs as the quarter comes round; and scarce a Christmas, but some token, (a shawl or a bit of lace, or a something,) brought over by Mr. Henry from foreign parts when he came back'ards and for'ards from Eton school ; ay ! and sometimes a line in his'n or Miss Agnes's own writing, — and that was more than all !" OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 303 " The villagers at Stokeshill must have been much gratified by his visit," — said Margaret with a sigh, feehng how much might have occurred on such an occasion to mortify her father. " That you may well say, Miss ! — Lor' bless you, it war'nt sooner known that the fine young gemman what had rode through the Market Place asking his way to Farmer Haw- kins's at Longlands, was Sir Henry Woodgate, than the church bells was set a ringing, that had not rung afore for a Woodgate any time these twenty years ; and I warrant, there was'nt a house nor a hovel in the j)arish that didn't send out young and old to get a look at the last of the old family ! — Bless you, there was those as hadn't been seen in the sunshine for many a year, made a shift to crawl out as he passed by. Old Alice Molyneux, my mother-in-law, (as was ninety-four last Lammas), and Isaac Digges, (as nobody knows the age on in the 304 STOKESHILL PLACE, parishj but I've heard Alice say he was a man grown when she was a bit of a lass), well Miss — there we all stood (for you may be sure I was among 'em, by good luck, I'd just come home from nursing young Mrs. Snooks up at Daisy Head) ; all the littl'uns with posies in their hands, and what was more, most of the old^uns with tears in their eyes ; and when the crowd spied out Sir Henry a riding, side by side with Hawkins, along the Larch lane from the church-yard, bless you, there came of a sudden such a silence as you might have heard a pin drop — except here and there some child a whispering to its mother, was that the great Sir Ranulph de Woodgate ?" " Whose monument is in Stokeshill church ?" added Margaret with a faint smile. " Why, you see, any Woodgate at all at Stokesell was like one a coming from the dead ; and so the poor innocents couldn't make it all out.'' OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 305 " And is Sir Henry Woodgate a fine young nian ?" — inquired Margaret, by way of grati- fiying her nurse. " Why as to handsome, my dear, HaDdsome those As handsome does, as the saying is. Them as holds for handsome a ruddy open-featured youth, like Mr. Cyril Holloway the parson, or young lawyer Dobbs, or the like, mightn't think so much of Sir Henry, who's dark, and may be a little stern, like folks as is brought up with trouble about'em. But if a fine young man means one as couldn't walk along the High street of Westerton with- out every 'dividual turning round toask hisname, (certain sure as the stranger must be som'un with good blood in his veins), — then, never did you see a handsomer nor a nobler ! — though to be sure there was a mist before my eyes as I looked at him that prevented my seeing over and above clear. So when he got right among 306 STOKESHILL PLACE, US, Miss, he stopped his horse and was about to say somethin' handsome, but bless you ! before he could open his lips, such a hurrah ! — you might have heard it from the Market Cross up to the Place ! If the Squire hadn't been here a 'tending of you, Miss Margaret, I have my doubts whether he'd have found it quite agreeable." " My father would have thought it only natural the people should rejoice to see the last descendant of a family to whom the village is so much indebted." " I don't know that, Miss. Mrs. Hawkins always gives me to understand that her hus- band " " Never mind the Hawkins's; they are no well-wishers to my father. Tell me about Sir Henry." " I don't wish no better, Miss Barnsley. So as I was saying, after he'd spoke a word to all of them as their names was known to him, — such as Mrs. Wood's married daughters — (his OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 307 foster-sisters he called 'em) and my husband's family (and when it came to my turn you may be sure I made him my best obedience). Far- mer Hawkins he whispered to such as stood nearest, that Sir Henry was a going to the church to see was the family moniments kept in order ; and so the people had too much judgment to follow 'em, but only kept bowing and curtseying and waving their hats as long as Sir Henry was in sight. So when they got to the church. Sir Henry gave five guineas for the ringers to the old clerk what held his horse for him to 'light, — (just three more Miss than the Squire gave for ringing when you was a-born) ; and in he walks, straight up to the chancel, with a grave, firm face. And Master Hawkins told afterwards to his wife, as he never saw such a fine look as the young man gave to the old tombs, and hatchments up above them, and the tilting lance, and gloves, and ragged banner what hangs over old Sir Ranulph de Woodgate's marble Sir Coficus ! — 308 STOKESHILL PLACE, And when Sir Henry walked out of the church again, and stood to put his hat on a moment on the threshul', them as saw him told me he was as pale as the dead, and seemed grown older by years than when he went in. And there stood the old clerk what had buried his father and great grandfather, crying like a child at the church-yard stile." " And did Sir Henry visit the Place?"— demanded Margaret, in a faltering voice. " No, Miss — no power on earth would get iiim there. Farmer Hawkins told him the Squire was from home and you was from home, and he would answer for it, none of you would take it amiss. But he answered that he hadn't quite courage for that ; — or words to that effect, and away he went." " And whence did he come to Stokes- hill?" " From Hawkhurst, Miss. Didn't I tell you he was a-staying at his cousin Squire Sullivan's, at Hawkhurst, for the grand doings OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 309 at the Abbey ? It seems he was at school or college or something of that, with the eldest young Mr. Sullivan, (what's changed his name for a fortin') and with my young Lord Shoreham, and so he came down among 'em of a visit." " Is he gone again, Mrs. Molyneux ?" " Gone ? — bless your heart, no ! — He's been a-staying at the inn at Westerton, treated for all the world like a king's son." " How very strange !" observed Margaret. *' Why you see, Miss Barnsley, atween our- selves, it is said that Sir Henry be a-going to be a parliament man, a'cause Squire Holloway be a-going to be a lord. Mrs. Hawkins was a- hinting to me a-Sunday a-coming out of church that her good man declared Sir Henry Wood- gate be to come to be one of the greatest men in England, since the great Billy Pitt, — and that young as he be, he can talk for all the world like a print book." " You do not mean," said Margaret, raising her head upon her hand, and sufficiently aware 310 STOKESHILL PLACE, of her father's projects to know what a mortifi- cation was hkely to fall upon him, — " that Sir Henry Woodgate is going to stand against my father for Westerton ?" *' I don't know about his standing against your papa, Miss ; but I know he be going to stand for Westerton. As I came through Wes- terton here this morning, all the town was full of it." " How unfortunate," sighed Margaret. " I'm sure I knows none as has better right to be a parliament man !" said the nurse settling the pillows of the invaUd and the affairs of the nation. " And do you know. Miss, there was but two things talked about at Stokesell the day of the young gentleman's visit. First, that there hadn't been as much beer drawn at the Woodgate Arms put a whole month together, as there was that night a drinking of Sir Henry's health, and long hfe to the old family ; and next,— but may be you'll take it amiss if I tell you what next ?" — OR THE MAN OK BUSINESS. 31] " No," said Margaret faintly, fancying it was only her pride that was about to be wounded. " Well then, Miss, all the talk from high to low, was what a pretty match might be made up atween Sir Henry and yourself, and so to restore Stokesell to the lawful owner." " Is not my father, then, the lawful owner ':" '^ Yes, as far as such a property can be bought; — but you know the king in olden times bestowed the estate upon Sir Ranulph de Woodgate for his services to the crown, and it was the family's by royal gift, — the family hadn't no right to sell it. And so, you see, a marriage atween yourself and the young bar- rynet would s$t all straight. And who knows? I'm sure you'd make as nice a couple as ever stepped in shoe leather." " If I get well again, you must contrive to make me Lady Woodgate then," said Margaret, and apprehensive of hearing more on the sub- 312 STOKESHILL PLACE, ject than she might know how to answer, she expressed a desire to sleep. " I hope I han't a-tiredyou ?" — said the good woman, drawing the curtains. — " I thought, poor thing, you might be the better for a bit of chat ; but I shall never forgive myself if you're any the worse for it to-morrow." " Never fear," replied the kind-hearted girl. " I promise you to be better in the morning. Good night, I am going to have a refreshing sleep." This promise poor Margaret verified by a night spent in snatches of painful dreams; in which Sir Henry Woodgate with the tilting gloves and lance of his ancestor stood on the Westerton hustings opposed in single combat to her father. After which, she found herself at the altar of Stokeshill church, attired in bridal white and her hand clasped in that of the marble effigy of Sir Ranulph de Wood- gate, which stood as a bridegroom by her side. OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 313 Singularly enough, some mysterious concate- nation of ideas assigned to both figures the face and features of the uncomely knight who had fled from her presence in the Wyimex library, and lent her the protection of his arm into the Wynnex dining-room ! vol.. 1. 314 STOKESHILL PLACE, CHAPTER. XV. I am a very foolish fond eld man, Fourscore and upwards I Methinks I should know you, and know this man, Yet I am doubtful. SHAKSPEARE. The following morning, before Margaret's heavy eyes were unclosed or Miss Winston up and in attendance, Barnsley, half opening the door of the sick room, ascertained from the tidy old nurse that all was going on well, ere he proceeded to the order of the day. If ever business could prove unwelcome to him, it was OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 315 now^ when he had to fulfil in cold blood the hot vapourings of a moment of excitement. And lo ! skirting the very suburbs of West- erton, the scaffold-pahngs of a half-finished house presented, placarded to his view, an ADDRESS, Ijeginning with a flourishing A, and ending with the simple Y of plain " John Barnsley/' at which his favourite mare pricked up her ears, as if conscious that it involved her future interests in life. No one was going by at that early hour, but a bricklayer's lad with a hod upon his shoulder, and a squalid shirt- less child who was looking up to the mortar- whitened though unwashed artificer, in admi- ration of the wholeness of his garments ; and Barnsley had half a mind to ascertain, with his own eyes, to what pitch of literary eloquence his indignation of the preceding night might have attained. But he wanted courage to learn the extent to which he had pledged himself; and when, on advancing into town, he saw his manifesto confronted with a writing on the p 2 31(7 8T0KESHILL PLACE, wall of " WooDGATE FOR EVER !" and an- other Address, ending, (as Closeman would have said) " not Ysely, but too well," with the mute e of the haughty Sir Henry Woodgate, the right electioneering spirit entered into his soul ; and he felt that he could not have pro- mised too much, if his promises tended to place him at the head of the poll. But what a miraculous transformation had Barnsley already undergone! — He who was accustomed to ride through Westerton at the busiest hours of the day, passing Mrs. Squills with her five green-spencered little girls, Mrs. Dobbs junior trudging to the circulating library with five dirty marble- covered volumes in her hand, or Mrs Tim- mins, standing in the doorway of the milliner's shop, like a standard advertisement of its fashions, — and pursue the even tenor of his way without recognition of either of the three goddesses, pre-engrossed by the price of stocks which he had just learned at the bank. OR THE MAN OF lUTSINESS. 817 or the contract for certain out- buildings of one of tlie Wynnex farms, of which he had just approved the estimate ; — he, though the only females now stirring in the town were thrifty maids-of-all-work twirling their mops before its doors, went slow, — smiled courteously, — and 1)owed to every eye that he could catch. Nay, having encountered at the door of Messrs. Harpenden and Hill, a co])bler of some notoriety in the town, carrying home in his leathern apron to Mr. Richard Dobbs a pair of pumps which had required refreshing after the Wyn- nex ball, he stopped and gave orders for two pair of shooting-shoes, in a tone of the mildest magnanimity. On entering the office of his new cabinet ministers, the shuffling of the clerks' feet, as they rose to do honour to his first appearance on that stage, produced an agreeable impres- sion on his ear. Barnsley loved an attorney's office, with its musty smell and busy hissing 31& STOKESHILL PLACE, or sputtering of pens, just as a Beckford vene- rates the tribune at Florence, or a Heber the hbrary of the Vatican. And as he stood in that of Messrs. Harpenden and Hill with its curtains of green serge, its high leather stools, and wainscoting of deed boxes, — " his foot was on his native heath, and his name was Mc. Gregor !" On a supplemental table in one corner of the room, he saw files of his own Addresses, and a clerk scuffling them into envelopes, with wafers and a wafer seal by his side, preparatory to their dispersion over the country ; — about two hun- dred were already closed and addressed, bearing witness to the young man's activity. '^ Can I speak with Mr. Harpenden V in- quired Barnsley, of the head clerk. " If you will do us the favour. Sir, to wait a few minutes in the parlour," answered he, fix- ing his pen behind his ear, and ushering the member postulant into an inner room. " Mr. OR TUB MAN OF BUSINESS. 319 Harpenden is rather tardy this morning. He was up to a late hour, I beHeve, Sir, with un- expected business.'^ " Yes yes ! — I know. — Inform him Mr. Barnsley is here." And, while the clerk shuffled away in obe- dience to the command, Barnsley addressed himself to a perusal of the Westerton Weekly paper, a copy of which lay, damp from the press, upon the table. He started, — he jumped up, — he sat down on the black window-seat to ascertain, in clearer daylight, that his eyes did not deceive him ! — But no, — the type was clear as type could be, in which was set forth the « Address of SIR HENRY WOODGATE Bart, to the worthy and independent ELECTORS OF Westerton !!!" — while of him- self or his intentions, — not a word ! — Yet it was at the self-same office whence this flaming sword had issued to defend the hustings against his advances, that his OAvn manifesto of the preceding night had been transmitted to du- p 3 320 STOKESHILL PLACE, rable inscription ! — The editor could not but have seen it; could not but have known his intention of coming forward. — It w. s clear that the Westerton paper had been bought over by his antagonist! — Ere he refolded the treacherous journal, Mr. Ilarpenden bowed his way into the room, with a portentous face and grave aspect, to inform his new client, in the words of one of his old ones, that " Jem Spraggs, the carpet- weaver warn't to be had at no money." " 1 have, however, taken an opportunity,'^ he added, " to sound the intentions of a most influential member of the corporation, whose definitive answer to my proposals will reach nie this day at three o'clock. In the mean time, may I inquire. Sir, whether you are assured of the support of your late ward ?" " Of Lord Shoreham ? I ought to be as- sured of it," replied Barnsley. " But so many strange disappointments have occurred within the last eight days, that if my own daughter OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 321 had a vote, I should feel it necessary to can- vass her." " Let us clearly understand our position, then," resumed Harpenden. " Sir Henry Woodgate has the Hawkhurst interest. Lord Withamstead I iind will remain neuter ; and taking into consideration the votes you have secured, and those I think I can venture to promise, 1 do not hesitate to say that the Wynnex interest will cast the election. Your doubts, therefore, cannot be too immediately cleared up." " My position with regard to that young man is so extremely delicate," — observed Barnsley. " My dear Sir, — electioneering matters ad- mit of no delicacy!" interrupted the attorney, settling his waistcoat. " Delicacy is wholly to be laid aside. Situated as you are with regard to my Lord Shoreham, no one can be intermediate between you. Sir Henry Wood- gate it seems is his school-friend : you have 322 STOKESHILL PLACE, proved, I might almost say, a benefactor. I should recommend you not to lose a minute in pushing your claims upon him ; and it is most essential that I should learn his ultimatum when I see you here again at three." And, after another hour of dry examination of lists, and inquiries into influence, Barnsley so far complied Avith the injunctions of his at- torney, as to retrace his way towards Wynnex. He began to see, with Harpenden, that it was by Lord Shoreham he ought to be proposed. He, who for so many years had been directing the affairs of others and putting every thing in the county into its place, was as easily man- aged as a child the moment it came to the ad- ministration of affairs where his own self- consequence was at stake. Arrived at the Abbey, he was informed that my lord had " just stepj^ed into the village ;" a phrase he should rather have expected to hear applied to the kitchen-maid, — for Lord Shore- ham was no " stepper" unless when grouse OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 323 shooting on the Moors ; and hitherto, had not seemed to be aware of the existence of the village. — Conceiving that, like King Cophetua of old, the young Viscount might have yielded to the attractions of some Helen in a russet gown, Barnsley judged it advisable to follow ; and it was no hard matter to ascertain, on arriv- ing there, that ray lord and the gentlemen were up at the Rectory. With still increasing wonder, the eager candidate followed ; and though the almost imbecile state of Dr. Dodwell had for years excluded "\-isitors from his house, Barnsley wanted no excuse for intruding upon one whom, in his administration of the estates of the Shoreham family, he had omitted no op- portunity of obliging. The entrance-gate of the Rectory was open ; nay, even the parlour door stood ajar, where the old gentleman in his flannel dressing gown and cotton nightcap, was accustomed to pass the year round with his speaking trumpet on the table beside him ; and beside the table, the chair 324 STOKESHILL PLACE, of his shrewish housekeeper, Mrs. Rumbell,who took care to monopohze this sole means of com- munication with her master. As Barnsley, unobserved, entered the room into which he found he had been scarcely a minute preceded by Lord Shoreham and his uncles, the house- keeper was trying- to scream into the ear of the old rector, (amazed by such a succession of guests,) that he beheld " my lord," — the only lord likely to enter there ; — and his two quon- dam pupils, the Hon. Augustus and Alfred Drewe. " Mr. Alfred — !vlr. Augustus ?"— faltered the old doctor, making a vain effort to rise, by means of the arms of his easy chair, and in- stantly sinking again. And with half uncon- scious gesture, he tried to ascertain whether he were in a state to receive such guests, by feel- ing on his head for his wig;— that awful liuzz-wig under cover of which he had for years tried to impress upon the minds of liis rakish pupils, some respect for his persoji and the OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 325 classics, — in hopes that their modern instances might do credjt to the wise saws ofhis inculca- tion. '•' It is many years, young gentlemen, since we met !" — quavered the old doctor, addressing the Parson and Augustus, in his now squeak- ing treble. " Many years ! — five and twenty, and no mistake, I fancy," replied Alfred, in his usual robust tones. '• And hov/ have you managed to make it out all this time, eh, — doctor?" — " The gentleman speaks to you, Sir," said Mrs. Rumbell, perceiving that the Parson's ad- dress was lost upon her master. " Sir?" — said the old man, putting up his trumpet to Augustus, fancying it was by him he had been addressed. " Mr. Drewe wishes to know, Sir, how you hnd yourself?" — shouted the housekeeper, giv- ing -her own interpretation of the slang text. " Thank ye — thank ye, — pretty well! — ugh 326" STOKESHILL PLACE, Ugh ! ugh ! I may say pretty well, — I may say a trifle better than last winter; — a hale man for my years ; — could do my duty as well ever, gentle- men, if they chose to let me. — But there are evil disposed people in this parish ; — Mrs. Rumbell here will tell you, gentlemen, — ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! — that there are very evil disposed people in this parish." '^ Your lungs. Doctor, seem tolerably good ?" observed Alfred Drewe, anxious to ascertain the odds upon his chance of translation to a living, which the accession of his nephew to the Wynnex property now rendered a desirable residence. " Sound as ever, Mr. Augustus — sound as ever !" squeaked the doctor, affecting a little phtisicky cough to prv)ve the truth of his as- sertions. " And pray, Sir, how go on the classics ? — Do the duties of your cloth admit of occasional dallying with the muses, — eh ? Mr. Augustus ?"— OR THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 327 And the doctor's eyes twinkled as when, in former times, he attempted a joke with his pupils ; while Lord Shoreham, aware that the uneful Nine of his uncle's Castaly were nor other than the coryphees of M. Laportes Par- nassus, laughed out without restraint. " You don't quite neglect the classics I hope, young gentlemen ?" — pursued the super- annuated pedagogue — " for as I used to say with Horace, to my late lamented pupil, you- brother the Viscount, — ugh, ugh, ugh, — Doctrina sed vim promovit incitam, Rectique cultus pectora roberant ; Utcunque defecere mores, Dedecorant bene-nata cnlpse 1 or as Ovid hath it, — ugh, ugh, ugh ! — Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros ! We don't forget our Ovid, — ugh, ugh, ugh ! — / 82S STOKESHILL PLACE, eh, Mr. Augustus ?" And again he raised liis tin trumpet towards Drewe, for a reply. " You're poking your fun at me, old boy !" answered Gus, with his usual dry immoveable countenance. " Sir ?" — mumbled the doctor, long accus- tomed to mistrust his own organs of hearing. " 'Tis my brother there who's the Parson," resumed Augustus. " It was Alfred, you know, Doctor, who grabbed the living of Claystick, when they found me not worth japanning." " True ! — a rural deanery, — Claystick on tlie coast of Lincolnshire ; a tit bit — ugh, ugh, ugh ! — quite a tit bit ! — How many thousand souls, pray ?" " Soles, Doctor? — flounders as I hope to lx> saved !'' cried Parson Drewe, taking out his cigar-case. " The cursedest take-in in Eng- land, that Lincolnshire coast ; — nothing but conger-eels and fen-flies." " I remember visiting the parish of Clay- OR THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 329 stick with my late lamented pupil — ugh, ugh, ugh, — your brother the Viscount," replied the Doctor, having accustomed himself by long habit neither to see, hear, nor understand. " Charming window, Sir, in the nave, — retiring window, — some say Saxon, — in my opinion — ugh, ugh, — the Gothic of Edward III — glass in fine pre- servation — design perfect — the incredulity of St. Thomas, if I recollect — ugh, ugh, ugh, — a tit- bit, quite a tit-bit — ought to have been in Dugdale '. — Pray, Mr. Drewe, did you ever think of sending a notice ofit to the Gentleman's ?'" — — demanded the once zealous correspondent of Sylvanus Urban. " Not I, Doctor, — I sent the whole pack of rubbish to the OW Gentleman at once !" replied the Parson; and, as he turned round to strike his cigar flint, he discerned John Barnsley, on elec- tioneering thoughts intent, bowing obsequi- ously on the threshold ! END OF VOL. I. , LONDON: SCHULZE AND CO. 13, POLAND fiTREET.