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 A NOBLE WOMAN. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 I 

 
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 A NOBLE WOMAN. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 A BOOK ABOUT LAWYERS," "A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS, 
 
 "LIVE IT DOWN," &C. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 1868. 
 
 The right of Translation is reserved.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SAVILL, EDWABDS AND CO., PEINTEES, CHANDOS STREET, 
 
 COVENT GABDEN.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE BORDER 1 
 
 II. FRIENDS FBOM CHILDHOOD UPWARDS . . 13 
 
 III. A BLUSH ON A SIMPLE MAN'S FACE ... 26 
 
 IV. COUNTRY DOCTOR 41 
 
 V. WHEREIN HERRICK ASCERTAINS THE STATE 
 
 OF THE CASE 61 
 
 VI. PRISCILLA STAPLETON, FORMERLY HOWLETT 83 
 , VII. WHEREIN MRS. STAPLETON ANNOUNCES HER 
 
 INTENTION TO RETIRE FROM PRACTICE . 95 
 VIII. A NICE PLAN BY A CLEVER SCHEMER . .112 
 IX. MISUNDERSTANDING AND AMICABLE AR- 
 RANGEMENT 124 
 
 ^X. CORNELIUS KILDERBEE'S " TROTTER " . . 138 
 XI. JUST A LITTLE DROP OF GIN- AND- WATER . 151 
 XII. MRS. STAPLETON IS NOT DISSATISFIED WITH 
 HER SON, BUT JAMES IS BY NO MEANS 
 PLEASED WITH HIMSELF 160
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XIII. UNCLE KILDERBEE CONSENTS 168 
 
 XIV. GOOD BAIL 175 
 
 XV. SIMPLE AND YET GENTLE 191 
 
 XVI. IN WHICH JAMES STAPLETON SEES HOW IT 
 
 ALL IS 205 
 
 XVII. A BITTER PILL 221 
 
 XVIII. JAMES STAPLETON'S SECOND CHOICE . . 226 
 
 XIX. EXPLANATORY, IF NOT APOLOGETIC . . 240 
 
 XX. FRIENDSHIP TURNED SOUR 247 
 
 XXI. FOR THE MOST PART IN THE DINING-ROOM 
 
 OF COOTE HALL 258 
 
 xxii. wherein herrick asks for his old 
 
 friend's hand 274 
 
 xxiii. a notable project on the part of cor- 
 NELIUS KILDERBEE 282 
 
 XXIV. TERMS OF CAPITULATION 294 
 
 XXV. " THE QUALITY" CALL AT GREEN VILLA . 303 
 
 XXVI. WHEREIN HERRICK MAKES CHOICE OF A 
 
 " BEST MAN" 315
 
 A NOBLE WOMAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Border. 
 
 N a bold and picturesque district of 
 England stands the ancient town of 
 Carlton Cross, — with its population of 
 eight thousand three hundred and forty-two 
 inhabitants (according to the returns of the last 
 census) ; its stupendous Norman church, con- 
 cerning the plan and funds for restoring which 
 sacred edifice the parishioners are at this present 
 moment in the full heat of a lively contention ; 
 its manufacture of woollen fabrics, which, not- 
 withstanding their high price and the hardness 
 of the times, still hold their ground against the 
 cheaper and less durable products of Lancashire 
 shoddy-mills; its buoyant trade in articles of 
 agricultural produce and consumption; and its 
 right to influence the action of the House of 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Commons by the voices and votes of two 
 burgesses. 
 
 Like other English towns Carlton Cross stands 
 in a comity, but instead of taking pride in their 
 connexion with the particular province in which 
 they are placed, its inhabitants, following in the 
 steps of their forefathers, and countenanced by 
 the general usage of the district for miles round, 
 prefer to speak of themselves as denizens of the 
 Border. From the energy with which they boast 
 about the natural and social characteristics of 
 their Border — meaning thereby a line of country 
 in which three of our richest counties impinge 
 upon each other, so that a horseman may spring 
 into his saddle at Carlton Cross, after an early 
 breakfast, and return to a mid-day dinner after a 
 gallop through three provinces ; and also from 
 the tone of self-glorification with which they 
 assert their claim to respect as Border-men — it 
 would seem that to be born, bred, and placed in 
 business on the extreme verge of an English 
 county are conditions peculiarly favourable to 
 the higher qualities of our nature. 
 
 In some respects the men of Carlton Cross 
 are not without good reasons for their local 
 arrogance, which, notwithstanding its narrowness, 
 is less offensive than many forms of pride that
 
 A Noble Woman. 3 
 
 persons are less ready to denounce than to 
 admire j and far from saying that the qualities 
 which give a colour of justice to their self- 
 complacency are in no measure due to topogra- 
 phical circumstances, the writer of this page is 
 inclined to think that much of the fearlessness 
 towards persons and genuine self-sufficiency — 
 which distinguish the humbler denizens of the 
 Border from most other rural populations — 
 may be fairly attributed to the position which 
 makes them men of three counties rather than 
 one. The rural mind is prone to over-estimate 
 the greatness and dignity of its local magnates, 
 to imagine that the powers of a county magis- 
 trate are co-extensive with creation, to cherish 
 an undue respect for the social system of which 
 its own particular lord-lieutenant is the corner- 
 stone, and to lose all sense of its own personal 
 respectability in incessant admiration of those 
 whom its imagination has unduly exalted. Now 
 the ordinary folk of the Carlton Cross Border 
 are preserved from this proneness to a debasing 
 idolatry by the number as well as conflicting 
 opinions of their provincial deities. Instead of 
 pinning their faith to one mighty Custos Botu- 
 lorum, they are critical about heads of counties, 
 and pay their court alternately to three great 
 
 b 2
 
 A Noble Woman. 
 
 lords. The farmer indignant at what he con- 
 ceives to be the tyranny of a local justice has 
 the consolation of knowing the exact limit of the 
 despot's jurisdiction. On this side the river 
 Wandle the leading gentry are yellow, on the 
 other side they are blue — in a political sense. 
 North of the Windrush the clergy encourage 
 prayer-meetings, and gather pence for the Church 
 Missionary Society; on the southern bank they 
 ride in pink and see no harm in whist. Hence 
 it happens that the inferior people of the Border 
 are saved from the common error of supposing 
 that gentlefolk are all of one mind, and that if a 
 tenant ventures to differ from his squire on a 
 matter of politics or sport he is guilty of a 
 heinous offence against public order and morals. 
 But though the humbler inhabitants of the 
 Border contrast favourably with many rustic 
 populations by reason of their comparative 
 freedom from dulness and servility, it must not 
 be inferred that they have made any important 
 advance from the rudeness of old-fashioned 
 country manners, or have unanimously adopted 
 the smartness and superficial refinement of town 
 life. In brogue, accent, dress, and festive ar- 
 rangements the more prosperous commonalty of 
 the three shires are provincial, and proud of their
 
 A Noble Woman. 
 
 provincialism. They dine at mid-day, and drink 
 rnm- toddy at eventide. Their men are so far 
 under the influence of exploded usages that, 
 throughout the summer months, they go to 
 church in breeches and top-boots. Amongst 
 their women a feeling prevails that it is not 
 altogether seemly for people, who don't wish to 
 count for more than their betters, to adopt a 
 new fashion of millinery until it has been " out" 
 for at least ten years. Their children are more 
 remarkable for flesh than sprightliness. At their 
 Christmas parties it is interesting to mark the 
 unflagging zeal with which the boys and girls, 
 dancing wildly but not too well, keep up their 
 waltzes and Sir Rogers, their curiously different 
 " sets " of quadrilles, and numerous variations of 
 the country dance, from six p.m. to six a.m. At 
 these same entertainments also the stranger has 
 occasion to marvel at the startling combinations 
 of colour which mark the costumes of the women, 
 and at the quantity of pared apples, sliced 
 oranges, strong negus and red filberts which the 
 young ladies consume between high tea and 
 higher supper. If any student of social manners 
 would like to see our great-grandfathers' rules 
 for the drinking of healths still carried out in 
 every particular, he should obtain admittance,
 
 6 A Noble Woman. 
 
 during a season of gaiety, to some of the more 
 primitive and less refined homes of the Carlton 
 Cross Border. • 
 
 When an inhabitant of this part is taken to 
 task for any notable departure from the ways of 
 ordinary men, he usually palliates his eccentricity 
 by observing, " I'm a strange fellow ; but you 
 must remember that I live in the Border, where 
 there's room enough for all sorts, and a spare 
 corner for strangers who know how to make them- 
 selves good neighbours;" by which common say- 
 ing truthful testimony is borne to the outward 
 appearance no less than to the social life of a 
 line of country which is remarkable, beyond 
 most other well-wooded and highly cultivated 
 districts, for the openness of its scenery. Here 
 and there it has a shady lane, such as those 
 which Gainsborough loved to paint; but it no- 
 where stifles the traveller with an oppressive 
 weight of overhanging foliage and close barriers 
 of impenetrable hedges. It is a region in which 
 a man can breathe freely, and find a merry 
 breeze even in the dog-days. Roominess qualifies 
 the entire land. The farms are large ; the en- 
 closures fenced with stone walls — which Nature, 
 cleverest of gardeners, has adorned with bright 
 mosses, and feathery grasses and unobtrusive
 
 A Noble Woman. 
 
 flowers — are as extensive as many a farm in the 
 heavy lands of Suffolk. The halls of the county 
 grandees lie amidst deer-parks of rare spacious- 
 ness; the farm-houses are conspicuous for size 
 and for the magnitude of their out-buildings; the 
 hamlets and villages and smaller market-towns — 
 that look respectfully towards Carlton Cross as a 
 metropolis — instead of being mere huddles of 
 lath-and-plaster cabins, no less offensive to the 
 nose than petty to the eye, are made up of 
 ample stone buildings ranged on either side of 
 broad roads that are bordered by strips of green 
 waste, on which the sun-burnt children of the 
 peasantry sleep and play by turns throughout the 
 summer days. 
 
 From whatever point he enters, by whatever 
 route he may traverse it, the tourist of the Border 
 comes on nothing that is outwardly small or 
 mean. Everywhere he finds himself amidst mag- 
 nificent spaces and noble growths. Huge churches, 
 prodigiously beyond the requirements of any con- 
 gregations they have ever had or are likely to 
 have, and set upon elevated ground, so that they 
 are landmarks visible at great distances; bold 
 hills that rise from the level with majestic curves, 
 from which a pack of hounds may be watched 
 throughout a six miles' run by the eye that is so
 
 8 A Noble Woman. 
 
 lucky as to catch them running in the right 
 direction ; ancient roadside taverns, each of them 
 big enough to shelter a company of troopers ; 
 superb ranges of woodland, along which the 
 vision travels to the purple heath, where their 
 greenness is lost; the stately fluctuations of the 
 Windrush and the Wandle, upon the surface of 
 which fair rivers there is a constant passing of 
 silent barges between Carlton Cross and the 
 great cities of manufacture, to which the surplus 
 labour of the Border towns steadily flows. These 
 are some of the objects that strike the tourist 
 who, if he be an observant man, is well pleased 
 to notice the signs of material prosperity in the 
 faces of the working people, and to remark that 
 attenuated legs and ridiculously small ankles and 
 nipped features are less common amongst the 
 ploughmen and hedgers of the Border than they 
 are amongst the ploughmen and hedgers of East 
 Anglia or Somersetshire. Nor does he fail to 
 detect a certain harmony between the liberal 
 outlines of the scenery and the no less liberal 
 proportions of the horses, cattle, and other live- 
 stock of the Border farmers, who have for many 
 a year been renowned for their skill and success- 
 ful enterprise as breeders. Even the geese of 
 the Border commons are big beyond the wont
 
 A Noble Woman. 9 
 
 of geese in less exuberant localities, and seem to 
 quack boastfully of their fat and weight as they 
 turn their foolish heads over their broad backs 
 and waddle across the sunny turf. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that the Border 
 is a more than ordinarily prosperous region ; 
 and the conscientious writer of this page does 
 not think that he has painted its fortune in 
 too glowing colours. From the earliest memory 
 of its oldest inhabitant down to the present 
 time it has enjoyed an even flow of happy cir- 
 cumstances. Even under the old Poor Law, 
 when vice and hopeless destitution were almost 
 universal amongst our rural poor, the workmen 
 of the Border villages were an orderly and 
 thrifty class — enjoying a buoyant market for 
 their surplus labour in the blanket factories of 
 Carlton Cross, in the mills and workshops of the 
 not remote manufacturing towns — to which allu- 
 sion has already been made — and displaying no 
 unwillingness to make the utmost of their ad- 
 vantages. At the present time, indeed, it is 
 averred throughout the district that " times are 
 not what they used to be ;" that the blanket- 
 makers are hard pressed by Lancashire compe- 
 titors; that the farmers make less out of the 
 land than they did in past time; and that
 
 10 A Noble Woman. 
 
 shillings are scarcer than guineas used to be 
 when George the Third and Mr. Pitt were good 
 enough to manage the affairs of the nation. But 
 in spite of all this grumbling there is an 
 abundance of testimony that the Border has not, 
 as yet, made many steps towards ruin. It is 
 very rare that a Border tradesman "breaks" 
 under circumstances which render it impossible 
 for charitable observers to trace his ruin to his 
 folly. Notwithstanding the badness of the 
 times, the Border farmers ride good horses, and 
 after market ordinaries play " rap-in" with 
 vociferous energy. It may be that rich men are 
 fewer in Carlton Cross than they were fifty years 
 since ; but no rightly introduced stranger tarries 
 in the borough for a fortnight without forming a 
 high estimate of the affluence and hospitality of 
 its principal families. 
 
 A bright, smart, pictorial old town — none the 
 less striking and pleasant because it has greater 
 breadth and roominess than most English towns 
 of its date ; a prodigious church, big enough 
 for a cathedral, planted on its outskirts; hard 
 by the church a rectory-house, big enough for a 
 college, flanked with thick shrubberies, and over- 
 looking the meadows through which the Wandle 
 meanders towards the borough; betwixt these
 
 A Noble Woman. 11 
 
 ecclesiastical buildings and the " old town" a 
 park-like space, planted with limes, and bisected 
 by the London road ; abutting on this park-like 
 space the gardens of wealthy residents, who have 
 built villas for themselves upon " the Green" — 
 as the open lawn between the church and 
 market cross is termed; a wide, granite-paved 
 thoroughfare running straight through the " old 
 town," and sending off by-streets to factories 
 and inferior quarters ; an old market-cross, in 
 which the farmers and blanket-makers of the 
 Border did business ere ever William Shakspeare 
 had written a line of his plays ; antique hostelries 
 with sharply-peaked gables and grotesque sign- 
 boards ; shops of the unassuming kind, with 
 narrow windows and doors so fashioned that 
 they can be closed at bottom and left open at 
 top; shops of the ambitious sort, running into 
 plate-glass, in defiance of an architecture that 
 discountenances the vain display; pompous 
 private houses, Georgian in style and redness of 
 brick, and resplendent with brilliantly burnished 
 windows. This is Carlton Cross as it appears at 
 this day; very much also as it looked years 
 agone to men and women whose bones are rest- 
 ing in the old parish church. 
 
 And to those who through strong sympathy
 
 12 A Noble Woman. 
 
 with the joys and sorrows of. human nature find 
 habitual delight in hopeful anticipations of the 
 future, no less than in tender recollections of the 
 past, it is pleasant to think that the old town 
 will not look far otherwise to generations yet 
 unborn, when we shall be no more, and all our 
 foolish doings shall have clean vanished from the 
 ways and minds of men.
 
 A Noble Woman. 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Friends from Childhood upwards. 
 
 N an autumn evening, midway between 
 the passing of the great Reform Bill of 
 '32 and the general election of Decem- 
 ber in the same year, two friends were chatting 
 together in a lofty room of the reddest and most 
 pompous of the Georgian houses alluded to at 
 the close of the last chapter. The house — stand- 
 ing directly opposite the market cross at the 
 southern extremity of the thoroughfare, and hard 
 by "the Green " — was, and still is, the resi- 
 dence of James Stapleton, Licentiate of the 
 Apothecaries' Company, and Member of the Col- 
 lege of Surgeons of London ; and the furniture 
 and fittings of the lofty room would have left no 
 doubt on the mind of any intruder that it was a 
 surgeon's consulting-room. With reason James 
 Stapleton was proud of the apartment, nattering 
 himself that no surgeon in the whole Border 
 received his patients in a more spacious or more 
 imposing room. Ranged on shelves and pro-
 
 14 A Noble Woman. 
 
 tected by glass were visible the many volumes 
 of a medical library, which had steadily accumu- 
 lated throughout the two centuries that had wit- 
 nessed a Stapleton ministering to the sick of 
 Carlton Cross ; ostentatiously stacked in rows, 
 one above another, in a big recess, were the 
 worm-eaten and dusty day-books in which six 
 generations of Stapletons had written their more 
 or less unscientific prescriptions for the mitiga- 
 tion of human suffering ; and as though this pile 
 of ancient records was not of itself sufficient to 
 certify the long endurance of " the practice/' 
 Mr. James Stapleton had placed in conspicuous 
 positions all the antiquated instruments, profes- 
 sional trophies, and scientific curiosities which 
 his forefathers had used, won, or gathered toge- 
 ther during their long battle with an invincible 
 enemy. Nor were there wanting proofs that 
 " the practice - " had kept pace with science in 
 more recent times, for in contrast to this sin- 
 gular museum of the clumsy appliances and gro- 
 tesque paraphernalia with which medical inca- 
 pacity used to array itself in past times, were 
 displayed the microscope, galvanic battery, che- 
 mical apparatus, and microscopic specimens which 
 honest James Stapleton had added to the con- 
 tents of his hall of audience.
 
 A Noble Woman. 15 
 
 The friends had seated themselves at an open 
 window that looked into James Stapleton's 
 garden, from which scene of continuous horti- 
 cultural triumphs a light current of air, laden 
 with the fragrance of flowers, and cooled by the 
 falling dew, came through a trellis of vine- 
 branches and fig-leaves, and mingled its perfume 
 with the aroma of the cigar which one of the 
 two companions was smoking ; and as they thus 
 sate, enjoying the comparative coolness of the 
 evening after a day of oppressive heat, the moon- 
 light without and the bright lamplight within 
 combined to render their forms and features dis- 
 tinctly visible to those mysterious agents of 
 Eomance who, in the service of novel- writers, are 
 empowered to look through key-holes, listen at 
 doors, witness secret interviews, and watch the 
 actions of heroes and heroines in their most 
 private hours and in their most secluded retreats. 
 A brief scrutiny would have enabled any spec- 
 tator to catch some of the external points of dis- 
 similarity which distinguished James Stapleton, 
 the surgeon, from his intimate friend Hercules 
 Kingsford, junior, solicitor of Carlton Cross, and 
 heir-presumptive to his uncle, Hercules Kings- 
 ford, senior, banker of the same town. The late 
 Mr. James, whose historical romances were not
 
 16 A Noble Woman. 
 
 deficient in number, would have described the 
 pair as being still young, but bearing in their 
 countenances abundant evidence that they were 
 no longer boys. Though neither of them had 
 received the first gray hairs of advancing age, no 
 one under eighty years would have thought of 
 calling them " boys." James Stapleton was in 
 his thirty-third year, and Hercules Kingsford, 
 junior, still wanted a few months of thirty-four 
 years ; but with the exception of this nearness of 
 age, and a corresponding similarity of rank and 
 general culture, they were unlike in every one of 
 those particulars to which a scientific student of 
 human nature directs attention before he decides 
 upon the correct classification of any individual 
 of our race. 
 
 James Stapleton was tall, six feet without his 
 shoes, broadly built, awkward in gait and figure, 
 and altogether without any title to the admira- 
 tion which young ladies of the sentimental mood 
 are popularly supposed to reserve for facial 
 beauty and features of classic mould. A more 
 direct counterpart to the grace and dignified ease 
 of the Apollo Belvidere than this large-limbed 
 surgeon, it would be difficult to imagine. At 
 first sight his appearance was uncouth almost to 
 boorishness, and grotesquely clumsy. His head
 
 A Noble Woman. 17 
 
 was covered with short, sticky hair : his eyebrows 
 were straight lines, projecting a shed-like roof 
 over deep-set eyes ; his feeble whiskers neither 
 afforded concealment to his ill-shaped ears, nor 
 adequately veiled the harshness and angularity of 
 his countenance at the points where his big jaws 
 played upon each other, sending upwards and 
 outwards two bold hillocks of muscle whenever 
 he set his upper and lower teeth firmly together, 
 as he was wont to do at moments of earnest 
 thought ; his nose, at no point remarkable for 
 delicacy, broadened and turned upwards as it 
 came to an end; and his loose sprawling lips 
 were just the kind of lips which, in these days of 
 toleration on all questions pertaining to hair, are 
 usually concealed beneath moustaches. To his 
 disadvantage, also, let it be added, that his 
 shoulders were round as well as broad, and that 
 to meet the exigencies of his feet he wore boots 
 that were as capacious as fiddle-boxes. 
 
 In compensation, however, for these undesir- 
 able characteristics, he possessed certain physical 
 endowments that greatly contributed to the 
 popularity which he enjoyed in his native town. 
 He stood well upon his clumsy feet ; the round- 
 ness of his shoulders was counterbalanced by the 
 prominence and manifest strength of a broad 
 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 A Noble Woman. 
 
 chest ; his big boar's head was thrown back- 
 wards, so that it rose from his neck with an air 
 of manly confidence which accorded with his 
 statnre and bodily massiveness. The smile that 
 illuminated his face, brightening it with the light 
 of irresistible cordiality, would have atoned for 
 the unsightliness of far uglier features ; and in 
 the recesses of his shed-like brows there dwelt a 
 pair of magnificent brown eyes, into which neither 
 woman nor man could look without conceiving a 
 favourable opinion of their possessor. Moreover, 
 when the brown eyes brightened in harmony 
 with a smile, the lines of the shed-like brows 
 were relieved of their straightness and became 
 two well-matched curves. But the natural gift 
 which gave him a still stronger influence over his 
 companions, was the deep metallic voice that 
 rung out with the clearness and musical purity 
 of a cathedral bell. It was a most singular 
 voice — sonorous but never riotous, loud even in 
 its undertones, but never harsh, and at all times 
 impressing hearers with a feeling that its owner 
 could, an it pleased him, pour forth a deafening 
 thunder of eloquence. Thus it was that, notwith- 
 standing the ungainliness of his shape, James 
 Stapleton was about the last man in the whole 
 Border at whom his neighbours would have thought
 
 A Noble Woman, 19 
 
 of raising a laugh. His stalwart form testified to 
 his strength; his smile proclaimed him kindly, 
 and abounding in sympathy ; his brown eyes said 
 that he was unassailably honest; his voice was 
 the music of a brave and gentle nature. And in 
 men who are kindly, honest, gentle, and strong, 
 worse faults than external ugliness are readily 
 pardoned. 
 
 A noticeable contrast to this simple, child-like 
 giant was the other young man, whose habitual 
 daintiness in matters of costume was as remark- 
 able as the surgeon's disregard of his personal 
 appearance, and who now sat erect in an easy 
 chair, clothed in the stiff decorous dress of 
 five-and-thirty years since, whilst the master of 
 the house was lounging on a sofa in his shirt- 
 sleeves. 
 
 For three generations the Kingsfords had been 
 an uplooking family, slowly and surely working 
 their way up the steps of social promotion ; and 
 now that they had made themselves the first 
 family of " the town," a noble ambition had 
 seized them to take rank amongst the landed 
 gentry of the Border. For this purpose Am- 
 brose Kingsford and his brother, Hercules Kings- 
 ford, senior, had entered into a compact, when 
 Hercules Kingsford, junior, was still a schoolboy. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 A Noble Woman. 
 
 For this purpose Ambrose Kingsford, attorney-at- 
 law, whose death occurred rather more than two 
 years before the commencement of this tale, had 
 planted his younger sons at a considerable distance 
 from Carlton Cross, so that when the Kingsfords 
 should gain a definite position amongst the county 
 gentry of their neighbourhood, they might not 
 be surrounded with a prejudicial swarm of strug- 
 gling cousins. For this purpose the said 
 Ambrose Kingsford, deceased, besides leaving his 
 eldest son Hercules the whole interest of his 
 long-established and lucrative practice, had also 
 bequeathed to him a double portion of his re- 
 maining estate. For this purpose, Hercules 
 Kin gsford, senior, a childless widower,had admitted 
 his nephew to a partnership in " Kingsford's 
 Bank/' and had arranged to make him his heir, 
 both with respect to the bank and his other pro- 
 perty. For this purpose, also, Hercules Kingsford, 
 senior, had purchased Coote Hall, a picturesque 
 manor-house in the neighbourhood of Carlton 
 Cross, and on making it his residence had secured 
 admission to the bench of county justices, 
 whereby the romantic, worldly, ambitious, vain 
 old banker flattered himself that his nephew and 
 heir, on becoming the proprietor of Coote Hall, 
 would all the more readily obtain the status of
 
 A Noble Woman. 21 
 
 a Border gentleman with long-established county 
 interests. 
 
 Thus for years there had been a conspiracy in 
 action to make Hercules Kingsford, junior, a 
 great man. For the attainment of this scarcely 
 sufficient end, his three brothers had been pushed 
 into the world with very slender resources, and 
 his only sister planted upon a struggling London 
 solicitor with one thousand five hundred pounds 
 for her portion. It is probable that the sister and 
 three younger brothers would have preferred 
 another distribution of the family opulence ; but 
 as they were powerless to alter their father's will 
 or divert their uncle from his cherished scheme, 
 they kept their heart-burnings to their own breasts, 
 and comforted themselves with thinking that the 
 family honour would be gallantly sustained in 
 their old neighbourhood, and that when their 
 brother Hercules should be established at Coote 
 Hall they would be amongst his constant visitors. 
 Whilst his brothers and sister accepted their for- 
 tune thus submissively, it is scarcely a matter for 
 surprise that, as a dutiful son and grateful nephew, 
 Hercules had piously resolved to do his utmost to 
 carry out the wishes of his father and uncle. 
 
 It was characteristic of the said brothers 
 Ambrose and Hercules, and significant of their
 
 22 A Noble Woman, 
 
 commercial position, that whilst they plotted to 
 make themselves a county family in the person 
 of their heir, they never proposed to make him an 
 idle gentleman, independent of profession and 
 business. Perhaps the ambitious veterans knew 
 that their combined wealth would have been in- 
 sufficient for such a scheme ; perhaps they saw 
 that their project would collapse if the second 
 Kingsford of Coote Hall did not possess some 
 " potentiality of amassing wealth" besides the 
 rents of half-a-dozen farms. Anyhow, their wish 
 was that young Hercules, whilst taking status in 
 his county, should also remain the unquestion- 
 able chief of the borough. Banking was a busi- 
 ness in which gentlemen of the highest families 
 could concern themselves without losing caste ; 
 the law was a profession which a country squire 
 might follow during his heyday of bodily vigour 
 and yet hold up his head amongst country gentle- 
 men towards the close of his days ; a sound 
 though small banking business, and a nourishing 
 legal practice would together yield an income 
 superior to the rental of an average county 
 estate. Under these circumstances young Her- 
 cules should be brought up to the two businesses. 
 In Carlton Cross he should be banker and 
 solicitor, and occasionally, in compliment to the
 
 A Noble Woman. 23 
 
 townsfolk, mayor of the borough ; at Coote Hall 
 he should be a country gentleman, and on re- 
 tiring from the roll of practising solicitors, years 
 hence, a county magistrate, possibly a deputy- 
 lieutenant. It was even conceivable that if he 
 worked his two connexions prudently, he might 
 in course of time sit in parliament for his native 
 town, and win the honour of the Blood-red 
 Hand. This was the scheme of the two vain old 
 men — a scheme not laid before Hercules the 
 younger with all its details of foolish imagination, 
 as it had taken form in the sympathetic minds 
 of its projectors, but suggested to him from his 
 earliest childhood by constant exhortations that 
 he should make the most of the advantages 
 lavished upon him, and of the position to which 
 he would be ultimately raised by the munificence 
 of his father and uncle. 
 
 Whether he was qualified by nature to run the 
 career thus marked out for him, will be seen in 
 the course of this story, which will show — how far 
 certain jealous observers of the young man's cha- 
 racter and rising fortunes were justified in main- 
 taining that he lacked the sound judgment and 
 stable qualities by which his father and uncle 
 had been enabled to climb above their neigh- 
 bours ; and how far events fulfilled the predic-
 
 24 A Noble Woman. 
 
 tions of those same jealous observers, who had 
 contracted a habit of whispering that, notwith- 
 standing his authoritative manner and fluent 
 tongue, and showy endowments, Hercules Kings- 
 ford, junior, would disappoint the ambitious ex- 
 pectations of his family. 
 
 For the present every reader is left to form 
 his own estimate of the well-looking man who 
 is now brought upon the scene smoking a cheroot, 
 whilst with an air of prim self-esteem visible in 
 his clean-cut features, and a tone of insolent 
 good- humour perceptible in his sharp but not 
 unmusical voice, he gossips with his old school- 
 mate and peculiar friend. Though most observers 
 are inclined to think that his slight face, with 
 its aquiline nose, thin lips, and restless grey eyes, 
 contains no indications of extraordinary mental 
 power, they detect on the other hand signs of 
 nervous energy and constitutional self-confidence 
 in the mobility of his eager countenance and 
 the smart decisiveness of his diction, as well as 
 in the tone of affable condescension with which 
 he ventures from time to time to signify his 
 approbation of his companion's sentiments and 
 conduct. Nor does the eye, clever at reading 
 character, fail to construe as manifestations of 
 personal vanity the evident pleasure which Mr.
 
 A Noble Woman. 25 
 
 Hercules Kingsford finds in regarding the white- 
 ness of the dainty hand that is continually 
 taking his cigar from his lips, and the no less 
 apparent satisfaction with which he repeatedly 
 glances at an adjacent mirror, wherein he sees 
 the reflection of his brown curling hair and 
 comely face, his high-collared walking -frock and 
 spotless white waistcoat, his befrilled shirt-front, 
 and all the other external adornments of his not 
 ungraceful figure, which appears to be somewhat 
 below the average height of Englishmen now 
 that it is placed in immediate proximity to the 
 surgeon's far larger and more powerful frame.
 
 26 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 A Blush on a Simple Man's Face. 
 
 NSTEAD of discussing politics and public 
 men, after the fashion of young men in 
 political novels, James Stapleton and 
 Herrick spoke about their private affairs, the 
 social interests of their town, the qualifications 
 of a neighbour for the distinguished position of 
 chairman at the next hunt dinner, the fitness of 
 a less eminent townsman for the vacant office of 
 parish-crier, the prices of hay and horseflesh, and 
 other matters of even less importance to the 
 world beyond the boundaries of the borough. 
 Alternately speaking of themselves and their 
 common acquaintances, by turns recalling the past 
 and making conjectures as to the future, they 
 restated their favourite opinions, and exchanged 
 for the thousandth time their private views on 
 divers trivial matters. In fact they gossiped — 
 without a single flash of epigrammatic wit or a 
 single Latin quotation, — after the wont of intimate 
 friends, in all places save the pages of romantic
 
 A Noble Woman. 27 
 
 fiction, sitting over pipe or bottle, and talking 
 about what most nearly concerns them for their 
 own pure pleasure. 
 
 " So you have been up to the rectory, Jem ?" 
 inquired Jem's friend, taking his cigar from his 
 lips, and looking at the white hand in which he 
 held the cigar rather than at the face of the 
 person whom he addressed. 
 
 " Yes. How did you hear that ? ay, Her- 
 rick?" 
 
 Hercules being too superb a name for ordi- 
 nary use, the Kingsfords permitted their intimate 
 friends to shorten and modify it into Herrick. 
 Notwithstanding their pride in the heroic appel- 
 lation which had been borne by numerous 
 members of their family, settled in times past 
 and present about the Border, they encouraged 
 their companions to use the less sonorous and 
 terrifying title. " Hercules " was for the public, 
 the tongues of clients and business connexions, 
 the columns of county papers, the platforms of 
 political meetings : " Herrick " the name for the 
 freedom and good-fellowship of domestic life. 
 And even amongst the outside public the young 
 lawyer was very generally known by the familiar 
 diminutive. Hercules was the special designation 
 of the uncle. It was Hercules Kingsford, Esq.,
 
 28 A Noble Woman. 
 
 of Coote Hall, who was periodically announced in 
 the public press as taking the chair at magis- 
 trates' meetings. As Hercules Kingsford, the grey- 
 headed senior was entered in the " Bankers' 
 Directory/' his nephew and partner being as yet 
 unnoticed in the official title of the banking es- 
 tablishment. As his uncle's heir, the nephew 
 would eventually inherit, together with his 
 uncle's estate, the fulness of the family name ; 
 but until the old man should have closed his 
 account with the world, and gone to his last rest, 
 " the qu ality" of Carlton Cross had made up its 
 mind to know Hercules Kingsford, junior, by the 
 style and title of Mr. Herrick Kingsford. 
 
 " I did not hear it ? I saw your gig at the 
 gate/' responded Herrick. 
 
 " Did you ? You see everything that goes on 
 in the town. I do believe, Herrick, that some- 
 how or other your office windows overlook every 
 street in the borough. Yes, I was at the rec- 
 tory ; and what's more, I had the good luck to 
 be sent for to call on the rector and Lady 
 Bertha in my professional capacity. You see, 
 the family arrived only yesterday." 
 
 " The day before yesterday," interposed Her- 
 rick. " Canon Godsall was rung in this day 
 week, and Lady Bertha arrived the night before
 
 A Noble Woman. 29 
 
 last. It was yesterday we heard that her lady- 
 ship and the children had driven up to the rec- 
 tory shortly before midnight." 
 
 " No doubt ; I did not count the minutes 
 before midnight. But, anyhow, yesterday was 
 their first day in the town, and it was yesterday 
 morning that I said to my dear mother, ' I sup- 
 pose, madam, you'll call at the rectory and pay 
 your respects to Lady Bertha Godsall/ It 
 seemed to me, you know, Herrick, that my dear 
 mother would naturally have wished to lose no 
 time in paying the lady of our new rector that 
 attention. But my dear mother, whose taste and 
 knowledge of the world are admirable — bless me, 
 the number of scrapes they have saved me 
 from ! — soon showed me that I had only looked 
 at the matter from my point of view. c James/ 
 my mother said to me, ' I must take my own 
 time about calling on Lady Bertha Godsall. Of 
 course I owe her respect as the wife of my 
 rector, as a lady who has recently arrived in the 
 parish, moreover, as an English gentlewoman 
 who belongs to a social grade far above that of 
 my late husband, and also superior to that to 
 which I belong as my father's daughter. But 
 for your sake, James — for your dignity, about 
 which you are apt to think far too little — I
 
 30 A Noble Woman. 
 
 must not appear too eager to call on her lady- 
 ship. It is not right for me to forget that I was 
 a Howlett of Wren th am.' " 
 
 "To be sure. My uncle often danced with 
 your mother when she was Miss Howlett. Her 
 father, and ever so many Howletts before him, 
 had been rectors of Wrentham for I don't know 
 how many generations. You have reason to be 
 proud of your mother's family/' said Herrick, 
 partly out of sincere regard for the race of 
 Howlett, but much more from a habit of saying 
 civil things, and dispensing flattery amongst all 
 persons who were ready to repay his pleasant 
 speeches with genuine respect. 
 
 This had been the way with Herrick's father 
 and uncle, and, indeed, with the whole Kingsford 
 family from the time when they first became 
 leading personages in Carlton Cross. They had 
 always been men of smooth tongues and com- 
 plaisant manners, greedy of approbation, and 
 ready to purchase it with extravagant professions 
 of friendliness for their adherents, however 
 humble they might be. Inflated with a sense of 
 their own importance and superiority to persons 
 in no respect their inferiors, they were magnilo- 
 quently civil to all whom they encountered — 
 considerate to servants, courteous to artisans,
 
 A Noble Woman. 31 
 
 sociable to shopkeepers, intensely affable to 
 equals. They had a knack of asserting them- 
 selves by extolling others. Their outspoken 
 authoritative adulation implied that they had 
 right to sit in judgment on their neighbours, and 
 decide who of them were especially distinguished 
 by cleverness, or probity, or courage, or good 
 looks ; and not one person out of every hundred 
 on whom their flattery was showered resented it 
 as impertinence or detected its worthlessness. 
 In other and greater places than Carlton Cross 
 men like to hear their own praises. Even in 
 London flattery can find a market, and some- 
 times a very good one. 
 
 " As to being proud about my mother's 
 family," returned James Stapleton, with delicious 
 simplicity, speaking in the most matter-of-fact 
 tone of his mellow bass voice, " of course I am 
 very proud of it and everything that belongs to 
 her; but what with my business, and what with 
 my amusements, I can't find time for being 
 proud about anything. I do assure you that 
 when she told me yesterday that she was a Miss 
 Howlett of Wrentham, it seemed to me that I 
 must somehow or other have forgotten my ma- 
 ternal grandfather's name. Of course I saw the 
 full force of my mother's words as soon as they
 
 32 A Noble Woman. 
 
 had passed her lips, and was ashamed of myself 
 for not thinking from the first of what was dne 
 to her. Yon see, I was very anxions abont get- 
 ting the rectory on my professional list, for there 
 was reason to fear that they might send for 
 Donkin, as an older man and a hnsband and a 
 father of a family, and all that sort of thing. 
 And if they had done so, I should have had no 
 right to complain, for though Donkin keeps a 
 good many of my father's patients, who left the 
 old practice before I could take the reins in 
 hand, he has always been a good neighbour, and 
 willing to stand by me at a pinch ; and in fair- 
 ness to him I must say that Donkin is an 
 honourable opponent, with a shrewd eye and 
 clear head for diagnosis. There are worse prac- 
 titioners than Donkin, I can tell you." 
 
 " No doubt, it was a matter of importance 
 for you to have the new people." 
 
 " And it was the importance of the matter 
 that made me wish my mother should lose no 
 time in calling. But she was quite right in 
 declining to do it in a hurry. On such matters 
 her judgment never fails her, and certainly no 
 harm came of her decision, for before the 
 evening a message came from the rectory sum- 
 moning me to visit Lady Bertha herself. She
 
 A Noble Woman. 33 
 
 is only a little out of sorts, and it wont give me 
 much trouble to set her right." 
 
 u Tell us about the people ; I haven't seen 
 any of them yet. Mr. Godsall and I have 
 exchanged cards without seeing each other. My 
 uncle has seen him, and calls him a nervous 
 fellow — only half a man, that's my uncle's ex- 
 pression." 
 
 " I cannot say," replied James Stapleton, 
 slightly raising his voice as he spoke deferentially 
 of his new patient, u that Canon Godsall im- 
 pressed me unfavourably. He is a tall, thin, 
 comely gentleman, with aquiline profile, blue 
 eyes, and long hair — flaxen hair that is fast 
 turning gray, although he is only forty-five years 
 of age. Not of a robust frame, he shows the 
 signs of a delicate constitution in his coun- 
 tenance as well as in his figure ; and after seeing 
 him I was not surprised to learn that he pre- 
 ferred the amusements of a garden to horse 
 exercise. But there can be no doubt that the 
 Canon is a man of more than ordinary intellect. 
 He has a good place amongst Oxford scholars, 
 and besides being a musician and a musical 
 composer he is an artist, sir, — -an artist. I don't 
 mean a connoisseur who spends money on pic- 
 tures, but an artist who paints pictures of a very 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 A Noble Woman. 
 
 high order. He was so good as to show me some 
 of his works — pictures of saints and churches — 
 and they are wonderfully good, Herrick, as good 
 as anything in the artistic way that I ever come 
 across in the houses of my very best patients." 
 
 " Highly creditable in him to cultivate the 
 fine arts j very creditable," observed Herrick, with 
 a grand air placing the stamp of his approval on 
 the new rector. " I think those clergymen 
 highly deserving of commendation who have 
 intellectual interests beyond the narrow range of 
 their professional studies. But though profi- 
 ciency in painting and knowledge of music are 
 desirable accomplishments in a divine whose 
 position requires him to take the lead in society, 
 they will not greatly assist him in controlling 
 a town like this, in which the dissenting interest 
 is unusually strong. When my uncle hinted 
 that Mr. Godsall was only half a man, I under- 
 stood him to mean that he would be only half a 
 man in parish affairs. Now, would you think 
 him naturally qualified to hold his own at a 
 parish meeting in the face of a turbulent and 
 powerful opposition?" 
 
 " There is no doubt that Canon Godsall is a 
 shy man, and a nervous man, and by no means a 
 robust man, and there is room to fear that such
 
 A Noble Woman. 35 
 
 a person would very likely fail to do justice to 
 himself and his party at a parish meeting. We 
 don't know enough of him yet to be justified in 
 predicting positively how he will turn out; but 
 I am inclined to think that he is more calculated 
 for the domestic circle than for public life. 
 I don't think he'll be a very active county 
 magistrate, and I don't think he'll trouble him- 
 self much about the politics of the borough, 
 beyond doing his duty by Church and State." 
 
 " So much the better, so much the better. 
 As long as my uncle lives," said Herrick, well 
 pleased with the thought that a rector of retiring 
 temper and timid nature would be favourable 
 rather than prejudicial to his own and his uncle's 
 influence, " the borough has a sufficiently able 
 chief, and when my dear uncle shall have left 
 us — why, when that takes place, Jem, it will be 
 comfortable for me to deal with a rector who 
 will be content to strengthen my hands and act 
 upon my counsel on all local matters. So he is 
 of a domestic turn, is he ? and devoted to his 
 children, eh?" 
 
 " Prodigiously fond of his children," assented 
 James Stapleton. 
 
 " And he has a handsome number of them ?" 
 
 " Nine ; and all boys. The eldest is at Christ 
 
 d 2
 
 ,36 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Church ; three of them are at Winchester ; the 
 next three are to be taught by Mr. Henchman, 
 the new curate ; and then there is a governess 
 for the two youngest, Herbert and Dugdale. It 
 is a rare houseful of them. Lady Bertha com- 
 plains of their noise, and wishes that some of 
 •them were girls. She is by no means strong, 
 and a lady with weak nerves and nine sons to 
 make a riot in her house is likely to know some- 
 thing about headache." 
 
 " A delicate father, a delicate mother, a swarm 
 of children, and a good income," observed 
 Herrick, summing up the facts of the case ; 
 u you'll make a good bill out of that house 
 £very year, Jem. You are a lucky fellow to 
 have caught that house." 
 
 " Very lucky," assented James Stapleton, 
 heartily ; " and I feel all the better pleased, 
 because I was so afraid that Lady Bertha would 
 have sent for Donkin." 
 
 ? " Pooh ! there was no fear of that. You are 
 the first doctor in Carlton Cross, and the rector 
 is morally bound to employ the first doctor." 
 
 Jem's simple heart was pleased with his 
 friend's praise, and his delight was visible in the 
 heightened colour of his broad face and in the 
 brightness of his brown eyes, as he answered —
 
 A Noble Woman. 37 
 
 " You are very kind, Herrick, to say so, and 
 think so ; but if I am the first doctor of the 
 place, Donkin is a very good second, and the 
 Godsalls might very reasonably have preferred 
 him to a younger man, who is not married. 
 Moreover, Donkin has some good patients, who 
 might have caught Canon GodsalPs ear before 
 he had learnt precisely who was who, and might 
 have prejudiced him in favour of my rival ; 
 that's what I was afraid of." 
 
 " And did it not strike you, Jem," inquired 
 Herrick, significantly, " that your friends could 
 do the same for you ?" 
 
 " What do you mean ?" inquired the surgeon, 
 with a note of sudden enlightenment in his 
 voice, rising from his chair as he spoke, and 
 taking a step towards Herrick's chair. 
 
 " Just this, Jem. My uncle and I knew 
 that the Morrisons and the Tuckers, and all that 
 sneaking lot, would be trying to push Donkin 
 upon the new rector ; and so my uncle — who is a 
 good fellow, mind you — was determined to take 
 the game out of their hands. As a county 
 magistrate, and chief of the borough, and all 
 that sort of thing, he wrote to Mr. Godsall, 
 offering him hospitality if he wished to visit 
 Carlton Cross before taking possession of the
 
 38 A Noble Woman. 
 
 rectory ; and ten days later, happening to be at 
 Altringham — it's of Altringham cathedral that 
 Mr. Godsall is a canon — he called on the rector, 
 and lnnched with him. Of course their talk 
 was all about Carlton Cross, and you were men- 
 tioned ; and before uncle Hercules took his 
 leave the canon had promised to send for you." 
 
 " By Jove !" ejaculated James Stapleton, with 
 a deeper roll in his sonorous voice, " it was very 
 kind of Mr. Kingsford to take so much trouble 
 for me ; and it was just like you, Herrick, to 
 talk to him, and show him how he might do me 
 a service." 
 
 " My dear Jem, you make too much of a 
 trifle," answered Herrick, well pleased at the 
 effect of his communication. " My uncle and I 
 are always glad to help you. In a certain way, 
 you know, we are cousins, for your grandfather 
 took my great-grandmother for a second wife ; 
 and my uncle always* talks of you as if you were 
 one of the Kingsford family. He and your 
 father were fast friends ; and you and I are fast 
 friends." 
 
 " And we'll remain so, old boy," interposed 
 James Stapleton, warmly. 
 
 " The thing that shall come between us, and 
 make us enemies, will be something out of the
 
 A Noble Woman. 39 
 
 common way; for Jem, you're a fine fellow, a 
 right good fellow, and we are all proud of you/' 
 observed Herrick Kingsford, still sitting stiffly 
 in his arm-chair; and as he made this confession 
 of pride he waved his right hand with an air 
 which implied that since Herrick Kingsford and 
 his uncle were proud of James Stapleton, society 
 in all its grades and ramifications could not do 
 otherwise than participate in their pride. 
 
 Had there been a single grain of captiousness 
 in James Stapleton' s temper ; had there been 
 the slightest alloy of subserviency in his simple 
 nature, he would have resented, or at least he 
 would have felt the tone of patronage with which 
 he had been commended; but the sterling 
 honesty of a disposition alike pure of sycophancy 
 and artifice, combined with his singular modesty 
 and pure amiability to render him insensible to 
 insolence that would have provoked the anger 
 of a sneak. It was the habit of his loyal 
 heart to respect all persons, and exaggerate 
 their good qualities, whilst he altogether 
 neglected to give a thought to his own; 
 and in the indulgence of this habit he took a 
 highly romantic and false view of his familiar 
 friend Herrick, attributing to him sagacity, 
 strength of purpose, kindliness, generosity, and
 
 40 A Noble Woman. 
 
 other characteristics for which, to use the 
 language of extreme moderation, he was not 
 more remarkable than most prosperous and self- 
 confident young men. Hence it is no matter 
 for surprise that instead of firing with indigna- 
 tion at his friend's air of superiority and 
 condescension, he brightened with triumph on 
 hearing the praise, and blushing from the roots 
 of his big ears to the top of his broad forehead, 
 covered his agitation with a nervous laugh as 
 he observed — 
 
 " You think too well of me, Herrick ; you do 
 indeed, my dear Herrick. But it is very agree- 
 able to know you like me."
 
 A Noble Woman. 41 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Country Doctor. 
 
 recover his equanimity after this out- 
 burst of emotion, the surgeon walked 
 twice round the consulting-room, past 
 the book-shelves and cases of antiquated instru- 
 ments, the stack of worm-eaten diaries, and the 
 cabinet of scientific curiosities ; and having 
 worked off his agitation by this bodily exercise, 
 he took from the floor, to which it had fallen, a 
 loose black surtout, and drew it over his ample 
 figure, in lieu of the walking-coat which he had 
 put aside at an earlier period of the evening, and 
 placed beyond the reach of the fumes of Herrick's 
 cigar. 
 
 Although no violent intolerance prevailed in 
 Carlton Cross on questions pertaining to tobacco, 
 the more refined families of the borough, no less 
 than the Border gentry, were of opinion that 
 smoking was an enjoyment in which clergymen 
 and doctors had no right to indulge ; since, on 
 the one hand, members of the medical profession
 
 42 A Noble Woman. 
 
 were bound alike by interest and right feeling to 
 do nothing that should render them personally 
 unacceptable in the drawing-rooms of fastidious 
 ladies ; and on the other, the clerical order could 
 not, without prejudice to their sacred character 
 and influence, participate in pleasures which im- 
 parted to their garments a savour likely to offend 
 the nostrils of weak brethren. Nor were the 
 Border gentry any the more disposed to laxity of 
 tone concerning this moral canon, as far as it 
 affected the clergy, because it was glaringly in- 
 consistent with the liberality of a neighbourhood 
 which in some matters gave unusual licence to 
 its appointed teachers of religion, permitting 
 them to play short whist or unlimited loo, en- 
 couraging them to drink port wine to any degree 
 of exhilaration short of flagrant indecorum, and 
 regarding with kindly toleration, if not open 
 sympathy, the devotion which many of their 
 wealthy and well-descended clergy manifested to 
 the sports of the field. So far as this social 
 ordinance against tobacco affected himself and 
 other followers of medicine, James Stapleton 
 scrupulously and conscientiously observed and 
 approved it, even as his docile and modest nature 
 observed and approved all those rules which 
 society had wisely provided for his guidance and
 
 A Noble Woman. 43 
 
 its own well-being. Herrick was the only person 
 whom he allowed to smoke within his walls ; and 
 though, out of respect to their singularly confi- 
 dential intimacy he made this large concession 
 to his friend's weakness, the cautious and very 
 respectable surgeon took careful measures that 
 his good nature should be productive of the 
 smallest possible amount of inconvenience and 
 evil consequence. 
 
 When James Stapleton resumed his seat at the 
 open window, under the leaves of his vine and 
 fig-tree, Herrick Kingsford — whose thoughts had 
 run from his part in procuring the surgeon a 
 new patient to the general prosperity of the 
 doctor's practice — renewed the conversation by 
 saying — 
 
 11 Anyhow, Jem, you've been flourishing during 
 these last ten years. There are not many doctors 
 in this part of the world who are doing better 
 than you. Your bank- account, you scoundrel — 
 ah ! I know about that — is a fat one in compari- 
 son witli many accounts which I know about 
 also, and which are placed at Kingsford's by men 
 who think themselves something better than most 
 of their neighbours." 
 
 " I am doing well/' assented James Stapleton 
 — "but I work hard — sometimes very hard.
 
 44 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Last year I netted over a thousand pounds, and 
 so far as this year has run out I am justified in 
 saying that I have made a great spring since the 
 opening of last January. This year's income 
 promises to be better than last by three hundred 
 pounds, at least." 
 
 " Go on, go on — and you'll be a rich man ; 
 but not richer than you deserve/' 
 
 " I don't want to be rich ; that's not my am- 
 bition, Herrick. I don't want to get the upper- 
 hand of my neighbours ; — no, that's not my 
 ambition. I talk to you about my good fortune 
 because I talk to you about everything, as a man 
 should speak with an old friend ; but if I thought 
 that you were inclined to set me down from what I 
 said just now as bragging about my good fortune, 
 you'd never hear me allude to it again, — there. 
 Rather than swell out and become purse-proud, 
 I'd shrivel and be glad to mix drugs for Donkin. 
 There's only one kind of pride that makes me 
 sick at seeing it, and that's purse pride. So 
 don't think I'm setting my heart on riches." 
 
 " I don't wrong you, my boy. But there 
 must be people of all kinds of taste in this world ; 
 and for my own part I must own that, if I could 
 see my way to making a hundred thousand 
 pounds in the next twenty years, I would take
 
 A Noble Woman. 45 
 
 the road very promptly. But then I am a 
 banker, and a banker's nephew, and therefore it 
 is only natural in me to care about money. To 
 handle money is my business ; to make it is my 
 duty. To grow rich is an affair of honour and 
 art with me ; and mark my words, James Staple- 
 ton, one of these days I'll be as rich as any man 
 in these parts/' 
 
 Had James Stapleton been a shrewd discerner 
 of character, he would have learnt from the tone 
 of the speaker's voice, no less than from the 
 conspicuous absence of unalterable resolve from 
 the speaker's face, that this declaration of vulgar 
 ambition came from the boastfulness of a vain, 
 rather than from the deliberate purpose of a 
 determined nature. But the surgeon, being 
 neither a keen student nor severe censor of his 
 companions, was content with the obvious mean- 
 ing of Herrick's words ; and instead of feeling 
 any inclination to quarrel with him for the 
 meanness of his ambition, he was well pleased 
 to admire in his friend that which he would have 
 scorned in himself. 
 
 " A rich man is what you will be and ought 
 to be — and very naturally wish to be — of course 
 it is," rolled the deep thunder of James Staple- 
 ton's jolly voice. " Your father meant you, your
 
 46 A Noble Woman. 
 
 uncle means you to be a rich man ; and if you 
 had not clearly and strongly determined to carry 
 out their wishes, you would be wanting in duty 
 to them, and what's more, in affection to your 
 brothers and sister, who look to you to keep up 
 the family dignity for them, and whose children 
 will of course come to you, as their powerful 
 uncle, for countenance and assistance years 
 hence. You are the head of a family, and as 
 such, are bound to make a great fortune, for 
 others rather than yourself. And unless I am 
 mistaken, Herrick, before many years have passed 
 you'll hold up your head at Coote Hall, and 
 bring the proudest families of the Border about 
 you. Why shouldn't you ? The Kingsford blood 
 is as good as any in the three shires ; your uncle 
 and your poor dear father have often told me 
 so. And though I say it to your face/' con- 
 tinued James Stapleton in an enthusiasm of ad- 
 miration for his familiar friend, " the whole 
 Border can't show a better looking gentleman, 
 or a better friend, or a more telling speaker at 
 a public meeting than Herrick Kingsford of 
 Carlton Cross. Of course you'll be a rich man. 
 If you don't make yourself one of the first 
 squires in these parts, haug me if you wont be 
 guilty of downright inhumanity to your family
 
 A Noble Woman. 47 
 
 and treason to your ancestors. But my game — 
 aha ! my game — will be a much more modest 
 affair." 
 
 " What will content you V inquired Herrick, 
 to whom the surgeon's sincere and extravagant 
 praise was far sweeter than any adulation, albeit 
 Herrick Kingsford could enjoy flattery in default 
 of honest commendation, and in his greed of 
 approbation preserved a keen appetite for the 
 compliments of impudent servility. 
 
 " To be just what my fathers have been for 
 six generations in this town — nothing more, 
 nothiDg less." 
 
 " Well, Jem, you'll be that ; and if I say that 
 you are made for something better, it is not 
 because I underrate their respectability, or the 
 importance of a doctor's work." 
 
 " I want nothing better," rejoined James 
 Stapleton, earnestly, but without a sign of anger 
 or any other kind of intemperance. " Just now 
 I said that I had not time to be proud about 
 anything j but in a happy, jolly, sentimental 
 fashion I am proud of my professional pedigree. 
 You say I ought to be proud of my mother 
 because she's a Howlett; but though I could 
 kiss the ground she walks on, it is scarcely once 
 in a twelvemonth that 1 remember of my accord
 
 48 A Noble Woman. 
 
 that she was a Howlett. But there is a satis- 
 faction — that stirs my heart and warms it like 
 good wine — in thinking that we Stapletons have 
 been doctors here ever since Charles the First's 
 time. When I look at the gravestones of the six 
 doctors in the cloisters of our old church yonder, 
 father and son, and father and son, and father and 
 son, ending with my dear father, who was a rare 
 man, it is as good as reading a poem to imagine 
 all the scenes of domestic joy and sorrow, suf- 
 fering and heroism, in which they played the 
 same parts amongst the men and women whose 
 descendants are the men and women whom 
 I do my best to comfort in sickness and 
 encourage in dejection. As I drive about the 
 country, along windy uplands, or over purple 
 moors, through rain or sleet or cheery sunshine, 
 it makes me feel the honour of my business to 
 reflect — how, for two hundred years and more, we 
 Stapletons have been in the thick of the fight 
 whenever and wherever disease has broken out 
 in these parts ; how the simple folk of the Border 
 villages, when fever has been raging in their 
 dwellings, have listened for our wheels or the 
 beat of our horses' feet, and hailed us, as we 
 came into their streets with cries of joy, as 
 though we were saviours able to pluck them from
 
 A Noble Woman. 49 
 
 the jaws of death ! And when I cross the 
 threshold of a big county house, and am brought 
 face to face with grand people who don't dis- 
 tinguish much between a country apothecary and 
 a gamekeeper, it puts pluck into my heart and 
 nerve into my hand to think — ' Ah ! my Lord 
 So-and-so, I am the doctor, and know more 
 about the secrets of your house than you know 
 yourself; and if it had not been for my father, 
 or grandfather, or great-grandfather, as the case 
 may be, you'd never have come into the world 
 to own these broad acres and this grand hall, 
 and be a leading man in the three counties/ It 
 is when I look at my business in this way that 
 I wouldn't exchange lots with any man, but feel 
 that it will be quite glory enough for me when I 
 come to my deathbed to be able to say that 
 I have done my duty in the same line of labour, 
 as zealously if not as well, as my fore- 
 fathers. You see, Herrick, my lad, there's a 
 romantic side to a country apothecary's business." 
 
 " See it ? I should think I do, Jem. You 
 talk as if I looked down upon it. Why, think 
 and tell me, haven't I often said that I should 
 like to be your partner, if the life was only some- 
 thing less rough ?" 
 
 " Something less rough?" quickly rejoined 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 A Noble Woman. 
 
 James Stapleton, the deep sonorous melody of 
 his singular voice rolling now like organ music, 
 now like drums beating to battle. " Why, the 
 roughness is the beauty of it, sir ! In the 
 summer, when the sun doctors the poor folk, and 
 during harvest, when farm people haven't time 
 to be ill, my life is mere holiday, and no fit oc- 
 cupation for an able-bodied man. I declare at 
 such times I grow quite ashamed of myself as I 
 slip about the Border in the saddle, spinning out 
 the little I have to do, and vainly trying to per- 
 suade myself that 1 am not an idler. It's in the 
 rough seasons, when the rough work comes, that 
 I am happiest. And sometimes it is the roughest 
 of rough — you're right in thinking it so. I am 
 not bragging about myself, for I have a rare 
 good fellow for an assistant, and four nags of the 
 right sort, and whatever I do they do, whatever 
 I endure they endure, and what's more, they like 
 it just as much as I do. My assistant has an 
 eye and a tooth for disease. Believe me, that 
 man hunts an epidemic as a dog hunts a rat. 
 He knows what rough work is if any man does. 
 If you were my assistant for the six winter 
 months you would not like the life at first; but 
 you would soon fit yourself to it. People who 
 aren't in the run, don't know, can't imagine
 
 A Noble Woman. 51 
 
 what the sport is. ' How hard it is, doctor, that 
 you must leave us before you've had so much as a 
 piece of fish/ ladies say to me when I am called 
 away from a dinner-party. But it isn't hard at 
 all. It's far better than six courses and a bottle 
 of '15 to know that the world can't get on with- 
 out laying it into you hard and sharp. You feel 
 you're of some use in the world when you're 
 pulled in six different directions to six different 
 cases, lying wide apart, with plenty of hailstorm 
 and thunder between them. It puts the soldier 
 into you, and brings the soldier out of you, to be 
 up night after night, knowing that you haven't 
 slept out of your boots for ten days, and feeling 
 sure that ten days more must pass before you'll 
 spend eight hours off in your own feather-bed. 
 It puts the soldier into you to turn out of your 
 warm blankets somewhere in the small hours of 
 a winter's morning in answer to a ring at your 
 night-bell, and make your way for eight miles in 
 the teeth of a north-east wind over heath and 
 common, when it is so dark that you can't see 
 your own fingers, and have no choice but to give 
 your horse his head, and put your trust in Provi- 
 dence and the animal's eyesight. Ay, and it 
 puts the soldier into you to come home after a 
 long round in a March thaw, hungry as a hunter, 
 
 e 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 A Noble Woman. 
 
 and licking yonr lips over anticipations of a hot 
 dinner, and before you've entered yonr house to 
 be met with a notice that yon must start again 
 for a house just two miles beyond the farthest 
 point from which you've just come on your 
 homeward journey ; in which case there is 
 nothing for it but to bolt your provender like a 
 beast of prey, write out your prescriptions for 
 your dispenser, change your wet coat for a damp 
 one, and turn out once more, with a fresh horse 
 and your best gig-lamps. That's the kind of 
 time, my lad, when you see the worst side of 
 your own temper, and learn the use of a light 
 sulky, a double-caped overcoat, and nag that can 
 trot sixteen miles an hour/' 
 
 " That's the game !" exclaimed Herrick, in a 
 voice that accorded with his friend's enthusiasm ; 
 " and a man must be made of sound stuff to play 
 it out." After a pause, the lawyer added, " Ah, 
 you doctors ought to be well paid." 
 
 At which compliment James Stapleton's drums 
 beat off again — " But that's what we ain't. 
 Sometimes, no doubt, we get good wages, and 
 taking the year through we manage to fare as 
 well as our neighbours ; but on occasions the pay 
 is wretched bad — ay, far worse than you can sup- 
 pose. Many a day the girls, looking out of their
 
 A Noble Woman. 53 
 
 windows in the High-street in the morning, say, 
 ' There's the doctor off into the country/ and 
 eight hours after, when they see me return, they 
 think to themselves, ' Here he is back again : he 
 has been out all day. What a fortune he is 
 making !' Bless me ! perhaps six out of the 
 eight hours have been spent by the bedside of a 
 pauper's wife, who has had such a cruel hard 
 and perilous labour, that I couldn't in conscience 
 leave her to my assistant, knowing that a gentle- 
 man's wife in like trouble would never speak to 
 me again if I didn't keep by her side till it was 
 all over. Six hours in a workman's stuffy 
 chamber, the sweat rolling down your face as if 
 you were a nigger in a sugar factory, and death 
 all the time grinning at you over the grimy cover 
 of the poor creature's hard mattress, and all the 
 payment — ten shillings and sixpence from the 
 union ! And there's worse paid work than that 
 for me — work done for honest struggling mortals : 
 so poor that they can barely keep the wolf from 
 the door, and yet so proud that they'd die of 
 starvation rather than fall upon the parish. 
 They're the sort of folk for whom I feel, f There, 
 I'll do my best, and if I ever press you for a six- 
 pence of your narrow means, may I turn a maniac 
 and die eatiug my own flesh !' But then the man
 
 54 A Noble Woman. 
 
 who does his duty by the poor gets something 
 better than money for his wages. The reward 
 comes when he sees the women of the villages 
 run out of their cottages at the noise of his 
 wheels, to curtsey and stare after him with grate- 
 ful eyes ; when he hears the children raise a cheer 
 at the school- house for the doctor who pulled 
 them out of the bad fever; when the men in 
 white smocks smile at him from their teeth to 
 their eyelids, as they put their horny hands to 
 their forelocks. And I am inclined to think, 
 Herrick, that not the least part of his reward 
 comes when the grateful creatures trudge from 
 hamlet and glen to see him lowered to his last 
 resting-place, and to mutter simple prayers and 
 rude blessings over his open grave." 
 
 " As they did, old boy, something less than 
 twelve years since," observed Herrick Kingsford, 
 with genuine emotion. 
 
 " Yes," assented James Stapleton, in the lowest 
 and mellowest roll of his deep voice, " as they 
 did then. Ah, time flies fast ! A few more 
 months, and my dear father will have been dead 
 twelve years." 
 
 A pause, during which James Stapleton's ex- 
 citement partially subsided. 
 
 " So you see," he remarked, in a tone that
 
 A Noble Woman. 55 
 
 seemed to apologize for the egotism and warmth 
 of his previous utterances, " I am exactly cut out 
 for my place here, and quite content to fill it. 
 If I haven't yet got everything I desire, I am in 
 a fair way to get it." 
 
 " Every wish of your heart, Master Jem, wont 
 be gratified till you've a wife and a brood of 
 comely children in this house, which, by the 
 way, is big enough for a large family." 
 
 It was a simple speech, made without any 
 hidden design ; but it struck a delicate chord of 
 James Stapleton's heart, creating in his breast a 
 sudden disturbance that was visible in his 
 heightened colour and the electric brilliance of 
 his burning eyes. 
 
 Seeing this disturbance, Herrick Kingsford 
 laughed aloud, partly in pleasure at having unin- 
 tentionally made so good a hit, and partly through 
 mischievous delight at his friend's confusion. 
 
 " Jem, Jem ! how you're blushing ! and there's 
 your hand beginning to shake," cried Herrick, 
 merrily. te I thought I knew all about you, and 
 I have had you under my eye for a long time 
 past ; but you're even further gone than I sup- 
 posed." 
 
 " Then you know all about it ?" exclaimed 
 James Stapleton, in his simplicity revealing a
 
 56 A Noble Woman. 
 
 secret which he had carefully nursed in his own 
 breast for many a month — ay, for many a year, 
 and which three minutes earlier Herrick had not 
 even so much as suspected. 
 
 " It is not my business to know anything on 
 such a subject till you see fit to take me into your 
 confidence. I have watched you, and come to my 
 own conclusions, but I have never hinted them to 
 man or woman ; and more than once I have said 
 to myself, ' Until Jem makes a clean breast of it 
 to me, Fll not make a sign that after all he has 
 not much to communicate/ " replied Herrick, 
 persisting in a misrepresentation which he had 
 made partly at the instigation of a vain desire 
 to astonish his friend, and partly because at the 
 moment when his curiosity was first aroused by 
 James Stapleton's agitation, he saw that the best 
 way to bring the surgeon to a full confession 
 was to create in him an impression that he had 
 just nothing to reveal. Hence vanity and cun- 
 ning — two qualities that were important elements 
 in his moral constitution — conspired to render 
 Herrick guilty of misstatements for which he was 
 more than adequately punished ere many days 
 had passed. 
 
 " But," he added, with a dexterous assumption 
 of delicacy, pique, and unwillingness to pursue a
 
 A Noble Woman. 57 
 
 subject on which his friend was pleased to main- 
 tain a reserve, " don't tell me more than you 
 wish. If you think it best to be cautious towards 
 me, pray be so. I am not the man to force you 
 into fuller confidence in me." 
 
 In an instant these cleverly administered 
 pricks had the desired effect on the surgeon's 
 generous and affectionate nature. 
 
 Rising quickly from his chair, he shut the 
 window and pulled down the blind. Having 
 thus secured a greater degree of privacy to the 
 consulting-room, he opened the door, and, by a 
 quick survey of the hall and passages, satisfied 
 himself that neither his assistant nor his servants 
 were within hearing. These measures having 
 been taken against eavesdroppers and listeners, 
 James Stapleton slipped the bolt of the door, and 
 then hastily drew to his side Herrick Kingsford, 
 who had left his seat and watched his friend's 
 precautionary operations with lively amusement. 
 
 " He's in love ; that he admits. Who is she, 
 I wonder?" was the thought that occupied 
 Herrick's mind, as he stood in the middle of the 
 consulting-room, feeling painfully minute by the 
 side of the tall surgeon, who grasped him with 
 convulsive hands, and looked down into his face 
 with a strange light in his bright brown eyes.
 
 58 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " You are right, Herrick ; I am in love, and 
 have been in love for many a day, though I have 
 not dared to admit as much to you before to- 
 night, or even to myself, until quite lately. It's 
 only recently that I have been in a position to 
 marry, or even to think about it ; and so I have 
 put a curb on my imagination, and haven't 
 allowed myself to acknowledge to myself how 
 completely I am at her mercy. I felt myself 
 bound in honour not to make her an offer until 
 I had freed myself from debt, and done all I was 
 bound to do for my own family. But now 
 there's no reason why I should put a restraint* on 
 myself any longer ; and ere many more days have 
 passed I mean to say to Bessie Clayton " 
 
 As the name passed James Stapleton's lips 
 Herrick suddenly started backwards a full foot's 
 space, and gave a quick, sharp cry, that was not 
 less expressive of astonishment than of pain. 
 Had not James Stapleton been altogether en- 
 grossed by his own excitement and the contem- 
 plation of his own sentimental interest, he could 
 not have failed to observe the singular and sus- 
 picious effect of his communication on Herrick. 
 At least he would have seen that Herrick had 
 been guilty of artifice in taking credit to himself 
 for having detected the secret which, now that it
 
 A Noble Woman. 59 
 
 was put in words, caused him such manifest sur- 
 prise and disturbance. But James Stapleton 
 was in a frame of mind that disqualified him for 
 taking accurate observation of the world around 
 him; and instead of being struck by Herrick's 
 conduct, he neither noticed his recoil nor heard 
 his ejaculation. 
 
 When James Stapleton had completed his 
 avowal, he added after a pause — 
 
 " So you suspected my secret ? You discovered 
 it — did you, Herrick ?" 
 
 " Yes," gasped Herrick, dropping into a chair, 
 and striving to recover his self-possession whilst 
 he repeated the falsehood into which he had been 
 betrayed by vanity and cunning — a falsehood of 
 which he bitterly repented when, after the lapse 
 of a few days, he reflected on the occurrences of 
 the evening. " The first thing that made me 
 think how matters were going was your habit of 
 looking at Miss Clayton in church/'' 
 
 James Stapleton inquired with a laugh how 
 long a time had elapsed since Herrick had first 
 noticed this suspicious habit; and on Herrick 
 answering that full two years had passed since 
 his first observation of the sentimental gaze, 
 honest James Stapleton laughed jollily, pro- 
 claimed Herrick a " monstrous 'cute fellow/'' and
 
 60 A Noble Woman. 
 
 thanked his stars that Carlton Cross contained 
 only one snch lynx-eyed observer. 
 
 And whilst James Stapleton's mellow laughter 
 rolled from wall to ceiling, Herrick became calm 
 again, and lost the pallor which seized his face at 
 the utterance of Bessie Clayton's name.
 
 A Noble Woman. 61 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Wherein Herrick ascertains the State of the Case. 
 
 INCE you knew my story before I told 
 it to you, and consequently are not 
 overcome with surprise at my an- 
 nouncement/' said James Stapleton, resuming 
 the conversation when he had taken a chair by 
 Herrick's side, " you can give me your cool, dis- 
 passionate judgment on my choice/'' 
 
 "My dear boy, it is needless to say I con- 
 gratulate you," returned Herrick, with an ap- 
 pearance of cordial sympathy and satisfaction. 
 
 "Nay, nay," interposed James Stapleton 
 quickly, a shudder running through his body 
 and causing his voice to quaver; "not so fast, 
 Herrick. It's ill for a man to sing a song of 
 triumph till he has taken off his harness, or to 
 be hailed victor before he has won the battle. 
 If you congratulate me now your words will 
 seem ominous of disaster. Wait for a few days, 
 and then if Bessie will have me I'll thank you 
 for making me blush with kind speeches."
 
 62 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " I do not congratulate you on her choice, but 
 on your own/' replied Herrick, with an outward 
 placidity that was the result of strong internal 
 effort. " If I saw you fixing your affections on a 
 girl who would be sure to make your life wretched 
 after she had been married to you, I should 
 experience such acute concern that I should 
 most likely be foolish enough to spoil our friend- 
 ship by expostulating with you on your folly. 
 Surely then it is only reasonable that I should 
 be glad and speak words of encouragement when 
 I know that you are bent on winning such a 
 woman as Miss Clayton. A happy marriage is 
 the brightest success that man can achieve, and 
 the first step to a happy marriage is the wise 
 selection of a sweetheart. I congratulate you 
 on having made that important step. Anyhow 
 you have started right." 
 
 Though James Stapleton had laughed with his 
 customary heartiness over his friend's wonderful 
 sagacity in detecting the secret which had in fact 
 been successfully guarded from his eyes, his 
 boisterous merriment did not relieve him of the 
 agitation consequent on the effort with which he 
 had revealed the hope of his heart. In his 
 ordinary state of mind he would not have failed 
 to detect a note of constraint in the voice, an
 
 A Noble Woman. 63 
 
 air of suspicious watchfulness in the manner, an 
 indication of insincerity in the cumbrous and 
 verbose structure of Herrick's last speech. But 
 so completely had egotistic excitement gained for 
 the time a mastery over all his faculties that he 
 had neither inclination nor power to be critical 
 with respect to his friend's language and de- 
 meanour. 
 
 " I am glad you think so. Of course on such 
 a matter I am not without proper confidence in 
 my own judgment; but still, Herrick, it is 
 pleasant to hear one's judgment confirmed. I 
 must say it would have surprised me if you 
 had not thought highly of my choice ; for, 
 Herrick — " and here James Stapleton's voice 
 began once more to tremble with emotion, " she 
 is so lovely, so good, so rarely and unspeakably 
 rich in every womanly charm, that though I am 
 not without reasons for hoping the best, I can 
 scarcely believe that she will condescend to take 
 my love and — return it. I am such a huge, 
 awkward, clumsy brute, Herrick ; and she is so 
 gentle, and soft, and winsome ! It seems in- 
 credible that she'll not run away in a panic of 
 fright when I ask her outright to be my wife. 
 When I looked at myself last night in my toilet- 
 table glass — it's a beastly bad glass, mind you,
 
 64 A Noble Woman. 
 
 and makes every body look more or less grim 
 and heavy and detestable — I was really quite 
 scared at my own likeness. It seemed to me 
 that any brutal ogre of a fairy tale bent on 
 carrying a lovely princess off to his castle, was 
 a comely and modest fellow in comparison with 
 me and my design on Bessie Clayton. I am not 
 so vain a man, Herrick, as to desire good looks 
 for my own sake ; but for Bessie's sake, if she is 
 to be my wife, I do wish that I could make 
 myself a little better looking. I wish my hands 
 were just as white, and my face half as delicate 
 and comely as yours." 
 
 Whereat Herrick, with an almost natural 
 laugh, exclaimed, " I see you are thoroughly in 
 love. Just in proportion to the violence of their 
 passion men grow modest and dissatisfied with 
 themselves when they are in love. But take my 
 word for it, Jem, you're handsome enough to 
 win a lovely woman. If Miss Clayton should 
 refuse you, she wont do so because your face is 
 ugly. Don't turn to that glass, there — it is 
 worse than the one in your bedroom ; and don't 
 think any more about your personal appearance. 
 Since you have begun to be communicative, 
 extend your confidence, and tell me exactly how 
 matters stand between you and the lady."
 
 A Nohle Woman. 65 
 
 "That's more than I can do. So far as my 
 feelings are concerned, I can make an exact 
 statement of the case. But I cannot venture to 
 say what may be her wishes and intentions/'' 
 
 " You can't ? But just now you said you had 
 reasons for hoping for the best. What are your 
 grounds for hope ?" asked Herrick sharply, as 
 though he were cross-examining a witness. 
 
 Whereupon James Stapleton blushed and 
 answered evasively, " Surely my love is a suffi- 
 cient justification of its hope" 
 
 " I mean what encouragement has she given 
 you?" 
 
 " Encouragement \" cried the surgeon, with a 
 note of astonishment and displeasure in his voice. 
 " You don't imagine that Bessie Clayton would 
 encourage me or any other man ! It would be 
 impossible for her to do anything so unwomanly 
 and indelicate. She is not a coquette, or a flirt, 
 or anything but the simplest " 
 
 " What a marvellous fellow you are \" broke 
 in Herrick. " Yours must be a sanguine tem- 
 perament. She has never given you any en- 
 couragement, and yet you conceive yourself to 
 have grounds for hoping the best." 
 
 " She has never given me any encouragement 
 in the sense in which you use the word," ex- 
 VOL. i. f
 
 66 A Noble Woman. 
 
 plained James Stapleton, blushing again, and 
 exhibiting ludicrous signs of embarrassment ; 
 " but she has said and done things that are very- 
 encouraging. You understand me V 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 " I am a constant visitor at her uncle's house. 
 Scarcely a day passes that does not see me cross 
 Mr. Kilderbee's threshold. Sometimes I am in 
 and out of his place two or three times a day. 
 And I notice — mind, Herrick, I don't venture to 
 suggest that Bessie Clayton has compromised 
 herself in any way ; I confine myself strictly to 
 what I notice, without hinting that she has any 
 purpose in what I notice. Well, then, I ob- 
 serve — or rather, I think I observe — that her face 
 always brightens when I come upon her, and that 
 she invariably seems pleased to see me. Now 
 that's encouraging." 
 
 « Very." 
 
 " Then again, years since, when I first set up 
 in practice and she was only a child — not more 
 than fourteen to my twenty-two — I fell into the 
 habit of calling her by her Christian name, and 
 she has never intimated that she wished me to 
 adopt a less familiar style of addressing her. 
 Once — some twelve months since — more from 
 accident than design, I called her Miss Clayton
 
 A Noble Woman. 67 
 
 when speaking to her, and a look of pain and 
 surprise crossed her face as she inquired if I had 
 displeased her in any way. And then she asked 
 me in her uncle's presence never to give up my 
 old way of calling her Bessie. And that's very 
 encouraging." 
 
 " No doubt ! Does she in return call you 
 James ?" 
 
 " Don't make a fool of yourself, Herrick." 
 
 " Well, she will call you James sooner or 
 later I trust." 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 " Then I may understand that you are on 
 terms of close intercourse and affectionate confi- 
 dence with her, but that your familiarity is 
 something less tender and unreserved than the 
 familiarity of lovers." 
 
 " In point of fact we are like brother and 
 sister, only that she does not address me by 
 my Christian name, and that while I behave like 
 her brother I feel like her lover." 
 
 " She knows your secret ?" 
 
 "I have tried to make her know it, as far as 
 I thought right and prudent. I have never 
 spoken to her outright, but she must see my 
 game; and though of course she is incapable of 
 doing anything to draw me on, as an ordinary 
 
 f 2
 
 68 A Noble Woman. 
 
 girl might, she is just as trustful to me as ever, 
 and quite as much my sister as ever. Nearly 
 every other night I drop in at Mr. Kilderbee's 
 house to play a rubber of cribbage with the old 
 gentleman, or for a few hits of backgammon ; 
 but last week I was so fully occupied that three 
 nights passed without a game. I could not even 
 find time to run into Green Villa for five 
 minutes' chat. Well, when I at length made 
 my appearance with an apology on my lips, 
 before I could get out a word of explana- 
 tion Bessie took me to task for my remiss- 
 ness, and frankly told me that her evenings, 
 as well as her uncle's, went all the pleasanter 
 for my visits. Now that again is very en- 
 couraging." 
 
 " Will you meet with any opposition from the 
 old man ?" 
 
 " Why should I V 
 
 " Humph ! He is a cross-grained, crotchety, 
 cantankerous old fellow, popular enough with the 
 dissenters and radicals, because he is rich and 
 clever enough to show them the best way of 
 playing their cards. Of late years his influence 
 has grown and his standing has improved, and 
 in a certain way he is looked up to by a certain 
 set; but there was a time, you know, James,
 
 A Noble Woman. 69 
 
 when old Kilderbee's name didn't stand very high 
 in this part of the world." 
 
 " Pooh ! he is your political opponent and the 
 steady antagonist of your uncle, so you can't 
 bring yourself to render him justice/' James 
 Stapleton answered, stoutly. " He is sometimes 
 violent oat of doors, and bitterly sarcastic ; but 
 he is a fine-natured old gentleman, and to those 
 for whom he takes a fancy he is as gentle as a 
 woman and as munificent as a prince. If you 
 knew him intimately you would not think him a 
 curmudgeon." 
 
 " What a dutiful nephew you'll prove to the 
 old man !" rejoined Herri ck, with a light laugh 
 and a momentary sneer, that would have ruffled 
 •James Stapleton's temper had he been less im- 
 perturbably good natured. 
 
 " I will, if he will let me," was the surgeon's 
 simple answer. " And in the meantime I know 
 that I owe him a deep debt of gratitude, and if 
 he should refuse to give me his niece, I would 
 not change my tone with regard to him ; but — 
 but " 
 
 " Would take her without his leave ?" 
 
 " Not during his life. My debt to Mr. Kil- 
 derbee is no ordinary obligation." 
 
 " No doubt ; he has been of great service to
 
 70 A Noble Woman. 
 
 you. He has brought you many a good patient, 
 and he lent you money at a time when you 
 greatly needed such assistance and could not 
 have commanded it in the market. I see all 
 that. Indeed, Jem, if you were not the sort of 
 fellow who could work your way to prosperity 
 under any circumstances, I should say that in a 
 certain sense the old man had been the making 
 of you." 
 
 " He did far more for me," returned James 
 Stapleton, raising his voice and speaking with 
 generous fervour; "he gave me the prosperity 
 which I enjoy, and, much more, — he preserved my 
 father's honour and saved the good name and 
 happiness of my family ! We were worse off 
 than even you know or imagine, Herrick, when 
 my dear father died of a malady that would have 
 ended fatally under any circumstances, but was 
 quickened in its course by cruel anxiety for his 
 wife and children. He had never been a prudent 
 or saving man : he was hospitable, and free with 
 his money abroad as well as at home ; and then 
 those wretched speculations at East Winstead 
 ruined his fortune and gave him his death-blow. 
 There was a hideous state of things : a widow 
 and five children left worse than penniless, credi- 
 tors in the borough for whom my father's estate
 
 A Noble Woman. 71 
 
 would not yield half-a-crown in the pound, I, 
 the eldest of the five children, still only a 
 medical student, without a diploma entitling me 
 to practise my profession. Ruin stared us in 
 the face, and in order that no one might say we 
 did not do our utmost for the creditors, I had 
 already begun to look for a successor to the 
 practice which had been ours for six generations. 
 It was then, while my father still lay dead in this 
 house, that your ' cross-grained, crotchety, can- 
 tankerous old man' came to us. He wouldn't 
 let us sell the practice, or make a composition 
 with our creditors, or change in any way 
 our mode of living. He gave me the money 
 to pay my father's debts in full, he ar- 
 ranged my father's funeral on a scale of per- 
 haps improper ostentation and insisted on defray- 
 ing its cost, and lastly, he gave me a thousand 
 pounds, saying, ' There, boy, tell your mother to 
 make herself easy about money, and that she can 
 have as much more as she wants. Let an assis- 
 tant keep the practice together as he best can 
 for the next six months, and then, as soon as you 
 are qualified, do you come down and settle here. 
 Of course a good many of the patients will leave, 
 and at first you'll be thought a mere boy ; but 
 you'll have the Stapleton name to draw your
 
 72 A Noble Woman. 
 
 father's patients back to you — and what's more, 
 they'll soon find out that you are made of true 
 Stapleton stuff/ " 
 
 At this point James Stapleton paused to draw 
 breath j but without any needless delay he re- 
 sumed his story — 
 
 " They were his words, and they were deuced 
 complimentary words — too flattering, of course, 
 to me, but meant most kindly. His counsel was 
 no less sound than his help was generous. As 
 soon as 1 was c qualified' I invited my father's 
 old patients to rally round me. Of course the 
 practice had greatly diminished in the interval 
 between my father's death and my return. All 
 the appointments had gone : Trembleby had got 
 1 the parishes •/ the trustees of the Magpie 
 Charity had elected Donkin as my father's suc- 
 cessor ; and some of the old county families had 
 sent for Donkin. I came down here, Herrick, 
 with rather a faint heart. I could not persuade 
 myself that I could get the confidence of people 
 who could remember me a mischievous school- 
 boy; but there was no other choice. If there 
 had been any opening elsewhere by which I 
 could have hoped to win a sufficient income I 
 should have taken it ; but Carlton Cross was the 
 only place where I could hope to earn bread and
 
 A Noble Woman. 73 
 
 cheese for myself, and keep a house over my 
 mother's head. Well, I came, and notwithstand- 
 ing the cordial support which I received from 
 some of my friends from the very first (your 
 father and uncle amongst them), I can't account 
 for my success — I really can't account for it. 
 It has been so great that it astonishes me the 
 more I think about it. Mr. Kilderbee went 
 about amongst his friends and regularly pulled 
 them in this consulting-room. Then people 
 came to me who felt themselves under a debt of 
 gratitude to my father. As soon as Trembleby 
 died the practice recovered ' the parishes ;' and 
 though Donkin is still doctor to the Magpie 
 Charity I have no great fear that I shan't sooner 
 or later get that preferment. And then, how 
 we have prospered during these twelve years ! 
 Peter doing right well as a lawyer at Market 
 Leiston ; Lemuel already a partner in a flourishing 
 concern at Birmingham ; Jenny and Flo both 
 well married ; and all the pecuniary part of my 
 debt to Mr. Kilderbee paid off, with the excep- 
 tion of a sum which I shall place in his hands 
 on quarter-day." 
 
 " Then you've repaid him ?" 
 
 " I soon shall have repaid him, principal and 
 interest. Of course I could do no less than
 
 74 A Noble Woman, 
 
 regard his money as a loan, and pay it off as 
 soon as possible, though he wished me to accept 
 it as a gift. And when I shall have quite freed 
 myself from my incumbrances : that is, on quarter- 
 day — I shall say, ' Mr. Kilderbee, now that I 
 have repaid you all the money you lent me, I 
 feel myself in a position to ask you to give me 
 your niece ; that is, to let me do my best to 
 win her/ fi 
 
 "You are quite right there," interposed 
 Herrick, his eyes twinkling as he spoke, a in 
 determining to speak to the old man before you 
 make your offer to the young lady." 
 
 " No man of honour could think of doing 
 otherwise/'' replied James Stapleton in a tone 
 that gave Herrick an unpleasant sensation in the 
 left side of his chest. " I maintain that no man 
 can honourably bind a girl by a promise of mar- 
 riage until he has obtained express permission to 
 do so from her parents, or those who stand to 
 her in the place of parents. So far as this 
 matter is concerned, I regard Bessie as Mr. 
 Kilderbee's daughter; and I should not have 
 ventured to indicate in any way to Bessie 
 the interest I take in her if I had not good 
 reason for feeling sure that her uncle will say 
 ( yes' when I ask if I may make her an offer."
 
 A Noble Woman. 75 
 
 " You are quite confident on that point ?" 
 
 " As to his approval of my suit ? How can 
 I be otherwise than confident since he has given 
 me so many marks of his favour ?" 
 
 " You know something about human nature/' 
 returned Herrick, with a laugh. " In behalf of 
 those for whom we've done much we like to do 
 more ; and as you are certain to meet with no 
 refusal from him, it would be very foolish of you 
 not to pay him the compliment of a preliminary 
 communication — the more so as she is her uncle's 
 presumptive heiress." After a brief pause — 
 " She'll bring you a nice lot of money, Jem." 
 
 Something like an oath escaped James Staple- 
 ton's lips, and his entire body made a convulsive 
 movement ; after which expressions of uneasiness 
 and repugnance he exclaimed roughly — 
 
 " What are you thinking of, Herrick ? For 
 heaven's sake don't talk in that way. I do 
 assure you that such a thought has never crossed 
 my mind before, and that now you have put it 
 there, it'll very likely trouble me for years to 
 come. Pshaw ! you'd make me out a fortune- 
 hunter." And he added, as the other aspect of 
 the question brought relief to his conscience and 
 brightness to his face, " She has not a single 
 penny of her own; and though Mr. Kilderbee
 
 76 A Noble Woman. 
 
 was so generous to me, I am by no means certain 
 that lie is a rich man." 
 
 " I know that he can't have less than twenty- 
 thousand pounds," replied Herrick, with the 
 authoritative voice of a man speaking from special 
 knowledge. 
 
 " It doesn't follow that he will leave it to his 
 niece." 
 
 " It does follow that she'll have it at his 
 death, or that he is not such an exemplary old 
 boy as you make him out to be." 
 
 u I'll beg him to settle the whole on trustees 
 for her use, so that I can't touch a penny of it." 
 
 " You'd better not — perhaps he'll take you at 
 your word/' rejoined Herrick, with a grimace 
 that indicated how unpalatable such an arrange- 
 ment would be to him, if he were to marry a 
 fortune. 
 
 " Well, Herrick, — well, well !" observed James 
 Stapleton; and the tone in which he repeated 
 the monosyllable showed that he did not think at 
 all well of the turn into which the conversation 
 had drifted, or been forced. 
 
 To comply with his friend's humour, Herrick 
 ceased to regard the interesting topic from a 
 sordid point of view, and proceeded to bring up 
 fresh considerations by asking —
 
 A Noble Woman. 77 
 
 " What does Mrs. Stapleton say to your selec- 
 tion? Does she approve it?'' 
 
 " She does not know or even suspect it." 
 
 " Indeed \ n 
 
 " Having determined to keep my own counsel 
 till I should be in a position to avow my hopes 
 to Bessie, I have not mentioned the matter to 
 my mother. Indeed, you are the only mortal to 
 whom I have breathed a word on the subject/'' 
 
 " But you should speak to her, old boy," sug- 
 gested Herrick, lowering his voice, and speaking 
 with unusual softness and in his most conciliatory 
 tone, whilst he strained the privilege of familiar 
 friendship so far as to bring before the surgeon 
 his filial obligations to the mother whom he ad- 
 mired with all the enthusiasm of his loyal nature. 
 " You should speak to her before you make the 
 final stroke. You may not let her find it out 
 from any lips but your own — not even from Miss 
 Clayton's or Mr. Kilderbee's. She has a right 
 to your confidence, and she'd be very much hurt 
 if she should ever have reason to think that you 
 have treated her with distrust. You see, it is a 
 matter which so nearly concerns her, as the 
 present mistress of this house — where she has 
 been mistress for more than thirty years — that it 
 is especially incumbent on you to treat her
 
 78 A Noble Woman. 
 
 without any diminution of your habitual candour. 
 And I am the more certain on this point/'' con- 
 tinued Herrick, growing bolder as he saw from 
 the surgeon's face that his counsel gave no 
 offence — " as of course there are one or two con- 
 siderations that may incline her to wish that you 
 had made another selection." 
 
 " You can't think that she'll oppose me V 
 inquired James Stapleton, in his heart grateful 
 for the boldness with which Herrick had thus put 
 his hand on a delicate side of the question, which 
 had already caused him more uneasiness than he 
 had permitted himself to recognise. 
 
 " She wont oppose you, but you may perhaps 
 feel that she is dissatisfied ; and you are such a 
 good fellow, Jem, that her dissatisfaction will vex 
 you more than the positive opposition of many a 
 mother would vex an ordinary son under like 
 circumstances. Of course she wont altogether 
 like the thought of resigning her place here to a 
 new mistress." 
 
 " My marriage," interposed James Stapleton, 
 " would make no difference to her on that score, 
 for she would be mistress here all the same." 
 
 " No, no, Jem," returned Herrick, in an ex- 
 postulatory tone ; " not l all the same f at least 
 she wouldn't think it, and wont think it ( all the
 
 A Noble Woman. 79 
 
 same/ No doubt she has for years looked for- 
 ward to the time when she would be called upon 
 to resign the sole control of your establishment, 
 if not to retire from it altogether, on the entrance 
 of your bride ; but still, when the time comes 
 she'll naturally feel sore about the change, so far 
 as it affects herself; and her soreness wont be 
 diminished by certain circumstances, and — and — 
 but really, Jem, I am walking upon ground 
 where I have no right to place my feet." 
 
 " Go on ; don't stop, Herrick. I know what 
 you mean, and yet I should like to hear you say 
 it out fairly." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Herrick proceeded to put it 
 out fairly in the following manner : " You see, Jem, 
 as a Howlett of Wrentham, as a daughter of Arch- 
 deacon Howlett, she naturally feels very warmly 
 on questions of Church and State, and all that 
 kind of thing. Naturally, she is very antago- 
 nistic to dissenters as the enemies of the Estab- 
 lished Church ; and to radicals as the calumni- 
 ators and foes of all people who, by property, or 
 birth, or status, belong to the upper ranks of 
 society. Archdeacon Howlett was a very violent 
 politician, and he educated his children to despise 
 dissenters and radicals ; and there is no doubt 
 that your mother's mind was formed as he wished
 
 80 A Noble Woman. 
 
 it to be. Mind you, I approve of her views : 
 they are my own views ; what's more, they have 
 for generations been the views of my family. I 
 detest canting pogrums of every kind and de- 
 scription ; and I regard with positive disgust those 
 restless, bumptious, pragmatical fellows who, 
 though they belong to the veriest tag-rag-and- 
 bobtail of society, persist in meddling with politics 
 on the wrong side — that is to say, against the 
 cause of order and wise government. Now, it's 
 true that Miss Clayton is a Church of England 
 woman, and doubtless she resembles all other 
 right-minded ladies in having a strong attach- 
 ment to the Church and everything that supports 
 the Church. But her uncle is the leader of the 
 radical faction ; her uncle is a dissenter j and, 
 though we have rightly agreed to let bye-gones 
 be bye-gones, and not to judge him for the indis- 
 cretions of early years when party warfare ran 
 higher in these parts than it does now, there was 
 a time when Cornelius Kilderbee was so notorious 
 and troublesome a character that the Govern- 
 ment had thoughts of prosecuting him, and 
 making him an example to other malcontents. 
 All that happened before you and I were born ; 
 but your mother remembers it all, though out of 
 Christian kindliness, and also out of gratitude to
 
 A Noble Woman. 81 
 
 a man who had rendered you important services, 
 she may never make an allusion to it. Of course 
 she can't cordially like Cornelius Kilderbee, the 
 chief of those dissenters for whom she has a 
 lively aversion ; and of course she wont at first 
 relish the proposal for a marriage between her 
 son and the niece of a dissenting radical. Am I 
 right ?" 
 
 " She wont altogether like it ; but she'll give 
 me her consent with a blessing upon it when she 
 has had time to think it over, and see that I 
 cannot be made happy otherwise. 1 " 
 
 " No doubt, and that's why you should lose 
 no time in talking about it to Mrs. Stapleton. 
 By telling her what you wish to do, and asking 
 beforehand for her permission to do it, you'll con- 
 ciliate her, so that she wont like to say anything 
 to hurt you ; but if your first announcement to 
 her on the subject should be that Miss Clayton 
 has accepted your offer of marriage, why, I am 
 inclined to think you'll find her very unyielding. 
 That's my opinion." 
 
 " And mine also," cordially assented James 
 Stapleton, "and I'll take your advice, Herrick. 
 To-morrow, or the next day, I'll break it to my 
 mother. Hullo ! go it — pull it down ! bell- wire 
 is cheap." 
 
 vol. i. G
 
 82 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " What a prodigious row that bell makes \" 
 exclaimed Herrick, as the noise of James 
 StapleWs night-bell brought their interesting 
 conversation to an abrupt end. "The fellow 
 who is pulling at the handle must be a madman." 
 
 " For the time being/'' added James Stapleton, 
 in his jovial fashion, as he rose from his chair 
 and walked towards his surgery. " That's the per- 
 formance of an excited husband whose domestic 
 cares and social responsibilities will be speedily 
 increased by the birth of a child. Husbands who 
 have run out at night ' to fetch the doctor ' to 
 their wives always ring in that fashion. My 
 patient's husband wont stop from ringing until 
 I open the door, and assure him that ' he has 
 made some one hear/ Do you wish for more of 
 the music V 
 
 "Be off, Jem; quick — quick. Anyhow, put 
 an end to that row/' exclaimed Herrick, placing 
 his hands to his ears to block out the sharp peals 
 of tintinnabulation. 
 
 In less than two minutes James Stapleton was 
 running to an urgent case in a poor quarter of 
 the town, and Herrick was walking leisurely 
 across the High-street on his return to the 
 bachelor-quarters which he occupied over his pro- 
 fessional office, next door to Kingsford's Bank.
 
 A Noble Woman. 83 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Priscilla Stapleton, formerly Howlett. 
 
 EFORE twenty hours had elapsed James 
 Stapleton fulfilled his promise to Her rick, 
 and communicated to his mother the 
 secret of his love for Bessie Clayton. Partly 
 because it was his wont to lose no time in 
 making good his words, but still more because 
 now that he had allowed himself to avow to 
 another the state of his affections, he had less 
 power than before to keep his own secret, and 
 restrain his thoughts from playing about it, — he 
 seized the first occasion for taking his mother 
 into his confidence ; an occasion that presented 
 itself together with Mrs. Stapleton's tea-equipage 
 at an hour when fashionable people of the 
 present day have seldom commenced their toilets 
 for the dinner- table. 
 
 Though the exigencies of professional life 
 rarely permitted James Stapleton the pleasure 
 of joining his mother at the dinner, which, in 
 accordance with the ancient usages of society 
 
 g 2
 
 84 A Noble Woman. 
 
 in Carlton Cross, she was accustomed to take at 
 an early hour of the afternoon, it was not often 
 that he failed to drink tea with her towards the 
 close of the day. Indeed his intercourse with 
 his mother at this point of the four-and-twenty 
 hours was one of the surgeon's chief enjoyments. 
 To enter her tea-room — drawing-rooms were 
 always called tea-rooms in Carlton Cross, even 
 so late as '32 ; to approach her with a bow, 
 equally expressive of courteous admiration 
 and filial reverence ; to wait for her " My son, 
 pray be seated," before he presumed to take his 
 customary place in a corner of the high-backed 
 sofa that blocked the way between the tea-table 
 and the warmer side of the fireplace; to accept 
 cups of fragrant Bohea from her hands, and in 
 return proffer her the cates of the table with the 
 air of a lover in the presence of his mistress 
 rather than of a son before his mother ; to gaze 
 with critical approval at her artistic and in some 
 respects costly costume j to admire the fineness 
 of the lace on her cap, the whiteness and 
 delicacy of the muslin kerchief which she wore 
 folded about her throat ; to mark the snowy 
 purity of her gray hair, and the singular clear- 
 ness of her complexion which three-score and 
 ten years of life had neither bleached nor
 
 A Noble Woman. 85 
 
 robbed of youthful smoothness ; to pass his eyes 
 over the little lady's aquiline profile, dainty lips, 
 plump white hands, and matronly figure ; to 
 flatter himself that neither the Border nor all 
 England could show a fairer, brighter, or more 
 vigorous old woman than Mrs. Stapleton of 
 Carlton Cross — were to Mrs. Stapleton's eldest 
 son matters of habitual demeanour and daily 
 experience. 
 
 For, in the estimation of this son, than the 
 comely and imperious lady, who shortly before 
 the close of the last century had borne the name 
 of Priscilla Howlett and become the wife of his 
 father, no more marvellous woman had ever trod 
 the earth since Eve was given to Adam for better 
 and for worse. That no woman had a more com- 
 plete omniscience with respect to the mysteries of 
 housewifery] that few members of Hall and 
 College knew more of physic and surgery; that 
 no divine under the episcopal rank was more 
 deeply read in divinity than his mother, were 
 points of faith on which James Stapleton would 
 have treated denial or doubt as altogether ludi- 
 crous. Indeed he was not a little given to boast- 
 ful and foolish talk about her graces and ac- 
 complishments, her judgment and mental parts ; 
 and in years nearer our own time he has been
 
 86 A Noble Woman. 
 
 known to make his wife rather jealous and 
 resentful by extolling the virtues and above all 
 the housewifely skill of his sainted mother, to 
 the manifest disparagement of all wives and 
 mothers of more recent date. 
 
 Nor was James Stapleton by any means the 
 only person who was inclined to rate Mrs. 
 Stapleton as something above her real worth. 
 From childhood upwards she had fared royally 
 on praise and adulation ; and from the day when 
 she condescended to enter Carlton Cross as 
 Lemuel Stapleton's bride, the people of that 
 pleasant town had concurred in valuing her as 
 a personage of especial quality, who was not to 
 be confounded with Mrs. Donkin or any other 
 ordinary wife of an ordinary country doctor. 
 
 Even before she became a resident of Carlton 
 Cross her reputation throughout the Border 
 lived upon the lips of gossips, who told strange 
 stories of her learning, beauty, and filial devo- 
 tion to a venerable father. It was said that of 
 all Archdeacon Howlett's children she was by 
 far the most clever ; that having learned Greek 
 and Hebrew in the nursery, she was one of the 
 few persons in all the Border qualified to con- 
 verse with that erudite Churchman on equal 
 terms ; that at an age when most girls are capa-
 
 A Noble Woman. 87 
 
 ble of no graver pursuit than satin-stitch, she 
 ran clean through the mathematics ; that her 
 pen gave the final touches to the archdeacon's 
 Assize Sermon " On Sedition" — ay, more, had 
 given much of the argument and not a little of 
 its literary finish to the archdeacon's pamphlet 
 on " The French Revolution/' a work so nearly 
 equal to Mr. Edmund Burke's essay on the same 
 subject, that in many places the two treatises do 
 not differ by so much as a single thought or 
 phrase. It was told how she had declined many 
 eligible offers of matrimony in order that she 
 might be free to minister to her father's failing 
 health ; and how throughout his declining years 
 she not only acted as his nurse, but undertook 
 the care of his parishes. Certain it is that even 
 so late as '32 the poorer folk of Wrentham, and 
 Cogford, and Bythesea-in-the-Hole remembered 
 the zeal and singular discretion with which Miss 
 Priscilla Howlett, their rector's daughter, sup- 
 plied them with medicine and religious consola- 
 tion in times of sickness, with sharp admonitions 
 and seasonable donations of kitchen-stuff in time 
 of health. 
 
 Truth to tell, the people of the Border were 
 not a little surprised at the announcement, follow- 
 ing the archdeacon's death with scarce an in-
 
 88 A Noble Woman. 
 
 terval of twelve months,, that Miss Priscilla 
 Howlett, who beyond doubt was a member of the 
 " county circle" of the Border, had consented to 
 be the wife of Lemuel Stapleton, the apothecary. 
 In some respects the match was not unsuitable 
 or disadvantageous to the lady. A large and 
 expensive family, together with a strong taste for 
 the pleasures of the table and such other in- 
 dulgences as public opinion permitted in orthodox 
 divines of the last century, had raised the arch- 
 deacon^ annual expenditure so nearly to the 
 amount of his annual income, that he left barely 
 two thousand pounds to his only unmarried 
 child. Of course a settlement in matrimony was 
 desirable for a gentlewoman reduced to this 
 narrow independence, and so far as pecuniary 
 considerations were concerned Lemuel Stapleton 
 was a better match than an average rector of the 
 Border land ; but notwithstanding these obvious 
 facts, such was the general estimation of her 
 worth and status, that gossips on all sides asked 
 with significant emphasis how Priscilla Howlett had 
 been induced to bestow her hand on the doctor? 
 Had the good people of the Border been as 
 sagacious as they believed themselves, they would 
 have seen divers reasons, any one of which would 
 have been sufficient to account for Priscilla's
 
 A Noble Woman. 89 
 
 conduct. At the time of her father's death she 
 was nearly five and thirty years of age — a point 
 of life when single ladies bent on matrimonial 
 settlement have not much time to spend on 
 selection, and are apt to close with any not alto- 
 gether ineligible proposal. Wishing to remain 
 in the land where she was known and honoured, 
 she was at the same time averse to the thought 
 of maintaining life on a narrow pittance in the 
 same neighbourhood in which she had for several 
 years distributed a bounteous income. Now 
 Lemuel Stapleton's income was a thousand a 
 year, and Carlton Cross within six miles of 
 Wrentham. On the other hand, Lemuel was 
 romantically in love with Miss Priscilla — in love 
 with her beauty, her learning, her birth, in short, 
 with every quality in her possession of which 
 the clever and imperious little lady took especial 
 pride. Nor was she without some of that 
 genuine admiration for Lemuel which is much 
 more likely to develope into wifely love than the 
 " esteem" which, according to Richardsonian 
 novelists, is the warmest sentiment that a modest 
 maiden ought to entertain for her future lord 
 until he has actually made her an offer. She 
 had a true woman's admiration for his strength 
 and abundant energy, his frankness and thorough
 
 90 A Noble Woman. 
 
 goodnature. As her father's health slowly failed, 
 she had grown intimate with and grateful to the 
 doctor, whose interest in his patient was stimu- 
 lated by his interest in the patient's child. She 
 loved praise, and Lemuel gave her more flattery 
 in a week than any other man had ever given 
 her in a year. If it be true that every man is 
 a physician and a fool by forty, it is no less true 
 that few women wait till they are forty before 
 they come to the conclusion that nature intended 
 them to be physicians. Of all her vain imagina- 
 tions, faith in her medical skill was the matter 
 on which Priscilla was most exacting of respect, 
 most greedy of praise. Amateur practice in the 
 cottages of Wrentham, Cogford, and Bythesea- 
 in-the-Hole, together with long and continued 
 observation of the archdeacon's gout, had satis- 
 fied her that she knew as much about medicine 
 as any common parish doctor. Lemuel, like 
 his son after him, was ever ready to assure her 
 that she knew more than the entire College of 
 Physicians. 
 
 So Lemuel and Priscilla married. If he made 
 an unwise choice, he never suspected his blunder; 
 and though it is not probable that she could have 
 achieved a much better match, a belief that she 
 had made a disinterested choice, and could have
 
 A Noble Woman. 91 
 
 settled herself under circumstances of greater 
 prosperity, enhanced the pleasure which she took 
 in reflecting on her social position. To some 
 people prosperity is sweetened, to others it is 
 embittered, by the thought that their good for- 
 tune is less than their deserts, and less than it 
 would have been if they had been more prudent 
 and less unselfish : and belonging to the former 
 sort of folk, Mrs. Stapleton was in the first place 
 contented with her lot, and then proud of herself 
 for being so easily satisfied. 
 
 But throughout her married life, as also in 
 later years throughout her widowhood, she 
 neither forgot nor permitted others to forget 
 that she was Priscilla, daughter of Archdeacon 
 Howlett. That important fact was comme- 
 morated in her dining-room by a case of portly 
 folios of Anglican divinity selected from the 
 archdeacon's library — it was commemorated in 
 her drawing-room by a mezzotint portraiture of 
 the archdeacon in his canonicals, as he appeared 
 when preaching the memorable Assize Sermon 
 "On Sedition-" — it was commemorated in her dress 
 by miniature portraitures of the very reverend 
 profile in certain brooches with which she fastened 
 her Indian muslin neckerchiefs — it was com- 
 memorated in society by the stateliness with
 
 92 A Noble Woman. 
 
 which she kept dissenters at a distance, and the 
 promptitude with which she led the way in all 
 social movements that tended to the honour of 
 the Established Church. 
 
 Throughout Dr. Protheroe's rectorate, there 
 being no Mrs. Protheroe to preside over orthodox 
 society and organize the charitable undertakings of 
 the ladies of the town, Mrs. Stapleton discharged 
 the functions of a rector's wife. She it was who 
 started the Maternity Charity, her pen drew up 
 the rules of the Penny Clothing-club, according 
 as she willed it the mistress of the parochial 
 school for poor girls nourished or passed away. 
 Nor was her influence less dominant in the 
 social circle. At the whist-table and in the 
 country-dance, at stately dinner or festive supper, 
 Mrs. Stapleton was a power to whom the richest 
 of blanket-makers and the warmest of merchants 
 paid willing homage. Even the up-looking 
 Kingsfords, who thought themselves greatly 
 superior to the Stapletons, admitted in their 
 hearts that Archdeacon Howlett's daughter was, 
 to say the least, as good as any lady in Carlton 
 Cross. The ladies of the town may have feared 
 her wit, and stood in awe of her ecclesiastical 
 grandeur ; but neither fear nor awe hindered 
 them from sincerely respecting and loving their
 
 A Noble Woman. 
 
 little queen. Even at the opening of her widow- 
 hood, when sympathy for her loss was six months 
 old, and it was known that Lemuel Staple ton had 
 left her and her five children in very straitened 
 circumstances, no matron of the place hinted 
 that the widow was imprudent to wear as rich 
 silk as any county lady of the Border, or whis- 
 pered that the mother of five children had better 
 have saved the money which she was known to 
 have spent on Honiton lace, or predicted that 
 Howlett pride would in the long run undo Sta- 
 pleton honesty. No gossip conjectured how 
 much better Lemuel's children would have been 
 provided for if his wife had been less extravagant. 
 Indeed, notwithstanding the high place amongst 
 the social virtues which the moralists of Carlton 
 Cross accorded to thrift, economy, and pecuniary 
 honour, beholders could not do otherwise than 
 admire the spirit of the little lady who declined 
 to yield an inch to adversity. " For myself," 
 she remarked at this period of trial to some of 
 her more intimate friends, " I have no fear. To 
 be dismayed never was a fashion with the How- 
 letts ; but I am anxious for my children whose 
 future is uncertain. My duty is to see my girls 
 and boys through this time of trouble, and of 
 course I shall do my duty."
 
 94 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Her self-confidence was justified by the event. 
 
 She saw her children through their domestic 
 trouble, she educated them as she would have 
 educated them had Lemuel remained in the 
 world, and now, in 1832, after marrying her 
 daughters — the one to the first blanket-maker of 
 the town, the other to a rector of the neigh- 
 bourhood — she sate daily over the late archdea- 
 con's china tea-cups, in the seventy- first year of 
 her age and in full possession of her powers, 
 ready to take her part at short whist or brisk 
 talk, able to walk six miles at a time, or read 
 without spectacles the smallest type of the 
 county paper.
 
 A Noble Woman. 95 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Wherein Mrs. Stapleton announces her intention 
 to retire from Practice. 
 
 N my seventy-first year/" observed Mrs. 
 
 Stapleton, raising her right hand and 
 
 regarding the knots of old-fashioned 
 
 rings that encumbered its plump white fingers, 
 
 " I see my way to the end of a not unsuccessful 
 
 struggle with adversity/' 
 
 As the little lady made this declaration she 
 shifted her chair a short distance from the tea- 
 tray, thereby giving the teapot its dismissal, and 
 intimating to her big son that he was not to ask 
 for another of those cups which Cowper described 
 in a line that enthusiastic tea-drinkers persist in 
 misquoting. 
 
 " It has been a long struggle, and a tough 
 struggle, but, thank God, mother, not an unsuc- 
 cessful struggle," rejoined the big son, leaning 
 forwards from his corner of the high-backed 
 sofa, and preparing to pour upon his mother one 
 of those torrents of admiration and eulogy which
 
 96 A Noble Woman. 
 
 she was accustomed to receive from his lips with 
 unruffled equanimity, as nothing more than the 
 homage due to her character and achievements. 
 " You brought the boat through the storm in 
 gallant and sailor-like fashion, mother ; and now 
 that craft and freight have been saved, it is 
 only fair that your merit should be recognised/'' 
 
 " No doubt, Jemmy, no doubt," answered Mrs. 
 Stapleton, declining no part of the commendation. 
 " It is not every woman who, left as I was eleven 
 years since — left with five children, and just no 
 provision but my profession — would have faced all 
 the dangers and difficulties of her position, and 
 helped herself instead of asking help from others." 
 
 " No, we never asked help from others, but it 
 came," interposed honest James, whose one dis- 
 satisfaction with his idolized mother rose from 
 her disinclination to recognise at its full worth the 
 assistance which she had received from old neigh- 
 bours in the darkest period of her family trials. 
 
 " Naturally, my dear boy, it came ; that is to 
 say, strength came from the measures which I 
 had formerly taken to annex people to me, and 
 advantages came from the connexion which I 
 and your dear father brought about us by 
 judicious exertions. No doubt good came from 
 our past action, just as fruit comes to the gar-
 
 A Noble Woman. 97 
 
 dener who uses the pruning-knife, and harvest 
 comes to the husbandman who sows seed in the 
 spring. This was a favourite sentiment with 
 your grandfather, the archdeacon. And as for 
 myself, why should I underrate the consequences 
 of my influence on the fellow-townsmen and 
 patients of my husband ? ' Help' is a term that 
 cannot be rightly applied to anything that 
 modified the rigour of those adverse circum- 
 stances in which your father's death left me. 
 But call it what you will, it came unasked — 
 as you very rightly observe, it came unasked — 
 and that is the feature of the case which, not- 
 withstanding your words, never seems to be 
 sufficiently present to your judgment. If we 
 had asked for sympathy and co-operation, the 
 cordiality of our neighbours might have been to 
 their credit, but it certainly would have been no 
 testimony to my worth. To our petitions they 
 might have answered with commiseration ; but 
 we were silent — I mean / was silent — and in 
 obedience to natural dictates they were not false 
 to me/' 
 
 As she concluded this statement of the reasons 
 why there was no obligation upon her to cherish 
 gratitude towards those who had rallied round 
 her in the hour of distress, the haughty little 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 A Noble Woman. 
 
 creature signified by a wave of the hand that her 
 son was not to be so presumptuous as to oppose 
 heron this matter. And as that son obeyed the 
 indication by maintaining discreet silence, his 
 heart was less disturbed, and his filial respect less 
 shaken by his mother's apparent ingratitude, than 
 many readers of this page may suppose. For 
 James Stapleton never judged man or woman 
 harshly, and was always more ready to palliate 
 than censure the foibles and waywardness of his 
 companions. He would have been greatly sur- 
 prised if any one had called him a humorist, 
 and in one sense of that word no term could be 
 more inapplicable to him ; but he had the 
 humorist's pleasure in watching diversities of 
 idiosyncrasy, and the humorist's toleration for 
 freaks and passions, which his judgment con- 
 demned. Moreover, he knew that his mother's 
 perverse refusal to recognise her old friends as 
 benefactors was more a whim of the lip than of 
 the heart. By her conduct she had proved her- 
 self keenly sensitive of the kindness, warmly 
 thankful for the services, of which it was her 
 habitual humour to speak slightingly ; and know- 
 ing her thoroughly, James Stapleton needed no 
 reassurance that her ingenious disparagements of 
 the goodness of her husband's friends were mere
 
 A Noble Woman. 99 
 
 devices by which she schooled her pride to endure 
 the burden of obligations which, in her secret 
 consciousness, she was more prone to magnify 
 than to depreciate. Therefore, whilst he held 
 his tongue, the surgeon was inclined to admire 
 rather than regret that which he was pleased to 
 call his mother's high spirit. 
 
 u But though I decline to regard myself ," con- 
 tinued Mrs. Stapleton, " as in any way personally 
 humiliated by the beneficial sympathy of my hus- 
 band's friends, I trust that I am not insensible to 
 their amiability of intention. I trust also that I 
 do not misrepresent even in my own mind the 
 importance of their friendship. Indeed, in the 
 one instance — the one solitary instance — in which 
 the friendly feeling of my husband's connexion 
 placed me under a distinct and heavy personal 
 obligation, I have never shut my eyes to the 
 nature and weight of the benefit conferred 
 upon me." 
 
 The rising colour of her winning, defiant little 
 face would by itself have shown that her mind was 
 dealing with a delicate matter, even if her words 
 had not indicated the source of her agitation. 
 
 " It was a great service," quickly interposed 
 James Stapleton \ " but the friend who rendered 
 it has never permitted us to feel its weight." 
 
 h 2
 
 100 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " Child, foolish child \" responded the old lady, 
 in a higher key, the pink of her face glowing into 
 crimson, and her right hand every now and then 
 angrily tapping the tea-tray as she spoke. " How 
 could he save me from feeling its weight ? how 
 could he spare me the irritating sense of heing 
 under an obligation to one of a class of persons 
 for whom I have never professed to entertain 
 any sentiments that were not qualified by an- 
 tagonism. No doubt he was glad to do us a ser- 
 vice : there were good reasons why he should 
 wish to serve your father's widow and children. 
 Some long, long years have passed, but it seems 
 only a day since poor Lemuel rendered him a 
 service which he was only too glad to repay. 
 The man is grateful — radicals are not altogether 
 incapable of generous emotions ; — the man is 
 honest — dissenters are honest sometimes; — and he 
 is proud — in their insolent, contumacious fashion 
 radicals and dissenters are the proudest people 
 going. So he repaid your father's service fully, 
 to the last farthing/'' 
 
 " To the very last farthing/' assented James 
 Stapleton. 
 
 " He has paid us with interest." 
 
 " With handsome interest." 
 
 " But he has my receipt for it," continued the
 
 A Noble Woman. 101 
 
 excitable little lady, who, notwithstanding her 
 agitation and the verve with which she delivered 
 her utterances, spoke neither stormily nor un- 
 musically. " I thanked him ; I wrote him my 
 thanks/' 
 
 " You could not have done less." 
 
 " Under the circumstances, James, I could not 
 have done less," rejoined the mother, her tone be- 
 coming suddenly calmer and her voice comically 
 solemn. u But my poor dear father must have 
 turned in his grave when I, his daughter — 
 Archdeacon Howlett^s daughter — signed myself, 
 ' Yours very gratefully/ and sent my written ac- 
 knowledgment of a heavy obligation to Cornelius 
 Kilderbee, the radical wine-merchant — the dis- 
 senter who has never ceased to plot for the de- 
 struction of the Established Church ; the per- 
 nicious innovator whom Archdeacon Howlett, as 
 a magistrate, exerted himself to punish; the 
 blasphemous demagogue against whom Arch- 
 deacon Howlett, as a divine, directed his sermon 
 < On Sedition V " 
 
 "Ay, mother — strange things, and worse 
 things than that, happen in this strange world." 
 
 " No one knew," continued the little lady, 
 dropping her voice to a lower as well as more 
 impressive note of solemnity, " no one shall ever
 
 102 A Noble Woman. 
 
 know what it cost me to write that letter, or how 
 often that debt has cost me a sleepless night, or 
 how I have longed to wipe it out. From time 
 to time I have reduced it, but hitherto it has 
 not been completely cancelled. You are so 
 thoroughly in my confidence, James ; you know 
 so exactly all the secrets of my affairs, that there 
 is no need to prove to you my inability to cancel 
 this debt sooner. It is true, my nominal income 
 is considerable — but it is a professional income ; 
 and when the unavoidable expenses of my prac- 
 tice have been deducted from my receipts, my 
 clear annual income is not large, for my position 
 and responsibilities." 
 
 ft It is only your management," assented 
 James, " that enables us to do as we do." 
 
 " You see," explained Mrs. Stapleton, " the 
 prejudices of society and the iniquitous state of 
 the law placed me at a disadvantage. Even 
 nature, by denying me the capacity for endu- 
 rance and bodily exertion with which she has en- 
 dowed men, put me at a disadvantage. It was 
 impossible for me to carry on this large practice 
 by myself : the law, the prejudices of society, the 
 infirmities of my sex forbade it, James — abso- 
 lutely and peremptorily forbade it. I was com- 
 pelled to keep a visiting assistant as well as a
 
 A Noble Woman. 103 
 
 dispenser. During the few months that inter- 
 vened between your father's death and the com- 
 pletion of your education, I saw enough to 
 satisfy myself that it would be impossible for me 
 to carry on this practice without a qualified 
 assistant. No doubt, I was singularly fortunate 
 in finding such an assistant as you — a coadjutor 
 whose name and birth have helped me to keep 
 my patients together, whose interests are identi- 
 cal with my own, and whose disposition — I am 
 proud to own it — has always been to strengthen 
 my hands. In every respect you have done your 
 utmost to keep down the expenses of my prac- 
 tice ; but, looking at the question in a purely 
 commercial spirit, you cannot fail to see that a 
 practice such as mine is carried on at a disad- 
 vantage, when it requires the services of two 
 assistants ." 
 
 That she, Archdeacon Howlett's daughter, was 
 the foremost medical practitioner of the Border 
 country ; that, so far as her professional interests 
 were concerned, James Stapleton was nothing 
 more than her salaried assistant ; that the ances- 
 tral practice, which he had recovered and carried 
 forward with singular energy, owed its existence 
 to her skill and exertion j that the money which 
 he had earned, saved, and then spent upon the
 
 104 A Noble Woman. 
 
 nurture, education, and putting out in life of his 
 brothers and sisters, was in reality money which 
 she had so earned, saved, and expended; that 
 the luxurious home which he rescued from bank- 
 ruptcy, and still afforded her, was the result of 
 her own wisdom and labour; that she showed 
 something more than proper maternal solicitude 
 in making him so extremely comfortable in his 
 own house ; and that it was in her power to stop 
 his salary, discharge him, turn him adrift upon 
 the world, at a month's notice ; — were certain 
 pleasant misconceptions of the actual state of 
 things, from which Priscilla Stapleton, formerly 
 Howlett, derived a very large proportion of her 
 satisfaction with the world and herself. 
 
 Many a son in James Stapleton's situation 
 would have resented such singular misappre- 
 hensions ; but he was not an ordinary son, and 
 far from regarding with disapprobation his 
 mother's exaggerated estimate of her services for 
 the general prosperity of the family, he took a 
 positive pleasure in thinking how much comfort 
 she derived from it. Had there been any taint 
 of egotism in the surgeon's generous nature, had 
 he cherished a petty though not unamiable 
 ambition to play before his own imagination the 
 part of a domestic hero, he would have fretted
 
 A Noble Woman. 105 
 
 under the injustice and hardship of the matter ; 
 for unquestionably when a young man of warm 
 and honourable affections has fought the battle 
 of life bravely, and has for years stood in the 
 place of father to his younger brothers and 
 sisters — in the place of bread-winner to his aged 
 mother — he has some cause for deeming himself 
 aggrieved if his services do not meet with cordial 
 acknowledgment from the family circle. But 
 Mrs. Stapleton's visiting assistant was not given 
 to think of himself; and having merely done for 
 his family that which in his eyes appeared to be 
 his duty, he did not on that account wish to be 
 credited with extraordinary virtue, or to be 
 exalted to a domestic pedestal, with his mother 
 at its foot for a worshipper of his noble qualities. 
 It was enough for the honest fellow to know 
 that he had done his best for the " old home ;" 
 and whenever he congratulated himself on the 
 result of his exertions, his thoughts never took 
 the form of self- adulation. Sincerely believing 
 that his mother's personal influence had greatly 
 contributed to his professional success, he thought 
 her fully entitled to the peculiar compensation 
 to which she laid claim — the satisfaction of 
 thinking herself the saviour of her husband's 
 children, and the first medical practitioner of the
 
 106 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Border. Moreover, it is worthy of observation 
 that though his common sense compelled him to 
 recognise the exact nature of his mother's hallu- 
 cination, and in his own breast to acknowledge 
 that it was a delusion in no small degree indi- 
 cative of mental unsoundness, he was able on all 
 other questions to maintain his old, habitual, and 
 inordinate respect for her intellectual capacity. 
 
 " Consequently," resumed the little lady, 
 reverting to the circumstance of a loan that 
 was made to her son, not to herself, and alluding 
 to payments which she believed herself to have 
 effected, " I have not been able hitherto to clear 
 off my pecuniary obligation to Mr. Kilderbee ; 
 the expenses of my family prevented me from 
 doing so. First, I had to provide for the com- 
 pletion of your education in London." 
 
 " That was not for many months," interposed 
 James, gravely. 
 
 " True," returned Mrs. Stapleton with cor- 
 responding gravity, " not for many months ; but 
 still they were months when, in consequence of 
 my inability to provide myself with a suitable 
 assistant, my professional receipts were absolutely 
 nothing. Then I had to provide for Peter and 
 Lemuel. Your brothers' education, and the un- 
 avoidable cost of starting them in life, cramped
 
 A Noble Woman. 107 
 
 me sadly for some years ; but I am thankful to 
 say they are doing well. Then there were your 
 sisters ; their lessons and accomplishments ; their 
 outfits for society; and the expenses attendant 
 upon their very desirable marriages. How could I 
 have paid Mr. Kilderbee sooner ? You, James, are 
 not so unreasonable as to think that with due 
 respect to the welfare of my children, I could 
 have paid him sooner ?" 
 
 " I am sure he doesn't think you could." 
 
 " But next quarter-day," continued the mother, 
 with a voice expressive of keen relish of her 
 honourable intention, " I shall wipe out every 
 farthing of the residue of that hateful debt ; and 
 thus I shall be in a position to do more for you 
 than I have hitherto been able." 
 
 " Bless me, mother \" ejaculated James with 
 genuine astonishment, " what do you mean V 
 
 " My dear boy," explained Mrs. Stapleton, 
 " your position has not for years been what I 
 could have wished it — in fact, what it should have 
 been, had the calls upon my purse been fewer. 
 You've always been a good, dutiful, industrious 
 boy" (the speaker's voice faltered from emotion) ; 
 " and such has been your confidence in me that 
 you have never even hinted that you ought to be 
 something better than my assistant !"
 
 108 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " Lord bless you, dear mother/' interposed 
 James, with a jovial note, " what better lot can 
 I wish ? You pay me well, you lodge me well, 
 you board me well, you keep the best of horses 
 for me, and really you let me have so much my 
 own way, that sometimes I actually feel as though 
 the practice were my own." 
 
 " Of course, Jem," responded the mother, 
 with a smile of satisfaction, " I have done my 
 utmost to make the place agreeable to you ; and 
 years since I should have admitted you to a 
 partnership in the practice, if justice to my 
 other children had allowed me to do so. But 
 now, after paying Mr. Kilderbee and providing 
 for my other children, I shall be at liberty to 
 put you off in the world." 
 
 " You are not going to discharge me ? I 
 don't want to leave Carlton Cross." 
 
 " You shan't leave Carlton Cross, but you 
 shall work here on a new footing. You have 
 been man long enough, and now you shall be 
 master." As she made this remarkable an- 
 nouncement, Mrs. Stapleton raised her voice to 
 a grandeur that corresponded with the magnifi- 
 cence of her intentions. " I have turned the 
 matter over in my mind, and have decided to 
 retire altogether from practice. I mean to
 
 A Noble Woman. 109 
 
 relinquish the whole business to you as a gift, in 
 acknowledgment of your faithful services. I 
 hope, my dear, to enjoy life for many years to 
 come, but I am too old for the incessant 
 anxieties of active practice. So after I have 
 called on Lady Bertha Godsall, and made your 
 position all safe at the rectory, I shall retire in 
 your favour." 
 
 " Surely, ma'am, you don't mean to desert 
 me ?" inquired James, who was somewhat 
 puzzled by his mother's announcement. As resi- 
 dence in the old house had been her only osten- 
 sible connexion with the practice, he fancied for 
 a moment that she might have some wild pur- 
 pose of retiring from her old quarters. " You 
 wont leave me alone in the old house ?" 
 
 " No, no, my boy, don't fear that," replied 
 this astounding daughter of an archdeacon, in her 
 most reassuring tone : " I will live on with you 
 till the last, and give you the benefit of my advice 
 in difficult cases, and so on ; but when I have 
 once resigned the practice to you, it must be 
 understood that I am to be altogether free from 
 its responsibilities." 
 
 It being thus made clear that the contem- 
 plated retirement would be a purely imaginary 
 withdrawal from the medical stage, James made
 
 110 A Noble Woman. 
 
 a proper acknowledgment of his mother's muni- 
 ficent resolution, and was about to contemplate 
 the affluence he should enjoy on acquiring what 
 he already possessed, when his benefactress gave 
 a sudden diversion to his thoughts by saying, 
 " And now, James, since you will in a few days 
 be in a position to marry, you ought to marry." 
 
 " That's exactly what I think, mother," ejacu- 
 lated James, his heart leaping to his throat as a 
 vision of Bessie Clayton's face floated before his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Of course you do," exclaimed the mother in 
 her most vivacious manner, " and I mean you to 
 marry ; and what's more, James, I have fixed 
 on the girl for you. So everything is settled." 
 
 " What girl, mother ? You can't mean " 
 
 "Yes, I do; that's just the girl I mean. In 
 birth, fortune, looks, temper, intelligence, she is 
 just the girl to make you a capital wife, and I 
 have asked her to come and stay with us ; and 
 as she has accepted my invitation, you'll soon 
 find an opportunity for putting the question." 
 
 James Stapleton was astounded, and as is 
 often the case with astounded gentlemen, he was 
 altogether at fault. It never occurred to him 
 that he was thinking of one young lady, his 
 mother of another.
 
 A Noble Woman. Ill 
 
 " Do you actually meau to say that you have 
 asked her to stay in this house ?" 
 
 " To be sure ; and next Tuesday week Emma 
 Harrison will be here/'' 
 
 " Emma Harrison \" exclaimed James Staple - 
 ton, a look of astonishment and dissatisfaction 
 covering his face. 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 u But, mother," the surgeon dolefully observed, 
 after one or two imperfect utterances, " I have 
 not fallen in love with Emma Harrison." 
 
 "Whereupon a ringing peal of clear musical 
 laughter issued from Mrs. Stapleton's lips, and 
 rising briskly from her seat nigh the Japan tray 
 and the china tea-cups, she came and stood over 
 her son, who still remained upon the sofa, and 
 laying her plump little hand on his great head — 
 confidingly, lovingly, and with an air of patron- 
 age, much as a mistress might caress an amiable 
 mastiff — she cried out cheerily, " Of course you 
 have not fallen in love with her. You are too 
 good a boy to fall in love with any one without 
 my leave ; but now I give you my leave to make 
 love to Emma Harrison and ask her to be your 
 wife before the end of the year."
 
 112 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 A Nice Plan by a Clever Schemer. 
 
 HE possibility that her eldest son, like 
 most young bachelors, would at no very 
 distant date conceive the desire to take 
 unto himself a wife, was a contingency on which 
 Mrs. Stapleton had expended more thought than 
 Herrick Kingsford supposed when he urged his 
 friend to lose no time in speaking to her about 
 his contemplated marriage. In his heart He'rrick 
 believed that the domineering little lady was 
 resolutely bent on keeping her son a celibate so 
 long as she remained in the world, and that she 
 would regard any proposal to bring a new mis- 
 tress into his house as a revolutionary and un- 
 speakably dangerous project, to which, as a 
 friend of order and as a " mother in possession," 
 who had no desire to sink into a " mother-in-law 
 on good behaviour," she would feel herself bound 
 to render strenuous opposition. 
 
 In this matter Herrick Kingsford was greatly 
 mistaken. Like most women who rule their
 
 A Noble Woman. 113 
 
 families with an appearance of despotic power, 
 and are notably successful in imposing their 
 wishes on all who come within their influence, 
 Mrs. Stapleton was a sagacious person, capable of 
 forming sound judgments on matters affecting 
 her own interests, and not incapable of taking a 
 second place with cheerfulness when it was clear 
 that the highest was designed by fate for some 
 one else. Far from persuading herself that James 
 would never presume to marry in her lifetime, 
 or that, having fixed his affections on any one of 
 the dozen young ladies who were within his 
 reach, he would shape his steps in unreserved 
 submission to his mother's fancies, Mrs. Stapleton, 
 like a prudent general, had resolved to make 
 terms with a force which she knew herself to be 
 unable to withstand, and to anticipate the inevi- 
 table with measures that would at least secure 
 her against the most disastrous of its possible 
 consequences. Since it was as certain as any 
 law of nature that her visiting assistant would 
 sooner or later grow weary of his solitary estate, 
 and since, the chances of death set aside, it was 
 no less certain that he would bring home a wife 
 before she was cordially willing to receive her — 
 in short, since it was inevitable, save through the 
 chances already put out of consideration, that 
 VOL. i. I
 
 114 A Noble Woman. 
 
 during his mother's life he would throw away 
 his honest heart on somebody, Mrs. Stapleton 
 intended that this somebody should be a docile, 
 dutiful, and complaisant daughter-in-law. The 
 rogue under sentence of whipping could reconcile 
 himself to the thought of his appointed punish- 
 ment if the Home-office would courteously permit 
 him to make a cat of feathers and floss silk for 
 his broad shoulders. If we must do penance, by 
 all means let us, like the pious sinner of a fami- 
 liar story, boil our peas beforehand. 
 
 So far as legal ability was concerned, Mrs. 
 Stapleton was doubtless free to discharge her 
 visiting assistant on receiving intimation of his 
 resolve to make a young person his wife ; but 
 who is really free to do a tenth, ay, or a hun- 
 dredth part of that which the law leaves to his 
 discretion. Lawfully the British husband may 
 reduce his wife's pin-money to a ludicrously small 
 amount ; but the British husband is far too 
 clever a fellow to make any such reduction. No 
 Act of Parliament compels us to pay our sons 
 those heavy allowances which we remit to them 
 with extreme reluctance, and yet every quarter- 
 day our sons will continue to receive from us as 
 a matter of course that which is no matter of 
 right on the one side or legal compulsion on the
 
 A Noble Woman. 115 
 
 other. Moreover, in Mrs. Staple ton's case a jnst 
 perception of her personal interest sided with 
 social influence. As she admitted to her son, no 
 less frankly than she made the same admission to 
 herself, if she discharged her visiting assistant she 
 would find much difficulty in getting an adequate 
 substitute in his place. Nature and society had 
 ordained that she was to walk on peas, so, like a 
 wise lady, she was bent on gathering her own 
 peas and boiling them for her own slippers. 
 Nature and society had made it clear that she 
 was to have a daughter-in-law as a daily com- 
 panion, and Archdeacon Howlett's daughter was 
 determined that, so far as she could manage, her 
 son's married life should be an affair of her own 
 cooking. 
 
 With this purpose in view, Mrs. Staple ton had 
 some years since looked about her for a suitable 
 match for her son James ; and after rejecting 
 this young lady for deficiency of breeding, and 
 that young lady for the badness of her con- 
 nexions, and half-a-dozen other young ladies for 
 dangerous qualities of temper, she had come to 
 the conclusion that Emma Harrison would make 
 an admirable daughter-in-law to the leading 
 medical practitioner of the Border country. 
 Richer girls there were who might have been 
 
 i 2
 
 116 A Noble Woman. 
 
 drawn for the same end within the domestic 
 circle of the Stapletons ; comelier girls abounded 
 in the three counties to whom the surgeon might 
 have paid his addresses with a good chance of 
 success, but in all England there was no young 
 woman better qualified than Emma Harrison for 
 the part which Mrs. Stapleton had assigned in 
 her imagination to her son's wife. She was a 
 tall and stately, though by no means graceful 
 creature ; unquestionably of ladylike appearance, 
 with a long calm face, pale blue eyes, and colour- 
 less hair, but lacking the showy endowments 
 whereby a girl becomes a social power. A well- 
 mannered, well-educated woman, fond of novels, 
 but never neglectful of her domestic duties, 
 rather weak in the logical faculty, but strong 
 beyond the wont of provincial gentlewomen at 
 the piano and water-colours, — Emma possessed 
 three thousand pounds in her own hands, an 
 affectionate disposition, and an agreeable voice. 
 The whole case against her is put with the 
 utmost force when it is recorded that, notwith- 
 standing these important recommendations, and 
 an absence of every kind of positive and definable 
 disqualification, she had reached her twenty- 
 ninth year without having had an offer. 
 
 Not without reason was the favour which Mrs.
 
 A Noble Woman. 11' 
 
 Stapleton lavished on this hitherto unappreciated 
 lady — of whom it was whispered that no man 
 would ever spontaneously fall in love with her. 
 " Blood is thicker than water/' Mrs. Stapleton 
 had more than once observed to her visiting 
 assistant ; " and I must say that, though under 
 any circumstances I should have liked Emma 
 Harrison, I like her all the better because,in a cer- 
 tain kind of way, she is a Howlett f the full force 
 and generosity of which speech are not apparent 
 whilst it remains to be told that, though Emma 
 Harrison may have been a Howlett in a certain 
 kind of way, there were no grounds for thinking 
 that she had in her veins a single drop of Arch- 
 deacon Howlett's blood. 
 
 Throughout the Border it is well known that 
 Archdeacon Howlett's third son, Captain How- 
 lett, R.N. — familiarly spoken of in " the ser- 
 vice " of George the Third's day as Bob, or 
 Three-Bottle, Howlett — married a widow lady 
 named Harrison, who at the time of her marriage 
 with this Howlett of three -bottle celebrity had a 
 little girl, to whom a select party of godfathers 
 and godmothers had given the name of Emma. 
 Nor is it less notorious throughout the Border 
 that, after the death of Three-Bottle Howlett, 
 this same lady escaped from her second widow-
 
 118 A Noble Woman. 
 
 hood, and found a third papa for her little 
 daughter Emma by marrying, to the lively in- 
 dignation of the Howlett connexion, a retired 
 upholsterer at Newborough — a cathedral-town 
 just fifty-six miles and three-quarters of a mile 
 distant from the market-place of Carlton Cross. 
 By her union with this retired and reprobated 
 upholsterer, Captain Howlett's widow was effec- 
 tually severed from that deceased officer's rather 
 arrogant family ; but on her death, which oc- 
 curred some six years after her third marriage, 
 the Howletts were pleased, as they termed it, to 
 accord forgiveness to her memory, and pay atten- 
 tion to the delicate girl for whom, in her child- 
 hood, hearty Bob Howlett had conceived a sailor- 
 like fondness. 
 
 First of the Howletts to pay Emma Harrison 
 any attention after her mother's death was Mrs. 
 Stapleton, who, whatever may have been her fail- 
 ings, was not deficient in kindliness. In her 
 thirteenth year — the age when girls are most apt 
 to magnify the virtues of those elders of their 
 own sex who show them kindness — Emma Harri- 
 son, clad in black for her mother, came for a long 
 visit to Carlton Cross. She was encouraged to 
 call Mrs. Stapleton aunt, and Lemuel Stapleton 
 uncle ; and from that time, although she was con-
 
 A Noble Woman. 119 
 
 nected with them by no tie of consanguinity, she 
 was "cousin Emma" to the Stapleton children. 
 Touched to the depths of an affectionate heart by 
 this cordial treatment, she repaid it with the grati- 
 tude and devotion of which none but young ladies 
 of genuine goodness and a romantic turn of mind 
 are capable. In her opinion such marvellous 
 people as the Stapletons never lived outside the 
 covers of poetry-books. Lemuel Stapleton was 
 the most celebrated doctor in the world ; Mrs. 
 Stapleton, as a woman and a Howlett, was un- 
 approachable in beauty, style, learning, moral ex- 
 cellence ; of the five children of Lemuel and 
 Priscilla Stapleton there was not one for whom 
 the tall, pale-eyed, undemonstrative girl would 
 not at any moment have sacrificed her right hand. 
 To all save one or two of the few persons who 
 knew her intimately, this girl of colourless hair 
 appeared to be of a cold nature, whilst she was 
 ablaze with the fires of Stapleton- worship ; and 
 strange to say, no one was more disposed to take 
 this icy 'view of her character than the one 
 member of the beloved household to whom she 
 was commended in 1832 as a woman eminently 
 fit to be his wife. Far from falling in love with 
 Emma Harrison, or thinking it possible that he 
 could ever love her, James Stapleton — misjudg-
 
 120 A Noble Woman. 
 
 ing and underrating her as men are apt to mis- 
 judge and underrate the women who are secretly- 
 thirsting for their good opinion — had quietly- 
 settled it in his own mind that Emma Harrison 
 was one of those pleasant and right-minded gentle- 
 women whom Nature never intended to be wives. 
 Since that first visit after her mother's death, 
 never a year passed of which Emma did not 
 spend many weeks at Carlton Cross. When 
 Lemuel Stapleton died, the girl wore as deep 
 mourning as the surgeon's daughters. It was 
 not till misfortune first covered her dear friends 
 that Emma, then just nineteen years of age, 
 learnt how much she loved them, and that she 
 loved the eldest son more than all the rest of 
 the family. How that truth revealed itself to 
 her there is no need to say ; but readers of this 
 story may be assured that much of the de- 
 meanour which James regarded as a sure in- 
 dication of constitutional coldness was nothing 
 but a veil beneath which she totally concealed 
 from his observation the existence of' her pure 
 and ardent love for him. Under these circum- 
 stances was it wonderful that Carlton Cross had 
 a strong charm for her ? Continuing to pass nine 
 out of every twelve months under the roof of 
 the reprobated upholsterer, calling him her
 
 A Noble Woman. 121 
 
 father, and calling his house her home, just as 
 she called his children her brothers and sisters — 
 (N.B. The retired purveyor of domestic furniture, 
 having married again, had a numerous young 
 family, although he was innocent of children by 
 Bob Howlett's widow) — Emma Harrison in her 
 heart looked upon Carlton Cross as her proper 
 haven. At Newborough she was generally 
 deemed a poor, forlorn, washed-out thing, whose 
 only claim to respect was the assiduity with 
 which she taught her class at the Sunday school, 
 and pursued the arts of piano-music and water- 
 colours. At Carlton Cross she was another 
 creature — formal, stately, and outwardly frigid 
 no doubt; but manifestly cheerful and contented 
 with the world. 
 
 However dull they may be at higher tasks, 
 women are for the most part wondrous quick at 
 reading each other's hearts. Without much 
 trouble Mrs. Stapleton, who was quick at any 
 work to which she applied her mind, detected 
 Emma's secret, and, having dexterously shown 
 Emma that it was known to her, made a subtle 
 use of her position to attach the girl even more 
 strongly to her. Between the mother and her 
 simple-minded protegee there arose an under- 
 standing, brought about by hints and suggestions
 
 122 A Noble Woman. 
 
 rather than compromising words of definite un- 
 dertaking that would have inevitably begotten 
 humiliating suspicions and fears betwixt them; 
 and though this understanding was never put 
 into language by the keen-witted, scheming 
 mother, it resulted, on Emma's part, in a cer- 
 tainty that her protectress designed her for her 
 daughter-in-law, that James Staple ton would 
 never marry any one without his mother's ap- 
 proval, that eventually, through Mrs. Stapleton's 
 agency, she would win the love of the man whom 
 she loved. 
 
 Such an understanding not unfrequently grows 
 up between women who are equal in years ; but 
 where no wide difference of age or experience 
 distinguishes the parties to so delicate a compact, 
 the position is fraught with peril to their friend- 
 ship. As a general rule it may be asserted that 
 a woman never cordially likes the friend of her 
 own sex to whom she feels herself indebted for her 
 husband, or to whom she looks for any special 
 piece of matrimonial advancement. They may 
 maintain an appearance of mutual affection till 
 the wedding-day, but no sooner has Katie secured 
 her prize than she resents the obligation con- 
 ferred on her by Bessie through whom she 
 has won her game. His mother is the only
 
 A Noble Woman. 123 
 
 woman to whom even the meekest of girls can be 
 indebted for a hnsband without an insufferable 
 sense of inferiority and humiliation. But, under 
 certain circumstances,, for the attainment of her 
 purpose a girl can confide in the mother of the 
 man whom she hopes to win, and can be perma- 
 nently grateful to that same parent for enabling 
 her to capture him. These circumstances were 
 present in Emma's case. A meek, trustful crea- 
 ture, reared from girlhood to maturity in habitual 
 admiration of her aunt, she experienced no sense 
 of disrespect for James in regarding him as a 
 possession at his mother's disposal, or for herself 
 in being ready to accept him from her hand. 
 
 As Mrs. Stapleton wished to secure for the 
 comfort of her declining years a dutiful and 
 devoted daughter-in-law, she could not have 
 made a more judicious selection of a wife for 
 her eldest son. But alas, the best-laid schemes 
 of clever mothers are often frustrated by un- 
 looked-for contingencies.
 
 124 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Misunderstanding and Amicable Arrangement. 
 
 F the various emotions that quickened 
 the action of Mrs. Stapleton's heart 
 when she learnt that her son had, with- 
 out her leave, fallen in love with a girl for whom 
 she had no especial liking, the strongest and 
 least agreeable were those which arose from an 
 erroneous impression that she had been defeated 
 through her own fault — had lost the race in con- 
 sequence of her own wilful and needless delay — 
 was in the position of a vanquished player, 
 whereas with less confidence and greater prudence 
 she might have won the game. Had she been 
 less dilatory in making arrangements for her 
 son's marriage ; had she some two years, or only 
 twelve months earlier, proposed to him her little 
 plan for his settlement, his wishes would not 
 have been at variance with hers ; but now, 
 through her own foolish and selfish procrastina- 
 tion, she was brought to see the destruction of 
 her cherished project. This was the first view
 
 A Noble Woman. 125 
 
 which she took of her case; and it must be 
 owned that it was an opinion little calculated to 
 mitigate the sharpness of her disappointment. 
 That the real facts of the case would have justi- 
 fied her in passing a less uncomplimentary judg- 
 ment on her own policy, is well known to the 
 readers of this story. 
 
 " You can't think of such a thing ?" ejaculated 
 the mother, in the helplessness of her surprise 
 repeating her son's words. " What can you 
 mean T } 
 
 " That Emma Harrison can never be my wife/' 
 responded James, telling a part of the truth, 
 whilst he nerved himself to tell the rest. " I do 
 not love her. I have never thought of her as a 
 person who could under any circumstances be- 
 come my wife ; and though I cherish a strong 
 friendliness and cousinly affection for her, I 
 cannot imagine the state of things that would 
 enable me to care for her as a man ought to care 
 for the woman whom he makes his life-long 
 companion for better and for worse." 
 
 " My dear child V rejoined Mrs. Stapleton, as 
 with an uneasy laugh she pretended to make 
 light of her son's opposition, and hopelessly en- 
 deavoured to assert her authority over him with 
 respect to a matter on which he would, of course,
 
 126 A Noble Woman. 
 
 set aside her control — " don't yon think / know 
 what is best for yon ? Surely, James, yon have 
 not lived in perfect confidence with me so many 
 years, only to learn at this late date that I am a 
 fool about questions concerning which a woman 
 of judgment mnst know more than any man. 
 Now, Jem, listen to common sense. I know yon 
 as well as you know yourself : even yon wont be 
 so mad as to deny that. On the other hand, I 
 know far more abont Emma than yon can pos- 
 sibly know abont her. It is therefore an affair 
 of mathematical demonstration that I am in a 
 better position than yon to decide on the entire 
 question." 
 
 " But, mother," interposed James. 
 
 " Don't interrupt me," cried the excitable little 
 lady, speaking faster in proportion as she saw 
 more fully the hopelessness of her case ; " when 
 I was a girl, it was not the fashion for children 
 to interrupt their parents. I tell you the whole 
 Border does not contain a more sensible, or finer 
 principled, or more accomplished, or higher- 
 minded young woman than Emma. She has been 
 a great comfort to me; she is as dear to me 
 almost as any one of my own girls ; her affections 
 are bound up in us. And as for you, if you were 
 not blind, like all other men, you would not need
 
 A Noble Woman. 127 
 
 to have me tell you that she loves you pas- 
 sionately/'' 
 
 The vehemence with which these last words 
 were spoken satisfied James of their sincerity. 
 
 " I trust that is but a fancy of yours, mother/' 
 he rejoined gravely. 
 
 a It is no fancy, hut the terrible truth/' re- 
 turned the mother. " I tell you she loves you 
 fiercely; and all her coldness and calmness are 
 disguises beneath which she hides her feelings for 
 you. Not a little has she suffered from her 
 efforts to keep you in ignorance of them/'' 
 
 " I am very sorry, mother V 
 
 " Very sorry \" retorted Mrs. Stapleton, with 
 a slight accent of contempt. " You — you sorry, 
 because you find yourself honoured with the love 
 of such a woman V 3 
 
 This thrust made, the indignant mother drew 
 back and put herself on guard. 
 
 After a pause, James explained himself, in a 
 tone of impressive commiseration and firmness — 
 u If you are right in what you say about Emma, 
 I am very sorry for her, because she has thrown 
 away her womanly heart upon a man who very 
 likely is unworthy of it, who most certainly can't 
 return her love." 
 
 {i But / require you to return it, James. Are
 
 128 A Noble Woman. 
 
 my wishes to go for nothing V 3 dashed in Mrs. 
 Stapleton, with one of those ludicrons outbreaks 
 of despotic petulance in which women sometimes 
 indulge without the excuse of seventy years of age. 
 " The case is this, mother/'' said James, goaded 
 into a full confession, " and I am very sorry that 
 I must communicate it at a moment when you 
 are not in a frame of mind to receive it as I 
 could wish — I am in love with Bessie Clayton ; 
 I mean to ask her to be my wife ; and if she 
 wont have me, why, I shan't be worth any 
 woman's having." 
 
 " Bessie Clayton V* exclaimed the imperious 
 daughter of Archdeacon Howlett, straightening 
 her small figure in the chair which she had re- 
 sumed during the foregoing discussion, and look- 
 ing at her son with angry eyes ; " you cannot 
 mean this thing V 
 
 " Mother, I do. Bessie Clayton must be my 
 wife." 
 
 Notwithstanding her eccentricities, Mrs. Staple- 
 ton was a lady ; notwithstanding her arrogance 
 and vanity, she was a conscientious woman. 
 Hence it was not often that she altogether 
 yielded to a constitutional irritability which, 
 under the few infirmities placed upon her by 
 threescore and ten years, she was less able to con-
 
 A Noble Woman. 129 
 
 trol than she had been in her younger and stronger 
 life. Perhaps it would be scarcely fair to her 
 to say that she ever in the whole course of her 
 existence allowed herself to run into a fit of un- 
 qualified and ungovernable rage ; but it may be 
 confidently affirmed that on receiving her son's 
 announcement respecting Bessie Clayton she was 
 on the verge of an extremely violent and in- 
 decorous fury. 
 
 " Have you the impudence, James/' she began, 
 " to tell me that it is your intention to put this 
 affront upon me ? — that you are bent on marrying 
 the niece, or whatever else she may be, of that 
 seditious, turbulent dissenter, Kilderbee, the 
 wine- merchant ? I tell you, James — I may be 
 angry, but my words spoken now shall be acted 
 upon — I tell you, James, that rather than receive 
 that — that artful hussy, that cunning brat " 
 
 This selection of vituperative terms was by no 
 means happy or worthy of the speaker's com- 
 mand of English ; but they stirred James from 
 heart to marrow. It was enough for him to know 
 that his idolized mother was expressing violent 
 disdain for the woman whom he wished to marry ; 
 and as the insulting words came hissing from her 
 saucy lips, a shivering ran through his huge 
 frame, and rising to his full height, he turned 
 
 VOL. i. K
 
 130 A Noble Woman. 
 
 down upon his mother the full power of his bright 
 brown eyes. 
 
 The expression in those eyes stayed the un- 
 seemly language on Mrs. Stapleton's tongue, 
 calmed the tumult of her passion, and in the 
 place of anger filled her with a tenderness not 
 unqualified by fear. Neither aversion, nor re- 
 sentment, nor defiance animated those eyes, but 
 a look of compassionate sadness for the mother 
 who could be unjust to her own offspring, — 
 a look that *said more plainly than words, 
 " Love does not always blind the judgment/'' 
 Had she wished to rebel against it, she could not 
 have persuaded herself that its insolence or dis- 
 respect for her age and position enjoined or justi- 
 fied resistance. Utterly pure of the violence that 
 provokes opposition, and of the conscious su- 
 periority that maddens proud natures when they 
 are rebuked by those whom they know them- 
 selves to have wronged, it spoke to her sense of 
 justice and womanly duty — it appealed to her 
 maternal love. Only once before had that look 
 been seen by her, and as it now silenced her 
 tongue and subdued her heart, she remembered 
 as distinctly as though it were but yesterday the 
 occasion when those honest, loyal eyes had 
 vanquished her in the same fashion. The great
 
 A Noble Woman. 131 
 
 man was at that time a child, a five years old 
 boy ; and having wrongly accused him of falsehood 
 in respect to a matter about which he had been 
 perfectly truthful, and of stubbornness because 
 he refused to plead guilty to the charge of which 
 he knew his innocence, she had punished him 
 with all the severity of an exploded discipline 
 which delicate and tenderly affectionate mothers, 
 under the influence of a powerful sense of duty 
 and erroneous views respecting parental au- 
 thority, could nerve themselves to apply to their 
 own offspring so recently as a generation since. 
 Having chastised him for the imputed falsehood, 
 she was about to punish him again for his stub- 
 bornness in refusing to admit his guilt, when 
 the little fellow drew himself up, and turned his 
 eyes upon her with a mutely eloquent look, 
 which caused her to stay her hand, and hasten 
 from his presence so that he might not see her 
 in a paroxysm of hysteric weeping, and know how 
 great his power was over her. " It is you who 
 are wrong/' the child's look had said ; " of 
 course you can hurt me ; I am quite in your 
 power : how sad a thing it is for her when a 
 mother is unjust to her child V* The man's look 
 now spoke to the same effect. 
 
 By such reminders the hearts of women are 
 
 k 2
 
 132 A Noble Woman. 
 
 strangely stirred, especially the hearts of those 
 women who feel the forces of life failing withm 
 them, although their outward aspect may manifest 
 no signs of decay. A glance that recals the lost 
 beauty of a buried child ; a note of music that 
 brings back the melody of the first hymn sung 
 by a darling daughter; a dancing ray that 
 covers a wall with some nursery scene played out 
 half a century ago, and ever since forgotten ; 
 the perfume of a flower laden with the joy of 
 an old happiness, or the shame of an old error — 
 these are the influences that change the stony 
 places of an old woman's heart into generous 
 soil, and sow it with the finer qualities of our 
 nature. As Mrs. Stapleton timidly returned her 
 son's gaze, and recalled the morning when she 
 fled from his silent rebuke, her passion subsided ; 
 and as she grew tranquil, all the life betwixt the 
 present and that far distant day was laid before 
 her in a succession of vivid recollections : and she 
 saw how much this son had endured, and thought, 
 and done for her. He had conquered her, and 
 she knew it; but far from resenting his asser- 
 tion of power, or its success, her heart leaped 
 with pride as she saw how completely her im- 
 perious will had been overborne by the man 
 whose habitual submissiveness to her control
 
 A Noble Woman. 133 
 
 was sometimes carried beyond the lines of mere 
 filial dnty. 
 
 " I am a very foolish woman, James/' said 
 Mrs. Stapleton, making her confession in a 
 broken voice, " and I am heartily ashamed of 
 myself for putting a fancy of my own before the 
 wishes of my son in a matter that will most 
 likely affect his happiness as long as he lives. If 
 I did not fear to pain you, I'd ask your for- 
 giveness." 
 
 " Tut — tut ! my forgiveness, mother ! Now 
 don't, mother, go on in that way ; if you do 
 you'll make me think I've been behaving very 
 badly to you." 
 
 " Don't stop me, James," insisted the mother, 
 eagerly. * I wont beg your pardon, since you 
 don't wish me to beg it ; but I shan't rest if you 
 refuse to hear me unsay the words I am ashamed 
 of having spoken about Bessie Clayton. She is 
 a pure, good girl — as lovely a thing in the way 
 of girl as can be found within a day's journey of 
 the market-cross — charitable and thoughtful to- 
 wards poor people ; and though her uncle is a 
 dissenter, she has always been educated in 
 Church principles. I have not an ill word to 
 speak, or an unkind thought to conceal with 
 respect to her; and when you bring her home
 
 134 A Noble Woman. 
 
 here, there is not a person in the whole Border 
 who wont think yon suitably matched." 
 
 " Thank you, mother, for that," said James, 
 who had by this time put his arm ronnd her 
 waist, and drawn her to his side on the sofa. 
 
 " You see, Jemmy," continued the mother 
 with increasing tenderness of language and voice, 
 " my scheme for marrying you to Emma Har- 
 rison — who is a dear, gentle creature, or I should 
 never have thought of her as a proper girl to be 
 your wife — was an old and favourite plan. It is 
 years since the thought occurred to me, and it 
 has so grown upon me, and become almost a 
 part of me, that I could not have seen it set 
 aside and declared a ridiculous impossibility with- 
 out a few minutes' annoyance, even if I had been 
 accustomed to see my words and wishes made 
 light of. But the fact is, Jemmy, all through 
 life I have been allowed my own way. My dear 
 father never contradicted me ; my dear Lemuel 
 never said me ' nay ;' and until now you have 
 never seemed capable of having a will of your own 
 on any matter upon which I had decided. I wont 
 say that you've spoilt me between you, or that 
 I should have been a better woman if I had been 
 treated differently ; but this I can tell you, no 
 woman likes to be crossed, and an old woman
 
 A Noble Woman. 135 
 
 whose will has been her law all through life is of 
 all women the one who least likes to learn that 
 her will must yield to another's." 
 
 There is no saying how long Mrs. Stapleton 
 would have persevered in her penitential acknow- 
 ledgments and explanations had not James 
 brought them to a close by kissing her on the 
 lips, and creating a diversion of thoughts by the 
 following inquiry : 
 
 " But, mother, you just now said something 
 about Emma Harrison having a — a sentimental 
 fondness for me. Were you only putting in 
 strong terms the fact that she has a cousinly 
 liking for me, or have you any reasons for think- 
 ing that Emma would not like to hear of my 
 engagement to Bessie?" 
 
 " We had better not talk about that, Jemmy," 
 replied Mrs. Stapleton, in a voice of considerable 
 emotion. " I had reason for what I said. But 
 as my scheme is not to be carried out, it would 
 not be fair to Emma, or profitable to either of 
 us, that you and I should gossip about her. If 
 she loves you, she isn't the only woman in the 
 world who wishes for what she can't have. 
 There, there, Jemmy, we have said enough about 
 her for the present. She is a dear girl ; and it's 
 enough for you to know that you don't love her."
 
 136 A Noble Woman. 
 
 From which answer James Stapleton derived 
 the unacceptable certainty that his mother's 
 words with respect to Emma had not exceeded 
 the limits of her knowledge, and that he had 
 been so unlucky as to win unawares the devotion 
 of a woman for whom he had never harboured a 
 thought of love or a thought in any degree akin 
 to the sentiment which makes men kneel to 
 women. 
 
 " Poor girl ! I am very sorry for her/' ob- 
 served James, receiving into his heart a tenderer 
 feeling for Emma than he had at any former 
 time conceived towards her — a sentiment which, 
 if it be love's near relation, as some maintain, is 
 no less closely related to contempt. " I should 
 be humiliated as well as pained by the thought of 
 her trouble, if I could not say with an easy con- 
 science that I never gave her look or word in 
 the hope of making her take an especial interest 
 in me/' 
 
 " Say no more about her, James," rejoined 
 Mrs. Stapleton, with a sudden resumption of the 
 imperious tone which her defeat had caused her 
 to lay aside for a brief minute. " Even you and 
 I have no right to take liberties with her womanly 
 dignity. Not a word more on that subject/'' 
 
 Whereupon, quitting the forbidden ground, 
 James drew his mother on to speak many loving
 
 A Noble Woman. 137 
 
 wishes for his happiness, and many flattering 
 words about the young lady whom she had so 
 shortly before called an artful hussy and a cun- 
 ning brat. 
 
 u Ah, mother/' said the son, with a sigh of 
 hope shaken and smothered by apprehension, 
 " what a fortunate fellow and happy man I shall 
 be if she accepts me ! But, mother, if she should 
 refuse me J" 
 
 At the bare thought of which disagreeable, 
 not to say unendurable possibility, James Staple- 
 ton shuddered throughout his big frame from 
 scalp to sole. 
 
 Before these words escaped from his lips, Mrs. 
 Stapleton had risen from the sofa, and as they 
 reached her ear she was on the point of inclining for- 
 wards to put a farewell kiss on her boy's forehead. 
 
 " Refuse you ! — if she should refuse you \" 
 ejaculated the little lady, in her grandest style 
 of Howlett insolence. " Miss Clayton would 
 hardly have the presumption to refuse an offer 
 from my son." 
 
 But in his heart, James was not so sure on 
 that point. 
 
 Whilst the impudence of confident lovers is 
 boundless, the fears of modest lovers are mani- 
 fold; and unfortunately for his peace of mind, 
 James Stapleton was a modest lover.
 
 138 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Cornelius Kilderbee's " Trotter" 
 
 ORNELIUS KILDERBEE, in his day 
 wine merchant of Carlton Cross, and 
 leader of the radicals throughout the 
 Border, has been dead and buried more than 
 a quarter of a century ; but his name still lives 
 in the memory of men who knew him whilst 
 he still remained a political power, and on the 
 lips of many other denizens of the three counties 
 to whom his virtues and eccentricities, his failings 
 and powers, are only matters of tradition. Post- 
 humous fame in the case of an inferior celebrity 
 is so short-lived, that the man who is much 
 spoken of five- and- twenty years after his funeral 
 may be fairly credited with having been a person 
 of no common mark whilst his sands were still 
 running, — at least whilst his strength was in its 
 prime. A few representative men of the first 
 order excepted, what do we remember of the no- 
 tabilities of George the Third's time — ay, of the 
 notabilities whose names appear in "memoirs,"
 
 A Noble Woman. 139 
 
 and whose acts are abundantly chronicled in the 
 literature of their contemporaries ? Of the able 
 men who won distinction in the coteries, and 
 who, after years of honourable exertion in letters 
 or science, in arms or art, in Parliament or the 
 courts, died somewhere about the day when 
 Queen Victoria made her first cry, not one in 
 ten is known beyond the domestic circle of his 
 descendants. Some forty years since a publisher, 
 producing a work that he no doubt thought would 
 be a permanent landmark in literary history, put 
 forth a dictionary of contemporary authors, and 
 it may be safely affirmed that an ordinary edu- 
 cated Englishman of this present day, turning 
 over the leaves of that record of writers, who 
 nearly all entertained at some time or other an 
 ambition for enduring popularity, will not come 
 upon fifty names that are familiar or in any 
 degree known to him. In this respect ignominy 
 and honour fare much alike, the minor criminals, 
 like the minor benefactors of our species, being 
 equally forgotten. A generation after your in- 
 terment, my most illustrious reader, what will 
 your countrymen know about your state-craft 
 and speeches in the senate, about the flatteries 
 that blind you to your own littleness, and the 
 applause that makes you deaf to the solemn
 
 140 A Noble Woman. 
 
 monitions of fate ? Fortunate — supposing posthu- 
 mous fame a thing to be desired by wise men — 
 will you be if five-and-twenty years after your 
 heir's accession the scene of your ambitious la- 
 bours and peculiar triumphs shall resound your 
 name as often as the market-hall of Carlton Cross 
 hears mention made of Cornel Kilderbee. 
 
 Proverbs and pithy aphorisms without number 
 are fastened upon his reputation, and few matters 
 pertaining to the social life of the Border more 
 deeply impress the stranger than the frequency 
 with which these sayings are repeated, with keen 
 relish and manifest gusto, by the gentry and yeo- 
 men, the traders and workmen of the region. At 
 the market ordinaries of the old borough, farmers 
 and blanket dealers wrangling over unsettled bar- 
 gains, or clacking current news over rum-punch 
 or red port, may be heard spicing their talk in 
 this fashion — 
 
 11 Ah ! he lost his temper, did he ? Then that 
 accounts for it. As old Cornel Kilderbee said, 
 ' Catch a wise man in a rage and you've a fool 
 in your power V " 
 
 " A pretty sample of sour beer he is. Cornel 
 Kilderbee was not far wrong when he said, ' A 
 dirty fellow's money is the dirtiest stuff about 
 him V "
 
 A Noble Woman. 14] 
 
 " Come, come, don't be hard on an old cus- 
 tomer, but remember Cornel Kilderbee's rule, l A 
 good tradesman buys like a Jew and sells like a 
 gentleman V " 
 
 " c A IPs fair with a giant, but you can't be too 
 gentle with a dwarf V as Cornel Kilderbee said to 
 the county member." 
 
 " ( Hit hard while the fight is on, and when it's 
 over don't bear spite V that was old Cornel's rule." 
 
 "He ought to drink less and work more, and 
 think on Cornel's words, c The man who's his own 
 enemy is in a fair way to be no one's friend !' " 
 
 " Help a neighbour when he's out of luck, and 
 remember old Kilderbee's saying, c A poor man's 
 blessing travels farther than a rich man's curse !' " 
 
 " ' A blow should leave a mark !' that was old 
 Cornel's way." 
 
 " ' A man should know how to swear without 
 losing his temper !' that's what Cornel would say 
 if he was here now." 
 
 " You are a smart fellow at a bargain ; so was 
 Cornel Kilderbee — but then he would always 
 help a man to get a living." 
 
 " Don't be after keeping too many irons in 
 the fire. The only Carlton Cross man who could 
 do four things in really tip-top style was Cornel 
 Kilderbee. He could make money, crack jokes,
 
 142 A Noble Woman. 
 
 brew punch, and play the fiddle ; but then he 
 had a cork leg." 
 
 " So you're like Cornel Kilderbee, and have an 
 ugly tongue with a rough side to it, have you? 
 But his tongue had a smooth side for those who 
 wished him well." 
 
 In like manner the stranger, paying his first visit 
 to the Border, does not pass many days in Carlton 
 Cross without coming upon conclusive testimony 
 that this pungent speaker of homely wisdom loved 
 his practical joke. 
 
 It may be that having put up at the " Cat and 
 Gridiron/' the old head-quarters of the Border 
 radicals, the stranger on eating his first dinner 
 in the chief parlour of that antique hostelry will 
 ask the meaning of a remarkable picture that 
 hangs over the fire-place of the aromatic and 
 not luxurious room. 
 
 The picture represents two middle-aged men, 
 sitting on slight and unstable chairs, in the 
 middle of a chamber the proportions of which 
 are indicated by lines that declare the artist's 
 manly disregard for the laws of perspective. 
 Each of the middle-aged men deserves atten- 
 tion — the one, an agriculturalist of florid com- 
 plexion and extensive girth, being chiefly re- 
 markable, so far as costume is concerned, for the
 
 A Noble Woman. 143 
 
 magnitude of the watch-chain and seals that 
 dangle from his fob ; the other, dressed in a high- 
 collared, brass-buttoned, swallow-tail blue coat, 
 tights, and buckled shoes, being noticeable for 
 the depth and amplitude of his white neck-tie, 
 the uncompromising size of his pigtail, and the 
 expression of gleeful smartness that pervades his 
 sharp, thin features. But the most remarkable 
 point in this picture is that — whilst the blue- 
 coated gentleman has his right foot in a keeler 
 of boiling water, the ebullient condition of the 
 fluid being indicated by a puff of vapour upon 
 the canvas, and seems greatly to enjoy the heat — 
 the agriculturalist sits upon his high chair, doubled 
 up with agony caused by a vain endeavour to 
 imitate his friend and keep a bootless foot in the 
 steaming tub. The reader's imagination must 
 furnish the details of the picture. 
 
 The " Cat and Gridiron" has a landlord of 
 jolly aspect and rubicund visage — about the last 
 host of the ruddy, jovial, over-eaten, old-fashioned 
 type of innkeepers, who have become merely 
 traditional characters in the England of these 
 abstemious times; and if any stranger should 
 ask the " Cat and Gridiron's" host for the 
 particulars of the incident commemorated in 
 this work of art, that fat and laughter-loving
 
 144 A Noble Woman. 
 
 entertainer of men with purses in their pockets, 
 will do his best to satisfy a not unreason- 
 able curiosity, and with many chuckles and 
 boisterous guffaws, as though he had never told 
 the story before — indeed, as though he were 
 not telling the story himself, but were hearing it 
 for the first time from the lips of another man — 
 will answer in this wise- — 
 
 " That gentleman, sir, with the big watch- 
 seals and rather more stomach than he knows 
 how to carry, is Mr. Pratt, of Homer ton Grange j 
 leastwise, it was him, only as he's been dead 
 these thirty year — died of a 'plexy — 't carn't 
 exactly be said to be him now. But he was a 
 great man in his day, and did a sort in pigs — 
 yes, he did, sir. His was all to nothing the best 
 breed in these parts ; and it is so still, although 
 there's a fashion come up for shorter snouts. 
 Well, sir, t'other gene] man was a rare man, Mr. 
 Cornel Kilderbee : that's how he was always 
 dressed — Lor' bless you, I remember him well 
 enough. Blue coat, brass buttons, pigtail, gaiters 
 in winter, stockings in summer, black tights the 
 whole year round. There's a sort would think 
 the like of him a Guy now-a-days, but he was 
 a proper genelman, he was, none more so. And, 
 Lor', what a man he was for doing things ; he
 
 A Noble Woman. 145 
 
 did everything ! he used to sing songs, play the 
 fiddle, make speeches, and keep things lively. 
 "Well, sir, Mr. Pratt of Homerton Grange, was 
 a great man for pigs, but not much else in the 
 way of intellect : now Mr. Kilderbee was at the 
 top of the wine trade in these parts, and knew 
 the length of every man he clapt eyes upon. 
 Mr. Kilderbee was always going up to town on 
 business, about wine and what not ; and one day 
 he returned to Carlton Cross after he'd been 
 away for a many weeks. Mind, sir, I'ni speak- 
 ing now of what I can't remember, for I wasn't 
 born when Mr. Kilderbee returned after a 
 many weeks. I tell it to you as I have 
 heard it from my father, who was landlord of the 
 c Cat and Gridiron/ before ever I was born. At 
 the first market-supper after his return, Mr. 
 Kilderbee got a-talking with Mr. Pratt of 
 Homerton. Mr. Pratt was given to carry things 
 rather high, on account of his pigs ; and Mr. 
 Kilderbee owed him a turn for something he'd 
 said at Market Cross. So the long and short of 
 it was, having got to high words in the presence 
 of a full company, Mr. Pratt offered to fight Mr. 
 Kilderbee ; at which Mr. Kilderbee says, ' No, 
 Pratt,' says he, ( I wont fight, for it's against my 
 principles to fight ; but to show you I'm not 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 A Noble Woman. 
 
 afraid to bear pain, and can bear pain better than 
 yon, Fll tell wbat Fll do. We'll have a tnb of 
 biling water brought in this room and each of ns 
 shall put his right foot in it, sitting together side 
 by side ; and Fll bet you twenty guineas that, 
 for all your brag about your courage, you'll take 
 your foot out of the water before I do/ Now, 
 Mr. Pratt of Homerton was a good one for a bet, 
 and what's more, his blood was up. So he says 
 ' done/ and Mr. Kilderbee says ' done / and they 
 jine hands. In another five minutes the tub of 
 biling water is put down in the middle of the 
 market-room, which was extra crowded by people 
 who had heard what was up, and of course wished 
 to see the end of the wager. The feeling ran 
 against Mr. Pratt of Homerton, for he was apt 
 to be rather high and mighty about his pigs. 
 ' There goes my shoe/ says Mr. Kilderbee, put- 
 ting it off ; f and now, Pratt, you put off that 
 top-boot of yours, and then we'll try how hot it 
 is through our stockings/ Mr. Kilderbee was in 
 first by a several seconds, and took all quiet, 
 though sure-lie he nipped his lips together a bit. 
 As soon as Mr. Pratt had got his foot out of his 
 top-boot, he dipped it into the water — but he 
 didn't keep it there for long. He howled, and 
 yelled, and halloed and screeched out for help.
 
 A Noble Woman. 147 
 
 1 Call a doctor !' lie screeched. And all the while 
 there sate Mr. Kilderbee all calm and quiet, and 
 enjoying himself. ' Landlord/ says he to my 
 father with a smile, ' get some more boiling 
 water. What's in this tub seems rather chilly/ 
 i Cornel Kilderbee/ roars Mr. Pratt, wholly 
 scared out of his senses and yet purple with rage, 
 ' you're bewitched ! — you're an imp of hell ! — it's 
 done by neckoromancy ! you're in league with the 
 devil !' c No, Pratt, no ; not quite so bad as 
 that/ says Mr. Kilderbee, softly and mocking- 
 like, still keeping his foot in the water — ' I am 
 not in league with the devil, but I've got a cork 
 leg ." By gorms, sir, how all the market-room 
 busted and roared with laughter, and how Mr. 
 Pratt of Homerton swore and rove, just for all 
 the world like a Bedlamite in a coal-cellar. And 
 the more he swore and rove, the more the whole 
 market-room busted and roared. And, sir, what 
 Mr. Kilderbee said was just the truth. I told 
 you as how he had been a goodish spell of time 
 in London, just before this wager came off. 
 Now, whilst he was in London he had met with 
 an accident in being knocked down by a cart 
 which broke his leg ; and after that the surgeons 
 had cut off his leg below the knee, they fixed him 
 up with a cork leg and foot, made so wonderfully 
 
 l 2
 
 148 A Noble Woman. 
 
 neat, that, when he wore his stockings and 
 buckled shoes, no one conld see any difference 
 atwixt the natteral and the compo limb. You 
 see, he hadn't wrote home anything about his 
 mishap, and so there wasn't a blessed soul in the 
 market-room that could make out how it was 
 that he bore the hot water without even a-flinch- 
 ing. But you may believe me, sir, the market- 
 room busted and roared; and Mr. Pratt of 
 Homerton didn't show again in the market-room 
 until he had been set up once more by his pigs 
 getting a sort more prizes/' 
 
 Having heard and laughed over the foregoing 
 story, should the stranger, with the courtesy 
 becoming travellers in a new land, pass from the 
 subject to the execution of the picture, and 
 assure the rosy landlord of the " Cat and 
 Gridiron" that he possesses a valuable work of 
 art, he will contribute to his host's good-humour, 
 and receive some such reply as this : — " A good 
 picter and a wallable ; there, sir, you speak 
 truth. There's not such a picter as that in all 
 the Border. It was painted by Mr. Gilbert ; he 
 who did my sign, which is the only ' Cat and 
 Gridiron ' all through the Border with a chop on 
 the gridiron, to account for the cat caring to 
 come nigh it. It was Mr. Gilbert who thought
 
 A Noble Woman. 149 
 
 of the chop one day when he was hungry and 
 had been disappointed of some payments; and 
 when he'd painted the chop from one I laid 
 before him for to copy, he took up the real chop 
 and grilled it and ate it. Says he to me, ' Land- 
 lord, it is not always that a painter can eat the 
 model he has just painted/ — and there's no 
 doubt it were a model chop. He was* a s'prising 
 ingenious man was Mr. Gilbert, and my belief is 
 that if he could only have kept hisself from 
 drink, he would have gone up high, but as it 
 was he overdid it in liquor, and so we had to 
 bury him at the cost of the parish. It was one 
 day quite accidental like that I told Mr. Gilbert 
 that story about Mr. Kilderbee. ' Blame me/ 
 says he, ' if I don't make a picter of it, tub and 
 all/ ' Nonsense/ says I, ' how are you to make 
 the water bile in a picter? — it can't be done.' 
 1 Can't it ?' says he, l can't it ? leave that to a 
 man who knows his trade. Come, landlord, here's 
 an offer — if I paint the picter before the week is 
 out, and make the water bile, will you give me 
 two sovereigns down for it?' Well, sir, I was 
 took by the thought, and I wished to do Jack 
 Gilbert a turn, and what's more I saw the good 
 which such a picter would be to the house, so 
 I closes with him at once, and I do it liberal :
 
 150 A Noble Woman. 
 
 1 1 will pay you forty shillings/ I says, f and 
 what's more, you shall live at the l Cat and 
 Gridiron/ paying neither for vittles nor for drink, 
 nor for bed while you're at work ; but mind, if 
 the water don't bile, I wont have the picter, and 
 you'll have to work out what you have taken in 
 board, lodging, and entertainment.' If he had 
 broke down, of course I shouldn't have been so 
 hard with him as to press him for payment to 
 the ' Cat and Gridiron ;' but I said what I did 
 just to put him on his mettle like. So he went 
 to work. The poortright of Mr. Kilderbee he 
 took from the picter that used to hang in Coote 
 Hall, and now is in Dr. Stapleton's dining- 
 parlour. Mr. Pratt of Homerton, he knew all 
 about it, for he had painted pigs for the old 
 genelman. Well, sir, every dab of that picter 
 was painted within five days; and when I seed 
 how Mr. Gilbert had made the water bile, ' Hang 
 me/ says I, ' it scalds me to look at it.' Ah ! 
 sir, a number of people have looked at that piece 
 of furniture-draughting, and said they never ex- 
 pected to live to see water bile in a picter."
 
 A Noble Woman. 151 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Just a Little Drop of Gin-and-Water. 
 
 MONGST many other racy stories told of 
 this jocular and revolutionary wine-mer- 
 chant there is one that will for many a 
 day brighten the faces and rouse the boisterous 
 laughter of Border farmers ; and its power may 
 as well be tried upon the readers of this narrative, 
 since it serves to illustrate a quality of Cornelius 
 Kilderbee's disposition, to which certain momen* 
 tous incidents hereinafter to be narrated may be, 
 in some measure, unquestionably referred. 
 
 Towards the close of his commercial life, — 
 indeed, in the very month immediately preceding 
 that in which Mr. Zebediah West was introduced 
 to Carlton Cross as Cornelius Kilderbee's suc- 
 cessor in the wine-trade, — Mr. Kilderbee made a 
 long day's journey to certain townships, hamlets, 
 outlying hostelries, and country mansions of the 
 Border, seeking orders from old customers, and 
 by wary questions endeavouring to ascertain how 
 completely he should be able to transfer his
 
 152 A Noble Woman. 
 
 business connexion, as well as his business pre- 
 mises and cellar of curious and well-selected 
 wines, to the said Zebediah West. It was a long 
 round, and the merchant made it in the high- 
 backed, yellow gig of the " Cat and Gridiron/'' 
 drawn by the famous high-legged stepper of that 
 excellent establishment, and driven by Soaky 
 Watson, first ostler and superintendent-in-chief 
 of the " Cat and Gridiron's " stables. 
 
 There is but small need to observe that whilst 
 the fares whereat horses and gigs can be hired 
 throughout the Border have been clearly and 
 precisely fixed by the custom of the country, no 
 definite mileage has ever been ordained as the 
 proper remuneration for drivers. A general 
 notion prevails at Carlton Cross that the driver 
 of a hired gig is entitled to some threepence per 
 mile from the traveller of average intelligence 
 and liberality, and is justified in demanding much 
 more than threepence a mile at the close of a 
 job with respect to which no special contract 
 was made for his services, but is unwise not to 
 close with an offer of something less than three- 
 pence a mile when times are hard and he is 
 dealing with a close-fisted customer who, familiar 
 with the usages of the land, makes his bargain 
 at the outset instead of the close of a long
 
 A Noble Woman. 153 
 
 day. In fact, the whole question of driver's 
 remunerations is surrounded by doubts, difficulties, 
 perplexing contingencies, and ill- denned rights, 
 out of which the clever jehu can work consider- 
 able advantage to himself, and corresponding 
 annoyance to his employer, unless the latter is 
 wide-awake and provided against all attempts 
 at extortion. Cornel Kilderbee was decidedly 
 wide-awake and well able to take care of him- 
 self. A strange compound of closeness and 
 generosity, he would give a hundred pounds to a 
 friend in trouble, and grudge the paper on which 
 he drew an order for the sum. Boasting that he 
 u bought like a Jew and sold like a gentleman/' 
 he was a munificent giver, but the hardest of hard 
 customers whenever he made up his mind to get 
 money's worth for his money. 
 
 More than once Cornelius Kilderbee and 
 Soaky Watson had fought a stout battle over half- 
 a- crown, Watson holding out so bravely that he 
 might have ampler means for gratifying a personal 
 taste that had earned for him the suggestive 
 sobriquet which had altogether put his Christian 
 name out of the catalogue of social facts, whereas 
 the merchant was nerved by a constitutional dis- 
 inclination to be done by any man, — more especi- 
 ally by a man who did not know how to keep a
 
 154 A Noble Woman. 
 
 guinea when his fingers had closed upon it. As 
 a scrupulously just and fair man, Cornelius 
 Kilderbee never attempted to set aside the cen- 
 tral idea on which Watson relied for success, 
 the principle that threepence a mile was some- 
 where about the sum which a driver ought to 
 receive. Indeed, the merchant neither showed a 
 wish at any time to deduct the smallest fraction 
 of a penny from the mileage, nor ever exhibited 
 reluctance in binding himself to do all that was 
 liberal in regard to mid- day refreshment ; but 
 he firmly resisted the cunning with which Soaky 
 Watson systematically over-estimated the number 
 of miles to be travelled. The contests invariably 
 ended with an appearance of defeat on the part 
 of the ostler, and a conviction in the merchant's 
 breast that notwithstanding all his calculations 
 and hardness he had been actually worsted. 
 " You're very hard on me, Master Kilderbee, 
 very hard/'' time after time said the ostler, one 
 of those bibulous whips of the old time in whom 
 sobriety would have been downright wickedness 
 while they were on duty, as they were not safe 
 drivers under conditions of peril — say, a dark 
 night, a narrow road with an open ditch on either 
 side, and a hard-mouthed horse given to running 
 away — unless they were half-seas over ; " but
 
 A Noble Woman. 155 
 
 when a poor man deals with a rich one, he 
 knows what to expect. Perhaps the poor man's 
 turn will come one day, in this world or the 
 next. But never mind ; I must live as I best 
 can till that time comes. So I take your terms, 
 and Fll make my dinner off their hardness." To 
 which form of submission Cornelius Kilderbee 
 would reply with a dry chuckle, " There, Soaky, 
 I know you've cheated me. There's no such 
 grumbler as a contented rascal." 
 
 On the occasion of Mr. Kilderbee's last busi- 
 ness journey in the Border, the old fight was re- 
 peated without the omission of a single point. 
 The case was whether the latter would be en- 
 titled to seven-and-sixpence or ten-and-sixpence ; 
 and considering that he knew the former sum was 
 a trifle in excess of what would be due to him 
 from the threepenny mileage, enough praise can- 
 not be accorded to the determination and total 
 disregard of truth with which Soaky fought for 
 what he knew he shouldn't get. " Now look ye, 
 Watson," said Mr. Kilderbee, interrupting him 
 with an appearance of concession, " I wont give 
 you a penny more ; but if you like to pay for 
 your own dinner at Stradbroke ' Dragon,' when 
 we get back here at night I'll give you as much 
 gin-and-water as you can drink."
 
 156 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Not twice did Mr. Watson think before he 
 accepted this offer. Proudly conscious of his 
 powers to stow away a bottle and a half of the 
 best gin (i.e., Kilderbee's " peculiar") at a single 
 sitting, as long as fair play and time were 
 given him, he closed at once with the alluring 
 terms; and all through the day's drive he laid 
 plans for the coming bliss, settling in his own 
 mind how the under ostler and helps of the 
 " Cat and Gridiron" should be induced to put 
 up the stables for the night without his co- 
 operation ; how the landlord of the " Cat and 
 Gridiron," a man with liberal notions respecting 
 indulgence in liquor, should be definitely asked 
 for a permission that would ensure a large con- 
 sumption of gin at Mr. Kilderbec's expense ; how 
 having obtained his master's permission to make 
 the best of a good bargain, he, Soaky Watson, 
 would steadily go in for fourpennyworth after 
 fourpennyworth of Kilderbee's " peculiar," ring- 
 ing the changes on hot with and hot without, 
 varied by cold with and cold without, until he should 
 attain to that point of intoxication at which, if a 
 man is happy, he scarcely knows it, if he is 
 miserable it doesn't much matter. All through 
 that long drive in the cold air of a raw November 
 day Soaky Watson's imagination drew pleasant
 
 A Noble Woman. 157 
 
 pictures of the sanded floor of his master's public 
 kitchen — of the blazing fire of that kitchen, in 
 which a chosen horse-shoe of compotators nightly 
 assembled ; of the distinguished and essentially 
 jocular position which he should soon occupy in 
 that chosen horse-shoe as an unlimited consumer 
 of ardent spirits at Mr. Kilderbee's expense ; of 
 the occasional sips which he would give his 
 special pals ; of the copious draughts that he would 
 take himself. The prospect offered him a chance 
 of enduring fame as well as transient enjoyment. 
 In his heart Soaky Watson wished to make such 
 a use of his opportunities as should leave it an 
 unquestionable fact, that he could " carry" more 
 gin- and- water than any other man in Carlton 
 Cross, and also render it notorious that, notwith- 
 standing his miraculous cleverness, Mr. Kilderbee 
 had met his match and master in the head-ostler 
 of the " Cat and Gridiron/'' 
 
 At length the journey and daylight came to a 
 close. 
 
 " There, that'll do," observed Cornel Kilderbee, 
 cramped and cold — as elderly gentlemen are 
 apt to be after a long drive in an open gig 
 through a chilling atmosphere. " Stop here 
 at the front door of the c Cat and Gridiron •/ 
 and when Fve spoken to your master about
 
 158 A Noble Woman. 
 
 the gin- and- water, yon can drive me to my own 
 door." 
 
 " Yon recollect, sir/' observed the man, wish- 
 ing to intimate that his master was not to be 
 empowered to limit the supply of tipple ; " I 
 was to have as mnch gin-and-water as I conld 
 drink." 
 
 " No doubt, Soaky, no donbt. I don't forget 
 that," replied Mr. Kilderbee, cantionsly descending 
 from the gig at the door of the tavern, and walk- 
 ing stiffly towards the private bar. 
 
 In less than two minntes after entering the 
 " Cat and Gridiron," Mr. Kilderbee reappeared 
 in the street holding in his hand a single glass 
 of the spirit that was known thronghont the 
 Border as his own " peculiar ." Behind him 
 came the second helper of the stables, bearing a 
 monstrous pailful of cold water. At a glance 
 Soaky recognised his own stable-pail, and smelt 
 mischief. 
 
 " Here you are, Soaky," exclaimed Cornelius 
 Kilderbee, in his most hospitable fashion. " I 
 have brought all the materials, and you shan't 
 have any reason to complain that I deceived you 
 as to quantity. Here is a fourpenny worth of 
 my own f peculiar' " — eyeing the wine-glass with 
 affectionate admiration — " the best gin in all
 
 A Noble Woman. 159 
 
 England; and here's a pail of pump-water, the 
 very best pump-water in all Carlton Cross. There" 
 — deliberately suiting his action to the words — 
 " now I have mixed 'em for you ; the sugar and 
 lemon-peel are ordered, and they'll be brought out 
 in a minute. Of course I don't limit you to this 
 little drop of liquor ; and if you'll let me know 
 when you have done it I shall be most happy to 
 mix you another pail of the same quality/'' 
 
 Let us add that, whenever a denizen of the 
 Border tells this story, he always stays his laugh- 
 ter at the end of it to add, " But mind ye, don't 
 misunderstand the man. Cornel Kilderbee was 
 the last fellow in the world to wrong a poor man. 
 He had a liberal hand, and did a great deal of 
 good in his day."
 
 160 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Mrs. Stapleton is not dissatisfied with her Son, but 
 James is by no means pleased with himself. 
 
 HE days that intervened between the 
 domestic scene recorded in our ninth 
 chapter and the quarter- day on which 
 James Stapleton had decided to make his matri- 
 monial wishes known to Cornelius Kilderbee, 
 seemed a very brief period to Mrs. Stapleton, 
 who, having consented to her son's plan, found 
 an abundance of not uncongenial occupation in 
 regarding the new prospect from the most favour- 
 able points of view, in discovering its various 
 recommendations, and in settling in her own 
 mind the best method of placing the matter 
 before the borough. No little light is thrown 
 on her character when we say that the imperious 
 lady found but slight difficulty in reconciling 
 herself to a proposal that upset a scheme on 
 which she had for several years fixed her heart. 
 Some readers may learn with surprise that she 
 adapted herself with much facility to the new
 
 A Noble Woman. 161 
 
 circumstances ; but the fact will occasion no as- 
 tonishment to those accurate observers of human 
 nature who are aware that people of domineering 
 tempers often surpass less overbearing mortals in 
 submitting, with good grace and inward content- 
 ment, to opposition that is beyond their powers 
 of mastery. Yielding and timid women usually 
 suffer far more than their self-willed and arro- 
 gant sisters from sudden and violent disarrange- 
 ments of their intentions. The former may not 
 have the courage to rebel, but their discontent is 
 none the less real because they do not care to 
 rise in arms against the causes of their disquiet. 
 The same energy that makes the latter ambitious 
 of command, endows them with spirit to assert 
 themselves on new ground. Moreover, to dicta- 
 torial persons, whose wishes are rarely crossed, 
 the necessity for submission is sometimes a source 
 of pleasurable as well as novel excitement. 
 
 These truths are illustrated by Mrs. Stapleton's 
 case. 
 
 Having accepted the new plan, she now liked 
 it better than the old. Hitherto she had held 
 no familiar intercourse with Bessie Clayton ; for, 
 in the absence of special considerations enjoining 
 an exceptional course of action, it of course was 
 not to be expected that the daughter of Arch- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 A Noble Woman. 
 
 deacon Howlett would condescend to take much 
 notice of the young lady who, besides being a 
 dissenter's niece, was a member of a radical's 
 household. It was true that this niece of a 
 Nonconformist was herself a member of the 
 Established Church; it was also true that her 
 uncle had been the benefactor of Lemuel Staple- 
 ton's widow and children ; but Mrs. Staple ton 
 conceived herself to accord due recognition to 
 these facts by bowing to the young lady when- 
 ever she encountered her in the streets of the 
 borough, and by exchanging two or three formal 
 calls with her during the course of every twelve 
 months. The doctor's widow had admitted 
 Bessie to the rank of her private acquaintance, 
 in a certain cold and lofty fashion. In society 
 she had been even heard to say that Miss Clayton 
 was an excellent young person, and altogether 
 superior to her uncle's social connexions. 
 
 But now that her son meant to make this 
 excellent young person his wife, Mrs. Stapleton 
 formed a far higher estimate of her qualifications. 
 That Miss Clayton possessed good looks, which 
 fell little short of singular beauty, no one could 
 deny; that her style indicated her own rather 
 than her uncle's religious profession was manifest 
 at a glance; that she was no less amiable in temper
 
 A Noble Woman. 163 
 
 than attractive in person every sane person mnst 
 admit ; that her taste in dress was almost fault- 
 less every critical eye recognised ; that her voice 
 was musical and well-trained in harmonious exer- 
 cise no one who had ever heard her clear notes 
 in the parish church could question ; that her 
 education had been properly cared for was attested 
 by the bills which Mr. Kilderbee had paid for 
 her tuition at the first boarding-school for young 
 ladies in the three counties. Thus the mother 
 looked at the brighter aspects of the affair. 
 
 But the recommendation which recurred to 
 Mrs. Stapleton's mind more frequently than any 
 other^ was the fortune which the young lady or 
 her husband would doubtless acquire at her 
 uncle's death. That she would prove a dutiful 
 and manageable daughter-in-law, Mrs. Stapleton 
 had no doubt. Upon the whole, therefore, the 
 mother was well pleased with her sou's choice ; 
 and soon her mind was busy with a hundred 
 visions of the pleasant life that Mrs. Stapleton 
 and Mrs. James Stapleton would lead together. 
 It never for one moment occurred to the lady that 
 Bessie Clayton might not care to accept her son ; 
 for as she had herself declared to James, such 
 presumption on the part of Miss Clayton was 
 clearly impossible. It is to be feared that, 
 
 m 2
 
 164 A Noble Woman. 
 
 amidst her many thoughts concerning her son's 
 future, Archdeacon Howlett's daughter gave but 
 slight heed to the probable conduct and certain 
 suffering of poor Emma Harrison. Other persons, 
 besides elderly ladies accustomed to the enjoy- 
 ment of their own way, are prone to be selfish 
 with respect to matters that closely concern their 
 domestic comfort. 
 
 Whilst time passed thus pleasantly to his 
 mother, James Stapleton was in a state of in- 
 tense and unintermitting agitation, and found the 
 hours hang heavily on hand. For years he had 
 been in love with Bessie Clayton, without ex- 
 periencing similar excitement. So long as he 
 had felt himself required by prudence to keep his 
 hope a secret to his own breast, and had laboured 
 under circumstances that caused him to regard 
 his marriage altogether as the affair of an indefi- 
 nite future, the ardour of his longing had never 
 made him impatient of the barriers that rendered 
 its instant fulfilment impossible. But now that 
 he had admitted two persons to his confidence — 
 now that he saw himself in a position to marry — 
 now that the time which remained for consump- 
 tion, ere he should make his petition to Bessie 
 Clayton, was an affair of days — ay, of hours — it 
 seemed that the end of his sentimental anxiety
 
 A Noble Woman. 165 
 
 was more distant than ever. Having opened the 
 flood-gates of self-restraint, he fonnd himself car- 
 ried onward by the full, strong stream of a mighty 
 passion ; and it was with no common difficulty 
 that he adhered to the programme which he had 
 sketched for himself. 
 
 Indeed, had it not been for Herrick Kings- 
 ford's prudent counsels, there is reason for be- 
 lieving that the surgeon's resolution would not 
 have held out, and that he would have learnt his 
 fate from Bessie's lips some days sooner than he 
 eventually ascertained it. But Herrick, to 
 whose sympathizing ear James had confided the 
 fact of his mother's consent, together with many 
 other particulars which he might as well have 
 kept to himself, was very urgent that the pro- 
 gramme should be carried out to the letter, and 
 that the surgeon, after all his patience, should 
 not injure his chances of success by premature 
 action. He reminded James that just as the 
 turkey- charmer, by one false movement, may 
 undo the work of laborious hours, and lose at the 
 last moment the bird which is on the point of 
 surrendering itself to his lures, so the lover, by a 
 single act of indiscretion, may sacrifice all the 
 results of judicious wooing, and scare from his 
 toils the girl whom he has almost caught. So
 
 166 A Noble Woman. 
 
 also, with his customary air of protective con- 
 sideration, the lawyer reminded James that by 
 carrying out his determination to wait until he 
 had repaid the last shilling of his debt to Mr. 
 Kilderbee, he would be persevering in a course 
 that would strongly commend itself to the mer- 
 chant's sense of the fitness of things. 
 
 James continued to wait. 
 
 But during those days, wherever his business 
 took him about the Border, Bessie's face was 
 always before his eyes ; and the more that he 
 endeavoured to persuade himself that he had 
 good reasons for hoping the best, the more con- 
 vinced did he become that he had still better 
 grounds for fearing the worst. Again and again 
 during that period of trial the honest fellow 
 consulted his looking-glass, and angrily ad- 
 dressed the reflection that it presented to him 
 in such words as these — " I see you, sir ! no 
 doubt about it ! I see your big, heavy, angular 
 jaws, your huge, silly lips ; I see your hulking, 
 shambling body. You're a nice object. By 
 Jove, sir, you are a blot on creation. You are a 
 dull, sensual beast, I tell you, and yet you have 
 the infernal presumption to hope that the love- 
 liest girl in the three counties — ay, the loveliest 
 girl in all England — will bring herself to kiss
 
 A Noble Woman. 167 
 
 your brutal, ogre -like face. Pshaw ! I should 
 very much enjoy thrashing you with a sound oak 
 stick. Do you hear me, sir ! — you're a sensual 
 beast \" 
 
 Time flies fastest with the happy; but even to 
 the veriest wretches of creation, to men under 
 sentence of death, he never stands quite still.
 
 168 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Uncle Kilderbee Consents. 
 
 T length the hour came when James Sta- 
 pleton found himself sitting tete-a-tete 
 with Cornelius Kilderbee in that cosy 
 parlour of Green Villa which the retired mer- 
 chant was pleased to call his " keeping-room/' 
 It was evening, and as the outer air was chilly, 
 Mr. Kilderbee, like a prudent man, had drawn 
 the damask curtains over the shuttered win- 
 dows of his keeping-room, and had brightened 
 its sombre walls with a blazing fire. An ink- 
 stand and ledger upon the table, and a pen in 
 the merchant's right hand, indicated that he and 
 the surgeon had been speaking about some ques- 
 tion of accounts, when the latter observed— 
 " There, sir ! — now I have paid just that much 
 of my debt which an ungrateful man could have 
 paid, the rest must remain ; and if you can spare 
 me a few minutes, Mr. Kilderbee, I should now 
 like to speak to you about another and very dif- 
 ferent matter." 
 
 " Yah ! yah ! — not so fast," replied the elder,
 
 A Noble Woman. 169 
 
 busying himself over an account in the green- 
 bound ledger, and forbearing to raise his eyes to 
 the man whom he addressed ; " let me finish this 
 matter, and then Fll listen to you. One thing 
 at a time is quite enough if you do it well ; two 
 things are less than enough if you do them badly. 
 You're a clever fellow, but you can't open a vein 
 and draw a tooth at the same time/' 
 
 In another minute Cornelius Kilderbee — a 
 tall, slight man, noticeable for the keenness of his 
 countenance and the stiffness of his knee-joints — 
 rose with a courageous assumption of bodily 
 briskness, and moving with an agility that, con- 
 sidering his cork leg, and chronic gout, and ad- 
 vanced years, was really wonderful, replaced his 
 account-book in an escritoire that stood in the 
 furthest corner of the room. That done, he re- 
 sumed his arm-chair, and leaning forwards, with 
 a hand on either thigh, ejaculated, in a sharply 
 interrogative tone, the monosyllable — 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " You see, sir," responded James Stapleton, 
 somewhat put out of countenance by his com- 
 panion's curtness, " I am now in a position to 
 marry." 
 
 Pause of embarrassment. 
 
 " I see it — well V s put in the elder.
 
 170 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " There is no doubt about it, Mr. Kilderbee, 
 that I can now afford to keep a wife and family." 
 " Who on earth said you couldn't ? Well ?" 
 " As I was saying, Mr. Kilderbee, I am now a 
 free man ?" 
 " Are you ?" 
 
 James, suddenly blushing as he explained 
 himself, " I mean free as to debt." 
 
 " No doubt— free as to debt. Well ?" 
 " And now, sir, I mean to marry." 
 " Of course, you do. Now that you're out 
 of debt you wish to burden yourself with a wife 
 and a gang of brats. Having got out of one 
 trouble, you wish to get into another. That's 
 the way of the world with mere boys ; but you 
 are not a mere boy, and ought to know better. 
 But since you mean to marry, of course you will 
 marry, and nothing that I can say will stop 
 you. It's no use trying to save a man who is 
 thoroughly set on suicide. You may pull him 
 out of one pond, but he'll soon drown himself in 
 another. But pray go on, James Staple ton ; 
 for yours is an uncommon pretty story, though 
 it's not altogether new. So you mean to marry ? 
 Well ?" 
 
 " I want your approval of my choice." 
 
 " Indeed ! That'll make a vast difference !
 
 A Noble Woman. 171 
 
 My disapproval will put an end to your 
 love, eh?" 
 
 " No ; but it would certainly put off the fulfil- 
 ment of my hopes." 
 
 " You don't say so ? Perhaps you want me 
 to make love for you? Now surely, James 
 Stapleton, you can do that sort of thing for your- 
 self better than an old man with asthmatic lungs, 
 gouty blood, and a cork leg can do it for you." 
 
 " You have great influence with the lady, and 
 if you'd exercise it in my behalf I should be still 
 more deeply obliged to you. She wont marry 
 me unless you give her leave." 
 
 Mr. Kilderbee, with increased sharpness, " Oh, 
 you know that, do you ?" 
 
 " Certain of it." 
 
 At this point the veteran leaned back in his chair, 
 with a mischievous twinkle in his keen eyes and 
 mirth beaming in every feature of his thin, 
 long, wine-encrimsoned face ; and as he so sat, — 
 the whiteness of his close-cropped hair contrasting 
 with the inflammatory hue of his prominent nose, 
 and the pigtail that fell upon his high-collared 
 blue coat indicating the almost obsolete genera- 
 tion to which he belonged, — no spectator of the 
 scene would have hesitated to admit that Mr. 
 Kilderbee was a well-looking old gentleman, and
 
 172 A Noble Woman. 
 
 a decidedly agreeable as well as characteristic 
 specimen of the pigtail and frilled-shirt period. 
 
 " In point of fact, Mr. Kilderbee," continued 
 James Stapleton, " I want to speak to yon about 
 Miss Clayton/-' 
 
 " Young man/' interrupted the elder in a tone 
 of warning, " I gave you my money once upon 
 a time, and you have insisted on returning 
 every penny of it ; but if I give you my niece, I 
 am sorely afraid you'll never let me have her 
 again/' 
 
 " You are right there/' 
 
 " But since," continued Mr. Kilderbee, his 
 features relaxing into an expression of benevo- 
 lence, " you two have made it up between you, 
 and understand each other, and all that sort of 
 thing " 
 
 " But, sir, it has not come to f all that sort of 
 thing/ I have not ventured to speak to Miss 
 Clayton before asking your permission." 
 
 A sudden scarlet flush made the old man's 
 usually white forehead of one colour with his 
 invariably ensanguined face, as, careless of gouty 
 monitions, he struck his right hand on the table 
 and exclaimed in a high key, and with an affec- 
 tation of disdain, " Then, perish me" (the ex- 
 pression actually used was something much more
 
 A Noble Woman. 173 
 
 profane), " what a fool you have been, to hang 
 about shilly-shallying instead of going in and 
 fixing her ! Perish me, if you don't deserve to 
 lose her for your miserable want of confidence 
 in yourself, and for your misdirected and alto- 
 gether superfluous respect to an old gray-headed 
 curmudgeon like myself! Why, man, you've 
 made a downright fool of me. Here have I been 
 for the last year or two bringing you together, 
 and leaving you together, and giving you all sorts 
 of opportunities, and, perish me, you've not even 
 got over the preliminaries. Why, James Staple- 
 ton, a tortoise would have done more under the 
 circumstances." 
 
 u Then you wish for it ?" inquired James with 
 equal surprise and gratification. 
 
 " Wish for it ! Oh, dear me ; you'll kill me 
 with your abominable stupidity. Why — " (and 
 here Mr. Kilderbee affixed to an ejaculatory men- 
 tion of his eyes the word which we will continue 
 to misreport as c perish ') — " it was I who brought 
 you together ; it was I who made up the match, 
 as anxiously and cleverly and successfully as any 
 old woman bent on fixing a favourite daughter 
 well in life could have played the same sort of 
 game ; and now that you are going to marry, 
 and become one bone and all the rest of it, perish
 
 174 A Noble Woman. 
 
 me, if you are not after settling matters so that 
 I shall get none of the credit of having brought 
 it about. " 
 
 Towards the close of this piece of raillery, the 
 old man's voice rose to a high key that scarcely 
 accorded with the humorous lightness of the 
 part which he was endeavouring to play ; and his 
 utterance was affected by a spasmodic action of 
 the throat that betrayed the strength of emotions 
 which he vainly tried to conceal beneath an air 
 of levity. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Kilderbee, my true and dear 
 friend/' James Stapleton's deep and melodious 
 voice answered with impressive slowness and cor- 
 responding depth of intonation, " I am accus- 
 tomed to kindness from you ; till this hour from 
 my boyhood your goodness has encompassed and 
 supported me ; and yet, sir, used as I am to your 
 beneficent consideration, this exhibition of your 
 care for me is almost too much for me to bear 
 without behaving as men are bound by their 
 pride not to behave." 
 
 Something more the surgeon would have said 
 had not Cornelius Kilderbee by a sudden ele- 
 vation of his right hand and an abrupt utterance 
 intimated that he had need of a minute's silence 
 for the recovery of his self-command.
 
 A Noble Woman. 175 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Good Bail. 
 
 FTER a pause, during which a paleness 
 arising from new emotion rather than 
 decrease of excitement modified the bril- 
 liance of his complexion, the veteran laid his 
 right fore- arm upon the table, and turning his 
 eyes full upon his companion observed, " Don't 
 thank me, boy. If you are grateful to me for 
 having done you any good, render thanks to 
 your father's memory. For though I have long 
 since loved you for your own sake, I should have 
 done just the same to you for his sake, even if 
 you hadn't been a boy made to my own heart. 
 He was my old true friend when the strong ones 
 of the Border wished to crush me. Ay, he was 
 a noble man. Mayhap you never heard of a 
 great service that he rendered me ?" 
 
 " Not of any special matter, — that is to say, 
 not as to particulars." 
 
 " It is only from hearsay that you can have 
 learnt what HI now tell you, for it's not im-
 
 176 A Noble Woman. 
 
 portant enough to be any matter of history ; and 
 it occurred in '94>j before you were born. In 
 that year you may have heard, ay, must have 
 heard, the great people of the Border decided to 
 get up a criminal prosecution against me, and by 
 my ruin warn all turbulent country tradesmen 
 that they had better bear themselves respectfully 
 to their superiors, and abstain from criticizing 
 the Government of the country. That was the 
 time when it was treason to whisper what king's 
 ministers now-a-days are applauded for uttering 
 aloud; when it was diabolical to hold views that 
 now-a-days command admiration when they come 
 from the lips of a bishop charging his clergy, or 
 are openly advocated in the House of Lords by 
 Tory peers. Why, half of what I was scouted for 
 demanding from the legislature when I was a 
 young man is at this very moment the law of 
 the land; and the other half will be conceded 
 before I have been ten years in my coffin. 
 Things were hottish all over the country in those 
 days; and here in Carlton Cross, hang me, if 
 they weren't at boiling point. The borough was 
 what old Archdeacon Howlett, your grandfather, 
 used to call a hot-bed of sedition ; and yet the 
 Church party carried themselves so high, that no 
 Churchman ever thought of entering a dissenter's
 
 A Noble Woman. 177 
 
 shop, no Nonconformist could have shown himself 
 at a f parish dinner ' without causing a tumult/ - ' 
 
 " A change has taken place since then," ob- 
 served James, who had, of course, again and 
 again heard these and similar reminiscences from 
 the old politician's lips. 
 
 " A change, I believe you. I have lived to be 
 mayor of the borough, in which it was once 
 thought by the higher folk that, on account of 
 my religious principles, I was scarce fit to vote 
 as a burgess. But it was hottish in '94, and long 
 afterwards. Well, the magistrates about here 
 had satisfied themselves that I was a most per- 
 nicious and pestilent fellow, and had conceived a 
 wish to make an example of me. It was known 
 that I was the local secretary of the ' Corre- 
 sponding Society ;' and it was clear to people 
 who knew the Border that I was drawing a good 
 deal of political influence into my hands. Stories 
 of the most wonderful kind floated about the 
 three counties concerning me. They would have 
 it that I was bent on plundering the rich, de- 
 stroying the Church, poisoning the nobility, and 
 killing the king. There was no imaginable 
 atrocity of which I was not capable. Your 
 grandfather, old Archdeacon Howlett, denounced 
 me from the pulpit as a disseminator of sedition. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 A Noble Woman. 
 
 At last there was a charge trumped up against 
 me. A poor tramp, to whom I gave a few shil- 
 lings out of charity, together with an introduction 
 to James Barker, the bookseller and printer, in 
 order that he might get a new set of his old 
 ballads printed, gave them a handle against me. 
 The poor fellow got his living by selling ballads 
 about the Border ; and when he had pretty nigh 
 exhausted his stock of broadsides, he paid one of 
 our country printers to strike him off a fresh 
 supply. Where he got the ballads from origi- 
 nally, Heaven knows. When I came to look at 
 them, to my surprise I found amongst them 
 several old Jacobite songs, that certainly did not 
 speak in a very handsome way of ' King George/ 
 Of course, my enemies read them as pointing at 
 George the Third, and maintained that I had set 
 the old ballad-seller to spread them about the 
 Border, in the hope of stimulating the discontent 
 and disloyalty of the poorer classes." 
 
 " Yes, and my father — what had my father to 
 do in this matter?" 
 
 " I am coming to that. Ridiculous as the 
 basis of the accusation was, it threatened to be 
 serious. Many an honest fellow in those days 
 was thrown into prison, ay, and lost his life for a 
 smaller indiscretion. I was arrested and carried
 
 A Noble Woman. 179 
 
 before the county — not the borough — magistrates 
 for examination. I told my story — that the old 
 tramp had sold the same ballads about here for 
 the last twenty years ; that the ballads had no 
 reference whatever to the reigning king ; that 
 when I gave the poor man a present of money 
 and an introduction to James Barker, I knew 
 nothing whatever of the contents of his broad- 
 sides; that under these circumstances it was 
 simply absurd to regard my action as seditious. 
 f Absurd V exclaimed the chairman of the bench, 
 old Sir Mortimer Mollineux, catching up my 
 word — 'you apply that term to his Majesty's 
 Justices of the Peace/ ' No, your Honour/ I 
 replied, l but to a course which they will decline 
 to adopt/ ' Hold your tongue, man V the old 
 gentleman cried out. ' You're a prating fellow ; 
 you are never seen at your parish church ; I know 
 the kind of fellow you are, — and now I and my 
 brethren of the Bench have caught you tripping, 
 we'll lay you by the heels, and teach you modesty 
 in the county gaol V 
 
 " The case was remanded ; and, of course, I 
 asked to be set at liberty on bail. After consult- 
 ing with the other magistrates Sir Mortimer 
 said, ' Yes, you may be out on bail till Friday ; 
 but the bail must be satisfactory/ Immediately, 
 
 n 2
 
 180 A Noble Woman. 
 
 eight substantial tradesmen and two Noncon- 
 formist ministers offered themselves as my bail ; 
 but (you'll hardly believe it), the Bench indig- 
 nantly rejected them all, because they were dis- 
 senters. l Then, gentlemen/ I said, bowing 
 politely to the Bench, ' you must keep me in 
 confinement : for those who know me well enough 
 to trust me, as an honest man, are all of them 
 dissenters/ 
 
 " Go on, sir/'' interposed James Stapleton, 
 who had for the moment forgotten his love 
 
 "Now these words had scarce escaped my 
 lips," continued Cornelius Kilderbee, "when 
 your father stept forwards and said, 'You're 
 wrong there, Mr. Kilderbee. I am a Church- 
 man, and as blue at heart as any man in the 
 borough. I hate your political principles, but I 
 respect you as an honest man ; and if the Bench 
 will accept me, I'll be your bail/ He had only 
 come into the justices' room just in time to hear 
 my last words ; and seeing what the difficulty 
 was — that no Churchman would say a word for 
 me — he came instantly to my help. ' What !' 
 roared Sir Mortimer, beside himself with amaze- 
 ment : l you offer yourself bail for a sedition- 
 monger, Mr. Stapleton? What do you mean,
 
 A Noble Woman. 181 
 
 sir ? Are you mad ? Don't you remember that 
 you are my doctor, eh ¥ ' Yes, Sir Mortimer/ 
 answered your father, in his politest way, ' I am 
 your doctor, and Mr. Kilderbee's neighbour ; and 
 though I am not given to quoting Scripture, I 
 could tell you a text which encourages me to do 
 him a neighbour's part/ Well, there was an end 
 of that matter. Your father was well known and 
 well respected ; the magistrates accepted him as 
 a surety for my appearance; and after putting 
 their heads together they agreed to regard a 
 member of my own congregation as a good and 
 sufficient man to be joined as bail with your 
 father/' 
 
 After a pause, Cornelius Kilderbee continued : 
 " Before Friday came, the magistrates had taken 
 a calmer and more judicious view of the whole 
 question ; and old Lawyer Kingsford, your friend 
 Herrick's grandfather, received an intimation 
 from Sir Mortimer that the proceedings against 
 me would be dropt. The Kingsfords were, of 
 course, true blue ; and the old lawyer, as clerk 
 of the magistrates, would have been required to 
 instruct counsel and gather evidence for my pro- 
 secution had the authorities persevered in carry- 
 ing out their intention to make an example of 
 me. The Kingsfords had ere then conceived a
 
 182 A Noble Woman. 
 
 dislike for that turbulent tradesman, Cornelius 
 Kilderbee ; and they were not softened towards 
 me by my good fortune in slipping out of the net 
 which they had weaved for my destruction. 
 That matter wasn't the beginning — and Heaven 
 knows, too, it wasn't the end — of the quarrel 
 between us. A-ah ! — w As the speaker ut- 
 tered this cry, the memory of his old parochial 
 feud with the up-looking Kingsfords — men 
 hateful to him as private enemies no less than as 
 political adversaries — flushed his forehead with 
 crimson. " A-ah ! I've been a thorn in the 
 flesh of the Kingsfords; and though their 
 tongues are smooth enough to me now, and 
 though we never meet in the High-street with- 
 out passing the good-day between us, I should 
 enjoy knocking another spoke or two out of their 
 carriage wheels before I start on the quick pas- 
 sage to kingdom-come. They are a false, 
 tyrannical, smooth-tongued lot. In the whole 
 lot of them there never was man or woman with- 
 out a heart full to bursting with insolence and 
 malignity; and their sickening arrogance is all 
 the more offensive because it is coated over with a 
 plausible affectation of kindliness that sometimes 
 makes them popular amongst the very persons 
 whom they treat most contemptuously. They
 
 A Noble Woman. 183 
 
 are an insufferable set of bumptious sneaks — 
 playing the bully one day and the toady the 
 next. But mind you, Jem, my boy, I'll give 
 them another turn before I close accounts with 
 them/' 
 
 It was characteristic of the speaker that for 
 the moment the recollection of his long-enduring 
 feud with the Kingsfords had put out of sight 
 those memories of his old friendship for Lemuel 
 Stapleton which, a minute earlier, had stirred 
 his heart, and given his voice a tone of deep and 
 solemn emotion. 
 
 Instead of finding relief in speech his irritation 
 against the odious Kingsfords grew with utterance 
 until it boiled up in a fury of malevolence and 
 disdain. His eyes burning more and more 
 fiercely as he continued to give greater licence 
 to his tongue, and the customary crimson of 
 his mobile features deepening into angry purple 
 as he recalled the chief causes of his vehe- 
 ment animosity against the whole kindred of 
 the Tory banker, he continued in a tone that 
 was all the more expressive of the force and 
 depth of his hatred because it was by no means 
 boisterous. 
 
 " The whole Border does not contain a more 
 impudent, stuck-up hypocrite than old Kingsford
 
 184 A Noble Woman. 
 
 of Coote Hall. He is as greedy and insolent at 
 heart as he is smooth and sweet in speech. He 
 does not dare to treat me with much of his 
 palaver, for he knows well enough that it 
 wouldn't impose on me. As for his brother 
 Ambrose, though the man is dead, I don't with- 
 hold myself from saying that within the lines of 
 the law — always, mind ye, within those legal 
 lines which consummate rascality knows best 
 and most about — the fellow was an arrant knave 
 — a thorough knave — an unutterably dirty knave. 
 But they have prospered; and your friend 
 Herrick is to be the great man, the grand gen- 
 tleman of the family. He is to be Lawyer 
 Kingsford of Carlton Cross, and Banker Kings- 
 ford of Carlton Cross, and Squire Kingsford of 
 Coote Hall, years after his uncle Hercules shall 
 have reaped the reward of his sins. That 
 youngster is as sleek and perky and up-looking 
 as any and all of his kin ; and he is just as 
 truthless and cowardly/'' 
 
 " Come, come, sir/' urged James Stapleton, 
 whose loyal nature would not allow him to sit 
 quietly whilst such harsh language was directed 
 at his old schoolmate and peculiar friend. Even 
 though he should offend his benefactor, and 
 injure himself in the estimation of Bessie Clayton's
 
 A Noble Woman. 185 
 
 uncle, the surgeon, who in his heart regarded 
 Mr. Kilderbee's antagonism to the Kingsfords as 
 extravagant and ludicrous, though not unac- 
 countable, decided to put a curb on his com- 
 panion's wrath as soon as it bore unjustly on 
 Ambrose Kingsford's son. 
 
 " Herrick is a good enough fellow," he urged. 
 " You know more about his father and uncle 
 than I as a youngster can know; but circum- 
 stances have rendered me more familiar with 
 Herrick than I am with my own brothers, and 
 I say this stoutly, there isn't a better fellow in 
 the three counties than Herrick. There, sir, — 
 Herrick is as honest and true a man as can be 
 found in the whole Border." 
 
 " I am sure I hope you'll always think so," 
 rejoined Cornelius Kilderbee, with a dry, sus- 
 picious rattle in his voice, as the storm of his 
 fury subsided as suddenly as it had risen. 
 
 " But, sir," continued James, detecting the 
 desired change, and prudently turning the old 
 man's thoughts from the immediate source of 
 annoyance, " you were speaking of my father ?" 
 
 " Yes, boy, yes, so I was. Let me see," re- 
 sponded the veteran, recovering himself and his 
 subject at the same time, " it was about that 
 foolish business of the tramp's ballads. Well,
 
 186 A Noble Woman. 
 
 there the matter rested. But I should have 
 been put to further trouble — and the Lord only 
 knows to how much more disgrace — if your father 
 had not driven about the country from magis- 
 trate to magistrate, expostulating with them, 
 pledging his word that I was a loyal though per- 
 haps foolish fellow, and making them see that my 
 treasonable conduct in the matter of the ballads 
 was mere moonshine : and that however much it 
 might answer Lawyer Kingsford's purpose to 
 trump up a suit against me on such ridiculous 
 grounds, public opinion would secure my ac- 
 quittal at the assizes. Now, boy, that was very 
 noble of your father." 
 
 " Well, sir, I like to hear of it," answered 
 James Stapleton, the brightness of his honest 
 eyes according with the mellow richness of his 
 voice. " It is pleasant to think of you and my 
 father as friends when you were young men ; 
 very pleasant to know that your friend did not 
 fail you in the hour of need." 
 
 " You mayn't look at the affair so," interposed 
 the old man, quickly. " If I had been your 
 father's friend, the matter would have been less 
 to his credit, for friends always stick to each 
 other. At that time we were not even acquaint- 
 ances. He was blue, as your people have always
 
 A Noble Woman. 187 
 
 been ; I was yellow. He was a Churchman ; I 
 a dissenter. He was a gentleman, the most 
 prosperous doctor in this part of the Border; I 
 a struggling tradesman, whom the threatened 
 prosecution would have ruined and driven from 
 the borough. Now look at his conduct from 
 another point of view. The magistrates of this 
 immediate neighbourhood were, every man of 
 them, his patients, and in coming to my defence 
 he ran great risk of losing some of his best em- 
 ployers, and doing himself a permanent injury. 
 A man gives no small sign of moral courage, 
 when in the heat of party warfare he ventures to 
 protect a political adversary, and protest against 
 the indiscretion of his political friends. But 
 your father was a just man, and preferred justice 
 to his private interest ! He was a generous man, 
 and could appreciate honesty in an opponent ! He 
 was a brave man, and did for me what half your 
 battle-field heroes would not have dared to do ! 
 His conduct — *' Cornelius Kilderbee paused, 
 whilst he mentally looked about him for words 
 adequate to express the thought that filled him, 
 and then lowering his voice, he added — " was as 
 bright and noble as my gratitude is profound V* 
 
 " Boy," continued the old man, " when your 
 father died I came to your side with a helping
 
 188 A Noble Woman. 
 
 hand. I wished to do much more for you than 
 I did, but I kept my wishes to myself, for I knew 
 that your own pride and Mrs. Stapleton's sense 
 of dignity would not let you accept anything at 
 my hands if I pressed too much upon you. But 
 what I said then I say still, ( While I am in the 
 world, and can command a thousand guineas, no 
 child of Lemuel Stapleton's shall ever come to 
 misfortune through want of such a sum/ It is 
 no new thought to me, this wish of yours to 
 marry Bessie. I have been in no hurry to put 
 her into your hands, for an old man's home has 
 not so many sources of pleasure that he can 
 surrender such a housekeeper as Bessie with- 
 out a struggle. Perhaps I should have done 
 better to have hurried on matters between you a 
 little faster; but old men are selfish, and though 
 this world's future is necessarily short to me, 
 there's plenty of time before you for happiness. 
 * * * She's a sweet, gentle, clever crea- 
 ture ; no note is wrong in the music of her life ; 
 she is pious to God, dutiful to me, and gracious 
 to everybody. For your sake, Jem, I am glad 
 that she has been brought up in the Church ; and 
 for both your sakes I thank God for having so 
 far prospered me in life that I shall be able to 
 give you sooner or later something better or but
 
 A Noble Woman. 189 
 
 little worse than thirty thousand pounds. Shell 
 bring you a tidy fortune in gold and silver, Jem, 
 but shell bring you what's worth more to a man 
 of your kind than any amount of money — shell 
 bring you the devotion of a fine and noble 
 nature/' 
 
 " Is she at home, sir ?" James asked, with an 
 air of awkward though not dishonest shame. 
 
 " You can't see her this evening, Jem/' replied 
 Cornelius Kilderbee, quickly catching the sur- 
 geon's hint, and answering it with a roguish 
 twinkle as well as with words. " She has gone 
 out to spend an hour or two with neighbour 
 Rathbone's wife and daughters, and she wont be 
 back much before bed-time. No, no, you must 
 see her to-morrow, in the afternoon. Look ye, 
 Jem, I'll arrange a time for you. I dine at two 
 o'clock, and between three and five in the after- 
 noon, while I am having my after-dinner snooze, 
 Bessie in the ordinary way amuses herself in the 
 garden. To-morrow afternoon, if it's fine, I 
 shouldn't wonder if you found her between three 
 and five, say four o'clock, near the fish-pond, 
 working at a water-colour picture, which'll lick 
 anything in the way of art that your cousin 
 Emma Harrison ever painted. Now, if you can 
 make her say ' yes' to you before she returns to the
 
 190 A Noble Woman. 
 
 house, why, hang me, if I don't give you leave to 
 kiss her on the spot, so long as you consent to 
 ask my pardon afterwards/'' 
 
 Thus the matter was left for that evening. 
 
 And so thoroughly was James Stapleton satis- 
 fied with the aspect of affairs, that on his way 
 home from Green Villa he could not refrain from 
 looking in upon Herrick Kingsford, and giving 
 that familiar friend the latest intelligence re- 
 specting a matter in which he unquestionably took 
 a very lively interest.
 
 A Noble Woman. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Simple and yet Gentle. 
 
 |N the following day James Stapleton 
 arrayed himself with unusual care in 
 his most effective walking-attire; and 
 after passing judgment on his appearance before 
 his customary toilet-glass with something less than 
 his usual despondency, he was about to leave his 
 house at 3 50 p.m., when his mother encountered 
 him in the hall with a smile of encouragement, 
 and in her hand a flower for his button-hole. 
 " Don't let her keep you to tea, James. No 
 doubt she'll press you to stop ; but there will be 
 no need for you to accept the invitation. I shall 
 be waiting for your return, and wanting to hear 
 all about it." 
 
 Thus speaking, Mrs. Stapleton put the rose and 
 sprig of green in her boy's coat, and raised her 
 face to receive the kiss with which he acknow- 
 ledged her final touch to his personal adorn- 
 ment. " My nervousness has left me, mother," 
 he observed, in a low, confiding tone, that be-
 
 192 A Noble Woman. 
 
 trayed the fear which his words disclaimed. " I 
 feel almost certain of success." For a moment 
 her eyes brightened with maternal sympathy and 
 solicitude; but with an effort Archdeacon Hew- 
 lett's daughter restrained the rising tears, and 
 giving him a merry pat on his broad right arm, 
 and a merrier smile, rejoined, " Small reason 
 have you for fear, my son ; for myself, I have not 
 yet left off wondering at the girl's rare good for- 
 tune. I hope it wont turn her head." 
 
 With this maternal encouragement, James 
 Stapleton quitted his house, and turning out of 
 High-street, took the way towards Green Villa. 
 It was but a five minutes' walk ; but in those 
 five minutes of intense excitement familiar objects 
 so bit themselves into his consciousness that they 
 seemed to have a new significance, and were long 
 afterwards associated in his mind with that day's 
 errand and its result. The sky was bright and 
 cloudless, the air warm as July weather; and as 
 he crossed the Green he heard, with unaccustomed 
 distinctness, the notes of the boisterous birds pip- 
 ing in the elms. Herrick Kingsford traversed 
 his path at a distance of some twenty feet ; and 
 as they exchanged significant glances, James re- 
 called that morning, at the close of his student 
 when he received a similar look of en-
 
 A Noble Woman. 193 
 
 courageinent from liis friend, as they shook hands 
 at the door of the College in Lincoln's-inn-fields 
 the minute before he faced his professional ex- 
 aminers. He remembered vividly the agitation 
 with which he presented himself on that occasion 
 before his tutors in the College library, and it 
 appeared to him ominous of success that the same 
 trusted comrade should thus bid him be of good 
 cheer at a moment of even keener anxiety. 
 
 Running from north to south, a dusty road 
 divides the Green into two pleasant lawns ; and 
 as he put his clumsy feet on the white powder of 
 the broad way, he saw nigh the church- corner 
 his favourite sister driving her white pony, and 
 signalling to him to stop ; but instead of obeying 
 her gesture, he waved his hand and hurried on- 
 wards to his fate. " Shell take tea with my 
 mother," he said to himself, as he opened the gate 
 of Green Villa ; " and, if it's all right, it will be 
 pleasant to tell her the name of her future sister." 
 
 Another second, and he was within the 
 boundary of Cornelius Kilderbee's garden, 
 hastening towards the fish-pond under the at- 
 tentive observation of the worthy merchant, who 
 felt small need for his customary nap, and took 
 no shame to himself for playing the spy from 
 his parlour-window on the movements of the 
 
 vol. i. o
 
 194 A Noble Woman. 
 
 young people whom he had exerted himself to 
 bring together. Indeed, the kindly old man had 
 resolved to act as gooseberry-picker to the lovers ; 
 to keep watch over them whilst they had their 
 interesting interview ; to prowl about his grounds 
 at a respectful distance from the ornamental water, 
 and take good care that no unexpected guest 
 should intrude on their privacy at a crisis when 
 it was most necessary that they should be left to 
 themselves. During the preAdous evening, Mr. 
 Kilderbee had likened himself to a match-mak- 
 ing mother; and certainly no woman of the 
 world, anxious to bring about a match between 
 Bessie and James, could have conducted that 
 afternoon's arrangements with greater prudence, 
 or given them a better chance of success. 
 
 Ten more seconds, and James Stapleton paused 
 at a point where he saw Bessie under circumstances 
 that did not lessen her habitual comeliness. Be- 
 hind her lay a lawn of finest turf, bright with 
 verbenas and geraniums, asters and petunias, and 
 deftly planted with well-grown timber, through 
 which a corner of her uncle's modest mansion 
 was visible. On her left, a summer-house roofed 
 with masses of Virginian creeper, the burning 
 scarlet of its gorgeous leaves putting out of sight 
 the faint autumn tint that had otherwise been
 
 A Noble Woman. 195 
 
 apparent on the verdure of the adjacent trees. 
 Before her as fair a landscape as any to be found 
 in the Border : the tower of the old Norman 
 church,, surmounting the elms and limes that con- 
 cealed the rest of the edifice ; a valley of flat pas- 
 ture dotted with cattle, that grazed near the con- 
 fluence of the TTandle and the Windrush, and 
 musical with the drowsy hum of mill-wheels set 
 in action by those strong though tranquil cur- 
 rents ; and in the distance the Atterbury hills, 
 over which the first sombre light of the coming 
 eve was imperceptibly stealing. 
 
 Bessie's garden hat was lying on the gravel at 
 her feet, and a light silk shawl had slipped from 
 her shoulders to the back of her rustic chair. 
 Looking towards the Atterbury hills, she wore 
 upon her face an expression of such intense happi- 
 ness that James Stapleton had good cause to hesi- 
 tate ere he broke upon meditations that were so 
 manifestly fruitful of happiness. That she had 
 come to the spot with the intention of working 
 at her picture, the artistic appliances that covered 
 a part of the rude seat were evidence ; but she 
 had neither opened her box of paints nor made 
 any preparation for work. " She is thinking of 
 something pleasant to herself; far better so than 
 toiling at a picture to please other people," 
 
 o 2
 
 196 A Noble Woman. 
 
 thought James Stapleton, — as his eyes rested with 
 pure and passionless admiration on the glossy 
 brown hair that, notwithstanding the silky soft- 
 ness of its texture, rose with a ripple from the 
 white forehead of which it hid the uppermost 
 inch ; as he surveyed the bonny roundness of her 
 waxen cheek, and the gentle frankness of her 
 regular but free and unformal profile ; as he 
 marked the black lash of her half-averted eye, 
 and the ruddy tenderness of the lips that were 
 just far enough apart for some small and surpas- 
 singly white teeth to be apparent; as his sight 
 traced the harmonious lines of her bare neck, 
 and the no less graceful curves of the delicate 
 shoulders, well-developed bust, and dainty waist, 
 that were covered, but not disguised, by the folds 
 and cincture of her muslin dress. 
 
 It may not be thought that Bessie was a beauty 
 without fault or flaw. Measured and judged by 
 critical rules, she could not be extolled as a per- 
 fect example of any distinctive type of feminine 
 loveliness ; but the most fastidious connoisseur of 
 womanly shape and style, beholding her as she 
 sat under the burning scarlet of the Virginian 
 creeper, would have admitted that she was a young 
 woman endowed with more than a common share 
 of comeliness, and with the air which satisfies
 
 A Noble Woman. 197 
 
 masculine observers that a woman is well-bred — 
 in a sense that makes no reference to social ante- 
 cedents or circumstances — before they have heard 
 her utter a word. In a ball-room of London 
 beauties she would not have dazzled or created 
 any kind of sensation; but in a calm domestic 
 scene she would have sustained comparison with 
 women of greater brilliance and more showy 
 attractions. 
 
 There are faces with which no man who has 
 outlived the period of boyish impulsiveness would 
 fall in love at first sight ; and yet they take a 
 stronger and more enduring hold of masculine 
 sentiment than looks that captivate more quickly. 
 They belong to a comparatively abundant kind of 
 comeliness. Peeping through carriage-windows, 
 or bright with ruddy glow caught by horse-exer- 
 cise in the parks, dozens of them may be en- 
 countered any day of the year in the western 
 thoroughfares of London; and when in some 
 hour of despondency or dulness a man of gentle 
 nature and pure thought chances upon one of 
 them in the course of a solitary ramble — at the 
 turning of a street, in the formal gathering of a 
 fashionable promenade, at the entrance of a bazaar, 
 or in a quiet corner of a deserted square — it is 
 marvellous how suddenly his dejection is replaced
 
 198 A Noble Woman. 
 
 by hope, and bright thoughts come unsought to 
 his quickened brain. Rousing no thought that 
 a man would hesitate to utter to his mother, or 
 sister, or wife, the sight of these fair faces in our 
 public ways is not the least important of those 
 influences to which Western civilization is indebted 
 for its superiority to the civilization of lands 
 where woman veils her countenance whenever she 
 moves beyond the walls of her dreary home. 
 
 Of such faces Bessie Clayton's was one. 
 
 It was a power of goodness and a source of 
 beneficial pleasure to hundreds with whom she 
 had no familiar intercourse — to hundreds with 
 whom she never exchanged a word. The trades- 
 men standing at their shop-doors paid court to 
 it for a smile whenever it appeared in the High- 
 street ; and for a moment her smile — never sought 
 in vain — inclined the bitterest sectarian of the 
 borough to think that after all the Church could 
 not be far wrong whilst it had so fair a wor- 
 shipper, that the dissenter was not without 
 apology who had so affable and gracious a niece. 
 From childhood she had led a secluded life so 
 far as Carlton Cross was concerned. Her private 
 friendships were few, for whilst her connexion 
 with the Established Church precluded her from 
 close intimacy with the dissenters of the town, the
 
 A Noble Woman. 199 
 
 orthodox gentlefolk had not altogether adopted 
 her as one of their own select set. Belonging to 
 neither of the two great parties into which Carlton 
 Cross was divided, she was a connecting link 
 between both; and it said not a little for her 
 amiability and tact that she was as popular with 
 the one side as the other. Indeed, Miss Bessie 
 Clayton was a universal favourite, and commanded 
 the good words of simple and gentle. Even the 
 market-women never tried to cheat her, and 
 Cornel Kilderbee maintained that they were less 
 inclined to take an unfair advantage over their 
 other customers when they had just had dealings 
 with his winsome housekeeper. 
 
 That she was much cleverer than her neigh- 
 bours there is no reason for thinking. At school 
 she was never thought deficient in mother- wit ; 
 and when her educational course came to an end 
 she returned to Carlton Cross equipped for life's 
 battle with a sufficient smattering of French, a 
 highly creditable knowledge of the rule of three, 
 some proficiency in an execrable style of water- 
 colour art, a well-trained voice, and a perfect 
 mastery of the ingenious caligraphic trick known 
 to writing-masters as a lady's running-hand. 
 Certain facts, however, countenance the impres- 
 sion that she was less distinguished for mental
 
 200 A Noble Woman. 
 
 sharpness than natural goodness amongst the 
 schoolmates with whom she was a universal and 
 particular favourite. Inquiry has ascertained 
 that whereas she carried off numerous prizes for 
 u good conduct/' " industry/' and " lady-like de- 
 meanour/' she never won a similar recognition of 
 her attainments in any of those various depart- 
 ments of learning in which Miss Discipline's 
 young ladies were sedulously instructed. More- 
 over, it rests on good authority that, though no 
 lady of the Border wrote a prettier letter, Bessie 
 Clayton was apt to make noticeable trips in her 
 spelling whenever she put pen to paper without 
 having her Johnson's dictionary close at hand. 
 
 Certain also is it that, like many another true 
 and loving Englishwoman before her time, Bessie 
 never vexed her brain over problems more diffi- 
 cult than those which her appointed instructors 
 in arithmetic submitted to her notice. It may be 
 questioned whether she knew or even suspected 
 that life had riddles which wise men vainly tried 
 to solve. Knowing only a little, she never cared 
 to penetrate beneath the surface of that little. 
 She knew that Carlton Cross was divided into 
 Church people and dissenters ; but how the divi- 
 sions came about, whether it would be better or 
 pleasanter if all people thought alike, and whe-
 
 A Noble Woman. 201 
 
 ther tweedle-dum was any nearer the truth than 
 tweedle-dee, were questions to which she never 
 gave a moment's consideration. All her views 
 respecting truth consisted in her certain know- 
 ledge that it was wicked and contemptible to tell 
 or act falsehoods. She knew that there were 
 Tories and Whigs, and that at elections Tories 
 wore blue and Whigs yellow favours ; and this, so 
 far as she knew or wished to know, was the sum 
 of the difference between them. She was a very 
 clever hand at turning out rosettes, and whenever 
 an election occurred in the borough she first 
 made a yellow favour for her uncle, and then a 
 blue rosette for the rector. It had never oc- 
 curred to her that there was anything strange in 
 the fact that she was a Churchwoman whilst her 
 uncle was a dissenter. Compared with the 
 erudite young gentlewomen of the present day, 
 who take sides in every political or scientific 
 contest that is fought upon the social stage, 
 and have their views respecting every theory 
 propounded by Ruskin, and every law demon- 
 strated by Mill, Bessie must be set down for a 
 sad dunce ; and yet it may be questioned whe- 
 ther her unconscious and uninquiring ignorance 
 was not quite as serviceable an armour as the 
 curious and uncertain knowledge of the studious
 
 202 A Noble Woman. 
 
 book-making lasses who sit now-a-clays under 
 learned lecturers in Albemarle-street. 
 
 Nor may it be imagined that Bessie was a poor 
 conversationalist because she was but a simple- 
 ton with respect to the learning of the schools. 
 An amiable sympathy with her neighbours of 
 every degree, and an active interest in their 
 affairs, supplied her tongue with quite as good 
 topics as any she could have borrowed from 
 poets and philosophers. Though no lover of 
 gossip in the unkindly signification of the term, 
 she was always well furnished with the latest 
 news of the borough and the Border ; and it was 
 pleasant to mark the animation and innocent 
 sprightliness with which she tossed about the 
 prattle of the hour as she passed it on to other 
 hearers. Without ever falling into flippancy 
 or heedlessness — the besetting sins of racy 
 talkers — she had a power of speech that won 
 the hearts of listeners. It was not brilliant or 
 noticeable for originality ; but the rich, innocent, 
 exhilarating music by which a serenely joyous 
 nature repaid with interest the happiness that it 
 derived from life. 
 
 Her peculiar attractiveness lay chiefly in her 
 possession of a quality which is distinct from 
 beauty of feature, grace of form, delicacy of
 
 A Noble Woman. 203 
 
 colour, and yet is so closely allied to each of 
 these principal ingredients of personal beauty, 
 that not seldom it is regarded as the result of 
 their harmonious combination rather than as a 
 separate and independent power. Coming mys- 
 teriously and passing away as unaccountably — 
 like the excellence that for a few summers dis- 
 tinguishes a particular flower from all others of 
 its kind, and then suddenly vanishes, to the per- 
 plexity of gardeners and physiologists — this 
 quality appears and disappears in obedience to no 
 ascertained laws, rendering particular families 
 conspicuous for dignity of expression, gracious- 
 ness of demeanour, charm of presence, and then 
 by a sudden desertion of the once-favoured 
 stocks, giving scientific observers fresh instances 
 of inexplicable deterioration of species. In this 
 country it never exists amongst the very poor ; 
 but the frequency with which it quickens and 
 glorifies simple families in the lower grades of 
 the middle class demonstrates that it is no dis- 
 tinctive attribute of ancient aristocracies. For 
 manifest reasons one would expect to find it 
 abounding more largely in the patrician and 
 gentle than in the humbler classes of society ; but 
 it would be easy to mention families upon fami- 
 lies of the bluest of blue blood in whom this
 
 204 A Noble Woman. 
 
 subtle endowment is conspicuous by reason of its 
 total absence. No tongue can define, no pen 
 can describe it ; the painter's brush can do no 
 more than indicate it. For want of a better 
 name people are wont to call it (e good breeding •" 
 and yet it has been known to distinguish the sons 
 and daughters of humble and ill-descended yeo- 
 men — men who got their breeding at the plough- 
 tail, and women who caught the visible charm as 
 thev churned butter and milked cows.
 
 A Noble Woman. 205 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 hi which James Stapleton sees how it all is. 
 
 T is impossible to say how long James 
 Stapleton would have continued to 
 stand,, silently gazing at the girl to 
 whom he was summoning his courage to make 
 an offer, had not a certain huge and ruddy apple, 
 taking the only course left open to it by cir- 
 cumstances, fallen from its parent tree with 
 startling resonance upon the ground immediately 
 behind the spot where he was stationed. No 
 sooner had the fruit touched the earth with a 
 heavy thump than, suddenly roused from her 
 meditations by the phenomenon with which one 
 Isaac Newton is intimately associated in the 
 popular mind, Bessie quickly turned her face in 
 the direction of her admirer, and as quickly 
 manifested her surprise and confusion at finding 
 his eyes upon her. 
 
 " It's only an apple, Bessie/' said the simple 
 blunderer, misreading the blush which covered 
 her face, and misconstruing the momentary ex-
 
 206 A Noble Woman. 
 
 pression of something akin to affright that crossed 
 her countenance in a trice ; " surely you are not 
 to be startled by such a trifle as that." 
 
 " It was not the apple, but you, that fright- 
 ened me/' explained Bessie, frankly confessing 
 the agitation which she knew herself to have be- 
 trayed by her looks. "How did you come here?" 
 
 There was small encouragement to the suitor 
 in this commencement, for though Bessie's words 
 expressed no wish that he had kept away, her em- 
 barrassment and the pitch of her voice signified 
 that she would rather have been left alone. 
 
 " I came over the grass, Bessie," he answered, 
 " and found you so occupied with your own 
 thoughts that you neither heard my steps, nor 
 when I had drawn quite near to you felt my 
 presence. Perhaps I ought to have made you 
 aware that I was so close at hand — perhaps you 
 would like me now to leave you alone ?" 
 
 " Leave me alone ! — why should you ?" in- 
 quired Bessie, with her usual cordiality, as she 
 recovered her self-possession and awoke to the 
 fact that she had given her friend a cold greet- 
 ing. Thus speaking, she looked up at him quickly, 
 brightening her face with one of those sunny 
 smiles that are amongst the common-form blan- 
 dishments of guileless women no less than of
 
 A Noble Woman. £07 
 
 practised flirts; and as she thus atoned for her 
 previous lack of complaisance, a stranger stand- 
 ing by James's side would have marked the con- 
 trast between the darkness of her hair and the 
 soft, liquid, somewhat disappointing greyness of 
 her timid eyes. 
 
 u Leave me alone ! — why should you V she 
 repeated, pushing her paint-box and folio aside, 
 so that James might take a share of her seat. 
 tt You surely are not afraid of me, or think that 
 I am sorry to see you, because you startled me 
 for a moment? Come here, Mr. Stapleton, and 
 let us enjoy the old valley together." 
 
 The exceptional nature of their intimacy was 
 shown by the fact that whilst James addressed 
 her by her Christian name, she persisted in using 
 towards him the more distant and respectful style 
 of address which she had naturally employed 
 when she was but a child and used to look up 
 to him reverentially as one of her superiors. 
 Of late they had come closer together, and for 
 years the disparity of their ages had not hindered 
 them from holding intercourse on terms of per- 
 fect equality; but still the manner of each to- 
 wards the other retained signs of the old days 
 when he was her condescending patron, she his 
 pet plaything.
 
 208 A Noble Woman. 
 
 "You are very kind, Bessie," he answered, in 
 his usual tone, availing himself of the invitation 
 to share her seat ; " but all the same for that, I 
 have behaved badly, and if you chose to scold 
 me I could not charge you with injustice. It 
 was impudence and bad breeding in me to stand 
 there so long, watching the colour of your cheek 
 and the shape of your lips, and trying to guess 
 your thoughts from the rate of your breathing ; 
 but the fact is, the look of your face according 
 with the thought that was uppermost in my mind 
 when I entered the garden, seemed to take from 
 me the power of speech, whilst by way of com- 
 pensation, I suppose, it gave me a delicious con- 
 fidence and hope." 
 
 " Indeed !" rejoined Bessie, colouring again, 
 as her pale eyes glanced shyly at him from be- 
 neath their long lashes. " I am vain enough to 
 like being told that my looks can do so much, 
 and I am curious enough to wish for further par- 
 ticulars. What do you hope for from me ? Fll 
 do my best not to disappoint you." 
 
 " Thank you for that promise ; come, give me 
 your hand upon it." 
 
 " Is not a woman's word enough, Mr. Staple- 
 ton ? Well, since you ask me, and since I want 
 to learn what the hope is, I give you my hand. 
 There, but you mayn't hurt it."
 
 A Noble Woman. 209 
 
 " Let it lie there, Bessie/" James entreated, as 
 his long, heavy fingers closed gently over the 
 small hand which she had placed deliberately in 
 the middle of his outstretched palm, " while I 
 speak to yon about a matter of some importance 
 to both of us. There is no more room for fear that 
 I shall deal roughly with it than for fear that it 
 may deal roughly with others. It is not the first 
 time that you've allowed me to nurse it. Don't 
 you remember, Bessie, in your long illness, until 
 the fever had quite left you, you wouldn't go to 
 sleep unless I held it — as I do now?" 
 
 " I remember." 
 
 " Then don't fear to let me hold it." 
 
 " Times must alter strangely before I shall fear 
 you, Mr. Stapleton." 
 
 a Before I tell you my hope, let me say some- 
 thing about the look that just now gave me hope 
 that I might get my hope. You are always 
 beautiful in no common degree to my eyes, and 
 it is not often that your face is darkened with 
 sorrow. I am accustomed to see pleasure as 
 well as beauty in your face, Bessie ; but just 
 now you looked as if you were steeped in joy. 
 Upon your lips, your brow, your tranquil face, 
 there was such a visible glory of excessive and 
 intense happiness, that I said to myself, ' She may 
 
 vol. i. p
 
 210 A Noble Woman. 
 
 go from this spot and forthwith be smitten with 
 a terrible grief, and never again escape from the 
 grip of misfortune, and yet the memory of the 
 moments she is now living will make her to the 
 end of her existence thankful for the gift of life/ 
 Never, Bessie, in all my life, had I seen such 
 happiness on a human face." 
 
 To the enquiring tone in which he put these 
 last words Bessie answered in a low, tremu- 
 lous voice, singularly expressive of fervour and 
 gratitude — " Your eyes did not deceive you. I 
 was unspeakably happy — unspeakably happy. 
 God alone can tell how happy He has made me. 
 I have in me more joy than one heart knows 
 what to do with." 
 
 " Then share it with another." 
 
 " I will — / have !" ejaculated Bessie, as a 
 sudden fear fell upon her, together with a per- 
 ception of the drift of her companion's words, and 
 the significance of his strong emotion. 
 
 " I saw it, I read the truth," continued James 
 Stapleton, on whom Bessie's last words were as 
 completely lost as though they had never been 
 uttered — as though no painful suspicion, no ter- 
 rifying discovery had wrung from her a revelation 
 of that which it was her intention to keep yet a 
 little longer from the knowledge of all the world
 
 A Noble Woman. 211 
 
 save herself and one other person ; " and I dared 
 to interpret it as an omen that the hope which I 
 have cherished for years would not be disap- 
 pointed, and now " 
 
 "Mr. Stapleton, dear Mr. Stapleton, do let 
 me/ ; she interposed, with an air of acute and un- 
 controllable anxiety ; but the entreaty thus begun 
 was stopped at its outset by a sudden failure of 
 power to put in any language the thoughts that, 
 promptly spoken, might have saved her some of 
 the humiliation, though they could have spared 
 her but little of the pain which the event of that 
 afternoon was destined to confer upon her. For 
 a moment her left hand was raised in warning, 
 in expostulation, in pitiful prayer, and then, as 
 though conscious of its impotence to discharge 
 the office of the paralysed tongue, it fell help- 
 lessly beside the right hand which still remained 
 in her companion's firm hold. Then came from 
 her eyes a look eloquent of anguish and dis- 
 may — a look which, like every other sign of her 
 violent disturbance, was totally misconstrued by 
 the blind, honest, loyal blunderer, who forthwith 
 proceeded to inflict on the object of his unselfish 
 love an anguish far sharper and more enduring 
 than any suffering that can be wrought by rack, 
 or boot, or any other ingenious contrivance for 
 
 p2
 
 212 A Noble Woman. 
 
 the production of physical torture. One moment 
 more, and she knew that this last mute appeal 
 had failed to achieve its purpose, and then, drop- 
 ping her face upon her hands — the hand that 
 was free, and the hand which the executioner 
 retained — the poor, shivering, sobbing creature 
 submitted herself to the lash, and uttered not a 
 cry throughout her punishment. 
 
 Its infliction did not occupy very many 
 moments. As is the wont of simple and terribly 
 earnest suitors, when they are in the very act of 
 preferring their momentous question, James 
 stammered a great deal, and repeated the same 
 words several times before he managed to put 
 in sufficiently intelligible, though by no means 
 accurate language, his wish that the girl — the 
 convulsions of whose frame were visible to him as 
 he spoke — would surrender herself into his custody 
 for life ; to be the inmate of his home, the sharer 
 of his fortunes, the mother of his children. It was 
 soon over. Hesitations, vain repetitions, and cum- 
 brous involvements of speech notwithstanding, 
 the final utterance of James's proposal was made 
 in something less than three minutes ; but in that 
 short space of time thought followed thought, 
 memory succeeded memory, and inference begat 
 inference so rapidly in Bessie's mind, that she
 
 A Noble Woman. 213 
 
 may be said to have relived in it many years of 
 her past life, and as she so lived them over 
 again, to have seen for the first time the signi- 
 ficance and importance of incidents which, at the 
 dates of their occurrence, she had thought of no 
 real moment. As a revelation no less convincing 
 than sudden, the discovery came upon her that 
 James Stapleton had been her suitor throughout 
 those years ; that what she had regarded as his 
 friendship was nothing less than his love ; worse 
 still, that in responding with simple affection to 
 expressions utterly misread, she had given him 
 grounds to think that she recognised the real 
 nature of his attachment, and was not indisposed 
 to satisfy its ambition. Though even in that 
 passage of sharp misery and humiliating dis- 
 coveries her conscience assured her of the inno- 
 cence and perfect womanliness of her demeanour 
 towards him, she saw clearly that her conduct — 
 in fact, though not in design — had been very 
 cruel, and that she would have small right to re- 
 proach him with injustice if his loyal and unsus- 
 picious nature should be unable to acquit her of 
 a purpose to trifle with his heart. 
 
 Novels had taught Bessie that since no man 
 ever made an offer without giving the woman of 
 his choice clear intimations of his design, it always
 
 214 A Noble Woman. 
 
 lay within a woman's power to spare a snitor the 
 pain of actual refusal by responding to those pre- 
 monitory indications in such a manner as to assure 
 him that his course of action would result in dis- 
 appointment. Novels also had told Bessie that 
 under these circumstances the girl was justly 
 chargeable with unfeminine levity and heartless- 
 ness who found herself embarrassed with an offer 
 which she was not in a position or the humour to 
 accept. Of course nothing can be more ridiculous 
 or unjust than these dicta of romantic art ; but 
 they were the main supports of a grand theory 
 respecting matrimonial overtures which novelists 
 of a departed generation sedulously impressed on 
 their readers — for the convenience of woman's 
 natural pursuers, and for the suppression of what 
 our grandmothers used to call coquetry. And 
 in Bessie's simple mind this stupendous theory, 
 and all its accompanying corollaries, had been 
 accepted as matters of ascertained truth. Even 
 in these enlightened days, when the feminine 
 mind is fashioned to honour and command by 
 learned graduates and collegiate studies, there 
 are more than a few young ladies who get 
 their notions of right and wrong from circulat- 
 ing libraries. 
 
 When James Stapleton's entreaty had closed
 
 A Noble Woman. 215 
 
 with one of those abrupt dead stops which play a 
 conspicuous and no less awkward part in the elo- 
 quence of honest gentlemen who are so fearfully 
 in earnest as to lose all command of their respira- 
 tory organs, Bessie found herself able to reply. 
 The rapid stream of thoughts had restored her 
 power of speech ; and she forthwith exercised it 
 not after her old wont and in her familiar voice, 
 but in sharp, quick sentences, and in a tone that 
 was at the same time weak and earnest, defensive 
 and supplicatory. 
 
 But ere she spoke a single syllable, she raised 
 her head and exhibited to James's astonished gaze 
 a countenance that gave her words strange 
 strength by indicating their weakness and utter 
 impotence to set forth the magnitude and bitter- 
 ness of the trouble that possessed her. From 
 that face — just now so beautiful and eloquent of 
 happiness that it filled even the lover with sur- 
 prise — the bloom, the joy, all the colour, and 
 nearly all the loveliness had vanished. It was 
 the white, disfigured face of a scared woman ■ the 
 lips were white, and mental pain was visible in 
 their twitching ; and it terrified James to see that 
 no tears had fallen from her eyes, although the 
 force of her emotions had caused her to sob audibly. 
 
 " I must have been very wrong, Mr. Stapleton/'
 
 216 A Noble Woman. 
 
 she said, when those dry and unutterably wretched 
 eyes had rested upon his for half a minute. " I 
 wish to take no excuse to myself from my unob- 
 servance, which can have been nothing but a con- 
 sequence of my incurable selfishness. I see it all 
 now quite plainly ; and the shame is mine already, 
 as the remorse will ever be mine, that I failed to 
 see what I ought to have seen ; and that by my 
 culpable blindness I have caused you pain, and 
 rendered myself contemptible in your eyes. Of 
 course when I assure you that this was the case, 
 I cannot hope that you will believe me. I must 
 appear very wicked and despicable to you — and 
 for a time I would appear so to you ; for now 
 that you have learnt that it's no use your loving 
 me, it will comfort you and satisfy you to despise 
 me, and hold me unworthy any good man's love." 
 
 " Can't you indeed love me ? Is there no room 
 for hope, Bessie ?" James inquired, gruffly, but 
 with no lack of gentleness. 
 
 " Mr. Stapleton, don't ask me so again," re- 
 turned Bessie, shrinking again as though a whip 
 had been thrown over her. " I can't bear it ; it 
 will kill me. Rather call me a cruel name, and 
 cover me with your scorn, and leave me deadened 
 with the blows of your disdain ; but don't — oh ! 
 in your mercy don't agonize me with another
 
 A Noble Woman. 217 
 
 entreaty to which I must answer ' No/ For one 
 instant, dear Mr. Stapleton, let me speak; for I 
 must tell you more, so that by-and-by you may 
 think of me in kindness. If some years since — 
 ay, if so late as two years ago — I had suspected 
 that you wished me to love you, I would have 
 tried to do so, and I am sure I could have done 
 so ; for you are so very good, as my uncle says, 
 and you are so gentle to the poor, and all the 
 Border takes pride in you and has praise for you. 
 But I never suspected until you spoke just now — I 
 never entertained the thought — that you wished 
 for me as a wife. You see, we are such old friends ; 
 I used to sit upon your knee when I was a child ; 
 you have been so much with us as my uncle's 
 constant friend and daily gossip ; I grew up so 
 used to your kindness, that it never occurred to 
 me that it meant anything, except — except — that 
 you were kind. Oh ! do you see how this was ?" 
 
 " Yes, I see how it was," James responded, 
 mechanically. 
 
 " And then just two years since it was that I 
 first began to suspect that some one else loved me 
 — ay, more — to know it. That closed my eyes 
 all the more to the true meaning of your good- 
 ness. If at times I felt that you were more than 
 usually tender and benignant to me, I thought it
 
 218 A Noble Woman. 
 
 might be because, as bis friend, you saw some- 
 thing of bis secret or something of mine, and put 
 a higher price upon me because I was dear to him, 
 or took a deeper interest in me because you saw 
 that he was dear to me. Our secret has been 
 our own — that is, mine has been mine, and his 
 his ; but still, though I knew that he never men- 
 tioned his to you, it always felt to me that you 
 had discovered something of it or of mine. More 
 than once when a fear seized me that his care 
 for me was only a passing fancy, your gentleness 
 reassured me with hope that your friend would 
 one day be my own. And now on this day, 
 which was the joyfullest, and has become the 
 most miserable of my life — on this day when he 
 has actually made his offer, and has promised to 
 
 speak to my uncle to-morrow Why, Mr. 
 
 Stapleton, when you first began to talk to me 
 about the happiness in my face, I fancied that 
 Herrick had sent you" (the faintest possible tint 
 of colour came to Bessie's pale face as she uttered 
 the Christian name of the man whom she had 
 accepted) " to congratulate me on our joy. Oh ! 
 don't you see how it all is ?" 
 
 James would have been strangely blind had he 
 not seen how it all was after such a full ex- 
 planation.
 
 A Noble Woman. 219 
 
 " And now on this day/" Bessie continued with 
 a shudder, as her sorrow suddenly became more 
 passionate,, " on which I gain him, you lose him — 
 you lose your friend — and will regard him as an 
 enemy." 
 
 There was a sudden change in the colour of 
 the fires that burnt in the recesses of James 
 Stapleton's cavernous brows ; and the effect of 
 that change was that Bessie exclaimed, with a 
 voice that was one of ecstasy rather than dejec- 
 tion, " Then you do see it all ? and you don't 
 despise me ? and you do forgive me ? and you 
 wont be his enemy ? but you will be good to us 
 both? Oh, thank God! thank God!" And 
 having thus spoken in a wild and ejaculatory 
 fashion, Bessie Clayton with both her hands 
 raised James Stapleton's right hand to her lips 
 and covered it with kisses, as the tears leaped 
 into her eyes and fell freely. 
 
 In a minute she was calmer. 
 
 Then James Stapleton rose ; and whilst Bessie 
 retained her place on the garden-chair, he stood 
 over her and raised towards his lips the little 
 white hand which through the greater part of 
 this strange interview had continued in his grasp. 
 But before he kissed it he said, with the tenderest 
 music of his sonorous voice — in accents that were
 
 220 A Noble Woman. 
 
 clear and unbroken, and yet throughout the speech 
 seemed that at the next word they -would acknow- 
 ledge the victory of emotion — " You're a pure, 
 gentle creature, Bessie. My love for you is of 
 such a sort that it will never die ; and I do pas- 
 sionately thank you for having made me able to 
 love you so — for I have a fancy on me now that 
 it is a ladder by which I can climb to Heaven. 
 As to Herrick : he has been my old friend, and 
 when you're his wife I'll do him all the geod I 
 can, because he'll be your husband. You mayn't 
 love me, dear — you can't love me — but you can 
 say a prayer for me now and then." 
 
 Then for a few seconds — ere he turned away 
 and hastened from the garden — James Stapleton 
 pressed the white hand to his lips. 
 
 It was not till he was out of sight that Bessie 
 saw the tear which he had left upon it.
 
 A Noble Woman. 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A Bitter Pill. 
 
 OT caring to be the herald of his own mis- 
 fortune, James Stapleton was hastening 
 from the scene of his discomfiture, in the 
 hope of getting quit of Green Villa without an- 
 other interview with Bessie's uncle until he should 
 be better able to recount the circumstances of his 
 disaster, when Cornelius Kilderbee, emerging from 
 a shrubbery of laurestines, came right upon him 
 just as he was within twelve feet of the garden gate. 
 
 An apprehension that matters had gone un- 
 favourably betrayed itself in the anxious air and 
 livid pallor of the veteran's face, as, with an 
 assumption of jocosity that accorded ill with his 
 countenance, he inquired, "Whither away, my 
 lad ? You are not bent on giving me the slip 
 before you have reported progress ?" 
 
 " 111 news travels fast enough/' was James's 
 brief response. 
 
 " 111 news, eh ?" rejoined the old politician, 
 sharply. " What's the counter-amendment ? Has 
 she moved an adjournment for six months?"
 
 222 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " Worse than that, sir — for ever." 
 
 " What ? what ?" gasped Cornelius Kilderbee, 
 intense agitation convulsing his features and stay- 
 ing his utterance. 
 
 " I mean it, sir. It can't be." 
 
 " Why/' ejaculated the senior, raising his tone 
 to a higher key, " she can't have flung out the 
 bill ? She has not rejected the measure outright ?" 
 
 " Outright, outright ; and in a fashion that 
 leaves no hope/' 
 
 " No hope ! — fiddlesticks ! There must be a 
 dissolution. She must appeal to the country, 
 my boy — she must take the sense of the country. 
 And, thank God, I am the country, and, please 
 the pigs, the country will tell her its mind in 
 pretty plain terms ! I'll be off to her now — 
 this very instant. There, there, be off. I'll go 
 and tell her what is her duty to me, and you, 
 and every one else." 
 
 The violence with which the old man uttered 
 the concluding words of this memorable state- 
 ment of opinion alarmed James for Bessie's 
 peace of mind, and made him see that he could 
 do her a good service by relieving her of the un- 
 pleasant task of revealing to her uncle the exact 
 state of the case. Indeed, his conscience was 
 pricked by the thought that he had been on the
 
 A Noble Woman. 223 
 
 point of quitting the field without thus providing 
 for her peace of mind. 
 
 " She spoke to me with the gentleness that 
 never leaves her — the gentleness that is the 
 spirit of her life/'' explained James, lowering his 
 voice so that no third person might overhear 
 him, " and refused me in such a manner that I 
 would rather die than pain her by renewing my 
 suit. As you love me, my dear sir — as you love 
 her and would have no single bitter thought live 
 in her memory of you when you are in the grave — 
 be careful to say no word, to look no look, that 
 can trouble her. God only knows how I have 
 been torturing her. Why, I have been trampling 
 on her like a savage who dances in his brutal fury 
 on the body of a prostrate foe ; but there was no 
 savagery in me, except the cruel rage and savagery 
 of love. But I'll make atonement for it." 
 
 "Why wont she have you?" inquired the 
 practical listener, who could get no clear mean- 
 ing from James's self-accusatory ejaculations. 
 
 " She loves another." 
 
 " She told you so ?" 
 
 « She did." 
 
 For a few moments an expression of intense 
 surprise held Cornelius Kilderbee's face, and 
 then, with a sudden change of thought, air,
 
 224 A Noble Woman. 
 
 tone — a change the suddenness and completeness 
 of which were almost laughable — he observed, in 
 a dry, matter of fact voice — " Bedad ! she loves 
 another ! What's bred in the blood comes out 
 in the bone. She tells you she loves another — 
 why, that's just what her grandmother told me 
 more than half a century since/' 
 
 So fully occupied with his anxiety for Bessie 
 that he gave no heed to this singular confession, 
 James Stapleton was renewing his entreaty in 
 her behalf when Mr. Kilderbee abruptly checked 
 him by saying — " That's enough — that's enough, 
 boy. You needn't fear for me or her. I am 
 neither fool enough nor mad enough to break 
 my own china with a kitchen poker. But who's 
 the other fellow? What's his name? Not 
 young Morehead, eh?" 
 
 For an instant James shrank from completing 
 the work which he had begun, so perfectly assured 
 was he that no proposal for Bessie's settlement 
 could be more unacceptable to the merchant 
 than that she and her fortune should be made 
 over to the heir of his old antagonists, Hercules 
 and Ambrose Kingsford. 
 
 Another moment, and having overcome his 
 momentary weakness, James told the unwelcome 
 truth — that Bessie had promised to become Her- 
 rick's wife.
 
 A Noble Woman. 225 
 
 Lacking the nerve to look at the face of the 
 old man whilst he thus shattered his dearest 
 hopes and placed in their stead a hateful pros- 
 pect, James dropped his eyes as he made the un- 
 palatable announcement; but it needed not the 
 assistance of sight to assure the speaker that the 
 old man was profoundly affected. 
 
 " What !" slowly said the veteran, in a quaver- 
 ing voice, when he had heard all, "is it not 
 enough that I may not give my darling to the 
 boy of my own heart, but must I also give her 
 to that pert, up-looking, false-hearted whipper- 
 snapper, whose father, the lawyer, tried to make 
 me a felon — whose uncle, the Tory banker, looks 
 down upon me as so much dirt, — whose whole 
 family I hate — like poison ?" 
 
 " Sir," rejoined James, with loyal pathos, " I 
 feel for your trial as much as you feel for mine." 
 After a moment's break he added, " It's a great 
 consolation to me to hear you speak of her so 
 kindly." 
 
 There was silence between the two men for a 
 minute, and then the elder dismissed his com- 
 panion with these words, " Doctor, you've given 
 me a bitter pill without a scrap of gilding on it ; 
 — and if I must swallow it, I'll bite it down and 
 feast on its bitterness." 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 James Stapleton's Second Choice. 
 
 AVING left Cornelius Kilderbee in the 
 
 act of biting his bitter pill, and passed 
 beyond the gates of Green Villa, James 
 Stapleton took half-a-dozen steps in the direction 
 of his house, when for the first time in his life 
 he experienced the sorrow of the man who dreads 
 to re-enter his own door. The amber light of 
 evening was already stealing away the blueness of 
 the undarkened sky ; and just as strong distaste 
 for home took possession of his mind, he had 
 a keen perception of the pleasant and picturesque 
 effects which the light created in his mother's 
 antiquated tea-room. But the familiar features 
 of the place filled his breast with a strong though 
 transitory wish that he could turn his back on 
 the old red house, and withdraw himself from 
 every object that could remind him of his native 
 borough. 
 
 How should he summon fortitude to meet his 
 mother's curious glance and searching questions ?
 
 A Noble Woman. 227 
 
 — how should he endure the compassion that she 
 would lavish upon him ? or — worse still to bear — 
 the angry judgments which she would no less 
 liberally shower on what she would term Bessie's 
 misconduct ? Under ordinary circumstances no 
 number of petty irritations could ruffle his 
 temper ; but just now, whilst the first pain of his 
 disappointment was at its sharpest, he felt that 
 the trivial gossip of his sister and the suspicious 
 glances of his mother, eagerly waiting " to hear 
 all about it," would have goaded and maddened 
 him into uncontrollable fury. 
 
 Anyhow he would not return to his house until 
 his sister's departure should have reduced the 
 enemy to one-half their present numbers, and he 
 should have reviewed the events of the afternoon 
 and all the facts of his position. Instinct also 
 assured him that a severe spell of bodily exercise 
 would be the best means of tranquillizing his 
 shaken nerves. So, turning abruptly from the 
 town, he set his face towards the least frequented 
 district of the neighbouring country, in order 
 that he might contend in solitude with the anger, 
 vindictiveness, self-scorn, and half a score other 
 devils of the same brood, that were already at 
 high war with his better nature, and fighting for 
 the permanent tenure of his generous heart. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Half an hour, an hour — ay, an hour and ten 
 minutes, did Archdeacon Howlett's daughter 
 postpone the brewing of her tea, in the full cer- 
 tainty that after a successful visit to Green Villa 
 her son would return to drink something more 
 than his customary allowance of strong Pekoe. 
 
 " It's useless to wait longer for him, mother," 
 urged James's favourite sister with a sigh of dis- 
 satisfaction at her brother's absence and the 
 unreasonable postponement of the beverage for 
 which she had a strong womanly partiality. 
 " Of course it's some urgent case that keeps him 
 away, for he saw me as I drove into town ; and 
 I am sure — though my marriage" (this paren- 
 thesis in a tone of grievance) " naturally makes 
 him care less for me than he did — that nothing 
 but urgent professional business can account for 
 his absence." 
 
 Sorely was Archdeacon Howlett's daughter 
 tempted to tell James's favourite sister that she 
 did not know everything ; that she was even then 
 talking of a matter which lay beyond the lines of 
 her knowledge; that her brother, as all well- 
 informed persons knew, had conceived an honour- 
 able passion for Miss Bessie Clayton ; that, not- 
 withstanding many obvious reasons which might 
 be urged against such a match, she (the speaker
 
 A Noble Woman. 229 
 
 and recognised leader of the medical profession 
 of the Border) had waived all her maternal and 
 unassailable rights of objection; that in conse- 
 quence of this generous abnegation of self on her 
 part James had proposed to Miss Clayton; that 
 as a matter of course Miss Clayton, without any 
 affectation of uncertainty or coolness, had, with 
 no less gratitude than eagerness, seized the 
 eligible offer; and that the urgent case which 
 accounted for James's absence was nothing else 
 than his not unnatural preference for tea made 
 by Miss Clayton to any such comparatively 
 flavourless and unworthy Pekoe as his mother 
 was accustomed to give him. 
 
 But Mrs. Stapleton fortunately put a rein on 
 her tongue. Not that she had any misgiving as 
 to the result of her head-assistant's visit to 
 Green Villa, or was in fear that, by so speaking, 
 she would stray beyond the bounds of truth. 
 She was as thoroughly convinced that James had 
 made his offer and been accepted as she would 
 have been had she received his personal assurance 
 of the fact. James had left the house to make 
 the offer ; he never failed to carry out any pur- 
 pose that he had deliberately formed: ergo, he 
 had made the offer. On the other hand, James 
 was a great match for Bessie Clayton ; it was
 
 230 A Noble Woman. 
 
 matter of certainty that she had not in any way 
 pre-engaged herself to another man ; a combina- 
 tion of circumstances rendered it utterly impos- 
 sible that she could have been such a fool as to 
 reject him ; — ergo, she had accepted him. With a 
 perfectly easy conscience could the truthful Mrs. 
 Stapleton have spoken in historic fashion of her 
 son's engagement asamatter actually accomplished. 
 Luckily she was restrained from making an 
 untimely and inaccurate communication by her 
 keen enjoyment of a secret which was the pro- 
 perty of a very small and extremely select circle — 
 an enjoyment that would of course diminish as 
 the circle widened ; and by the consideration that, 
 whilst reticence would give her grounds for 
 future triumph over James's favourite sister, it 
 would also prove a salutary piece of discipline to 
 that young and inexperienced matron, teaching 
 her that even after their marriage daughters 
 were less honourable and prescient things than 
 the mothers who gave them birth. Moreover, a 
 latent fear of James's displeasure — an influence 
 that had considerable force with the imperious 
 little woman who appeared to rule her submissive 
 son with a rod of iron — turned the balance of 
 Mrs. Stapleton's meditations in favour of discreet 
 silence.
 
 A Noble Woman. 231 
 
 So the leading medical practitioner of the 
 Border contented herself with announcing to her 
 daughter that she had decided to withdraw alto- 
 gether from active professional life, that the 
 family practice and its income would forthwith 
 devolve on her head-assistant, but that she had 
 determined to remain in her old quarters, in 
 order that her professional successor might have 
 the benefit of her daily counsel and supervision. 
 This communication made, together with the 
 suggestive and vaguely prophetic declaration that 
 mortals might lay plans but the future was be- 
 yond their control, the tea-service was at length 
 demanded, and without further delay the mother 
 and her married daughter made the pompous 
 meal known in those days as high tea — Mrs. 
 Stapleton, in her child's honour, using the 
 William the Third china, and pouring the 
 aromatic tea from the sacred silver teapot of the 
 departed Howletts — a teapot that stood high 
 above the surrounding china on a four-legged 
 silver table of its own, and, by the giramsh cur- 
 vature no less than by the conspicuous length of 
 its graceful spout, implied its ability to furnish 
 tea in the politest of fashions for the houses over 
 the way, or in case of need for all the genteeler 
 people of the parish.
 
 232 A Noble Woman. 
 
 In due course the white pony was ordered, so 
 that its mistress might return to her home before 
 dark ; and after every excuse for further delay, 
 James's favourite sister took whip in hand and 
 drove homewards without seeing her brother. 
 
 When her daughter had taken her departure, 
 Mrs. Stapleton began to grow impatient for her 
 son's reappearance. 
 
 Having demanded candles with unaccustomed 
 asperity, Archdeacon Howlett's daughter seated 
 herself in her lonely tea-room, and began to 
 nurse bitter thoughts about neglectful sons and 
 malapert daughters-in-law, until her little gold 
 repeater struck ten o'clock. 
 
 Then she was pleased to " send the house to 
 bed," that is to say, she rang bells sharply, and 
 in needlessly petulant terms declared that the 
 " house should not be kept up any longer/' that 
 in her youth " houses were never kept up till next 
 day," that it was not in the nature of things that 
 a " house could do its work next day if it did not 
 not get its proper amount of sleep." 
 
 Having by these and other equally agreeable 
 and necessary means dismissed her domestics for 
 the night, and sent the house to bed with what 
 the homelier folk of the Border are wont to call 
 " a flea in the ear," Mrs. Stapleton gave proof of
 
 A Noble Woman. 233 
 
 her singular energy and vigour by preparing to sit 
 up for her son's return. At whatever hour he 
 might come back, she was resolved to be stirring 
 and ready to hear all the news. " It's that low- 
 minded radical who keeps him/' the lady mut- 
 tered — " who keeps him drinking brandy-and- 
 water and smoking odious pipes, while natural 
 anxiety for my boy's welfare wont let me sleep. 
 But I must see him to-night ; I wont wait till to- 
 morrow." Like a prudent woman, however, Mrs. 
 Stapleton took time by the forelock, performing 
 her nocturnal devotions and effecting certain 
 arrangements, so that after receiving her son's 
 report she might be free to follow in the steps of 
 the house with more than ordinary expedition. 
 These measures accomplished, she returned to her 
 tea-room, and taking up the late archdeacon's 
 copy of Whiston's u Josephus," as a work occu- 
 pying a middle ground between secular and 
 sacred literature, and therefore likely to meet 
 the case of a gentlewoman who would fain while 
 away a solemn hour for an unquestionably 
 worldly purpose, she sat herself down to read. 
 
 " Josephus," even as he is presented to us by 
 the accomplished Mr. Whiston, is not the liveliest 
 of writers ; and either through the author's want 
 of sprightliness, or through the lateness of the
 
 234 A Noble Woman. 
 
 hour, or from the combination of the two cir- 
 cumstances, Mrs. Stapleton's head was beginning 
 to nod when she was roused suddenly from her 
 drowsiness by the sound of her son's latch-key in 
 the lock of the hall-door. 
 
 With a beating heart she listened to his move- 
 ments whilst he barred the outer door and put 
 up the chain, whilst his steps crossed the hall to 
 the hat-stand, and then returned towards the 
 entrance of her tea-room. 
 
 In another moment the door opened and he 
 stood before her, wearing a look that checked 
 the words of playful welcome with which she was 
 about to greet him. His face was pale from 
 agitation and fatigue ; but it was its air of sad 
 and solemn purpose, rather than its unaccustomed 
 pallor and weariness, that smote her to the heart, 
 bringing all her maternal affection into sudden 
 play. 
 
 " My boy, my dear boy, surely something has 
 gone amiss I" she said, extending both her hands 
 to him. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, dear, for keeping you up 
 thus late/' he answered, with more than his 
 ordinary tenderness, and less than his usual 
 formality ; " had I thought that my absence would 
 have kept you from bed I would have returned
 
 A Noble Woman. 235 
 
 sooner. But I am glad to find you here ; I 
 have something to say to you which I should like 
 to say now." 
 
 His tone, air, countenance satisfied her so 
 thoroughly as to the failure of his afternoon's 
 mission that she forbore to ask how he had fared 
 at Green Villa. 
 
 " Listen to me, mother/' he said, when he had 
 drawn a chair and seated himself directly oppo- 
 site her. 
 
 " I am listening, James." 
 
 " You told me a few nights since that Emma 
 Harrison loved me V y 
 
 " I did," the mother answered, faintly. 
 
 " And she does love me V 3 
 
 " James, you remember what I so unwisely 
 made known to you," she replied, with increasing 
 surprise. <e Do you wish me to repeat my words ?" 
 
 "No, no, I remember them. But tell me, 
 were they exactly true ? Did you heighten no- 
 thing — colour nothing too highly ? Was it all 
 literally true ?" 
 
 In a hoarse whisper the poor lady, who was 
 thoroughly frightened by this unexpected exami- 
 nation, answered, with evident reluctance, "It 
 was all true, and I bitterly repent having told it." 
 
 A pause of painful silence followed.
 
 236 A Noble Woman. 
 
 There was an habitual music in James's bass 
 voice, a music that stirred its hearers deeply 
 whenever it obeyed the higher impulses of his 
 unselfish nature ; but never had it more power- 
 fully affected his mother than now, when he said 
 firmly, slowly, and with all the gentleness of great 
 strength — 
 
 "Bessie is engaged to Herrick Kingsford. 
 My old schoolmate has won my love. I cannot 
 have my wish ; but you shall have yours, and 
 she shall have hers. Emma Harrison shall be 
 my wife ; and if God will give me his help she 
 shall have a good husband."" 
 
 " But, my boy, how can that be since you do 
 not love her ?" urged the mother, startled out of 
 her ordinary worldliness and raised above the level 
 of her constitutional selfishness by the sacredness 
 and nobility of her son's emotion and purpose. 
 
 The sad smile that for a moment played over 
 his pale face and then passed away was due 
 perhaps to a sudden recollection of how widely 
 different a doctrine she had inculcated only a few 
 days before. If so, the memory passed from him 
 quickly as the smile ere he replied, "Ay, but 
 she loves me, and Heaven only knows what a 
 
 hunger there is in me for love. I cannot afford 
 to slight her love ; it may be poor in comparison
 
 A Noble Woman. 237 
 
 with that which I hoped to win from Bessie; 
 but I must have it for my own happiness no less 
 than hers. The bankrupt accepts with gratitude 
 what he would have disdained when he was a 
 millionaire ; and now that I am nothing better 
 than a poor beggar I must do as beggars do, take 
 with thanks what human charity offers." 
 
 "Emma's love is no beggar's pittance/' his 
 mother answered, wisely, and with a seasonable 
 firmness for which James's heart upon the instant 
 thanked her. 
 
 " God forbid that I should think it so/' he 
 rejoined, hastily, " and I do not regard it as any 
 mean portion, though my speech did insult to it. 
 The fact is, mother, I have* been so beaten and 
 pulled about this fearful night, that I have not 
 strength left me to keep my mind or words in 
 hand, and so it follows that my thoughts run 
 wild. I am not so bitter as I seem ; I feel more 
 gently than I can speak. I have been for a long 
 walk over Boxmere Heath ; and as I sat in the 
 dry heather, with the bright stars over me, and 
 with the pure, cool breeze fluttering against me, 
 the God who created the stars and the wind, and 
 fashioned me in the palm of his hand, reconciled 
 me in a certain numbing way to my sorrow, 
 showed me the path of duty, and assured me it
 
 238 A Noble Woman. 
 
 was a path that would conduct me to happiness. 
 His voice said audibly, ' Make others happy, and 
 think lightly of and little for yourself/ That 
 was all His rebuke of my selfishness in asking 
 so much whilst I had resolved to give so little. I 
 love Bessie better now than ever ; to my death I 
 shall be grateful to her for teaching me how to 
 love. My passion for her is no vain thing ; it 
 has made a man of me." 
 
 a But it will not help you to love Emma/' 
 timorously interposed the mother's awakened 
 conscience. 
 
 "Nay, dear, there you are wrong. It has 
 already put me in the fair way to love her. 
 In the desolation of my angry sadness this night 
 it has been a pure comfort to me to know that 
 she loved me ; and no sooner had gratitude for 
 her love possessed me than I thought, ' If this 
 disappointment is hard to one whose loneliness is 
 not complete, how much sharper must the same 
 sorrow be to a poor, weak woman with nothing 
 brighter before her than the blank despair of 
 companionless existence.'' Don't fear for me and 
 her, mother. In a way I shall love her truly ; in 
 every way I shall make her very happy/' 
 
 It was near the second hour of the morning 
 when Mrs. Stapleton parted from her son and 
 retired to rest.
 
 A Noble Woman. 239 
 
 But late as it was, and duly mindful though 
 she was of a certain anticipatory performance of 
 nocturnal devotion, she did not lie down to sleep 
 ere she had offered another supplication to her 
 Heavenly Father, praying more meekly and 
 fervently and thankfully than she had done for 
 many a long year.
 
 240 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Explanatory, if not Apologetic, 
 
 AD James Stapleton in five or six short 
 hours reconciled himself to his loss of 
 Bessie, or contrived to persuade himself 
 that though his lot without her would lack the 
 keenest and intensest bliss, he should be able to 
 jog on contentedly and comfortably enough with 
 Emma Harrison, readers might reasonably decline 
 to trouble themselves further about so tame and 
 meek a man. Had he really achieved that degree 
 of philosophic resignation to his fate which his 
 language to his mother might seem to indicate, 
 they would have grounds for doubting the man- 
 liness of the nature that could so readily acquiesce 
 in the decisions of adverse fortune, and so easily 
 transfer its affections from one object to another. 
 But no failings were more remote from James 
 Stapleton's character than feebleness of purpose, 
 or want of persistency, or shallowness of senti- 
 ment. Notwithstanding its almost imperturbable 
 good humour," the most important and conspi-
 
 A Noble Woman. 241 
 
 cuous features of his moral constitution were reso- 
 luteness,, fervour of affection, and a certain invin- 
 cible pertinacity of thought, that in a less 
 amiable and intelligent man would have degene- 
 rated into stubbornness. He was no faint, vapid, 
 characterless being, but a man of clear though 
 contracted mental vision and definite principles — 
 a man the forces of whose brain and heart were 
 not inadequately expressed by the massive 
 strength and conciliating uncouthness of his 
 person and appearance. 
 
 During his walk to Boxmere Heath, as soon as 
 the stormier agitations of his mind had subsided, 
 he saw with clearness and without exaggeration 
 the nature of his disaster, the circumstances that 
 had led to it, and the changes which it had effected 
 in his relations with Bessie Clayton and Herrick 
 Kingsford — the difficulties to which it had given 
 rise, the embarrassments that might ensue from 
 it. If he decided with quickness and startling 
 promptitude on a new line of action, the rapidity 
 with which he changed his front and adopted 
 another plan was in no degree a result of fickle- 
 ness or instability, but was chiefly due to his just 
 and accurate perception of the necessities of his 
 case. 
 
 It was clear to him that he had received a 
 
 VOL. T. R
 
 242 A Noble Woman. 
 
 wound — the scar, the pain, the disabling conse- 
 quences of which would be permanent. It was 
 evident to him that his earthly days would be but 
 items in a career of duty, endurance, and sorrow ; 
 and that, having recognised this stern fact, he had 
 better keep it continually before his understand- 
 ing, and at once relinquish all selfish care for his 
 own hopeless case. Books and personal observa- 
 tion had taught him that men are sometimes re- 
 quired to bear burdens of grief from which there 
 is no hope of liberation on this side the grave. 
 To one man the burden is a personal shame that 
 can never be survived ; to another it is despair 
 for a sacred cause ; a third finds it in the memory 
 of the disgrace or anguish that brought a com- 
 rade to the grave ; some find the galling load in 
 remorse or self-scorn; but of all wretches — for 
 whose woe there is neither remedy nor alleviation 
 — the commonest is he who works on slowly and 
 manfully to the gate of eternity attended by a 
 sense of awful and unutterable loneliness — a 
 sense that daily and hourly whets anew the 
 heart's appetite for a voice that is mute. 
 
 More than once in his past life — when domes- 
 tic adversity and the trials of an anxious life had 
 brought him into a closer acquaintance with 
 sorrow, than any that young and vigorous men
 
 A Noble Woman. 243 
 
 are wont to form — James had debated within 
 himself whether any such ever-present gloom was 
 likely to fall to his share of life's experience, and 
 how he should endure such a cross if the Divine 
 hand imposed it upon him. 
 
 Consequently, now that it had arrived, this 
 sorrow wore a familiar face, and was less terrible 
 than it would otherwise have been. As he simply 
 expressed it to his mother, it was manifest that 
 " he was not to have his wish." All his dreams 
 of personal delight were over; and in one hour 
 after the death of the fairest and brightest of 
 them all he saw — or thought he saw — that hence- 
 forth all his old sources of private satisfaction 
 and individual pleasure would be little more than 
 dry wells. His petty triumphs in his native 
 town, the approval of his neighbours, the public 
 opinion of the Border — the social standards by 
 which he had been used to judge himself and 
 measure his successes — had sunk into insignifi- 
 cance ; and he perceived that whilst they would 
 remain matters of slight moment, the judgments 
 of his own conscience would henceforth be the 
 only human judgments able to gratify him much 
 or to wound him at all. 
 
 Under similar circumstances a vain man would 
 have surrendered himself to impotent rage; a 
 
 r 2
 
 244 A Noble Woman. 
 
 malignant nature might have devised petty 
 schemes of vengeance upon the woman who had 
 rejected him, and the man whom she had ac- 
 cepted; an utter fool might have meditated 
 suicide ; a coward's first wish would have been to 
 remove himself from the scene of his defeat; a 
 merely selfish person would have looked around 
 to see how he could best mitigate the peculiarly 
 personal annoyances of his situation. Being 
 neither vain, nor malignant, nor foolish, nor sel- 
 fish, nor craven, James took none of the paths 
 ordinarily taken by disappointed lovers. Had he 
 been a perfectly free man — that is to say, bound 
 by no tie of duty to a particular locality — it is 
 possible that he would have withdrawn himself 
 from Carlton Cross, not out of any miserable 
 dread of local gossip, but in pure sorrow for the 
 change that had come over the place. But so long 
 as his mother lived James Stapleton was bound 
 to his native town. During her life he could 
 not retire from the borough, for the gratification 
 of a purely personal humour, without incurring 
 the guilt of filial undutifulness, and the dishonour 
 of the officer who deserts the post which he has 
 been appointed to defend. 
 
 It was his duty to remain in Carlton Cross — 
 the fellow-townsman of the friend whom he not
 
 A Noble Woman. 245 
 
 unreasonably charged with perfidy and decep- 
 tion ; the neighbour of the woman his unprofit- 
 able love of whom would, under any circum- 
 stances, remain the master passion of his life ; 
 the daily associate of hundreds of persons to 
 whom his past relations with Herrick Kingsford 
 and Bessie Clayton would, in the natural course 
 of things, be sooner or later an affair of talk. 
 Certainly his marriage would diminish the num- 
 ber and importance of the embarrassments that 
 threatened to disturb his intercourse with Cor- 
 nelius Kilderbee's niece. As a bachelor he would 
 be compelled to hold himself aloof from her 
 society to a degree that would not be necessary 
 when his union with Emma Harrison had taken 
 place ; and for her sake, even more than for his 
 own, he was loth to think that any permanent 
 barrier would keep them apart. Even at that 
 early period of his suffering it comforted him to 
 think that he would still be allowed to maintain 
 an appearance of their former friendship, to tend 
 her in her hours of sickness, and be in distant 
 years the friend of her children. It seemed to 
 him that he could contribute to Bessie's happi- 
 ness by marrying his cousin. Anyhow, his mar- 
 riage would be acceptable to his mother, and 
 make Emma a happy woman.
 
 246 A Noble Woman. 
 
 So instead of designing to wear the willow for 
 the rest of his life, or playing for a time the 
 awkward part of a disappointed lover, or taking 
 any other course that would have been more in 
 accordance with the traditions of romance, and 
 perhaps more in agreement with the usages of 
 real life, he accepted his lot bravely and with a 
 good grace — removing from the gossips of the 
 Border several manifest pretexts for curious in- 
 quiry respecting his intercourse with and regard 
 for Bessie ; and adopting a line of action that will 
 not be censured by those who rightly appreciate 
 the various motives which inspired him to select it.
 
 A Noble Woman. 24<7 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Friendship turned Sour. 
 
 P the painful consequences that would 
 inevitably follow upon his resolution to 
 maintain his ground in Carlton Cross, 
 James Stapleton foresaw that the most irritating 
 would arise from his altered relations to Herrick 
 Kingsford. From childhood they had main- 
 tained the closest intimacy — an intimacy which 
 on Herrick's part had been cordial good-fellow- 
 ship, on James's part enthusiastic friendship. As 
 boys they had been mates at school, companions 
 in vacation ; working side by side in the same 
 classes, making common cause in playground 
 quarrels ; in summer holidays fishing together in 
 the Windrush and the Wandle, playing together 
 on the same cricket-grounds ; in winter holidays 
 skating on the same ice, spurring their Shet- 
 land ponies after the same harriers. At a later 
 period they had chummed together in London, 
 whilst the one learnt his profession in the 
 office of a Lincoln's Inn solicitor and the other
 
 248 A Noble Woman. 
 
 walked the wards of his hospital. No difference 
 of temper, taste, opinion, had ever disturbed an 
 intercourse which to the less romantic of the two 
 had been a source of unqualified satisfaction, to 
 the more generous of the two an affair for 
 continual gratitude — to both a connexion that 
 differed in poetry and fervour from all their 
 other friendships. To say that their mutual 
 regard had surpassed the affection of brothers 
 would fail to express the cordiality of their 
 attachment. Next to his reverential devotion to 
 his mother, and his love for Bessie, his loyal ad- 
 miration for his friend had been the strongest 
 sentiment of James's affectionate nature. 
 
 Himself excepted, Herrick cared for no one 
 more than James. This fact should be borne 
 in mind by those who wish to estimate rightly 
 the lawyer's nature. Vain, and inflated with 
 the peculiar arrogance of his self-seeking family, 
 Herrick cared much less for anybody save him- 
 self than his plausible manner and good- 
 humoured countenance led most people to sup- 
 pose; but he was not incapable of generous 
 emotion, and so far as he was capable of 
 friendship, he had been James's sincere friend. 
 According to the nature of Kingsfords, he 
 deemed himself a vastly superior person to
 
 A Noble Woman. 249 
 
 " dear old Jem/'' adopting towards him an air of 
 patronage that is amusing enough to those who 
 care to think about it, and would have roused the 
 resentment of any man less guileless and modest 
 than James. But still he had again and again 
 proved himself, in act as well as word, his dear 
 old Jem's firm friend. The Kingsfords had much 
 influence, no family had more, in the borough 
 and the Border, amongst all classes ; and this in- 
 fluence was consistently employed by Herrick to 
 dear old Jem's advantage. Cornelius Kilderbee 
 himself had not been a more staunch and 
 thorough supporter of the young surgeon than 
 Hercules Kingsford, Esquire, of Coote Hall ; and 
 the elder Kingsford's care for James was chiefly 
 if not altogether due to his nephew. 
 
 And now these friends were severed ; but 
 severed under circumstances that would require 
 them to maintain a hollow semblance of their old 
 attachment. At heart they were divided for 
 ever ; at heart they would henceforth regard each 
 other with the sharp enmity of friendship turned 
 sour ; and yet convenience, respect for appear- 
 ances — on James's part fidelity towards Bessie, 
 on Herrick's part an unacknowledged shame of 
 his treason to his old friend — would enjoin them 
 to live together as sociable neighbours, to join
 
 250 A Noble Woman. 
 
 hands at church and market, to witness the growth 
 of familiar intercourse between their wives and 
 children. Perhaps in future days their children 
 would form mutual attachments and intermarry ; 
 but even in that case the fathers would be 
 enemies at heart. At the wedding feast they 
 would pledge each other in wine, — each thinking 
 of an old cynical proverb about the impotence 
 of fair words to butter a mawkish vegetable. 
 
 It is not pleasant to be on terms of open and 
 active hostility with any one whom we are com- 
 pelled to encounter in a casual way once or twice 
 a week. Even those persons who are naturally 
 prone to contention and can draw pleasurable 
 excitement from the heats of altercation will 
 admit that, when the first storm of a squabble 
 has subsided, it is embarrassing to meet the ac- 
 quaintances whom the dispute has converted into 
 foes. Any man of ordinary temper will allow 
 that, if he must have personal enemies, he would 
 see them as rarely as possible ; would rather that 
 they should not be members of his club, or 
 householders in his street, or daily travellers in 
 the trains or omnibuses by which he is accus- 
 tomed to run to and fro in the pursuit of his 
 common affairs. 
 
 When two old friends have fallen upon each
 
 A Noble Woman. 251 
 
 other's ears and dropped into a state of chronic 
 feud, the virulence and duration of their mutual 
 animosity will depend in a great measure on the 
 proximity of their homes, and the frequency with 
 which they jostle against each other. If they 
 dwell in different quarters of the town — the one, 
 let us say, at Brompton, the other at Stoke New- 
 ington ; ^if their professional avocations never 
 bring them in contact, if they have no officious 
 common friends — " mutual friends" as the busy- 
 bodies persist in styling themselves — resolutely 
 set on bringing them together ; if, in short, 
 they can only keep out of each other's sight for 
 some four or five years from the date of their 
 rupture, they will most likely meet through pure 
 accident, some balmy summer afternoon, in the 
 gardens of the " Star and Garter/' or on a bal- 
 cony of the " Trafalgar," will join hands over a 
 bottle of Leoville, and having exchanged cigars 
 will return to town in the same brougham, gossip- 
 ing about old times just as though no hot wind 
 had ever put distance and coldness between them. 
 On the other hand, let them be near neighbours, 
 let them be daily running into each other's paths, 
 let it be manifest to both that interest, comfort, 
 dignity invite them to reconciliation, and they 
 will wax fiercer in their fury till death shall ac-
 
 252 A Noble Woman. 
 
 commodate the difficulty. The hatreds of the 
 British bar seldom lack fervour, but the most 
 rancorous are nursed by rival circuiteers or counsel 
 practising habitually in the same court. The 
 differences that sometimes flush the faces and fire 
 the eyes of great painters would be less obstinate 
 and disastrous if Royal Academicians in a state 
 of war would abstain from showing themselves 
 in Trafalgar-square, and would leave their more 
 pacific brethren to look after the interests of their 
 profession. Of enemies there are many kinds : 
 but of all haters the most ferocious are next-door 
 neighbours at feud. 
 
 And of such next-door neighbours the fiercest 
 and most inveterate in hatred are the next-door 
 neighbours of provincial towns. It is terrible to 
 witness the vindictive resoluteness of these mem- 
 bers of the human family when they take up the 
 hatchet and start on the war-trail. Gloom comes 
 with the thought that years upon years will pass, 
 that vestries will flourish and die, that rates in- 
 numerable will be fought over, raised, and ex- 
 pended ere these belligerents of a Christian 
 parish will cease from strife. This writer speaks 
 of what he knows — of a matter about which 
 readers unfamiliar with country-town life can 
 know but little. He could point to two rival
 
 A Noble Woman. 253 
 
 doctors,, brethren in a liberal profession, occu- 
 pants of bouses that literally look into each 
 other's windows as well as upon the market- 
 square of Raydon-on-the-Wold, who have grown 
 grey and rich within thirty yards of each other, 
 and yet have not exchanged words for the last 
 twenty years. He could point to a provincial 
 town with a population of fifteen hundred souls 
 and three solicitors, of which legal force A does 
 not speak with B, who would die rather than 
 enter the doors of C, whose miserable nature puts 
 him at feud with both his professional contem- 
 poraries, and wont even let him think well of 
 himself. The writer of this book could point to 
 two brothers, educated and wealthy owners of ad- 
 joining farms, who meet in no other house than 
 the parish church, who quarrelled forty years 
 since about the boundary of their contiguous 
 estates, and though the question did not in- 
 volve a pecuniary interest to the amount of thirty 
 shillings, quarrelled with such fervour and em- 
 phasis that spectators soon saw it was a case 
 of war for life. These children of one father 
 and one mother, men of gentle birth, Cambridge 
 culture, ample means, and many amiable quali- 
 ties, meet each other, stare at each other, look 
 away from each other, scowl at each other daily
 
 254 A Noble Woman. 
 
 in the streets and shops of their native town, but 
 for four times ten years neither of them has given 
 the other the wish of a good-day. 
 
 Who can tell the anguish which each of these 
 men has endured in his long indulgence of sullen 
 resentment ? 
 
 Had James Stapleton, giving utterance to the 
 disdain and anger with which he regarded Her- 
 ricFs disingenuous conduct, denounced his former 
 friend to his face as a sneak and a trickster, his 
 violence would have had the sympathy of most 
 readers ; but even their sympathy with the out- 
 break of indignation would not have blinded them 
 to its indiscretion. Had James made a clean 
 breast of it to Herrick, and following the fashion 
 of most angry men told him just that " piece of 
 his mind"" which was least calculated to gratify 
 the lawyer's self-love, the two men would never 
 have spoken to each other again. But a higher 
 motive than any consideration of interest or con- 
 venience endowed James with mastery over his 
 passion. 
 
 Whilst he gave Herrick full credit for disin- 
 terested love of Bessie Clayton, he could not 
 condone his offences in consideration of the old 
 adage, that a lover's passion justifies every un- 
 fairness of which he may be guilty in the pur-
 
 A Noble Woman. 255 
 
 suit of its object. " Since he loved Bessie/' 
 James reasoned within himself, " he had as much 
 right as I to try to win her; but in fighting me 
 he dealt me foul blows and wasn't open. He 
 must have fallen in love with her just about the 
 time that he detected my love ; Bessie mentioned 
 two years since as the date when he began to 
 show his love for her ; and he told me that he 
 detected my concern for her two years since. No 
 doubt his love made him lynx-eyed. Perhaps 
 mine would have made me no less sharp had not 
 the notorious ill-will of his family for Cornelius 
 Kilderbee made it impossible for me to suspect 
 that he would care to marry her. Now, if I had 
 been in his place — I mean, if I had discovered 
 his love just as he detected mine — I would have 
 gone to him and said, e Jem, we both love the 
 same woman ; and I, who would give up my life 
 for you any day, have determined to sacrifice my 
 heart for you; no woman's love shall come 
 between us/ That's what I should have done." 
 After a pause James doubled his fist, shook 
 his head, and continued his soliloquy. "No, I 
 shouldn't. I should have said no such thing. 
 I shouldn't have spoken so much as a single 
 word about the matter. I should have made 
 the sacrifice in silence, and mentioned it to no
 
 256 A Noble Woman. 
 
 living mortal. That's how I should have treated 
 him. But see how he has treated me ! He saw 
 my object at a time when I could have weaned 
 myself from the thought without breaking and 
 rending my heart-strings; he saw me moving 
 onwards slowly and surely to disappointment, but 
 he spoke no word to save me; and towards the 
 close of this false game of his he has been guilty 
 of downright, sheer, unqualified, damnable trea- 
 chery. When I told him that I intended to 
 make my offer without further delay, he saw that 
 it would be prudent for him to make the most of 
 the time left him, and fix Bessie with a definite 
 offer before her uncle's influence should urge her 
 to accept me. He told me to break the matter 
 to my mother, in the hope that she would oppose 
 me, and that her opposition would give him more 
 time. When my mother had consented, and I 
 was in a humour to go to Bessie, without waiting 
 for quarter-day, he urged me not to be pre- 
 cipitate, so that he might not be tempted to 
 frighten the bird from his own net. Only the 
 other night I told him of the manner in which 
 Mr. Kilderbee had received my proposals, and he 
 shook my hand. The little villain shook my 
 hand, and congratulated me on my certainty of 
 success. The next day I went to the garden,
 
 A Noble Woman. 257 
 
 and found that my friend — this confidential 
 friend to whom I told everything whilst he told 
 me nothing — had been there before me, and had 
 plucked the pear which he told me was sure to 
 be mine. To think that the man, whom I have 
 loved and admired all these years, like the great 
 big hulking fool that I am, should be such a 
 crafty, subtle, false-hearted little rascal ! But 
 I wont quarrel with him, I must think for Bessie, 
 and of my promise to her." 
 
 In his reply to the fears which accompanied 
 Bessie's rejection of his suit, he had said, " As to 
 Herrick, he is my old friend, and when you're 
 his wife e I'll do him all the good I can, for he'll 
 be your husband.' " 
 
 This was his promise to her. And he was 
 determined to keep it. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 258 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 For the most part in the Dining-Room of 
 Coote Hall. 
 
 ERRICK had no need to ask his uncle's 
 consent to his engagement with Cornelius 
 Kilderbee's niece, for the nephew's pur- 
 pose to win the dissenter's heiress originated in 
 the elder Kingsford's suggestion that when Cor- 
 nelius Kilderbee should have paid a last farewell 
 to the scenes of his seditious practices Bessie 
 Clayton would be a fit match for any untitled 
 gentleman. The courtly, suave, pompous banker 
 had formed a very flattering opinion of Bessie's 
 beauty and style; and long before the girl had 
 ever dreamt of rising to the social elevation of 
 the Kingsfords, he had intimated to Herrick 
 that in due season she would be a suitable 
 mistress for Coote Hall. 
 
 "What would the counties say?" asked Her- 
 rick, on receiving this intimation from his uncle, 
 as they sate one Sunday afternoon in the dining- 
 room of Coote Hall, drinking a bottle of '15
 
 A Noble Woman. 259 
 
 port, a vintage already standing high in the 
 esteem of port -wine drinkers. 
 
 " That she had forty thousand pounds, and 
 that you were a monstrous lucky fellow/'' 
 
 " Come, come, sir ; you are putting the figure 
 much too high. She wont have anything like 
 so large a pot of money as that/" 
 
 " I didn't say she would, but the counties will. 
 You asked me what the counties would say."" 
 
 « True, sir j I did." 
 
 " Then mark me, all the Border will put it at 
 forty thousand." 
 
 " And what do you put it at ? She is an un- 
 commonly pretty girl, and though her uncle has 
 been such a boisterous old radical she has been 
 well brought up, and her religious training has 
 been of the right sort. So far so good ; but still 
 I am not the man to wish to stoop low and pick 
 up nothing. How much would it be into my 
 pocket V 
 
 " Into the bank," interposed the uncle, sug- 
 gesting an amendment of the inquiry, and at the 
 same time expressing with a smile his approval 
 of the judicious and thoroughly sensible tone of 
 his nephew. 
 
 " Into the bank," repeated Herrick, accepting 
 the amendment. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " The welfare of the bank, my boy/' urged the 
 uncle in his kindest and most patriarchal tone, 
 " must always be your first object. So long as 
 Kin£sford's Bank flourishes Coote Hall will 
 flourish. With the bank at your back you may 
 look forward to rising in the county, to repre- 
 senting the borough in Parliament, to holding 
 your own amongst the biggest gentry of the 
 Border. Here, the wine is with you; fill your glass, 
 and let us drink success to Kingsford's Bank." 
 
 " Now the bank has a sound connexion," con- 
 tinued Hercules, senior ; " it is firm, buoyant, 
 and respected throughout the Border. Kings- 
 ford's notes are as good as Bank of England 
 notes anywhere within twenty miles of Carlton 
 Cross. But with judgment and capital its busi- 
 ness may be greatly extended. To succeed a 
 banker must have character and capital. Ah ! 
 two fine things — capital and character ! So far 
 as character is concerned, Kingsford's Bank 
 wants nothing ; but at all times it would find its 
 advantage in a steady expansion of capital/'' 
 
 " No doubt," assented Herrick, concurring 
 with his uncle's humour. " The junior partner in 
 Kingsford's Bank is of opinion that capital is 
 never in the way, except when it is out of the 
 way."
 
 A Noble Woman. 261 
 
 '' As the junior partner in Kingsford's Bank, as 
 the first lawyer of Carlton Cross, as my heir" 
 rejoined the elder Hercules, with rising pom- 
 posity, " you might of course marry a young 
 lady of a first-rate family in one of the three 
 counties. But if you married a girl for the 
 sake of her social station, you wouldn't have 
 capital. The gentry of the Border seldom give 
 their daughters more than four or five thousand 
 pounds ; and even that small sum is usually 
 settled — strictly settled in such a fashion that 
 no husband can handle the principal. Now, 
 Cornelius Kilderbee is a twenty thousand pound 
 man at least. I should not be surprised to find 
 that he is a five- and- twenty thousand pound 
 man/' 
 
 " Perhaps he'll leave his money to trustees in 
 trust to build and endow a chapel with it, or to 
 use it for the support of oppressed nationalities, 
 or to expend the income in defending agitators 
 against prosecutions for treasonable practices ?" 
 
 " He'll make no such fool of himself," re- 
 turned the uncle, settling himself back in his 
 easy chair, and bringing his covetous hands 
 together. u His niece will get every penny of it, 
 with the exception of one or two legacies." 
 
 " You are in his confidence, sir ?" inquired
 
 262 A Noble Woman. 
 
 Herrick, obeying a legal instinct, and pressing 
 for the fullest possible information. 
 
 Whereupon the elder Hercules Kingsford 
 made a movement which, though it would have 
 impressed a stranger neither deeply nor favour- 
 ably, quickened perceptibly the attention of the 
 nephew, who knew that it was significant of 
 grave purpose and well meditated craft. First 
 the elder Hercules Kingsford brought into con- 
 tact the tips of his middle fingers, and then 
 slowly moved his palms towards each other, so 
 that the outer lines of his two hands described 
 an isosceles triangle with an imaginary base. 
 Having constructed his triangle, he slowly raised 
 it, angle upwards, imaginary base downwards, so 
 that it bore palpable resemblance to the first two 
 cards brought into position by the architect of 
 a card-house ; and then, with corresponding de- 
 liberation, he hung it on the bridge of his nose. 
 The full effect of this pantomime was not felt 
 until the elder Hercules Kingsford proceeded to 
 speak ; when his words, on passing from the 
 acutely-peaked roof thus raised over his mouth, 
 had a tone of peculiar confidence and mystery — 
 of which confidence and mystery the influence 
 was heightened by the brightness and diabolical 
 knowingness of the speaker's eyes, burning
 
 A Noble Woman. 263 
 
 luminously in the rear of this singular, but not 
 picturesque gable. 
 
 " Herrick," observed the banker, significantly, 
 when he had thus put himself in position, " I 
 am in his confidence, though he has not paid me 
 the compliment of taking me into it. I am in 
 the confidence of some one who is in his con- 
 fidence. He has mentioned matters in confidence 
 to some one, and that some one has repeated 
 those matters in confidence to me. Somehow 
 things mentioned in confidence are usually re- 
 peated in confidence till they are known to 
 everybody whom they concern." Here the 
 speaker's eyes winked — the left eye first, and 
 then the right eye, after an interval of two 
 seconds — and two electric currents ran over the 
 knuckles of his bony hands. 
 
 " No doubt, sir," assented the apt pupil. " For 
 my own part I am dead set against the weak- 
 ness of mentioning anything in confidence. 
 What I wish the world to know I tell the world, 
 and what I don't wish the world to know I keep 
 to myself." With respect to which sentiment 
 it may be observed that the Border contained no 
 man more weakly garrulous or incapable of 
 secrecy than Herrick when vanity inspired his
 
 264 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " Old Kilderbee has made a Trill by which he 
 leaves nearly the whole of his money to his niece. 
 Every penny that comes to her will be at her 
 own disposal. Mind, this was mentioned to me 
 in confidence. Whew ! a wink is as good as a 
 nod to a blind horse V } 
 
 Having given ntterance to this rather in- 
 appropriate adage, the elder Hercnles Kingsford 
 winked again at Herrick, who could not fairly 
 be likened to a blind horse; and forthwith 
 taking the triangle from the bridge of his nose, 
 the senior resumed his ordinary demeanour. 
 
 Herrick rose from his chair and walked to the 
 dining-room window, from which point of obser- 
 vation he could get a good view of the garden 
 bright with flowers, of the spire of Coote Church, 
 visible above some elms that shadowed the sacred 
 place, and stood within a hundred yards of the 
 hall door. As the young man passed his eyes 
 over the garden and trees, and the modest park 
 that skirted the house, he ruminated over his 
 uncle's suggestion, thinking how picturesque a 
 mistress Bessie would be for the fair domain of 
 Coote, and what a convenient addition her 
 fortune would prove to the capital of the bank, 
 that had an absolute excess of character. 
 
 After a few minutes' meditation the young
 
 A Noble Woman. 265 
 
 man resumed his seat, his glass, and the con- 
 versation. 
 
 " Ton my honour, uncle, I rather approve 
 your suggestion. I should like my wife ; I 
 should enjoy her money. But whilst I had her 
 without the money, it would sometimes be diffi- 
 cult work to get on pleasantly with my uncle- 
 in-law." 
 
 " You mayn't have anything to do with him 
 if you can help it/" promptly rejoined the uncle, 
 who had clearly looked at the matter from every 
 point and under every light. 
 
 " I had rather not." 
 
 " There's no hurry. Kilderbee is a struck 
 bird. He's gouty; he lives freely, he always has 
 lived freely ; he's over seventy, he was hit deuced 
 hard last spring, and mark my words, Herrick, 
 he wont last long. He may nutter a little longer, 
 but he must drop in the grass if he doesn't in 
 the turnips." 
 
 The maker of this speech was also a struck 
 bird. He was gouty ; he lived freely, he always 
 had lived freely; he was over seventy, and he 
 had been hit deuced hard last spring. Perhaps 
 the western light streaming athwart the upper 
 end of the room put him in mind of the elms 
 and church spire over which it had come on its
 
 266 A Noble Woman. 
 
 way to the dining-room window, and suggested 
 the thought that life could not be much longer 
 for Hercules Kingsford of Coote Hall than for 
 Cornelius Kilderbee of Green "V ilia ; that the 
 same awful calm would soon possess the Tory 
 magistrate and the Radical tradesman — the 
 churchman and the dissenter. If so, the light 
 influenced his brain more than his heart, for, 
 after a pause, he continued with characteristic 
 decision and levity. " So am I. All that I say 
 of him he can say of me. We are both on our 
 last flight, but I shall fly the furthest, or my 
 name isn't Kingsford. If he drops in the tur- 
 nips, I shall drop in the grass ; if he drops in the 
 grass, old Hercules of Coote Hall will flutter on 
 to the next piece." 
 
 "Then you'd have me temporize and dally 
 about Miss Bessie, and do nothing more ? Eh, 
 sir?" inquired Herrick, who had too much good 
 taste to follow his uncle in the track of thought 
 opened up by his two last speeches. 
 
 The look of wariness, craft, malevolent know- 
 ingness suddenly returned to the elder Kingsford' s 
 face with such force that it was strange he did 
 not repeat the piece of pantomime that usually 
 accompanied the expression. For a moment he 
 seemed about to reconstruct his gable and hang
 
 A Noble Woman. 267 
 
 it on the bridge of his nose ; bnt he thought 
 better of it, and employed his hands more suit- 
 ably in filling his glass and passing the decanter. 
 
 " If you would carry out this scheme, Her- 
 rick," the master of Coote Hall responded slowly, 
 " and I must own there are several reasons that 
 make me like the scheme, you must play a cau- 
 tious game. You should have such an under- 
 standing with the girl as would block out every 
 other man from a chance of winning her off- 
 hand. But you should try to keep her in hand 
 without making her an offer till old Kilderbee 
 drops. Moreover, if you can manage it, you 
 should keep the old man in the dark, and not 
 let him suspect your little game. Make love to 
 the girl, but stop short of a declaration that 
 would necessitate a revelation of the affair to her 
 uncle ; and be very civil to the uncle, so that, if 
 you should have to hurry matters more than you 
 wish, he may have learnt to tolerate you." 
 
 " Tolerate me ? Well, I do not suppose he 
 bears me any great love." 
 
 " Herrick," answered the elder Hercules, not 
 loudly but with vehemence and quickness, " he 
 hates me like poison; and I look down on him 
 as a fellow who ought even now to be put out 
 to cool in the parish stocks, and then receive a
 
 268 A Noble Woman. 
 
 round dozen from the borough beadle ! Years 
 ago I did my best to beggar that man, but the 
 fellow has grown rich in spite of me ; he is a 
 monstrous clever tradesman, his wine is the best 
 wine that can be bought in the Border. I don't 
 say that he doesn't deserve his success, but I 
 do grudge him his riches, and it would be a com- 
 fort to me to know that what he has amassed to 
 my annoyance will pass into the hands of my 
 heir, and help to keep up the Kingsford name in 
 this nook of the three counties. Beware of him. 
 He's a sly dog ; and every kick I have given him 
 he has repaid with a bite." 
 
 This conversation occurred something more 
 than two years before the date of James Staple- 
 ton's offer to Bessie ; and its consequences were 
 that Hercules Kingsford, Esquire, of Coote Hall, 
 neglected no opportunity of displaying civility to 
 Cornelius Kilderbee, who accepted the banker's 
 complaisance and blandishments as transparent 
 endeavours to patronize the opponent whom the 
 Brothers Kingsford had formerly endeavoured to 
 crush; that Herrick, following his uncle's ex- 
 ample, adopted at borough meetings a tone of 
 respectful admiration for the veteran reformer 
 with whose opinions he unfortunately could not 
 agree, although he reverenced the sincerity of his
 
 A Noble Woman. 269 
 
 convictions and purpose ; and that this same 
 Hercules Kingsford the younger lost no time in 
 carrying out his uncle's judicious instructions 
 with respect to Bessie Clayton, whom he adroitly 
 inveigled into a sentimental entanglement of such 
 a kind that, whilst it gave him all the power over 
 her which a definite exchange of promises would 
 have given him, it closed her mouth to her 
 uncle, placed her lover under no necessity to 
 communicate his passion to her guardian, and 
 even left him free to withdraw from the affair or 
 carry it out according to his pleasure. 
 
 For the greater part of two years he had held 
 Bessie's heart in his keej)ing, and yet at any 
 point of that time if he had discontinued his 
 intercourse with her, no person in Carlton Cross, 
 save himself and Bessie, would have known his 
 baseness, and even she would have found it diffi- 
 cult to prove to the satisfaction of any third 
 person that he had done more than trifle with 
 her in a flirtation to which she had attached 
 more significance than he had wished or was 
 aware of. 
 
 He caused her to understand that he had 
 conceived for her a deep and enduring affection, 
 which he was restrained from putting in explicit 
 terms through fear that his declaration would
 
 270 A Noble Woman. 
 
 necessitate an appeal to her uncle, and thereby 
 raise an insuperable obstacle to the attainment of 
 his desire. Fully alive to the vehemence of her 
 uncle's detestation of the Kingsfords, the girl 
 was neither slow to accept this view of her lover's 
 position nor inclined to underrate the reasonable- 
 ness of his apprehension. The alternations of 
 hope and fear which she experienced during this 
 private though not exactly clandestine intercourse 
 with her cautious suitor were indicated by the 
 terms in which she described it to James Staple- 
 ton. At one time she feared that her fancy must 
 have played her false and induced her to ex- 
 aggerate the force of his well-chosen words ; at 
 another she was confident he was hers at heart 
 no less than she was his. Throughout this period 
 of peculiar trial to the girl, Herrick controlled 
 the game so skilfully, that when at length his 
 offer had been made and accepted, she was ex- 
 actly truthful in saying of their mutual hope, 
 " Our secret has been our own, that is, mine has 
 been mine and his his."' Even when she was 
 most hopeful that she would one day be his wife, 
 she had placed that u one day" far off in the 
 distant future, when benignant circumstances 
 should have mitigated her uncle's aversion to 
 Herrick's name and stock, or time — her affec-
 
 A Noble Woman. 271 
 
 tionate heart never allowed her even to think 
 of it as " death" — should have made her free 
 to select her husband without reference to an 
 uncle's will. 
 
 At the last Herri ck did not commit himself by 
 a definite proposal until he had made his uncle 
 aware of James Stapleton's intentions, and taken 
 the banker's opinion on the case in its latest 
 phase. 
 
 " It's touchy work/' responded the veteran, 
 " playing for the trick when the trick decides the 
 game. You can't be certain that the girl is 
 yours as you haven't proposed to her outright. 
 She may have a suspicion that you have been 
 trifling with her, in which case, if James Staple- 
 ton, backed up by the old man, should push her 
 hard, she may yield, and take him upon the 
 strength of ( A bird in the hand is worth two 
 in the bush/ And then the old man's twenty 
 thousand wont come to Kingsford's Bank. On 
 the other hand, if you offer and she accepts you, 
 it is likely enough that old Kilderbee, foiled in 
 his purpose, will refuse his consent to your mar- 
 riage." 
 
 " She can marry me without it," observed 
 Herrick, with a touch of lover's ardour. 
 
 u And old Kilderbee can alter his will without
 
 272 A Noble Woman. 
 
 her consent/' rejoined the elder Hercules, with a 
 rattle in his voice. 
 
 " That's true/' 
 
 11 But/' continued the elder, decisively, " you 
 must nail her and hope to do your best with 
 the old man. If he should show fight and 
 threaten to cut her off with a shilling in case she 
 married you, there will be time enough then to 
 throw her over." 
 
 " By Jove, sir !" exclaimed Herrick, who really 
 had a sense of honour, though a blunt one, and 
 in a certain way some sentimental fondness for 
 the woman whom for upwards of two years he had 
 regarded as his future wife, " I couldn't do that, 
 and what's more, you wouldn't have me. If 
 she says l yes/ I shall be bound to stick to her. 
 I couldn't throw her over after she had ac- 
 cepted me." 
 
 " Couldn't you ?" returned Hercules, senior, 
 with a slight sneer on his lip and a corresponding 
 snarl in his voice. " No man knows what he 
 can do until he tries. Anyhow, you could be- 
 have like a man and decline to make your own 
 happiness a cause of estrangement between a de- 
 voted niece and a loving uncle ? Eh ? But there 
 is no reason to talk now about what you could 
 or couldn't do under circumstances that may
 
 A Noble Woman. 273 
 
 never happen. What yon can and what you 
 must do just now is plain enough : you must 
 make your offer. You must play your last 
 card, and hope neither of your adversaries has 
 a higher." 
 
 So Herrick, like a dutiful nephew and loyal 
 lover, made his offer with a result already known 
 to readers. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 274 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Wherein Herrick asks for his old Friend's Hand. 
 
 AMES STAPLETON was sitting in his 
 consulting-room, keeping company with 
 gloomy thoughts, just thirty hours after 
 his rejection, when a familiar step and tap on 
 the outer side of the door made him shiver and 
 hastily withdraw his eyes from the point where 
 his unwelcome and yet unavoidable visitor would 
 enter the room. Another twenty seconds, and 
 raising his eyes from the ground he looked into 
 Herrick's face for the first time since their friend- 
 ship had turned to bitterness. The surgeon's 
 lamp, throwing a full light on Herrick but 
 leaving its owner in deep shadow, enabled James 
 to study the intruder's countenance without ex- 
 posing himself to a similar scrutiny. 
 
 " It's late, old fellow," began Herrick, with 
 the habitual familiarity which had never before 
 caused James aught save pleasure, " but I could 
 not let another night pass without dropping in 
 upon you. I hope I am welcome ?"
 
 A Noble Woman. 275 
 
 " I expected you, and didn't close my door/' 
 returned James, keeping his seat whilst he ex- 
 amined the face of his old friend who stood before 
 him, making a painful and imperfectly-successful 
 effort to maintain an unabashed front. 
 
 " You see, Jem, this first interview after recent 
 occurrences to which we will make no unneces- 
 sary allusions is to a certain degree embarrassing, 
 not to say painful to both of us. How should it 
 be otherwise ? I am sure I never expected to 
 feel such a sense of discomfort on crossing your 
 threshold ; but still when I saw it was my duty 
 to make the first advances, and all that sort of 
 thing, why I put all thought for myself out of 
 consideration, and — and — here I am." 
 
 Herrick's countenance, as he uttered these 
 last words, gave the suitable addition — " and on 
 my honour I almost wish I wasn't." 
 
 Nor was his discomfort diminished when 
 James observed bluntly, " Yes, I can understand 
 your feelings, and 111 go so far as to say that I 
 don't envy them. But you needn't fear that I 
 shall insult you now that you are within my 
 own doors, or indeed when we meet elsewhere. 
 Take a chair." 
 
 " First take my hand, Jem," rejoined Herrick, 
 suiting his action to his word, " and say that it 
 
 t 2
 
 276 A Noble Woman. 
 
 is all right between us. Of course I can't expect 
 you to congratulate me on my engagement, and 
 I can't say that my conscience is altogether easy 
 concerning my behaviour to you in the matter. 
 You have good ground of complaint against me ; 
 but there's more to be said in my defence than 
 you are aware. And even if I were as black as 
 I seem to you, why you are big enough fellow to 
 act a generous part." 
 
 " You shan't have any reason to complain of 
 my want of generosity ! But take a chair, and 
 let us have a few words before we join hands." 
 
 Thus pressed, Herrick yielded the point, 
 taking the seat to which James pointed, and as 
 he did so feeling that his old friend had fairly 
 passed out of his control. 
 
 "You see," he urged, "everything is fair in love." 
 
 " But not in friendship." 
 
 " The greater includes the less." 
 
 " We had better pull up at once, Kingsford, 
 and bid each other good night, than drift into 
 the talk of novel-writers. Let's talk like men 
 with a painful matter in hand." 
 
 "We both loved her," resumed Herrick, 
 changing his tone, and thereby indicating that 
 lje had overcome his transient inclination to 
 fence with words.
 
 A Noble Woman. 277 
 
 " I can speak for myself — go on." 
 
 "But she is only one woman, and it was im- 
 possible for both of ns to win her." 
 
 "No doubt; anyhow one was doomed to 
 disappointment .■" 
 
 " The matter is painful and cruel to both of 
 us — painful and cruel to me, though I am the 
 fortunate suitor. However much a man may 
 value his friend, it is in nature that he should 
 prize his mistress more ; but he is to be com- 
 miserated if he wins the latter at tne risk of 
 losing the former. It is more than two years 
 since I fell in love with Bessie; perhaps you 
 charge me with want of frankness in keeping 
 the matter secret from you ?" 
 
 " I make no such charge — how could I ? I 
 who loved Miss Clayton four times as long, and 
 yet gave you no sign V* 
 
 " Ah, it's a pity you didn't !" urged Herrick, 
 with a sudden twist of thought, and a note of 
 pathetic persuasiveness. 
 
 " Would that have made any difference V* 
 
 " Why, Jem," returned Herrick, with the 
 genuine but shallow emotion of that most 
 dangerous of all humbugs — the humbug whose 
 eyes are blinded to his own hypocrisy, whose 
 conscience can endorse the falsehoods of his
 
 278 A Noble Woman. 
 
 lips, whose insincerity is so much more an affair 
 of impulse than of design that he is most in- 
 clined to credit himself with honesty and fine 
 feelings when he is most busy in deceiving 
 others — " if you had only told me all your 
 wish before I had gone so far that her happiness 
 required me to go further, I would have cried 
 back and left the sport to you. But it was only 
 the other night that I learnt your secret for the 
 first time. If you had only been as communi- 
 cative twelve months earlier — ay, if I had even 
 so much as a suspicion of your wishes twelve 
 months earlier — I should never have made Bessie 
 an offer." 
 
 As he gave utterance to this romantic speech 
 Herrick's eyes flashed, and his cheeks grew 
 bright with colour, so that they accorded with the 
 generous part which he imagined himself capable 
 of playing, under circumstances that, notwith- 
 standing his words spoken on a former occasion, 
 had not actually occurred. 
 
 " Tut ! — tut ! this is child's play, or worse," 
 James Stapleton retorted hastily. " You told 
 me that you discovered my secret two years 
 since. You forget, Kingsford — you forget." 
 
 Herrick's face grew much brighter when he was 
 thus reminded of " the falsehood into which" —
 
 A Noble Woman. 279 
 
 as an earlier chapter of this story says — " he had 
 been betrayed by vanity and cunning — a false- 
 hood which he bitterly repented when, after the 
 lapse of a few days, he reflected on the occur- 
 rences of the evening." 
 
 For a minute James left his old schoolfellow 
 to taste in silence the full flavour of his hu- 
 miliation; and then he resumed speech to this 
 effect — 
 
 " We had better say as little as possible about 
 this matter now ; and on future occasions we had 
 better say nothing. You have won the woman 
 whom I wished to make my wife ; you had a right 
 to win her, and I don't quarrel with you about that. 
 You have not treated me well — you have not given 
 me such treatment as I have ever given you ; but 
 I don't mean to quarrel with you on that 
 account. We have been open friends, and I 
 have no wish that we should be open enemies. 
 For Bessie's sake — I mean, for Miss Clayton's 
 sake — I shall soon cure myself of calling her 
 Bessie — I wish you happiness, and I'll do my 
 best to promote it ; and since it will be more or 
 less her happiness, I shall thank God if your 
 happiness has no drawback. I can't say more. 
 You ask me to give you my hand ; here, Kings- 
 ford, take it as the hand of a man who will
 
 280 A Noble Woman. 
 
 never do you ill, or wish you evil, or neglect an 
 opportunity to serve you." 
 
 11 It's the hand of a true friend/'' ejaculated 
 Herrick, as he grasped the hand. 
 
 " Of a man who will always behave as though 
 he were your true friend/' returned James with 
 strict truthfulness. After a few seconds' pause 
 he added, abruptly — " And now, Kingsford, let 
 us say good night. I want to be alone." 
 
 Having thus dismissed his visitor with scant 
 courtesy, and found himself once again alone, 
 James Stapleton murmured — " The scales have 
 dropt from my eyes. Is it possible that my 
 chosen friend, my heroic friend, is that paltry 
 fellow? Why, he is a sneak and a humbug; 
 and what's more, he told me a lie. Oh, Bessie, 
 Bessie ! I wish for your sake that he was less 
 unworthy of you." 
 
 Herrick also made his reflections on the inter- 
 view. 
 
 " Well, that's over, and that's something to be 
 able to say about a painful business. Anyhow, 
 he has shaken hands with me, and there will be 
 no open rupture of our friendship. And I must 
 own that, though I carry many more guns than 
 ' dear old Jem/ and belong to a higher grade 
 of the social system, and stand in no need of his
 
 A Noble Woman. 281 
 
 countenance, it would have been very awkward 
 and embarrassing if be bad quarrelled with me. 
 Since we must be neighbours, it would be 
 awkward to both of us to be at feud. Upon the 
 whole he behaved very well, considering how hard 
 I hit him. Of course he was cold and distant — 
 called me Kingsford instead of Herrick, a thing 
 he never did before in all his life — but he'll soon 
 come round like a sensible fellow who, even now 
 that his chagrin and annoyance are most acute, sees 
 that it would not be to his interest to quarrel 
 with good patients and useful friends. Ha ! ha ! 
 1 dear old Jem' knows which is the buttered side 
 of his bread as well as any man in the Border, 
 and he wont be such a fool as to quarrel with 
 Coote Hall." ■ 
 
 In this generous way Herrick reflected on the 
 interview as he retired to rest; but sleep was 
 driven from his pillow for more than one long 
 hour by disagreeably vivid recollections of the 
 novel sense of powerlessness and insignificance 
 and meanness which he had experienced whilst 
 enduring the gaze of his incensed and injured 
 friend.
 
 282 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A Notable Project on the part of Cornelius 
 Kilderbee. 
 
 HEN James Stapleton paid his next visit 
 to Green Villa forty- eight hours had 
 elapsed since his rejection by Bessie, 
 during which time Cornelius Kilderbee had so 
 far accommodated his mind to the new position 
 of affairs that he had invited James to an inter- 
 view in order that they might take counsel toge- 
 ther over their griefs, and reconcile themselves 
 to misfortune which they could not control. 
 
 u I was thinking — I was thinking," said the 
 veteran, rousing himself from a reverie which 
 James's entrance had disturbed rather than broken. 
 
 " So I saw, and your thoughts are running 
 away with you again/' observed James, who had 
 occupied his customary chair in Cornelius Kil- 
 derbee's parlour for five minutes without hearing 
 as many words from the merchant's lips. 
 
 e< I was thinking," resumed the merchant on 
 receiving this hint that he ought to discharge the
 
 A Noble Woman. 283 
 
 functions of an entertainer, " of my past and your 
 present, of the sorrow from which I fled to settle 
 in this town, and the sorrow that has all of a 
 sudden fallen on you ; and the similitude of our 
 cases set me pondering on how one generation 
 resembles another even in the minutest particu- 
 lars — how in their failing years the old see the 
 joys and pains of their young days so exactly 
 reproduced in the life of the young — that it 
 almost seems to us old people for minutes 
 together as though we were once again in the 
 spring of our days and regarding ourselves in a 
 mirror. There's no new thing under the sun, 
 James Stapleton ; and of all the things on which 
 God pours his light, human life, so far as the 
 affections are concerned, is just about the thing 
 in which there's least novelty. What I groaned 
 under fifty years syne you are groaning under 
 now ; and what you groan under to-day, the off- 
 spring of your loins will groan under when your 
 bones lie in the cloister yonder, side by side with 
 the bones of men and women who have rejoiced 
 and suffered and toiled and perished from the 
 earth before us. This life is like the ocean, in 
 the commotion and riot of its labour always giving 
 promise of something new — a promise never ful- 
 filled by the mighty waves that have no sooner
 
 284 A Noble Woman. 
 
 raised the hope of credulous watchers than they 
 fall back into the depths in the old deceptive 
 fashion and with the old unchanging music. 
 Poets have told us this again and again ; but no 
 man really sees the truth of the simile until the 
 grief of his own heart reveals it to him." 
 
 " It's a truth that consoles rather than dis- 
 heartens, Mr. Kilderbee." 
 
 " Consoles ! Why, lad, it's nature's great 
 song of comfort ; even its saddest notes plant in 
 us the seeds of gladness whilst they call up the 
 tears with which such seeds must be watered 
 if we would have them yield flower and fruit." 
 
 " You are talking to no rebel against destiny/' 
 rejoined James, with a smile that did more than 
 his words to bring Bessie to her uncle's mind. 
 " I have made up my mind to bear my lot with 
 philosophic submissiveness ." 
 
 " That's right, James ! You must bear it ; and 
 it's better to grin than to cry over what one 
 can't like but must endure. There's no man 
 better qualified to give you advice here than I." 
 
 After a pause, the speaker, with a startling 
 change of voice, continued : " It will surprise 
 you to know that Bessie is no niece of mine, has 
 no drop of my blood in her veins." 
 
 " Not your niece ?"
 
 A Noble Woman. 285 
 
 " "When I was a youngster, just about to enter 
 business in my native city, I made an offer to a 
 girl who refused me just as Bessie refused you 
 the other day, saying that another man blocked 
 the way to her heart. I was a green, tender 
 boy then, and was sore troubled by the mishap. 
 Had I continued to live in the old town, her 
 husband would have been my neighbour; every 
 day of my life I should have witnessed his happi- 
 ness, and should never have seen a smile on his 
 face without thinking it a smile of derisive 
 triumph over his wife's disappointed suitor. The 
 thought of being compelled to endure such an- 
 noyance was too much for me ; and rather than 
 bear it I quitted the city of my birth and my 
 forbears, not a little to my worldly detriment, 
 and came out here. Well, time went on. My 
 old love had a merry life for some twenty years 
 with her rich husband, when she died, leaving 
 five children ; and ten years afterwards, when her 
 children had all floated off into the world, my 
 rival died a much poorer man than his neigh- 
 bours had fancied him. So my love and her 
 husband had played out their game and passed 
 away before I would even allow to myself that I 
 was beginning to wear towards old age. For 
 years before her death I had really scarce given
 
 286 A Noble Woman. 
 
 her a thought ; but the news that she had gone 
 away wakened up old memories and made me 
 tremble at the discovery that I had never got the 
 complete mastery of my love of her. As for her 
 husband, I never, never knew how I hated him 
 until I caught myself gloating over the passage 
 in the newspaper that told me he was dead. This 
 is how we old men look back on the companions 
 of our youth/'' 
 
 "And Bessie?" 
 
 " My old love died when the fortunes of her 
 husband and children were at their brightest. 
 There seemed to be a curse on the young people ; 
 one after another they dropped beneath the sur- 
 face after floating out into the open sea. Two 
 of them, young men, died childless w r ithin two 
 years of their father's death ; the daughters all 
 married and died within a few years of each 
 other. The youngest of the family, a girl who 
 became the wife of a poor Northamptonshire 
 curate, was the gentlest and most wretched of 
 them all. She was very like her mother, and 
 her only child is the only surviving offspring of 
 this family of five children — of the woman who was 
 fool enough to love a richer man than myself/' 
 
 " Of course Bessie's father is dead V 
 
 " Died before her mother, who was in the most
 
 A Noble Woman. 287 
 
 deplorable straits when I quite accidentally heard 
 of her — heard that she was at death's door and in 
 extreme poverty. I found the poor thing with her 
 little girl in dirty lodgings, this child of the only 
 woman I ever had the heart to love. Well, I 
 did what I could for her — I buried her. That 
 was just about all that was left for me to do. 
 And when I had put her to rest, I brought 
 the child to Carlton Cross. There's the his- 
 tory of my niece. After all she is not of my 
 blood." 
 
 A note of menace that faintly qualified the 
 tone in which these last words were uttered 
 caused James Stapleton to interpose, " But she is 
 of your heart." 
 
 " No doubt. What then V* 
 
 " You wont oppose her wish to marry Kings- 
 ford?" 
 
 " Kingsford ! Why don't you call him Her- 
 rick ?" retorted the veteran, quickly ; and pour- 
 ing forth a bitter laugh he continued : " You 
 took me to task the other night for calling him a 
 self-satisfied upstart and a white-livered sneak. 
 You told me that ' Herrick/ your dear friend 
 Her rick, was as honest and true a fellow as could 
 be found in the whole Border. What do you say 
 about him now V
 
 288 A Noble Woman. 
 
 " You may not have been unjust to Kingsford, 
 sir/'' returned James with emotion, " but you are 
 not thoughtful for me. He does me no kindness 
 who aggravates my ill will towards Kingsford 
 with bitter words." 
 
 " You are right there, lad, and Cornel Kilder- 
 bee begs your pardon. But let us think of her, 
 poor mortal. She has chosen the cockatoo when 
 she might have mated with the eagle ; and unless 
 I am much mistaken, she'll find the cockatoo's 
 cage a worse home than the eagle's eyry. But 
 the poor soul must have her own way. You 
 might as well hope to stay the ugly rush of a 
 mad bull with fair words as try to check a woman 
 in love by force of sober argument. She must 
 e gang her ain gait/ as the Scotch say ; and since 
 it is so, she may as well choose her own time for 
 starting ; and if she is bound on a sad journey, 
 the more reason that we send her on the way 
 with smiles and kind words. So well just make 
 an effort to swallow our physic as though we 
 relished it like wine. We'll marry her off with 
 a gallant show, making the world believe we're 
 right proud of the match, and saying no word 
 that may be an arrow in her heart when she has 
 grown a wiser and sadder woman." 
 
 " Sir, I am cordially glad that you take the
 
 A Noble Woman. 289 
 
 matter in this way," ejaculated James, with a 
 feeling of sudden relief from anxious fear. 
 
 " But/' continued Cornel Kilderbee, flushing 
 angrily, and pausing in his utterance until he 
 had raised his poker and delivered a vicious blow 
 on the topmost coal of the blazing fire that 
 roared beneath his parlour chimney, " my money 
 is my own, and I am not necessitated to make it 
 over to the miserable popinjay that is to be her 
 husband. My money was made in honest trade, 
 by industry and vigilance and self-denial and li- 
 beral dealing ; and money so gathered wouldn't 
 mingle well with money made by usury and 
 sharp practice, and downright fraud and damna- 
 ble overbearing insolence. Do you suppose 
 that old Cornel Kilderbee has worked hard, 
 and made a small fortune, only that he may 
 enrich the family that tried to crush him when 
 he was poor ? James Stapleton," the old man 
 continued, with energy, striking his gouty hands 
 on his lean thighs, " the Kingsfords are my 
 enemies; as a Christian, with one foot in the 
 grave, I forgive them all the harm they've done 
 me, but I am not going to give them my money 
 as well as my forgiveness." 
 
 " Good heavens, sir \" exclaimed James, all 
 his worst fears suddenly returning ; " you don't 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 290 A Noble Woman. 
 
 surely mean that you will cut Bessie off with a 
 shilling ?" 
 
 u No, no, my lad," returned the veteran, with 
 a chuckle that contrasted painfully with the caustic 
 dryness of the tone in which the subsequent 
 words were spoken ; " she shall have a handsome 
 shilling and something over, to satisfy her that I 
 bore her no enmity, and the rest of my money 
 shall go elsewhere. Fll do the liberal thing by 
 the poor child in my last will and testament. 
 Maybe Fll leave her a mourning ring, and settle 
 an annuity of a hundred pounds on her babes ; 
 but as for the residue of my estate — as for 
 that" (here the speaker suddenly changed his 
 voice to a sharp note as he abruptly turned his 
 bright gaze into James's eyes), " what would you 
 say if you found that I had left it to you ? — eh, 
 my lad, what would you say V 
 
 So totally unprepared was James for this sug- 
 gestion that he could not command words for a 
 reply until his companion had renewed speech 
 to the following effect — 
 
 " She'll have money enough, and to spare, 
 for your dear friend Herrick will be a rich 
 man with his law business ' and his bank and 
 his uncle's savings. What need could the wife 
 of so rich a man ever have for the paltry glean-
 
 A Noble Woman. 291 
 
 ings of a trumpery little tradesman like Cornel 
 Kilderbee ? So in judging of this scheme of 
 mine you needn't think about her. Think of 
 yourself, Jemmy, and say, wouldn't it be a little 
 consolation to you, when you turn away from 
 my grave, to be able to speak in this fashion to 
 your dear friend Herrick — ' For the sake of 
 her fortune you thieved from me the woman 
 with whom you knew me to be in love — ay, 
 knew it ere ever you thought about winning 
 her; but though you stole the girl, it's I who 
 have her money ?' Come, lad, wouldn't it be a 
 sweet revenge to have it in your power to say 
 that to your dear friend Herrick?" 
 
 Thirty seconds passed ere James could say — 
 " I want no vengeance on Kingsford — at least, 
 no such vengeance as you suggest. There's a 
 devil in my blood just now, and you have done 
 me no kindness in provoking it. In time that 
 devil will die out of me — my constitution will 
 eject it and outlive it; but even now that the 
 poison is in me, I can say honestly that the 
 wish for vengeance on Bessie's husband will 
 never be wish of mine. As for your proposal, 
 if you were to carry it out I should regard 
 your will as the greatest calamity of my life, and 
 its effect would be that I could no longer endure 
 
 u 2
 
 292 A Noble Woman. 
 
 to live in this town. It would create bitterness 
 between Bessie and her husband — bitterness and 
 discord which she would naturally attribute to 
 me, and of which I should in a certain sense be 
 the original cause. You must know little of me, 
 Mr. Kilderbee, if you imagine that I should 
 enjoy a triumph purchased at the price of her 
 happiness. Your money, if it came to me on 
 such terms, — I would not, I could not touch a 
 penny of it." 
 
 The strongest powers of James Stapleton's 
 magnetic eyes, the peculiar expressiveness of 
 his remarkable voice, gave these words a signi- 
 ficance and force that cannot be imparted to the 
 cold and silent characters of printed language ; 
 and as the old merchant listened he saw the 
 meanness and badness of the project for which, 
 in a moment of anger and moral blindness, he 
 had confidently sought the sanction of James's 
 approval. To his credit it may be recorded, 
 that no sooner was he aware of his error than 
 he relinquished the scheme of vengeance in 
 which the surgeon had declined to be a parti- 
 cipator; but instead of signifying in express 
 terms his sudden revulsion of sentiment and 
 change of purpose, he confined himself to a 
 characteristic expression of pity for his adopted
 
 A Noble Woman. 293 
 
 child, and of admiration for her rejected 
 lover. 
 
 " Oh, Jemmy, Jemmy V 3 cried the old man, 
 in a key that indicated extreme agitation, as he 
 clutched his friend's broad hand, " what a little 
 fool she is ! — what a little fool she is ! She is as 
 much like all her sex as you are unlike yours. 
 To think of it, that she — the winsomest and 
 daintiest and best girl in all the Border — should 
 have taken up with that pert, mealy-mouthed, 
 bumptious whipper-snapper when she might have 
 had you ! There, there, lad, let's have a pipe 
 and talk politics. Anyhow, we've got the Bill. 
 By the Lord, my heart would break in my old 
 breast if it was not held together and plastered 
 round by the Reform Bill."
 
 294 A Noble Woman. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 Terms of Capitulation. 
 
 AVING decided to give his consent to 
 Bessie's engagement, Cornelius Kilder- 
 bee lost no time in acting upon his 
 decision ; and having so far reconciled himself 
 to the unacceptable match, he now came to the 
 opinion that the wedding could not take place 
 too soon. To long engagements he was strongly 
 opposed ; and the circumstances of Bessie's 
 espousal by no means inclined him to regard it 
 as an occasion for modifying the views which he 
 was known to hold on an interesting social 
 question. Until the marriage should be solem- 
 nized it would almost daily devolve on him to 
 play the part of host to Herrick Kingsford, a task 
 to which the old man looked forward with lively 
 repugnance. Again, so long as Herrick should 
 be a frequent visitor in Green Villa, for the 
 avowed purpose of offering to Bessie the atten- 
 tions of an accepted lover, it was not to be ex- 
 pected that James Stapleton would spend much
 
 A Noble Woman. 295 
 
 time in the same house. To free himself from 
 the obligation to show Herrick civility, and secure 
 himself the renewal of James's familiar visits, 
 Mr. Kilderbee would gladly have married the 
 lovers with indecorous expedition. Moreover, 
 the irritability of his constitution helped to make 
 him eager to do at once what he would fain have 
 avoided the necessity for doing at all. " Since 
 I must put myself under the surgeon's knife/' he 
 observed to James, " I would rather be operated 
 on now than six months hence ; delay would 
 not lessen the pain of the operation, and in the 
 meantime my imagination would be magnifying 
 the torture and peril. When a child has to take 
 a dose of nasty physic, the sooner he swallows it 
 the better for himself as well as for the nurse and 
 the doctor/'' 
 
 So after consultation with Bessie and Her- 
 rick, the master of Green Villa decided to swallow 
 the appointed dose of nasty physic on the first 
 day of December, thereby arranging that the 
 period of betrothal should be as short as the 
 public opinion of the borough would permit him 
 to make it, but still giving the young people 
 sufficient time for necessary preparations. 
 
 This brief though sufficient time was produc- 
 tive of unusual excitement to the principal in-
 
 296 A Noble Woman. 
 
 habitants of the Border, and imparted noticeable 
 agitation to the elder Hercnles Kingsford, of 
 Kingsford's Bank and Coote Hall, whose enthu- 
 siastic expressions of pleasure at the proposed 
 alliance of his heir with the fair and accomplished 
 niece of his old and much respected neighbour, 
 accorded ill with his secret chagrin at the com- 
 plete failure of his attempts to induce the old 
 and much respected neighbour to endow his fair 
 and accomplished niece with a portion of his 
 wealth. To gain his point, the elder Hercules 
 had recourse successively to hints, suggestions, 
 expostulations, threats. But all to no purj>ose 
 did he strive to wring satisfactory terms from the 
 enemy. To initiatory hints that so wealthy an 
 uncle would of course exhibit his characteristic 
 munificence to the young lady who so fully 
 deserved her guardian's affection, Cornelius 
 Kilderbee bluntly answered that munificence 
 never had been and never should be one of his 
 characteristics. Suggestions and expostulations 
 were met with the same unconciliatory frank- 
 ness. It was not till he had tried in vain every 
 reasonable means for the attainment of his ob- 
 ject that Hercules the elder had recourse to 
 menace, enveloped in those verbal suavities of 
 which the Kingsfords were natural masters, and
 
 A Noble IV oman. 297 
 
 dexterously conveyed in language that would not 
 necessitate a rupture with the retired merchant. 
 But to an involved and cautious statement of 
 what course Mr. Kingsford of Coote Hall under 
 certain circumstances might deem himself com- 
 pelled to take, however much he should regret 
 and deplore the inevitable consequences of such 
 action, Cornelius Kilderbee replied with a crush- 
 ing candour that left the banker nothing save 
 a choice between two forms of defeat. 
 
 " I quite understand your words, Mr. Kings- 
 ford/' replied the patriarch of the Border radi- 
 cals, looking his old enemy full in the face, " and 
 in the sincere hope that you may put their menace 
 in effect I make you a plain answer. Nothing, 
 sir, would please me more than that this mar- 
 riage on which my little girl, Heaven bless her, 
 has set her heart, should not eventuate. I like 
 your nephew as little as I like you ; and when I 
 say that, you can need no further assurance that 
 I would use any fair means to keep my niece 
 from his hands. If you ordered your nephew to 
 withdraw from this engagement, he would, I 
 doubt not, justify my low opinion of him by obey- 
 ing your command, that is, the command of self- 
 interest. In which case Bessie, having seen his 
 character fairly put before her, would soon get
 
 298 A Noble Woman. 
 
 the better of her infatuation and receive the offer 
 of a more worthy man. So unacceptable is this 
 marriage to me, that I don't exaggerate my re- 
 pugnance to it when I say that it will under any 
 circumstances be the great sorrow of my closing 
 years. Then, sir, if I must submit to it, the 
 terms of submission must be mine not yours. 
 When I die my money will go to the girl and 
 her children ; she has been reared as my niece 
 and heiress, and she has done nothing that would 
 justify me in disappointing the expectations 
 which I have encouraged her to form. It will 
 embitter my last days to think that the wealth, 
 the moderate wealth, which I have accumulated, 
 must go to enrich, directly or indirectly, any 
 member of your family. But however unpleasant 
 this prospect may be, Til be true to her. When 
 I am dead she shall have my money ; but if your 
 nephew marries my niece, he must take her with- 
 out a penny beyond her wedding outfit, which 
 shall be in accordance with her station. During 
 my life I don't mean to strip myself for the 
 gratification of him or any other Kingsford. 
 During my life he must be my obsequious and 
 dutiful nephew, paying court to me in anticipa- 
 tion of my posthumous favours ; but while the 
 breath remains in my body he shall not exult at
 
 A Noble Woman. 299 
 
 I 
 
 having clutched so much as one of the thousands 
 for the sake of which he has paid me the com- 
 pliment of winning my niece's heart without my 
 permission." 
 
 This long speech was uttered with aggravating 
 slowness ; and as the elder Kingsford received the 
 full significance of its contemptuous insults,, his 
 eyes flashed with anger, and he was on the point 
 of declaring that his heir should withdraw from 
 a negotiation which could not conduce to his 
 honour, and might result in material disadvan- 
 tage to him. But the wary banker, by a timely 
 effort, smothered his rage, and closed the inter- 
 view with an announcement that he would not 
 deliver an answer to Mr. Kilderbee's ultimatum 
 until he had turned the matter over in his mind. 
 And after deliberation with Herrick, the master 
 of Coote Hall saw reason to congratulate himself 
 on his self-control. 
 
 There was satisfaction for him in the reflec- 
 tion that Cornelius Kilderbee — a man so exactly 
 truthful that his word was as good as his bond 
 throughout the Border counties — had expressly 
 stated that, notwithstanding his displeasure with 
 her choice of a lover, Bessie and her children 
 should be the possessors of his wealth . " Fellows 
 of his sort take a pride in fulfilling their engage-
 
 300 A Noble Woman. 
 
 merits to the letter/' pondered the banker. 
 " She'll have his money ; for he has passed his 
 word for it." It was also delightful to him to 
 recall the dissenter's insolent avowal of distaste 
 for the proposed marriage. " The old man writhes 
 under the thought that the Kingsfords are going 
 to swallow his money as well as his niece/' argued 
 the banker, as he drank his daily allowance of 
 port. Moreover, the elder Kingsford was aware 
 that so far as a true Kingsford was capable of 
 genuine love, Herrick had conceived a strong 
 affection for the girl whom he originally wooed 
 at the suggestion of self-interest. It even occurred 
 to the banker that matters had gone so far with 
 his nephew and Miss Clayton that, notwithstand- 
 ing the reasonableness and apparent justice of 
 Cornelius Kilderbee's disdainful estimate of Her- 
 rick's readiness to obey his uncle in all things, 
 the engagement was a matter on which the 
 young man would have a will of his own, 
 
 So Hercules Kingsford of Coote Hall accepted 
 Cornelius Kilderbee's terms ; and Border society 
 was informed that the wedding would be cele- 
 brated without delay. 
 
 And to those who were not behind the scenes 
 — that is to say, to the entire population of the 
 Border with the exception of some half-dozen
 
 A Noble Woman. 301 
 
 persons — it seemed that the engagement was an 
 affair for congratulation to all who were imme- 
 diately affected by it. Whilst the master of 
 Coote Hall overflowed with protestations of de- 
 light at the prospect of his nephew's settlement, 
 Cornelius Kilderbee's affectionate care for Bessie 
 restrained him from expressing to the world his 
 aversion for the alliance. Indeed, the arrange- 
 ment was so universally regarded as a social pre- 
 ferment to the dissenter's niece, that few persons 
 paused to debate whether the match was altogether 
 to the merchant's mind ; and the coldness with 
 which he responded to his neighbours' rather 
 riotous congratulations was construed as the 
 affectation of a man who, after a life spent in the 
 advocacy of republican sentiments, had not enough 
 hardihood to acknowledge the pleasure which his 
 niece's elevation occasioned him. Upon the whole, 
 the announcement was favourably received in 
 every section of Border society. In the borough, 
 Bessie's popularity made her advancement accept- 
 able to all classes, even to the dissenters, who 
 would have felt themselves injured by her union 
 with a churchman had she been educated in 
 nonconformist principles. A few shrewd gossips 
 there were perhaps who, having assigned her to 
 James Stapleton, whispered amongst themselves
 
 302 A Noble Woman. 
 
 that it was to be hoped Miss Clayton knew what 
 was for her own happiness, and had not sacrificed 
 her own peace of mind, or the mental peace of 
 any other person, to vain ambition. But these 
 critics were so few and obscure, that their hints 
 and surmises had no perceptible influence on the 
 public opinion of the town. Nor were the Border 
 gentry less unanimous in their approval, although 
 Herrick's removal from the list of eligible and 
 unattached bachelors of the district might have 
 been effected in a manner more agreeable to the 
 hopes of Lady Herriss of Heathfield Hall, who, 
 having five portionless daughters on her hands, 
 had on more than one occasion been at consider- 
 able pains to evince her goodwill to Hercules 
 Kingsford's nephew.
 
 A Noble Woman. 303 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " The Quality" call at Green Villa. 
 
 ERY different to Bessie and James were 
 the weeks that intervened between the 
 engagement and marriage of the former. 
 To her they were a period of cloudless joy and 
 intense exultation, as the period of engagement 
 naturally is to every girl who, after many vicissi- 
 tudes of fear and hope, finds herself on the eve 
 of marriage with the man whom she loves with 
 the full ardour of an affectionate nature. Hers 
 was not a mind to analyse its own happiness ; 
 but if she had resolved her delight into its 
 elements she would not have blushed to own that 
 the worldly advantages of the alliance contributed 
 in no inconsiderable degree to her satisfaction 
 with her own bright fortune. So far as her 
 estimate of these advantages was concerned, 
 simplicity and native modesty effected that which 
 would have been the result of worldliness and 
 selfish calculation in a less artless and unam- 
 bitious girl. Little given though she was to
 
 304 A Noble Woman. 
 
 value and compare the external circumstances of 
 her neighbour's, she could not be insensible to 
 the superiority of her lover's social condition to 
 that of her uncle's familiar friends. Though 
 she had never given it serious thought at any 
 earlier period, her affection for Herrick had often 
 thrust it upon her consideration during the two 
 last years, inspiring her at moments of despon- 
 dency with a vague fear that it might prove the 
 one insuperable obstacle to her happiness, and as 
 often causing her to rebuke herself for presump- 
 tion in aspiring to one who was placed so mani- 
 festly above her. 
 
 Women, even of the simplest kind, are quick 
 to detect, and prone to rate at their full worth, 
 the minute gradations of social rank ; and Bessie, 
 who apart from her more than ordinary grace 
 and truthfulness, and sweetness of temper, was a 
 type of commonplace womankind, would under 
 any circumstances have fully appreciated the 
 pre-eminence which the Kingsfords had achieved 
 amongst the gentry of the borough, although it 
 could under no circumstances have influenced her 
 affection for Herrick. But now that he was 
 hers, it gave her pleasure to magnify every item 
 of his importance, and contrast the height of his 
 degree with her own lowliness. What was there
 
 A Noble Woman. 305 
 
 in her, she asked her grateful and guileless 
 heart, that could account for her good fortune in 
 winning the heart of the superb Mr. Herrick 
 Kingsford, who might have chosen his bride from 
 Heathfield Hall ? 
 
 Indeed, there were moments during her en- 
 gagement when this alliance of love and grati- 
 tude, and lowliness and exultation, almost made 
 a snob of the young lady who, hitherto health- 
 fully indifferent to the opinions of people with 
 whom she never came in close contact, now began 
 to doubt her fitness for the high estate to which 
 she was about to be raised, and even to trouble 
 her little brain as to the reception which would 
 be accorded to her as Herrick's bride by the 
 wives and daughters of the neighbouring mag- 
 nates. On this score, however, her mind was 
 soon put at ease by Herrick, who prevailed on 
 some of the more august of these great ladies to 
 call at Green Villa, and make her acquaintance 
 whilst she still remained beneath the roof of her 
 nonconforming uncle. And truth to tell, Herrick 
 had no great difficulty in winning this counte- 
 nance for his future bride ; for various considera- 
 tions concurred to dispose the local gentry to 
 give Bessie a cordial reception. Ere long Herrick 
 would be the banker of the district, and already 
 vol. i. x
 
 306 A Noble Woman. 
 
 as his uncle's partner he was a personage whom 
 some of the less opulent members of the Border 
 quality were more anxious to conciliate than 
 ready to offend. By some heads of families it 
 was prudently argued that since Miss Clayton 
 would in brief time be the mistress of Coote Hall 
 and a power in the neighbourhood,, it would be 
 to the interest of their young people that they 
 should lose no time in welcoming the dissenter's 
 niece to their set. 
 
 Lady Herriss of Heathfield Hall — who, not- 
 withstanding her straitened means, was highly 
 influential in Border society, and who had more- 
 over special reasons for wishing to conceal the 
 chagrin which she secretly felt at Herrick's en- 
 gagement — actually drove over to Coote and 
 suggested to Hercules Kingsford the senior that 
 she should leave cards on Miss Clayton. Nor 
 was that worthy old soldier, Sir John Heneage, 
 baronet and Tory member for the borough, less 
 prompt in making friendly overtures to Green 
 Villa. " She's an uncommonly pleasant young 
 lady, and has been bred up a churchwoman, and 
 everybody speaks favourably of her/' observed 
 this member of the electoral chamber to his better 
 if not his wiser half — " and what's more to the 
 purpose, the Kingsfords are my staunch sup-
 
 A Noble Woman. 307 
 
 porters in the borough. So, my dear, as this is 
 a nice bright morning for a drive, go over to 
 Carlton Cross and do the civil thing." Obeying 
 orders like a good wife and zealous political co- 
 adjutor, Lady Heneage started on her mission 
 with the intention of calling on the new inmates 
 of Carlton Cross rectory before she bore down 
 upon the stronghold of radical opinion ; and as 
 luck would have it, the first person whom she 
 encountered in Lady Bertie Godsall's drawing- 
 room was Miss Clayton, who had so thoroughly 
 gained Lady Bertie's good favour that on her re- 
 turn to Boxmere House Lady Heneage reported 
 to her husband that Lady Bertie and Miss 
 Clayton were as thick as two peas. 
 
 Whilst these attentions greatly delighted and 
 to some degree bewildered the young lady to 
 whom they were specially rendered, Cornelius 
 Kilderbee accepted his incidental share in them 
 with outward composure and secret satisfaction. 
 He was greatly surprised by the courteous de- 
 monstrations of persons whom he was accustomed 
 to classify with significant asperity as " bigwigs ;" 
 and if his surprise was greater than he cared to 
 show, his pleasure was very much greater than 
 he allowed himself to admit even to his own 
 breast. Instead of resenting their urbanity as 
 
 x 2
 
 308 A Noble Woman. 
 
 insolent patronage, lie was greatly conciliated by 
 the " bigwigs/" wbo now for the first time crossed 
 his threshold under circumstances that, it might 
 be imagined, would have inclined him to repel 
 their advances. Had he regarded himself as in- 
 debted to the odious Kingsfords for the attentions 
 which certainly but for them would never have 
 been offered to him, he would most certainly 
 have expressed vehement disdain for the entire 
 pack of aristocratic intruders who, in accordance 
 with the insufferable insolence of their overbear- 
 ing class, presumed to darken his doors under the 
 ridiculous conceit that their patronizing blandish- 
 ments could gratify his republican spirit. But 
 fortunately for himself, for Bessie, and for all 
 persons concerned, his constitutional vanity — a 
 moral endowment that was in no slight degree 
 accountable for the antagonism which he had 
 manifested throughout life to the privileged 
 orders of society — caused him to construe their 
 attentions as consequent upon the respect enter- 
 tained for himself personally by the class who had 
 found him their resolute foe in the political arena. 
 Hence it came to pass that he responded with 
 hearty good humour to condescensions which 
 were more calculated to irritate than please a 
 sensitively proud man. It tickled him to think
 
 A Noble Woman. 309 
 
 that, after all, the gentry of the Border had 
 taken the first opportunity to tender him their 
 congratulations on an event which brought him 
 something nearer to their set. It pleased him to 
 know that after all the hard things he had said 
 and done to thwart and defeat them, they were 
 the first to say, " Let bygones be bygones." It 
 gratified him also to be assured that they would 
 not conspire to make his niece feel that by 
 quitting the ranks of the borough tradesmen, 
 and coming within their lines, she had been 
 guilty of culpable presumption. " Anyhow, her 
 perky husband and his stuck-up uncle," the old 
 man perversely reasoned, " wont be able to boast 
 that they raised her into a different class. No, 
 they can't say that, for the c bigwigs' have made 
 her acquaintance under my roof, not theirs. Her 
 guests at Coote Hall will have been her guests, 
 ere ever she married, at Green Villa." 
 
 So the veteran's ears found music in the sound 
 of the carriage wheels which brought the Border 
 quality over the coach road of his garden; and 
 this being his humour, he exerted himself to 
 show his distinguished visitors that radical and 
 dissenter and tradesman though he was, Cor- 
 nelius Kilderbee was as much a gentleman in 
 culture, tone, and address as any county magis-
 
 310 A Noble Woman. 
 
 trate within twelve miles of the Borough Cross ; 
 and so far was he successful in this endeavour, 
 that more than one coach-load of Bessie's callers 
 returned homewards from Green Villa full of 
 astonishment that old Mr. Kilderbee, of whose 
 dangerous principles they had always heard very 
 terrible accounts, although they had never on 
 any previous occasion exchanged words with 
 him, should be so agreeable and complaisant a 
 gentleman. Perhaps there was a touch of 
 burlesque in the stateliness and courtier-like 
 bearing which the retired merchant assumed 
 towards the gentility who, not more to his 
 astonishment than their own, found themselves 
 within his gates. But the manner accorded so 
 well with the costume and aspect of this repre- 
 sentative of the pig-tail period, that notwith- 
 standing the drawbacks of his inflammatory 
 complexion and purple nose, the unanimous 
 verdict of his distinguished inspectors adjudged 
 him to be a highly picturesque and interesting 
 specimen of an obsolete school. 
 
 Like most engaged girls Bessie was not more 
 delighted than astonished at the fuss which 
 people made about her affairs as soon as her 
 engagement was announced. Her good fortune 
 had so visible an effect on every one's manner
 
 A Noble Woman. 311 
 
 towards her, that even to herself she scarcely 
 seemed the same Bessie who had hitherto been a 
 comparatively insignificant young person. From 
 the grand folk who decided " to take her by the 
 hand," to the humble people of the town — 
 milliners and petty dealers, and dames with 
 children fast growing up for " gentlefolk's 
 service," who entertained hopes that Mrs. 
 Herrick Kingsford would take them by the 
 hand — every one had some sort of homage or 
 flattery for her. Each post brought her letters 
 of congratulation, or sympathy, or curious in- 
 quiry from old schoolfellows. Presents of a 
 costliness, that made Bessie think the whole 
 world bent on ruining itself for her benefit, 
 poured in upon her in such unanticipated profusion 
 that the interior of Green Villa had the appear- 
 ance of a bazaar rather than of a private house. 
 Daily the excitement grew fiercer, the surprises 
 more numerous. What with replying to her 
 numerous correspondents ; calling on friends 
 old and new; inspecting new furniture for the 
 Bank House, which the young married people 
 would occupy until death should make a vacancy 
 at Coote Hall ; sending out invitations to brides- 
 maids, and other wedding-guests; holding de- 
 bates with milliners and needlewomen about her
 
 312 A Noble Woman. 
 
 trousseau, the girl had scarcely a moment's rest 
 by day, and by no means her ordinary amount 
 of sleep by night, during the interval between 
 quarter-day and that first of December, to 
 which she looked forward with fearful delight. 
 
 To those doctors who are wont to take up 
 their parable against the deleterious effects of 
 incessant excitement, such a life as Bessie led 
 during this brief span must appear highly pre- 
 judicial to health. But the faculty may take 
 the word of a veracious writer, that instead of 
 growing pale, or languid, or lustreless, — instead 
 of exhibiting any signs of mental distress or 
 physical prostration, Bessie grew brighter in 
 countenance, and stronger in body throughout 
 those weeks of tumultuous emotions. Beautifying 
 her with that peculiar beauty which distinguishes 
 newly-engaged girls, and acting not less as 
 a tonic than a stimulant to her nervous 
 system, the joy of her heart gave a warmer tint 
 to her cheek, a richer tone to her voice, greater 
 elasticity to her step, clearer music to her 
 laughter. 
 
 Whether it was a period favourable to the 
 finer instincts and higher forces of her moral 
 nature there is room for doubt. The least 
 nattering truth that can be spoken with respect
 
 A Noble Woman. 313 
 
 to love is — that ordinary lovers are so engrossed 
 and absorbed by their own happiness that they 
 never trouble themselves much about the misery 
 of their neighbours. The human heart, like the 
 head, finds one great thought enough for it at a 
 time ; and when it entertains so grand a senti- 
 ment as love, it makes room for the arrogant 
 guest by ejecting all the minor sympathies from 
 their customary quarters. Perhaps Bessie's case 
 illustrated this unpalatable truth. Certain it is 
 that amidst the excitements that now flowed in 
 upon her she gave little heed to James Stapleton. 
 Scarcely a week had elapsed since her dismissal 
 of his suit when his attachment and all its con- 
 sequences seemed to her as though they were an 
 affair of a far distant past. So many events had 
 transpired in it that the week appeared one of 
 years rather than one of days. When she could 
 see him without changing colour, could hear his 
 voice and yet feel no stirring at the heart, could 
 look into his eyes without flinching, could place 
 her hand in his as coolly as though he had never 
 dropped a tear upon it, it would have been very 
 strange if she had regarded their interview under 
 the blazing mass of Virginian creeper as an inci- 
 dent of recent occurrence. Indeed, although the 
 fact may be construed to her disadvantage by a
 
 314 A Noble Woman. 
 
 certain class of highly romantic readers, it must 
 be acknowledged that the event, even when it re- 
 curred to her mind, soon ceased to be a matter 
 of much moment, and that, instead of interpreting 
 his calmness towards her as an indication of 
 heroic fortitude and fine consideration for her 
 feelings, she accepted it as a proof that he was 
 not so deeply wounded by the rebuff as she had 
 feared he would be.
 
 A Noble Woman. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Wherein Herrick makes Choice of a " Best Man. 33 
 
 O the same cause also it must be partly 
 attributed that the circumstances, which 
 had killed James's affection for his old 
 schoolfellow, produced so little effect on the sensi- 
 bilities of the latter that in a marvellously short 
 time he could reflect on them without poignant 
 discomfort, and could maintain his customary 
 tone of familiar confidence to the man whose 
 friendship he had abused. To represent that 
 Herrick experienced no sense of humiliation 
 when he reflected on those occurrences would be 
 to do him injustice ; for to his credit, or rather 
 in illustration of the better side of his imperfectly 
 bad nature, it must be recorded that many 
 months passed ere he ceased to blush in secret 
 for his perfidious conduct. But like many other 
 men of selfish instincts and shallow feeling, he 
 was a clever hypocrite to his own conscience, 
 and could find comfort in assuring himself that 
 he was not a bad fellow even when his own heart
 
 316 A Noble Woman. 
 
 gave the lie to his self-flattery. So in spite of 
 his secret uneasiness he made a not altogether 
 unsuccessful effort to persuade himself that he 
 had no reason to be uneasy in James's presence, 
 or in any way alter his demeanour to him. The 
 extent to which this attempt at self-delusion was 
 successful will be best described by saying that 
 it was continually repeated, but never repeated 
 without a certain measure of transient satisfaction. 
 To have admitted to the world that a coolness 
 had arisen between him and his friend would have 
 produced embarrassment and scandal; to have 
 confessed its existence to himself would have been 
 one step towards revealing the unpleasant fact to 
 the gossips of the borough. So mustering all 
 the resolution of his arrogant but rather infirm 
 nature, Herrick said to himself, " The position no 
 doubt was awkward ; but the position is at an end, 
 and the awkwardness is at an end also. Our 
 friendship was ruffled but not broken; and as 
 James Stapleton was the sufferer and to a certain 
 extent an aggrieved party in the affair that 
 threatened to divide us, it would not be generous 
 in me to do anything which might remind him 
 of painful occurrences. Had that affair never 
 caused a slight misunderstanding between us, I 
 should without a moment's debate have asked
 
 A Noble Woman. 317 
 
 him to be ' best man' at my wedding. Not to 
 ask him under existing circumstances would be 
 to put a slight upon him — in fact, to intimate 
 that our friendship had lost its old footing. Now 
 Jem is a dear old fellow, and nothing shall in- 
 duce me to put a slight upon him. So I will 
 ask him to be my ' best man/ as though nothing 
 unpleasant had occurred." 
 
 Acting on this magnanimous resolution, just 
 about a fortnight before the appointed first day 
 of December, Herrick entered James's consulting- 
 room, and finding the surgeon at home and dis- 
 engaged, abruptly entered on the business of 
 his call. 
 
 " Almost everything is settled, Jem," he began, 
 with an effort resuming the familiar style of ad- 
 dress which James's altered tone had compelled 
 him to discontinue for some weeks ; " the wedding- 
 cake is ordered ; the bridesmaids have agreed 
 about their bonnets ; I have been measured for 
 the regulation blue swallow-tails and yellow vest. 
 The ring is in my pocket, and I shall feel myself 
 fully equipped for every possible emergency if 
 you'll promise to come within the ropes and be 
 my bottle-holder." 
 
 The flippancy of the words did not conceal the 
 speaker's embarrassment ; and his confusion was
 
 318 A Noble Woman. 
 
 still more apparent when a painful silence fol- 
 lowed their utterance. 
 
 " You wont refuse me, Jem ?" pleaded Herrick, 
 changing his tone, and dropping his gaze as soon 
 as it had encountered James's brightening eyes 
 and rapidly rising colour. " Out of regard to old 
 times — you wont decline ?" 
 
 " The less we say about old times, Kingsford, 
 the better will be our chances of keeping up a 
 neighbourly intercourse." 
 
 " You'll do me a kindness/' quickly returned 
 Herrick, taking no notice of James's rebuff, " if 
 you consent; and you'll pain others besides myself 
 if you decline." 
 
 By which diplomatic stroke Mr. Herrick Kings- 
 ford carried his point. 
 
 " What !" James inquired, becoming very pale 
 as suddenly as he had flushed a minute earlier, 
 " do you mean that she wishes it ?" 
 
 " She'll be sorry to hear that you have refused 
 my request." 
 
 " Did she tell you to say so ?" 
 
 " No ; but she knows that I had decided to 
 ask you : and if you say ' No,' Bessie will be 
 vexed and troubled about it. There's only one 
 construction that she can put on your refusal." 
 
 For a full minute James thought the matter
 
 A Noble Woman. 319 
 
 over ; and then putting Bessie's pleasure before 
 every other consideration, he answered slowly, 
 " On that understanding I consent to be your 
 best man. But mind, Kingsford, it goes against 
 the grain of me here," laying his hand on his 
 breast, " to say ( Yes/ Still, since Miss Clayton 
 wishes it, that's enough. Do you want anything 
 more of me, Kingsford?" 
 
 This question was put after a pause. 
 
 " Yes, Jem/' Herrick exclaimed, warmly, " I 
 wish to God that you wouldn't call me Kingsford, 
 and keep me at arm's length. My pride wouldn't 
 let me speak in this way to any man but you. 
 You are punishing me more cruelly than you 
 think." 
 
 * Kingsford," James answered, with a signifi- 
 cance that was not lost on his old chum, " I call 
 you Kingsford because I shall always think of 
 you as Kingsford ; but I'll call you Herrick if 
 she wishes me to do so." 
 
 Relinquishing the hopeless contest, Herrick 
 turned to depart, saying as he did so, "Well, 
 well, anyhow I am obliged to you for promising 
 to be my best man." 
 
 " I'll be your best man" rolled out the lowest 
 tone of James Stapleton's thunderous voice; 
 " and in a certain sense I'll be your best friend
 
 320 A Noble Woman. 
 
 through life. But, Kingsford, I cau never again 
 be your ' old friend ' in the sense in which I have 
 been." 
 
 So having in no way lessened the distance be- 
 tween himself and that honest heart from which 
 he had been ejected once and for ever, Herrick 
 returned to the Bank House on the other side of 
 the High Street, muttering to himself, " No ; 
 he'll never forgive me. What an infernal nuisance 
 it is that he is so thin-skinned V* 
 
 Whilst Herrick took this view of a disagree- 
 able subject, his thin-skinned friend was saying 
 to himself, " He was right in fact, as well as in his 
 mode of dealing with me. She would be pained 
 if I declined to stand by his side at church, so I 
 could not do otherwise than accept. Moreover, 1 
 was fortunate to have so good an opportunity of 
 showing him the consideration by which my con- 
 duct to him will always be regulated. Heigho ! 
 I shall be glad when December one has come 
 and gone. I think I shall sleep again when it's 
 all over, and I can no longer look for ' a slip 
 'twixt the cup and the lip/ " After a pause he 
 added, " And I do so want sleep. I crave for it, 
 I hunger for it. This sleeplessness is stealing 
 away my strength, and stupefies whilst it weakens 
 me. If this cruel sleeplessness would cease to
 
 A Noble Woman. 321 
 
 afflict me, if I could only get a refreshing slumber 
 once in the twenty-four hours, I could act the 
 part of cheerful spectator with much greater 
 ease and effect." 
 
 As he thus communed with himself he stood 
 before the looking-glass of his consulting-room, 
 and surveyed a face on which mental anguish 
 and continual unrest were putting their dis- 
 tinctive marks ; and as he saw the pale worn 
 countenance unbrightened by the misleading 
 light of simulated contentment, and studied the 
 features which, in the absence of witnesses, were 
 allowed to express the sorrow that before 
 observant eyes they were required to mask, he 
 was impressed with wonder at the change which 
 two months of secret suffering had wrought in 
 the lines and texture and hue of his uncouth 
 but pleasant visage. 
 
 Until his present trouble came upon him 
 sleeplessness was a malady of which he had no 
 personal experience. He had observed it as a 
 pathological phenomenon in men tortured by 
 sharp physical pain, and in women of highly 
 nervous temperaments. He had watched a 
 patient afflicted by tic-douloureux who, for 
 weeks, months, years, had never obtained so 
 much as a brief doze without the aid of a narcotic; 
 vol. i. y
 
 322 A Noble Woman. 
 
 but the torments of this miserable wretch had 
 roused less surprise than sympathy in the 
 surgeon, who traced the disorder along one link 
 of the long chain of causation, and having in 
 accordance with orthodox medical system made 
 a diagnosis, which began and ended in a name, 
 left the puzzle where he found it — answered, but 
 unsolved. In cases where pain accompanied 
 sleeplessness the surgeon, whose science was of a 
 decidedly materialistic school, saw nothing that 
 was marvellous. There was sleeplessness and 
 there was pain — the former was due to the 
 latter — that was the state of the case. If he 
 stopped to argue about the nature of pain over 
 every case that came under his eye, he should 
 never get through a day's work ; immediate 
 causes were enough for him. But cases of 
 sleeplessness unattended by physical anguish occa- 
 sioned him perplexity that could not be removed 
 by the repetition of a scientific term; and he would 
 frankly admit that pure insomnia, sleeplessness 
 not distinctly referable to bodily discomfort, 
 was a matter about which he knew just nothing. 
 Of course cases of that disease came under his 
 notice. He could remember the experience of a 
 delicate gentlewoman who, in the absence of all 
 causes to which her illness might be referred,
 
 A Noble Woman. 323 
 
 could not get ten consecutive minutes of sound 
 slumber in as many months, although she had 
 recourse to every opiate that physicians dared to 
 prescribe for her. Fortunate in her circum- 
 stances ; happy in the prosperity of her husband 
 and children; supplied with every source of 
 pleasure for which she had an inclination; 
 tranquil in conscience ; in no way troubled by 
 vague apprehensions of calamity, this lady sud- 
 denly lost her power of sleeping. Remedy after 
 remedy was employed without any beneficial 
 result; when just as the patient seemed to be 
 sinking from pure exhaustion consequent on this 
 mysterious failure of natural refreshment, sleep 
 returned just as mysteriously as it had departed, 
 and ere another week had passed she was as 
 strong and vivacious and blithe-hearted as she 
 had ever been in all her life. " Now," James 
 used to say, " this is one of those cases that defy 
 science, and if I live to be a hundred years old 
 I shall know nothing about them/'' 
 
 But here the young surgeon was wrong, for ere 
 he completed his thirty-third year he made close 
 acquaintance with the malady. Never had he so 
 much felt the need and desire for sleep as in 
 that terrible period when sleep was estranged 
 from his pillow. His muscles were numbed by
 
 324 A Noble Woman. 
 
 fatigue ; his bones ached with weariness ; night 
 after night, in spite of the experience of many 
 preceding nights, he sank upon his bed in the 
 hope of finding sleep, and the belief that his 
 extreme nervous prostration must in another 
 hour work its own remedy; and night after 
 night the event disappointed the hope, and 
 answered the belief with mockery. 
 
 He drugged himself with opiates, but instead 
 of producing wholesome slumber, they harried him 
 with hideous nightmares, which were followed by 
 fever and headache and intellectual dulness. To 
 soothe his eyes, in which the monotonous darkness 
 caused an uneasiness similar to that which the 
 optic nerve endures under long exposure to the 
 untempered rays of a glaring sun, he would rise 
 from his restless bed and striking a light illu- 
 minate his chamber with candles. Sometimes 
 he was relieved by the music of his night-bell 
 summoning him to a patient. More than once 
 he tried to fight his malady by intellectual 
 exertion ; but when he sat down at his study- 
 table in the dead of night, he found himself 
 as much too weary to read as he was too 
 wakeful to win repose. In vain he stole from 
 his house and wandered up and down his 
 garden in the hope that the cold winterly air
 
 A Noble Woman. 325 
 
 would dispose his rebellious nerves to quiet and 
 torpor. 
 
 This singular sickness in no degree disturbed 
 his courage; indeed, it interested rather than 
 terrified him ; but though it could neither break 
 nor shake his manhood, it filled him with 
 melancholy, and led him to ponder with appro- 
 priate humility on the impotence of human 
 strength and his own need of heavenly support. 
 During which meditations he would stretch out 
 his arms as though they welcomed a very dear 
 friend, or would murmur, " Well, I know now 
 what wretchedness is, and I thank God for it; 
 for the knowledge will make me better able to 
 comfort the wretches who fall in my way, and 
 I am less likely to desire the joys which cannot 
 outlive a storm of such misery as this." 
 
 The discipline which James Stapleton under- 
 went in this season of peculiar tribulation was 
 known only to himself and that beneficent Father 
 from whom all our afflictions come ; and yet in 
 the changing lines of his countenance, and in 
 various trifling deviations from his established 
 ways of thought and speech — in the quickness 
 with which his conciliatory smiles were followed by 
 manifestations of dejection, and in the greater 
 tenderness which he displayed to the poorest and
 
 326 A Noble Woman. 
 
 most pitiable of his patients — there were signs of 
 the change which his own personal trials were 
 working in him. But of these signs no one near 
 him was heedful. For though this surgeon of a 
 provincial town lived amongst men and women 
 who cherished warm affection for him, he was a 
 stranger to them so far as his deeper thoughts 
 and finer sentiments were concerned, even as each 
 unit of the vast, innumerable human family is 
 but little known to those who know him best. 
 We pry and speculate and incessantly gossip 
 about the superficial phenomena of each other's 
 lives, but our curiosity seldom penetrates beneath 
 the surface of the life that is nearest and most 
 important to us. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.