probable rescue among the terror-stricken
spectators. There was no help in sight. In the
midst of his agony he looked upwards, and
saw the Monkey, who had not yet been lifted
from the seat on the coach to which his
master had tied him. There was hope yet.
Victory had already decided against Billy.
The British flag was nowhere. Prompt
capitulation was the only safety. With the
remnant of breath left to him, he screamed
out imploringly to the Monkey:—

"I say, young gentleman, speak to your
father in his own language, and tell him if
he'll loose go I'll ax his pardon."

The story always finished here. At the
time of my first becoming acquainted with it,
Captain Billy Tregear was reported to be
still alive and prosperous. I never learnt
how he got out of Mr. Bear's clutches, and
conjecture fails to suggest a probable means
of his extrication. But I never like to
inquire too closely into the reality of good
stories. They always come out from the fire
of scrutiny, singed like Michaelmas geese, of
their feathery glories. I have not yet got
over the pain of discovering, a few months
ago, that Rob Roy was not only a dirty sheep-
stealer, but that he sold a fight to the English
government in the great Scottish rebellion.

MY LADY LUDLOW.

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.

I AM ashamed to say what feeling became
strongest in my mind about this time. Next
to the sympathy we all of us felt for my
dear lady in her deep sorrow, I mean. For
that was greater and stronger than anything
else, however contradictory you may think
it, when you hear all.

It might arise from my being so far from
well at the time, which produced a diseased
mind in a diseased body; but I was absolutely
jealous for my father's memory, when
I saw how many signs of grief there were for
my lord's death, he having done next to
nothing for the village and parish, which
now changed, as it were, its daily course of
life, because his lordship died in a far-off city.
My father had spent the best years of his
manhood in labouring hard, body and soul,
for the people amongst whom he lived. His
family, of course, claimed the first place in
his heart; he would have been good for
little, even in the way of benevolence, if they
had not. But close after them he cared for
his parishioners and neighbours. And yet,
when he died, though the church-bells tolled,
and smote upon our hearts with hard, fresh
pain at every beat; yet the sounds of every
day life went on, close pressing around us,—
carts and carriages, street-cries, distant barrel-
organs (the kindly neighbours kept them
out of our street):—life, active, noisy life,
pressed on our acute consciousness of Death,
and jarred upon it as on a quick nerve.

And when we went to church,—my father's
own church,—though the pulpit cushions
were black, and many of the congregation
had put on some humble symptom of mourning,
yet it did not alter the whole material
aspect of the place. And yet what was
Lord Ludlow's relation to Hanbury,
compared to my father's work and place in——?

O! it was very wicked in me! I think if
I had seen my lady,—if I had dared to ask
to go to her, I should not have felt so miserable,
so discontented. But she sate in her
own room, hung with black, all, even over
the shutters. She saw no light but that
which was artificial; candles, lamps, and the
like, for more than a month. Only Adams
went near her. Mr. Gray was not admitted,
though he called daily. Even Mrs. Medlicott
did not see her for near a fortnight.
The sight of my lady's griefs, or rather the
recollection of it, made Mrs. Medlicott talk
far more than was her wont. She told us,
with many tears, and much gesticulation,
even speaking German at times, when her
English would not flow, that my lady sate
there, a white figure in the middle of the
darkened room; a shaded lamp near her,
the light of which fell on an opened Bible,—
the great family Bible. It was not opened
at any chapter, nor consoling verse. It lay
open at the page whereon was marked the
births of her nine children. Five had died
in infancy,—sacrificed to the cruel system
which forbade the mother to suckle her
babies. Four had lived longer; Urian had
been the first to die, Ughtred-Mortimer,
Earl Ludlow, the last.

My lady did not cry, Mrs. Medlicott said.
She was quite composed; very still, very
silent. She put aside everything that
savoured of mere business; sent them to Mr.
Horner, for that. But she was proudly
alive to every possible form which might do
honour to the last of her race.

In those days, expresses were slow things:
and forms still slower. Before my lady's
directions could reach Vienna, my lord was
buried. There was some talk (so Mrs. Medlicott
said) about taking the body up, and
bringing him to Hanbury. But his executors,
—connections on the Ludlow side,—demurred
at this. If he were removed to England, he
must be carried on to Scotland, and interred
with his Monkshaven forefathers. My lady,
deeply hurt, withdrew from the discussion
before it degenerated to an unseemly contest.
But all the more, for this understood mortification
of my lady's, did the whole village and
estate of Hanbury assume every outward
sign of mourning. The church-bells tolled
morning and evening. The church itself was
draped in black inside. Hatchments were
placed everywhere, where hatchments could
be put. All the tenantry spoke in hushed
voices for more than a week, scarcely daring
to observe that all flesh, even that of an
Earl Ludlow, and the last of the Hanburys,
was but grass after all. The very Fighting