Introduction to Statistical Methods for Financial Models 1st Severini Solution Manual

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P
P P
2.5. Adjusted prices are given by P̄3 = P3 = $5.40,
P̄2 =
D3
1 −
2
P2 = P2 = $4.80
and
D2 D3 0.40
P̄1 = 1 −
1
1 −
2
P1 = 1 −
4.00
4.00 = $3.60.
7

P
P
k
2
8 2 Solutions for Chapter 2
2.6. (a) The single-period return at time t is given by
Rt =
Pt + Dt
Pt−1
− 1 =
Pt + αPt−1
Pt−1
Pt
− 1 =
t−1
− 1 + α.
(b) Let P̄t, t = 0, 1, 2, . . . , T denote the sequence of adjusted prices. Then P̄T = PT ,
P̄T −1 =
DT
1 −
T −1
PT −1 = (1 − α) PT −1,
DT DT−1 2
P̄T −2 = 1 −
PT −1
1 −
PT −2
PT −2 = (1 − α) PT −2
and so on. The general relationship is
P̄T −k = (1 − α) PT −k.
2.7. Consider
Cov(Yt + Xt, Ys + Xs) = Cov(Yt, Ys) + Cov(Xt, Xs) + Cov(Yt, Xs) + Cov(Ys, Xt).
Let γY denote the covariance function of {Yt : t = 1, 2, . . .} and let γX denote the covariance
function of {Xt : t = 1, 2, . . .}. Since these processes are both weakly stationary,
Cov(Yt + Xt, Ys + Xs) = γY (|t − s|) + γX (|t − s|) + Cov(Yt, Xs) + Cov(Ys, Xt).
However, since we do not know anything about the covariance of Yt and Xs, it does not follow
that the process Y1 +X1, . . . is weakly stationary. For instance, if Yt and Xs are uncorrelated
for all t, s, then it is weakly stationary. However, if the correlation of Yt and Xs is 1/2 if
t = s = 1 and 0 otherwise, then the process is not weakly stationary.
2.8. (a) The mean function is given by
E(Yt) = E(Xt − Xt−1) = E(Xt) − E(Xt−1) = 0
and the variance function is given by
Var(Yt) = Var(Xt − Xt−1) = Var(Xt) + Var(Xt−1) − 2Cov(Xt, Xt−1) =
2σ
− 2γ(1).
(b) The covariance function is given by
Cov(Yt, Ys) = Cov(Xt − Xt−1, Xs − Xs−1)
= Cov(Xt, Xs) + Cov(Xt−1, Xs−1) − Cov(Xt−1, Xs) − Cov(Xt, Xs−1)
= 2γ(|t − s|) − γ(|t − s − 1|) − γ(|t − s + 1|).

2 Solutions for Chapter 2 9
(c) The mean and variance functions of the process are constant. Consider the term in the
covariance function
γ(|t − s − 1|) + γ(|t − s + 1|).
If t = s this is 2γ(|1|) = 2γ(|t − s| + 1). If t ≥ s + 1, then
γ(|t − s − 1|) + γ(|t − s + 1|) = γ(t − s − 1) + γ(t − s + 1) = γ(|t − s| − 1) + γ(|t − s| + 1).
Similarly, if t ≤ s − 1,
γ(|t − s − 1|) + γ(|t − s + 1|) = γ(s + 1 − t) + γ(s − 1 − t) = γ(|t − s| + 1) + γ(|t − s| − 1).
It follows that the covariance of Yt, Ys is a function of |t − s| and, hence, the process is
weakly stationary.
2.9. (a) E(Xt) = E(ZZt) = E(Z)E(Zt) = 0; hence, the mean function is 0. Let µ = E(Zt)
and σ2
= Var(Zt). Since E(X2
) = E(Z2
Z2
) = E(Z2
)E(Z2
) = (σ2
+ µ2
), the variance
t t t
function of the process is σ2
+ µ2
.
(b) Since E(Xt) = 0 for all t,
Cov(Xt, Xs) = E(XtXs) = E(Z2
ZtZs) = E(Z2
)E(ZtZs) = 0.
(c) Since the mean and variance functions are constant and the X1, X2, . . . are uncorrelated,
it follows that {Xt : t = 1, 2, . . .} is a white noise process. Hence, it is also weakly
stationary.
2.10. Since E(rt) does not depend on t, clearly E(r̃t) does not depend on t. Let σ2
= Var(rt)
and consider Var(r̃t). Using the fomula for the variance of a sum,
Var(r̃t) = 21σ2
+ 2
X
Cov(r̃21(t
i<j
−1)+i, r̃21(t−1)+j )
where the sum in this expression is over all i, j from 1 to 21 such that i < j. Note that, since
{rt : t = 1, 2, . . .} is weakly stationary,
Cov(r̃21(t−1)+i, r̃21(t−1)+j ) = γ(|i − j|)
where γ(·) is the autocovariance function of {rt : t = 1, 2, . . .}. It follows that Var(r̃t) does
not depend on t.
Now consider Cov(r̃t, r̃s) for t = s. Note that
21 21
Cov(r̃t, r̃s) =
X X
Cov(r21(t−1)+j, r21(s−1)+i).
j=1 i=1
Since, for any i, j,
Cov(r21(t−1)+j, r21(s−1)+i) = γ(|21(t − s) + j − i|)

for any j = 1, 2, . . . , 21,
21 21
Cov(r̃t, r̃s) =
X X
γ(|21(t − s) + j − i|),
j=1 i=1
which clearly depends on t, s only through t − s. By symmetry of the covariance operator,
21 21 21 21
X X
γ(|21(t − s) + j − i|) =
X X
γ(|21(s − t) + j − i|)
j=1 i=1 j=1 i=1
so that Cov(r̃t, r̃s) depends on t, s only through |t − s|. It follows that {r̃t : t = 1, 2, . . .} is
weakly stationary.
2.11. Since E(Xj) = µ, j = 1, . . . , n,
1
k+w
1
X
E(Yk) =
w j=k+1
E(Xj) =
w
wµ = µ, k = 1, . . . , n − w.
Since X1, . . . , Xn are independent with Var(Xj) = σ2
, j = 1, . . . , n,
1
k+w
1 1
X
2 2
Var(Yk) =
w2
j=k+1
Var(Xj) =
w2
wσ =
w
σ , k = 1, . . . , n − w.
Consider Cov(Yi, Yk), where i < k. If k > i + w, then Yi and Yk have no terms in common so
that Cov(Yi, Yk) = 0. Otherwise, the sums
i+w
X
j=i+1
Xj and
k+w
X
X`
`=k+1
have terms Xk+1, . . . , Xi+w in common so that
Cov(Yi, Yk) =
i−k+ w 2
w2
σ .
Since E(Yk) and Var(Yk) are constant and Cov(Yi, Yk) depends only on k − i, it follows that
the process Y1, . . . , Yn−w is weakly stationary with mean function µ and variance function
σ2
/w.
The correlation of Yi and Yk is
((i−k+ w)/w2
)σ2
σ2/w
= 1 −
so that the correlation function of the process is
k−i
w

−
ρ(h) = 1
|h|
, h = 1, 2, . . . .
w

X Y
X Y
2.12. (a) Let µX = E(Xt), σ2
= Var(Xt), µY = E(Yt), and σ2
= Var(Yt). Then
E(Xt + Yt) = E(Xt) + E(Yt) = µX + µY , t = 1, 2, . . . ,
and for t = s,
Var(Xt + Yt) = Var(Xt) + Var(Yt) = σ2
+ σ2
, t = 1, 2, . . .
Cov(Xt + Yt, Xs + Ys) = Cov(Xt, Xs) + Cov(Xt, Ys) + Cov(Yt, Xs) + Cov(Yt, Ys) = 0.
It follows that {Xt + Yt : t = 1, 2, . . .} is a weak white noise process.
(b) Using the same notation as in part (a),
E(XtYt) = E(Xt)E(Yt) = µX µY , t = 1, 2, . . . ;
note that
E{(XtYt)2
} = E(X2
)E(Y 2
) = (µ2
+ σ2
)(µ2
+ σ2
)
so that
t t X X Y Y
Var(XtYt) = (µ2
+ σ2
)(µ2
+ σ2
) − µ2
µ2
, t = 1, 2, . . . .
Similarly, for t = s,
X X Y Y X Y
E(XtYtXsYs) = µX µY µX µY = µ2
µ2
X Y
so that
Cov(XtYt, XsYs) = µ2
µ2
− (µX µY )2
= 0.
X Y
It follows that {XtYt : t = 1, 2, . . .} is a weak white noise process.
2.13. (a) The following R commands may be used to download the necessary price data.
> library(tseries)
> x<-get.hist.quote(instrument="PZZA", start="2012-12-31", end="2015-12-31",
+ quote="AdjClose", compression="d")
> pzza0<-as.vector(x)
(b) The returns corresponding to the prices downloaded in part (a) may be calculated using
the commands
> length(pzza0)
[1] 757
> pzza<-(pzza0[-1]-pzza0[-757])/pzza0[-757]
(c) The summary statistics for the returns are
> summary(pzza)

Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
-0.1210 -0.0074 0.0010 0.0011 0.0097 0.0804

Daily
Return
−0.10
−0.05
0.00
0.05
Time Series Plot of Daily Returns on Papa John's Stock
0 200 400 600
Time
FIGURE 2.1
Plot in Exercise 2.13
(d) The time series plot of the returns may be constructed using the commands
> plot(pzza, type="l", xlab="Time", ylab="Daily Return")
> title(main="Time Series Plot of Daily Returns on Papa John’s Stock")
The plot is given in Figure 2.1.
2.14. (a) The following R commands may be used to download the necessary price data.
> library(tseries)
> x<-get.hist.quote(instrument="PZZA", start="2010-12-31", end="2015-12-31",
+ quote="AdjClose", compression="m")
> pzza0<-as.vector(x)
(b) The returns corresponding to the prices downloaded in part (a) may be calculated using
the commands
> length(pzza0)
[1] 61
> pzza.m<-(pzza0[-1]-pzza0[-61])/pzza0[-61]
(c) The summary statistics are

Monthly
Return
−0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
> summary(pzza.m)
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
-0.1780 -0.0072 0.0216 0.0265 0.0696 0.1890
(d) The time series plot of the returns may be constructed using the commands
> plot(pzza.m, type="l", xlab="Time", ylab="Monthly Return")
> title(main="Time Series Plot of Monthly Returns on Papa John’s Stock")
Time Series Plot of Monthly Returns on Papa John's Stock
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Time
FIGURE 2.2
2.15. The running means may be calculated and the plot constructed using the following
commands.
> library(gtools)
> pzza.rmean<-running(pzza.m, fun=mean, width=12)
> mean(pzza.m) + 2*sd(pzza.m)/(12^.5)
[1] 0.0677
> mean(pzza.m) - 2*sd(pzza.m)/(12^.5)
[1] -0.0147
> plot(pzza.rmean, type="l", ylim=c(-.02, .07), xlab="Time", ylab="Return")

Return
−0.02
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
> title(main="Running Means for Monthly Returns on Papa John’s Stock")
> lines(1:49, rep(0.0677,49), lty=2)
> lines(1:49, rep(-0.0147,49), lty=2)
The plot is given in Figure 2.3. According to this plot, there is no evidence of non-
stationarity in the returns.
Running Means for Monthly Returns on Papa John's Stock
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time
FIGURE 2.3
2.16. The running standard deviations may be calculated and the plot may be constructed
using the following commands.
> pzza.rsd<-running(pzza.m, fun=sd, width=12)
> log(sd(pzza.m)) + (2/11)^.5
[1] -2.21
> log(sd(pzza.m)) - (2/11)^.5
[1] -3.07
> plot(log(pzza.rsd), type="l", ylim=c(-3.6, -2), ylab="log of running sd",
+ xlab="time")
> title(main="Log of Running SDs of Returns on Papa John’s Stock")
> lines(1:49, rep(-2.21, 49), lty=2)
> lines(1:49, rep(-3.07, 49), lty=2)
The plot is given in Figure 2.4. According to this plot, there is some evidence of non-
stationarity of the returns. There is a relatively long period of relatively small variability, as
well as brief periods of relatively large variability.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1.000 0.167 -0.009 -0.061 -0.057 -0.179 -0.146 -0.053 0.103 -0.218 -0.064
11 12
0.049 0.015
log
of
running
sd
−3.5
−3.0
−2.5
−2.0
Log of Running SDs of Returns on Papa John's Stock
0 10 20 30 40 50
time
FIGURE 2.4
2.17. The autocorrelation function based on the daily returns may be calculated using the
command
> print(acf(pzza, lag.max=20))
Autocorrelations of series pzza, by lag
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1.000 -0.011 -0.013 0.050 -0.013 -0.061 0.005 -0.036 0.062 0.052 -0.007
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
-0.027 0.044 -0.016 -0.023 0.027 0.029 -0.018 0.032 0.008 -0.028
The estimated autocorrelation function based on the monthly returns is given by
> print(acf(pzza.m, lag.max=12))
Autocorrelations of series pzza.m, by lag

ACF
ACF
−0.2
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
Series pzza
0 5 10 15 20
Lag
FIGURE 2.5
ACF for Daily Returns in Exercise 2.17
The plot is given in Figure 2.6. The autocorrelations are all small and, hence, the results
are consistent with the assumption that the returns are uncorrelated random variables.
Series
pzza.m
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
FIGURE 2.6
ACF for Monthly Returns in Exercise 2.17
Lag

Sample
Quantiles
−0.10
−0.05
0.00
0.05
2.18. The daily returns on Papa John’s stock are stored in the R variable pzza. To construct
a normal probability plot of these data, we may use the commands
> qqnorm(pzza)
> abline(a=mean(pzza), b=sd(pzza))
The plot is given in Figure 2.7. The plot is very similar to the one in Figure 2.11 in the
text; it suggests that the distribution of the daily returns on Papa John’s stock is long-tailed
relative to a normal distribution.
Normal Q−Q
Plot
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−3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3
Theoretical Quantiles
FIGURE 2.7
Q-Q Plot for Daily Returns in Exercise 2.18
The monthly returns on Papa John’s stock are stored in the R variable pzza.m. To
construct a normal probability plot of these data, we may use the commands
> qqnorm(pzza.m)
> abline(a=mean(pzza.m), b=sd(pzza.m))
The plot is given in Figure 2.8. The plot suggests that the distribution of the monthly
returns on Papa John’s stock is more nearly normal than is the distribution of daily returns,
although there is some evidence of asymmetry, with a slightly-long left tail.

Sample
Quantiles
−0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
Normal Q−Q
Plot
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Theoretical Quantiles
FIGURE 2.8
Q-Q Plot for Monthly Returns in Exercise 2.18

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even cuffed. Now I found out, that great as was my lady’s liking and
approval of respect, nay, even reverence, being paid to her as a person of
quality,—a sort of tribute to her Order, which she had no individual right to
remit, or, indeed, not to exact,—yet she, being personally simple, sincere,
and holding herself in low esteem, could not endure anything like the
servility of Mr. Crosse, the temporary curate. She grew absolutely to loathe
his perpetual smiling and bowing; his instant agreement with the slightest
opinion she uttered; his veering round as she blew the wind. I have often
said that my lady did not talk much, as she might have done had she lived
among her equals. But we all loved her so much, that we had learnt to
interpret all her little ways pretty truly; and I knew what particular turns of
her head, and contractions of her delicate fingers meant, as well as if she
had expressed herself in words. I began to suspect that my lady would be
very thankful to have Mr. Gray about again, and doing his duty even with a
conscientiousness that might amount to worrying himself, and fidgeting
others; and although Mr. Gray might hold her opinions in as little esteem as
those of any simple gentlewoman, she was too sensible not to feel how
much flavour there was in his conversation, compared to that of Mr. Crosse,
who was only her tasteless echo.
As for Miss Galindo, she was utterly and entirely a partisan of Mr.
Gray’s, almost ever since she had begun to nurse him during his illness.
“You know, I never set up for reasonableness, my lady. So I don’t
pretend to say, as I might do if I were a sensible woman and all that,—that I
am convinced by Mr. Gray’s arguments of this thing or t’other. For one
thing, you see, poor fellow! he has never been able to argue, or hardly
indeed to speak, for Doctor Trevor has been very peremptory. So there’s
been no scope for arguing! But what I mean is this:—When I see a sick man
thinking always of others, and never of himself; patient, humble—a trifle
too much at times, for I’ve caught him praying to be forgiven for having
neglected his work as a parish priest,” (Miss Galindo was making horrible
faces, to keep back tears, squeezing up her eyes in a way which would have
amused me at any other time, but when she was speaking of Mr. Gray);
“when I see a downright good, religious man, I’m apt to think he’s got hold
of the right clue, and that I can do no better than hold on by the tails of his
coat and shut my eyes, if we’ve got to go over doubtful places on our road
to Heaven. So, my lady, you must excuse me, if, when he gets about again,
he is all agog about a Sunday-school, for if he is, I shall be agog too, and

perhaps twice as bad as him, for, you see, I’ve a strong constitution
compared to his, and strong ways of speaking and acting. And I tell your
ladyship this now, because I think from your rank—and still more, if I may
say so, for all your kindness to me long ago, down to this very day—you’ve
a right to be first told of anything about me. Change of opinion I can’t
exactly call it, for I don’t see the good of schools and teaching A B C, any
more than I did before, only Mr. Gray does, so I’m to shut my eyes, and
leap over the ditch to the side of education. I’ve told Sally already, that if
she does not mind her work, but stands gossiping with Nelly Mather, I’ll
teach her her lessons; and I’ve never caught her with old Nelly since.”
I think Miss Galindo’s desertion to Mr. Gray’s opinions in this matter
hurt my lady just a little bit; but she only said:
“Of course, if the parishioners wish for it, Mr. Gray must have his
Sunday-school. I shall, in that case, withdraw my opposition. I am sorry I
cannot change my opinions as easily as you.”
My lady made herself smile as she said this. Miss Galindo saw it was an
effort to do so. She thought a minute before she spoke again.
“Your ladyship has not seen Mr. Gray as intimately as I have done.
That’s one thing. But, as for the parishioners, they will follow your
ladyship’s lead in everything; so there is no chance of their wishing for a
Sunday-school.”
“I have never done anything to make them follow my lead, as you call it,
Miss Galindo,” said my lady, gravely.
“Yes, you have,” replied Miss Galindo, bluntly. And then, correcting
herself, she said, “Begging your ladyship’s pardon, you have. Your
ancestors have lived here time out of mind, and have owned the land on
which their forefathers have lived ever since there were forefathers. You
yourself were born amongst them, and have been like a little queen to them
ever since, I might say, and they’ve never known your ladyship do anything
but what was kind and gentle; but I’ll leave fine speeches about your
ladyship to Mr. Crosse. Only you, my lady, lead the thoughts of the parish;
and save some of them a world of trouble, for they could never tell what
was right if they had to think for themselves. It’s all quite right that they
should be guided by you, my lady,—if only you would agree with Mr.
Gray.”

“Well,” said my lady, “I told him only the last day that he was here, that
I would think about it. I do believe I could make up my mind on certain
subjects better if I were left alone, than while being constantly talked to
about them.”
My lady said this in her usual soft tones; but the words had a tinge of
impatience about them; indeed, she was more ruffled than I had often seen
her; but, checking herself in an instant, she said:
“You don’t know how Mr. Horner drags in this subject of education
apropos of everything. Not that he says much about it at any time: it is not
his way. But he cannot let the thing alone.”
“I know why, my lady,” said Miss Galindo. “That poor lad, Harry
Gregson, will never be able to earn his livelihood in any active way, but
will be lame for life. Now, Mr. Horner thinks more of Harry than of any one
else in the world,—except, perhaps, your ladyship.” Was it not a pretty
companionship for my lady? “And he has schemes of his own for teaching
Harry; and if Mr. Gray could but have his school, Mr. Horner and he think
Harry might be schoolmaster, as your ladyship would not like to have him
coming to you as steward’s clerk. I wish your ladyship would fall into this
plan; Mr. Gray has it so at heart.”
Miss Galindo looked wistfully at my lady, as she said this. But my lady
only said, drily, and rising at the same time, as if to end the conversation:
“So! Mr. Hornet and Mr. Gray seem to have gone a long way in advance
of my consent to their plans.”
“There!” exclaimed Miss Galindo, as my lady left the room, with an
apology for going away; “I have gone and done mischief with my long,
stupid tongue. To be sure, people plan a long way ahead of to-day; more
especially when one is a sick man, lying all through the weary day on a
sofa.”
“My lady will soon get over her annoyance,” said I, as it were
apologetically. I only stopped Miss Galindo’s self-reproaches to draw down
her wrath upon myself.
“And has not she a right to be annoyed with me, if she likes, and to keep
annoyed as long as she likes? Am I complaining of her, that you need tell
me that? Let me tell you, I have known my lady these thirty years; and if
she were to take me by the shoulders, and turn me out of the house, I should
only love her the more. So don’t you think to come between us with any

little mincing, peace-making speeches. I have been a mischief-making
parrot, and I like her the better for being vexed with me. So good-bye to
you, Miss; and wait till you know Lady Ludlow as well as I do, before you
next think of telling me she will soon get over her annoyance!” And off
Miss Galindo went.
I could not exactly tell what I had done wrong; but I took care never
again to come in between my lady and her by any remark about the one to
the other; for I saw that some most powerful bond of grateful affection
made Miss Galindo almost worship my lady.
Meanwhile, Harry Gregson was limping a little about in the village, still
finding his home in Mr. Gray’s house; for there he could most conveniently
be kept under the doctor’s eye, and receive the requisite care, and enjoy the
requisite nourishment. As soon as he was a little better, he was to go to Mr.
Horner’s house; but, as the steward lived some distance out of the way, and
was much from home, he had agreed to leave Harry at the house to which
he had first been taken, until he was quite strong again; and the more
willingly, I suspect, from what I heard afterwards, because Mr. Gray gave
up all the little strength of speaking which he had, to eaching Harry in the
very manner which Mr. Horner most desired.
As for Gregson the father—he—wild man of the woods, poacher, tinker,
jack-of-all-trades—was getting tamed by this kindness to his child. Hitherto
his hand had been against every man, as every man’s had been against him.
That affair before the justice, which I told you about, when Mr. Gray and
even my lady had interested themselves to get him released from unjust
imprisonment, was the first bit of justice he had ever met with; it attracted
him to the people, and attached him to the spot on which he had but
squatted for a time. I am not sure if any of the villagers were grateful to him
for remaining in their neighbourhood, instead of decamping as he had often
done before, for good reasons, doubtless, of personal safely. Harry was only
one out of a brood of ten or twelve children, some of whom had earned for
themselves no good character in service: one, indeed, had been actually
transported, for a robbery committed in a distant part of the county; and the
tale was yet told in the village of how Gregson the father came back from
the trial in a state of wild rage, striding through the place, and uttering oaths
of vengeance to himself, his great black eyes gleaming out of his matted
hair, and his arms working by his side, and now and then tossed up in his
impotent despair. As I heard the account, his wife followed him, child-laden

and weeping. After this, they had vanished from the country for a time,
leaving their mud hovel locked up, and the door-key, as the neighbours said,
buried in a hedge bank. The Gregsons had reappeared much about the same
time that Mr. Gray came to Hanbury. He had either never heard of their evil
character, or considered that it gave them all the more claims upon his
Christian care, and the end of it was that this rough, untamed, strong giant
of a heathen was loyal slave to the weak, hectic, nervous, self-distrustful
parson. Gregson had also a kind of grumbling respect for Mr. Horner: he
did not quite like the steward’s monopoly of his Harry: the mother
submitted to that with a better grace, swallowing down her maternal
jealousy in the prospect of her child’s advancement to a better and more
respectable position than that in which his parents had struggled through
life. But Mr. Horner, the steward, and Gregson, the poacher and squatter,
had come into disagreeable contact too often in former days for them to be
perfectly cordial at any future time. Even now, when there was no
immediate cause for anything but gratitude for his child’s sake on Gregson’s
part, he would skulk out of Mr. Horner’s way, if he saw him coming; and it
took all Mr. Horner’s natural reserve and acquired self-restraint to keep him
from occasionally holding up his father’s life as a warning to Harry. Now
Gregson had nothing of this desire for avoidance with regard to Mr. Gray.
The poacher had a feeling of physical protection towards the parson; while
the latter had shown the moral courage, without which Gregson would
never have respected him, in coming right down upon him more than once
in the exercise of unlawful pursuits, and simply and boldly telling him he
was doing wrong, with such a quiet reliance upon Gregson’s better feeling,
at the same time, that the strong poacher could not have lifted a finger
against Mr. Gray, though it had been to save himself from being
apprehended and taken to the lockups the very next hour. He had rather
listened to the parson’s bold words with an approving smile, much as Mr.
Gulliver might have hearkened to a lecture from a Lilliputian. But when
brave words passed into kind deeds, Gregson’s heart mutely acknowledged
its master and keeper. And the beauty of it all was, that Mr. Gray knew
nothing of the good work he had done, or recognised himself as the
instrument which God had employed. He thanked God, it is true, fervently
and often, that the work was done; and loved the wild man for his rough
gratitude; but it never occurred to the poor young clergyman, lying on his
sick-bed, and praying, as Miss Galindo had told us he did, to be forgiven for

his unprofitable life, to think of Gregson’s reclaimed soul as anything with
which he had had to do. It was now more than three months since Mr. Gray
had been at Hanbury Court. During all that time, he had been confined to
his house, if not to his sick-bed, and he and my lady had never met since
their last discussion and difference about Farmer Hale’s barn.
This was not my dear lady’s fault; no one could have been more attentive
in every way to the slightest possible want of either of the invalids,
especially of Mr. Gray. And he would have gone to see him at his own
house, as she sent him word, but that her foot had slipped upon the polished
oak staircase, and her ancle had been sprained.
So we had never seen Mr. Gray since his illness, when one November
day he was announced as wishing to speak to my lady. She was sitting in
her room—the room in which I lay now pretty constantly—and I remember
she looked startled, when word was brought to her of Mr. Gray’s being at
the Hall.
She could not go to him, she was too lame for that, so she bade him be
shown into where she sat.
“Such a day for him to go out!” she exclaimed, looking at the fog which
had crept up to the windows, and was sapping the little remaining life in the
brilliant Virginian creeper leaves that draperied the house on the terrace
side.
He came in white, trembling, his large eyes wild and dilated. He
hastened up to Lady Ludlow’s chair, and, to my surprise, took one of her
hands and kissed it, without speaking, yet shaking all over.
“Mr. Gray!” said she, quickly, with sharp, tremulous apprehension of
some unknown evil. “What is it? There is something unusual about you.”
“Something unusual has occurred,” replied he, forcing his words to be
calm, as with a great effort. “A gentleman came to my house, not half-an-
hour ago—a Mr. Howard. He came straight from Vienna.”
“My son!” said my dear lady, stretching out her arms in dumb
questioning attitude.
“The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord.”
But my poor lady could not echo the words. He was the last remaining
child. And once she had been the joyful mother of nine.

CHAPTER XII.
I am ashamed to say what feeling become 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, the sounds of every-day life still 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 sign 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 sat 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 sat there, a white
figure in the middle of the darkened room; a shaded lamp near her, the light
of which fell on an open Bible,—the great family Bible. It was not opened
at any chapter, or consoling verse; but at the page whereon were registered
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-Mortimar, 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 people 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 to 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 Lion closed its front door, front shutters it had none, and those
who needed drink stole in at the back, and were silent and maudlin over
their cups, instead of riotous and noisy. Miss Galindo’s eyes were swollen
up with crying, and she told me, with a fresh burst of tears, that even hump-
backed Sally had been found sobbing over her Bible, and using a pocket-
handkerchief for the first time in her life; her aprons having hitherto stood
her in the necessary stead, but not being sufficiently in accordance with
etiquette, to be used when mourning over an earl’s premature decease.
If it was in this way out of the Hall, “you might work it by the rule of
three,” as Miss Galindo used to say, and judge what it was in the Hall. We
none of us spoke but in a whisper: we tried not to eat; and indeed the shock

had been so really great, and we did really care so much for my lady, that
for some days we had but little appetite. But after that, I fear our sympathy
grew weaker, while our flesh grew stronger. But we still spoke low, and our
hearts ached whenever we thought of my lady sitting there alone in the
darkened room, with the light ever falling on that one solemn page.
We wished, O how I wished that she would see Mr. Gray! But Adams
said, she thought my lady ought to have a bishop come to see her. Still no
one had authority enough to send for one.
Mr. Horner all this time was suffering as much as any one. He was too
faithful a servant of the great Hanbury family, though now the family had
dwindled down to a fragile old lady, not to mourn acutely over its probable
extinction. He had, besides, a deeper sympathy and reverence with, and for,
my lady in all things, than probably he ever cared to show, for his manners
were always measured and cold. He suffered from sorrow. He also suffered
from wrong. My lord’s executors kept writing to him continually. My lady
refused to listen to mere business, saying she intrusted all to him. But the
“all” was more complicated than I ever thoroughly understood. As far as I
comprehended the case, it was something of this kind:—There had been a
mortgage raised on my lady’s property of Hanbury, to enable my lord, her
husband, to spend money in cultivating his Scotch estates, after some new
fashion that required capital. As long as my lord, her son, lived, who was to
succeed to both the estates after her death, this did not signify; so she had
said and felt; and she had refused to take any steps to secure the repayment
of capital, or even the payment of the interest of the mortgage from the
possible representatives and possessors of the Scotch estates, to the possible
owner of the Hanbury property; saying it ill became her to calculate on the
contingency of her son’s death.
But he had died, childless, unmarried. The heir of the Monkshaven
property was an Edinburgh advocate, a far-away kinsman of my lord’s: the
Hanbury property, at my lady’s death, would go to the descendants of a
third son of the Squire Hanbury in the days of Queen Anne.
This complication of affairs was most grievous to Mr. Horner. He had
always been opposed to the mortgage; had hated the payment of the
interest, as obliging my lady to practise certain economies which, though
she took care to make them as personal as possible, he disliked as
derogatory to the family. Poor Mr. Horner! He was so cold and hard in his

manner, so curt and decisive in his speech, that I don’t think we any of us
did him justice. Miss Galindo was almost the first, at this time, to speak a
kind word of him, or to take thought of him at all, any farther than to get out
of his way when we saw him approaching.
“I don’t think Mr. Horner is well,” she said one day, about three weeks
after we had heard of my lord’s death. “He sits resting his head on his hand,
and hardly hears me when I speak to him.”
But I thought no more of it, as Miss Galindo did not name it again. My
Lady came amongst us once more. From elderly she had become old; a
little, frail, old lady, in heavy black drapery, never speaking about nor
alluding to her great sorrow; quieter, gentler, paler than ever before; and her
eyes dim with much weeping, never witnessed by mortal.
She had seen Mr. Gray at the expiration of the month of deep retirement.
But I do not think that even to him she had said one word of her own
particular individual sorrow. All mention of it seemed buried deep for
evermore. One day, Mr. Horner sent word that he was too much indisposed
to attend to his usual business at the Hall; but he wrote down some
directions and requests to Miss Galindo, saying that he would be at his
office early the next morning. The next morning he was dead!
Miss Galindo told my lady. Miss Galindo herself cried plentifully, but
my lady, although very much distressed, could not cry. It seemed a physical
impossibility, as if she had shed all the tears in her power. Moreover, I
almost think her wonder was far greater that she herself lived than that Mr.
Horner died. It was almost natural that so faithful a servant should break his
heart, when the family he belonged to lost their stay, their heir and their last
hope.
Yes! Mr. Horner was a faithful servant. I do not think there are many so
faithful now; but, perhaps, that is an old woman’s fancy of mine. When his
will came to be examined, it was discovered that, soon after Harry
Gregson’s accident, Mr. Horner had left the few thousands (three, I think,)
of which he was possessed, in trust for Harry’s benefit, desiring his
executors to see that the lad was well educated in certain things, for which
Mr. Horner had thought that he had shown especial aptitude; and there was
a kind of implied apology to my lady in one sentence, where he stated that
Harry’s lameness would prevent his being ever able to gain his living by the

exercise of any mere bodily faculties, “as had been wished by a lady whose
wishes” he, the testator, “was bound to regard.”
But there was a codicil to the will, dated since Lord Ludlow’s death—
feebly written by Mr. Horner himself, as if in preparation only for some
more formal manner of bequest; or, perhaps, only as a mere temporary
arrangement till he could see a lawyer, and have a fresh will made. In this
he revoked his previous bequest to Harry Gregson. He only left two
hundred pounds to Mr. Gray to be used, as that gentleman thought best, for
Henry Gregson’s benefit. With this one exception, he bequeathed all the rest
of his savings to my lady, with a hope that they might form a nest-egg, as it
were, towards the paying off of the mortgage which had been such a grief to
him during his life. I may not repeat all this in lawyer’s phrase; I heard it
through Miss Galindo, and she might make mistakes. Though, indeed, she
was very clear-headed, and soon earned the respect of Mr. Smithson, my
lady’s lawyer from Warwick. Mr. Smithson knew Miss Galindo a little
before, both personally and by reputation; but I don’t think he was prepared
to find her installed as steward’s clerk, and, at first, he was inclined to treat
her, in this capacity, with polite contempt. But Miss Galindo was both a
lady and a spirited, sensible woman, and she could put aside her self-
indulgence in eccentricity of speech and manner whenever she chose. Nay
more; she was usually so talkative, that if she had not been amusing and
warm-hearted, one might have thought her wearisome occasionally. But, to
meet Mr. Smithson, she came out daily in her Sunday gown; she said no
more than was required in answer to his questions; her books and papers
were in thorough order, and methodically kept; her statements of matters-
of-fact accurate, and to be relied on. She was amusingly conscious of her
victory over his contempt of a woman-clerk and his preconceived opinion
of her unpractical eccentricity.
“Let me alone,” said she, one day when she came in to sit awhile with
me. “That man is a good man—a sensible man—and, I have no doubt, he is
a good lawyer; but he can’t fathom women yet. I make no doubt he’ll go
back to Warwick, and never give credit again to those people who made
him think me half-cracked to begin with. O, my dear, he did! He showed it
twenty times worse than my poor dear master ever did. It was a form to be
gone through to please my lady, and, for her sake, he would hear my
statements and see my books. It was keeping a woman out of harm’s way, at
any rate, to let her fancy herself useful. I read the man. And, I am thankful

to say, he cannot read me. At least, only one side of me. When I see an end
to be gained, I can behave myself accordingly. Here was a man who thought
that a woman in a black silk gown was a respectable, orderly kind of
person; and I was a woman in a black silk gown. He believed that a woman
could not write straight lines, and required a man to tell her that two and
two made four. I was not above ruling my books, and had Cocker a little
more at my fingers’ ends than he had. But my greatest triumph has been
holding my tongue. He would have thought nothing of my books, or my
sums, or my black silk gown, if I had spoken unasked. So I have buried
more sense in my bosom these ten days than ever I have uttered in the
whole course of my life before. I have been so curt, so abrupt, so
abominably dull, that I’ll answer for it he thinks me worthy to be a man.
But I must go back to him, my dear, so good-bye to conversation and you.”
But though Mr. Smithson might be satisfied with Miss Galindo, I am
afraid she was the only part of the affair with which he was content.
Everything else went wrong. I could not say who told me so—but the
conviction of this seemed to pervade the house. I never knew how much we
had all looked up to the silent, gruff Mr. Horner for decisions, until he was
gone. My lady herself was a pretty good woman of business, as women of
business go. Her father, seeing that she would be the heiress of the Hanbury
property, had given her a training which was thought unusual in those days,
and she liked to feel herself queen regnant, and to have to decide in all
cases between herself and her tenantry. But, perhaps, Mr. Horner would
have done it more wisely; not but what she always attended to him at last.
She would begin by saying, pretty clearly and promptly, what she would
have done, and what she would not have done. If Mr. Horner approved of it,
he bowed, and set about obeying her directly; if he disapproved of it, he
bowed, and lingered so long before he obeyed her, that she forced his
opinion out of him with her “Well, Mr. Horner! and what have you to say
against it?” For she always understood his silence as well as if he had
spoken. But the estate was pressed for ready money, and Mr. Horner had
grown gloomy and languid since the death of his wife, and even his own
personal affairs were not in the order in which they had been a year or two
before, for his old clerk had gradually become superannuated, or, at any
rate, unable by the superfluity of his own energy and wit to supply the spirit
that was wanting in Mr. Horner.

Day after day Mr. Smithson seemed to grow more fidgety, more annoyed
at the state of affairs. Like every one else employed by Lady Ludlow, as far
as I could learn, he had an hereditary tie to the Hanbury family. As long as
the Smithsons had been lawyers, they had been lawyers to the Hanburys;
always coming in on all great family occasions, and better able to
understand the characters, and connect the links of what had once been a
large and scattered family, than any individual thereof had ever been.
As long as a man was at the head of the Hanburys, the lawyers had
simply acted as servants, and had only given their advice when it was
required. But they had assumed a different position on the memorable
occasion of the mortgage: they had remonstrated against it. My lady had
resented this remonstrance, and a slight, unspoken coolness had existed
between her and the father of this Mr. Smithson ever since.
I was very sorry for my lady. Mr. Smithson was inclined to blame Mr.
Horner for the disorderly state in which he found some of the outlying
farms, and for the deficiencies in the annual payment of rents. Mr. Smithson
had too much good feeling to put this blame into words; but my lady’s
quick instinct led her to reply to a thought, the existence of which she
perceived; and she quietly told the truth, and explained how she had
interfered repeatedly to prevent Mr. Horner from taking certain desirable
steps, which were discordant to her hereditary sense of right and wrong
between landlord and tenant. She also spoke of the want of ready money as
a misfortune that could be remedied, by more economical personal
expenditure on her own part; by which individual saving, it was possible
that a reduction of fifty pounds a year might have been accomplished. But
as soon as Mr. Smithson touched on larger economies, such as either
affected the welfare of others, or the honour and standing of the great House
of Hanbury, she was inflexible. Her establishment consisted of somewhere
about forty servants, of whom nearly as many as twenty were unable to
perform their work properly, and yet would have been hurt if they had been
dismissed; so they had the credit of fulfilling duties, while my lady paid and
kept their substitutes. Mr. Smithson made a calculation, and would have
saved some hundreds a year by pensioning off these old servants. But my
lady would not hear of it. Then, again, I know privately that he urged her to
allow some of us to return to our homes. Bitterly we should have regretted
the separation from Lady Ludlow; but we would have gone back gladly, had

we known at the time that her circumstances required it: but she would not
listen to the proposal for a moment.
“If I cannot act justly towards every one, I will give up a plan which has
been a source of much satisfaction; at least, I will not carry it out to such an
extent in future. But to these young ladies, who do me the favour to live
with me at present, I stand pledged. I cannot go back from my word, Mr.
Smithson. We had better talk no more of this.”
As she spoke, she entered the room where I lay. She and Mr. Smithson
were coming for some papers contained in the bureau. They did not know I
was there, and Mr. Smithson started a little when he saw me, as he must
have been aware that I had overheard something. But my lady did not
change a muscle of her face. All the world might overhear her kind, just,
pure sayings, and she had no fear of their misconstruction. She came up to
me, and kissed me on the forehead, and then went to search for the required
papers.
“I rode over the Conington farms yesterday, my lady. I must say I was
quite grieved to see the condition they are in; all the land that is not waste is
utterly exhausted with working successive white crops. Not a pinch of
manure laid on the ground for years. I must say that a greater contrast could
never have been presented than that between Harding’s farm and the next
fields—fences in perfect order, rotation crops, sheep eating down the
turnips on the waste lands—everything that could be desired.”
“Whose farm is that?” asked my lady.
“Why, I am sorry to say, it was on none of your ladyship’s that I saw
such good methods adopted. I hoped it was, I stopped my horse to inquire.
A queer-looking man, sitting on his horse like a tailor, watching his men
with a couple of the sharpest eyes I ever saw, and dropping his h’s at every
word, answered my question, and told me it was his. I could not go on
asking him who he was; but I fell into conversation with him, and I
gathered that he had earned some money in trade in Birmingham, and had
bought the estate (five hundred acres, I think he said,) on which he was
born, and now was setting himself to cultivate it in downright earnest, going
to Holkham and Woburn, and half the country over, to get himself up on the
subject.”
“It would be Brooke, that dissenting baker from Birmingham,” said my
lady in her most icy tone. “Mr. Smithson, I am sorry I have been detaining

you so long, but I think these are the letters you wished to see.”
If her ladyship thought by this speech to quench Mr. Smithson she was
mistaken. Mr. Smithson just looked at the letters, and went on with the old
subject.
“Now, my lady, it struck me that if you had such a man to take poor
Horner’s place, he would work the rents and the land round most
satisfactorily. I should not despair of inducing this very man to undertake
the work. I should not mind speaking to him myself on the subject, for we
got capital friends over a snack of luncheon that he asked me to share with
him.”
Lady Ludlow fixed her eyes on Mr. Smithson as he spoke, and never
took them off his face until he had ended. She was silent a minute before
she answered.
“You are very good, Mr. Smithson, but I need not trouble you with any
such arrangements. I am going to write this afternoon to Captain James, a
friend of one of my sons, who has, I hear, been severely wounded at
Trafalgar, to request him to honour me by accepting Mr. Horner’s
situation.”
“A Captain James! A captain in the navy! going to manage your
ladyship’s estate!”
“If he will be so kind. I shall esteem it a condescension on his part; but I
hear that he will have to resign his profession, his state of health is so bad,
and a country life is especially prescribed for him. I am in some hopes of
tempting him here, as I learn he has but little to depend on if he gives up his
profession.”
“A Captain James! an invalid captain!”
“You think I am asking too great a favour,” continued my lady. (I never
could tell how far it was simplicity, or how far a kind of innocent malice,
that made her misinterpret Mr. Smithson’s words and looks as she did.)
“But he is not a post-captain, only a commander, and his pension will be but
small. I may be able, by offering him country air and a healthy occupation,
to restore him to health.”
“Occupation! My lady, may I ask how a sailor is to manage land? Why,
your tenants will laugh him to scorn.”

“My tenants, I trust, will not behave so ill as to laugh at any one I choose
to set over them. Captain James has had experience in managing men. He
has remarkable practical talents, and great common sense, as I hear from
every one. But, whatever he may be, the affair rests between him and
myself. I can only say I shall esteem myself fortunate if he comes.”
There was no more to be said, after my lady spoke in this manner. I had
heard her mention Captain James before, as a middy who had been very
kind to her son Urian. I thought I remembered then, that she had mentioned
that his family circumstances were not very prosperous. But, I confess, that
little as I knew of the management of land, I quite sided with Mr. Smithson.
He, silently prohibited from again speaking to my lady on the subject,
opened his mind to Miss Galindo, from whom I was pretty sure to hear all
the opinions and news of the household and village. She had taken a great
fancy to me, because she said I talked so agreeably. I believe it was because
I listened so well.
“Well, have you heard the news,” she began, “about this Captain James?
A sailor,—with a wooden leg, I have no doubt. What would the poor, dear,
deceased master have said to it, if he had known who was to be his
successor? My dear, I have often thought of the postman’s bringing me a
letter as one of the pleasures I shall miss in heaven. But, really, I think Mr.
Horner may be thankful he has got out of the reach of news; or else he
would hear of Mr. Smithson’s having made up to the Birmingham baker,
and of this one-legged Captain, coming to dot-and-go-one over the estate. I
suppose he will look after the labourers through a spy-glass. I only hope he
won’t stick in the mud with his wooden leg; for I, for one, won’t help him
out. Yes, I would,” said she, correcting herself; “I would, for my lady’s
sake.”
“But are you sure he has a wooden leg?” asked I. “I heard Lady Ludlow
tell Mr. Smithson about him, and she only spoke of him as wounded.”
“Well, sailors are almost always wounded in the leg. Look at Greenwich
Hospital! I should say there were twenty one-legged pensioners to one
without an arm there. But say he has got half-a-dozen legs, what is he to do
with managing land? I shall think him very impudent if he comes, taking
advantage of my lady’s kind heart.”
However, come he did. In a month from that time, the carriage was sent
to meet Captain James; just as three years before it had been sent to meet

me. His coming had been so much talked about that we were all as curious
as possible to see him, and to know how so unusual an experiment, as it
seemed to us, would answer. But, before I tell you anything about our new
agent, I must speak of something quite as interesting, and I really think
quite as important. And this was my lady’s making friends with Harry
Gregson. I do believe she did it for Mr. Horner’s sake; but, of course, I can
only conjecture why my lady did anything. But I heard one day, from Mary
Legard, that my lady had sent for Harry to come and see her, if he was well
enough to walk so far; and the next day he was shown into the room he had
been in once before under such unlucky circumstances.
The lad looked pale enough, as he stood propping himself up on his
crutch, and the instant my lady saw him, she bade John Footman place a
stool for him to sit down upon while she spoke to him. It might be his
paleness that gave his whole face a more refined and gentle look; but I
suspect it was that the boy was apt to take impressions, and that Mr.
Horner’s grave, dignified ways, and Mr. Gray’s tender and quiet manners,
had altered him; and then the thoughts of illness and death seem to turn
many of us into gentlemen, and gentlewomen, as long as such thoughts are
in our minds. We cannot speak loudly or angrily at such times; we are not
apt to be eager about mere worldly things, for our very awe at our
quickened sense of the nearness of the invisible world, makes us calm and
serene about the petty trifles of to-day. At least, I know that was the
explanation Mr. Gray once gave me of what we all thought the great
improvement in Harry Gregson’s way of behaving.
My lady hesitated so long about what she had best say, that Harry grew a
little frightened at her silence. A few months ago it would have surprised
me more than it did now; but since my lord her son’s death, she had seemed
altered in many ways,—more uncertain and distrustful of herself, as it were.
At last she said, and I think the tears were in her eyes: “My poor little
fellow, you have had a narrow escape with your life since I saw you last.”
To this there was nothing to be said but “Yes;” and again there was
silence.
“And you have lost a good, kind friend, in Mr. Horner.”
The boy’s lips worked, and I think he said, “Please, don’t.” But I can’t be
sure; at any rate, my lady went on:

“And so have I,—a good, kind friend, he was to both of us; and to you
he wished to show his kindness in even a more generous way than he has
done. Mr. Gray has told you about his legacy to you, has he not?”
There was no sign of eager joy on the lad’s face, as if he realised the
power and pleasure of having what to him must have seemed like a fortune.
“Mr. Gray said as how he had left me a matter of money.”
“Yes, he has left you two hundred pounds.”
“But I would rather have had him alive, my lady,” he burst out, sobbing
as if his heart would break.
“My lad, I believe you. We would rather have had our dead alive, would
we not? and there is nothing in money that can comfort us for their loss. But
you know—Mr. Gray has told you—who has appointed us all our times to
die. Mr. Horner was a good, just man; and has done well and kindly, both
by me and you. You perhaps do not know” (and now I understood what my
lady had been making up her mind to say to Harry, all the time she was
hesitating how to begin) “that Mr. Horner, at one time, meant to leave you a
great deal more; probably all he had, with the exception of a legacy to his
old clerk, Morrison. But he knew that this estate—on which my forefathers
had lived for six hundred years—was in debt, and that I had no immediate
chance of paying off this debt; and yet he felt that it was a very sad thing for
an old property like this to belong in part to those other men, who had lent
the money. You understand me, I think, my little man?” said she,
questioning Harry’s face.
He had left off crying, and was trying to understand, with all his might
and main; and I think he had got a pretty good general idea of the state of
affairs; though probably he was puzzled by the term “the estate being in
debt.” But he was sufficiently interested to want my lady to go on; and he
nodded his head at her, to signify this to her.
“So Mr. Horner took the money which he once meant to be yours, and
has left the greater part of it to me, with the intention of helping me to pay
off this debt I have told you about. It will go a long way, and I shall try hard
to save the rest, and then I shall die happy in leaving the land free from
debt.” She paused. “But I shall not die happy in thinking of you. I do not
know if having money, or even having a great estate and much honour, is a
good thing for any of us. But God sees fit that some of us should be called
to this condition, and it is our duty then to stand by our posts, like brave

soldiers. Now, Mr. Horner intended you to have this money first. I shall
only call it borrowing it from you, Harry Gregson, if I take it and use it to
pay off the debt. I shall pay Mr. Gray interest on this money, because he is
to stand as your guardian, as it were, till you come of age; and he must fix
what ought to be done with it, so as to fit you for spending the principal
rightly when the estate can repay it you. I suppose, now, it will be right for
you to be educated. That will be another snare that will come with your
money. But have courage, Harry. Both education and money may be used
rightly, if we only pray against the temptations they bring with them.”
Harry could make no answer, though I am sure he understood it all. My
lady wanted to get him to talk to her a little, by way of becoming
acquainted with what was passing in his mind; and she asked him what he
would like to have done with his money, if he could have part of it now? To
such a simple question, involving no talk about feelings, his answer came
readily enough.
“Build a cottage for father, with stairs in it, and give Mr. Gray a school-
house. O, father does so want Mr. Gray for to have his wish! Father saw all
the stones lying quarried and hewn on Farmer Hale’s land; Mr. Gray had
paid for them all himself. And father said he would work night and day, and
little Tommy should carry mortar, if the parson would let him, sooner than
that he should be fretted and frabbed as he was, with no one giving him a
helping hand or a kind word.”
Harry knew nothing of my lady’s part in the affair; that was very clear.
My lady kept silence.
“If I might have a piece of my money, I would buy land from Mr.
Brooke: he has got a bit to sell just at the corner of Hendon Lane, and I
would give it to Mr. Gray; and, perhaps, if your ladyship thinks I may be
learned again, I might grow up into the schoolmaster.”
“You are a good boy,” said my lady. “But there are more things to be
thought of, in carrying out such a plan, than you are aware of. However, it
shall be tried.”
“The school, my lady?” I exclaimed, almost thinking she did not know
what she was saying.
“Yes, the school. For Mr. Horner’s sake, for Mr. Gray’s sake, and last,
not least, for this lad’s sake, I will give the new plan a trial. Ask Mr. Gray to
come up to me this afternoon about the land he wants. He need not go to a

Dissenter for it. And tell your father he shall have a good share in the
building of it, and Tommy shall carry the mortar.”
“And I may be schoolmaster?” asked Harry, eagerly.
“We’ll see about that,” said my lady, amused. “It will be some time
before that plan comes to pass, my little fellow.”
And now to return to Captain James. My first account of him was from
Miss Galindo.
“He’s not above thirty; and I must just pack up my pens and my paper,
and be off; for it would be the height of impropriety for me to be staying
here as his clerk. It was all very well in the old master’s days. But here am
I, not fifty till next May, and this young unmarried man, who is not even a
widower! O, there would be no end of gossip. Besides, he looks as askance
at me as I do at him. My black silk gown had no effect. He’s afraid I shall
marry him. But I won’t; he may feel himself quite safe from that. And Mr.
Smithson has been recommending a clerk to my lady. She would far rather
keep me on; but I can’t stop. I really could not think it proper.”
“What sort of a looking man is he?”
“O, nothing particular. Short, and brown, and sunburnt. I did not think it
became me to look at him. Well, now for the nightcaps. I should have
grudged any one else doing them, for I have got such a pretty pattern!”
But, when it came to Miss Galindo’s leaving, there was a great
misunderstanding between her and my lady. Miss Galindo had imagined
that my lady had asked her as a favour to copy the letters, and enter the
accounts, and had agreed to do the work without a notion of being paid for
so doing. She had, now and then, grieved over a very profitable order for
needlework passing out of her hands on account of her not having time to
do it, because of her occupation at the Hall; but she had never hinted this to
my lady, but gone on cheerfully at her writing as long as her clerkship was
required. My lady was annoyed that she had not made her intention of
paying Miss Galindo more clear, in the first conversation she had had with
her; but I suppose that she had been too delicate to be very explicit with
regard to money matters; and now Miss Galindo was quite hurt at my lady’s
wanting to pay her for what she had done in such right-down goodwill.
“No,” Miss Galindo said; “my own dear lady, you may be as angry with
me as you like, but don’t offer me money. Think of six-and-twenty years
ago, and poor Arthur, and as you were to me then! Besides, I wanted money

—I don’t disguise it—for a particular purpose; and when I found that (God
bless you for asking me!) I could do you a service, I turned it over in my
mind, and I gave up one plan and took up another, and it’s all settled now.
Bessy is to leave school and come and live with me. Don’t, please, offer me
money again. You don’t know how glad I have been to do anything for you.
Have not I, Margaret Dawson? Did you not hear me say, one day, I would
cut off my hand for my lady; for am I a stock or a stone, that I should forget
kindness? O, I have been so glad to work for you. And now Bessy is
coming here; and no one knows anything about her—as if she had done
anything wrong, poor child!”
“Dear Miss Galindo,” replied my lady, “I will never ask you to take
money again. Only I thought it was quite understood between us. And, you
know, you have taken money for a set of morning wrappers, before now.”
“Yes, my lady; but that was not confidential. Now I was so proud to have
something to do for you confidentially.”
“But who is Bessy?” asked my lady. “I do not understand who she is, or
why she is to come and live with you. Dear Miss Galindo, you must honour
me by being confidential with me in your turn!”
CHAPTER XIII.
I had always understood that Miss Galindo had once been in much better
circumstances, but I had never liked to ask any questions respecting her.
But about this time many things came out respecting her former life, which
I will try and arrange; not, however, in the order in which I heard them, but
rather as they occurred.
Miss Galindo was the daughter of a clergyman in Westmoreland. Her
father was the younger brother of a baronet, his ancestor having been one of
those of James the First’s creation. This baronet-uncle of Miss Galindo was
one of the queer, out-of-the-way people who were bred at that time, and in
that northern district of England. I never heard much of him from any one,
besides this one great fact: that he had early disappeared from his family,
which indeed only consisted of a brother and sister who died unmarried,
and lived no one knew where,—somewhere on the Continent it was
supposed, for he had never returned from the grand tour which he had been
sent to make, according to the general fashion of the day, as soon as he left

Oxford. He corresponded occasionally with his brother the clergyman; but
the letters passed through a banker’s hands; the banker being pledged to
secrecy, and, as he told Mr. Galindo, having the penalty, if he broke his
pledge, of losing the whole profitable business, and of having the
management of the baronet’s affairs taken out of his hands without any
advantage accruing to the inquirer, for Sir Lawrence had told Messrs.
Graham that, in case his place of residence was revealed by them, not only
would he cease to bank with them, but instantly take measures to baffle any
future inquiries as to his whereabouts, by removing to some distant country.
Sir Lawrence paid a certain sum of money to his brother’s account every
year; but the time of this payment varied, and it was sometimes eighteen or
nineteen months between the deposits; then, again, it would not be above a
quarter of the time, showing that he intended it to be annual, but, as this
intention was never expressed in words, it was impossible to rely upon it,
and a great deal of this money was swallowed up by the necessity Mr.
Galindo felt himself under of living in the large, old, rambling family
mansion, which had been one of Sir Lawrence’s rarely expressed desires.
Mr. and Mrs. Galindo often planned to live upon their own small fortune
and the income derived from the living (a vicarage, of which the great tithes
went to Sir Lawrence as lay impropriator), so as to put-by the payments
made by the baronet, for the benefit of Laurentia—our Miss Galindo. But I
suppose they found it difficult to live economically in a large house, even
though they had it rent free. They had to keep up with hereditary neighbours
and friends, and could hardly help doing it in the hereditary manner.
One of these neighbours, a Mr. Gibson, had a son a few years older than
Laurentia. The families were sufficiently intimate for the young people to
see a good deal of each other: and I was told that this young Mr. Mark
Gibson was an unusually prepossessing man (he seemed to have impressed
every one who spoke of him to me as being a handsome, manly, kind-
hearted fellow), just what a girl would be sure to find most agreeable. The
parents either forgot that their children were growing up to man’s and
woman’s estate, or thought that the intimacy and probable attachment
would be no bad thing, even if it did lead to a marriage. Still, nothing was
ever said by young Gibson till later on, when it was too late, as it turned
out. He went to and from Oxford; he shot and fished with Mr. Galindo, or
came to the Mere to skate in winter-time; was asked to accompany Mr.
Galindo to the Hall, as the latter returned to the quiet dinner with his wife

and daughter; and so, and so, it went on, nobody much knew how, until one
day, when Mr. Galindo received a formal letter from his brother’s bankers,
announcing Sir Lawrence’s death, of malaria fever, at Albano, and
congratulating Sir Hubert on his accession to the estates and the baronetcy.
The king is dead—“Long live the king!” as I have since heard that the
French express it.
Sir Hubert and his wife were greatly surprised. Sir Lawrence was but
two years older than his brother; and they had never heard of any illness till
they heard of his death. They were sorry; very much shocked; but still a
little elated at the succession to the baronetcy and estates. The London
bankers had managed everything well. There was a large sum of ready
money in their hands, at Sir Hubert’s service, until he should touch his
rents, the rent-roll being eight thousand a-year. And only Laurentia to
inherit it all! Her mother, a poor clergyman’s daughter, began to plan all
sorts of fine marriages for her; nor was her father much behind his wife in
his ambition. They took her up to London, when they went to buy new
carriages, and dresses, and furniture. And it was then and there she made
my lady’s acquaintance. How it was that they came to take a fancy to each
other, I cannot say. My lady was of the old nobility,—grand, composed,
gentle, and stately in her ways. Miss Galindo must always have been
hurried in her manner, and her energy must have shown itself in
inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But I don’t pretend to
account for things: I only narrate them. And the fact was this:—that the
elegant, fastidious Countess was attracted to the country girl, who on her
part almost worshipped my lady. My lady’s notice of their daughter made
her parent’s think, I suppose, that there was no match that she might not
command; she, the heiress of eight thousand a-year, and visiting about
among earls and dukes. So when they came back to their old Westmoreland
Hall, and Mark Gibson rode over to offer his hand and his heart, and
prospective estate of nine hundred a-year to his old companion and
playfellow, Laurentia, Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo made very short work
of it. They refused him plumply themselves, and when he begged to be
allowed to speak to Laurentia, they found some excuse for refusing him the
opportunity of so doing, until they had talked to her themselves, and
brought up every argument and fact in their power to convince her—a plain
girl, and conscious of her plainness—that Mr. Mark Gibson had never
thought of her in the way of marriage till after her father’s accession to his

fortune; and that it was the estate—not the young lady—that he was in love
with. I suppose it will never be known in this world how far this supposition
of theirs was true. My Lady Ludlow had always spoken as if it was; but
perhaps events, which came to her knowledge about this time, altered her
opinion. At any rate, the end of it was, Laurentia refused Mark, and almost
broke her heart in doing so. He discovered the suspicions of Sir Hubert and
Lady Galindo, and that they had persuaded their daughter to share in them.
So he flung off with high words, saying that they did not know a true heart
when they met with one; and that, although he had never offered till after
Sir Lawrence’s death, yet that his father knew all along that he had been
attached to Laurentia, only that he, being the eldest of five children, and
having as yet no profession, had had to conceal, rather than to express, an
attachment, which, in those days, he had believed was reciprocated. He had
always meant to study for the bar, and the end of all he had hoped for had
been to earn a moderate income, which he might ask Laurentia to share.
This, or something like it, was what he said. But his reference to his father
cut two ways. Old Mr. Gibson was known to be very keen about money. It
was just as likely that he would urge Mark to make love to the heiress, now
she was an heiress, as that he would have restrained him previously, as
Mark said he had done. When this was repeated to Mark, he became
proudly reserved, or sullen, and said that Laurentia, at any rate, might have
known him better. He left the country, and went up to London to study law
soon afterwards; and Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo thought they were well
rid of him. But Laurentia never ceased reproaching herself, and never did to
her dying day, as I believe. The words, “she might have known me better,”
told to her by some kind friend or other, rankled in her mind, and were
never forgotten. Her father and mother took her up to London the next year;
but she did not care to visit—dreaded going out even for a drive, lest she
should see Mark Gibson’s reproachful eyes—pined and lost her health.
Lady Ludlow saw this change with regret, and was told the cause by Lady
Galindo, who, of course, gave her own version of Mark’s conduct and
motives. My lady never spoke to Miss Galindo about it, but tried constantly
to interest and please her. It was at this time that my lady told Miss Galindo
so much about her own early life, and about Hanbury, that Miss Galindo
resolved, if ever she could, she would go and see the old place which her
friend loved so well. The end of it all was, that she came to live there, as we
know.

But a great change was to come first. Before Sir Hubert and Lady
Galindo had left London on this, their second visit, they had a letter from
the lawyer, whom they employed, saying that Sir Lawrence had left an heir,
his legitimate child by an Italian woman of low rank; at least, legal claims
to the title and property had been sent into him on the boy’s behalf. Sir
Lawrence had always been a man of adventurous and artistic, rather than of
luxurious tastes; and it was supposed, when all came to be proved at the
trial, that he was captivated by the free, beautiful life they lead in Italy, and
had married this Neapolitan fisherman’s daughter, who had people about
her shrewd enough to see that the ceremony was legally performed. She and
her husband had wandered about the shores of the Mediterranean for years,
leading a happy, careless, irresponsible life, unencumbered by any duties
except those connected with a rather numerous family. It was enough for
her that they never wanted money, and that her husband’s love was always
continued to her. She hated the name of England—wicked, cold, heretic
England—and avoided the mention of any subjects connected with her
husband’s early life. So that, when he died at Albano, she was almost
roused out of her vehement grief to anger with the Italian doctor, who
declared that he must write to a certain address to announce the death of
Lawrence Galindo. For some time, she feared lest English barbarians might
come down upon her, making a claim to the children. She hid herself and
them in the Abruzzi, living upon the sale of what furniture and jewels Sir
Lawrence had died possessed of. When these failed, she returned to Naples,
which she had not visited since her marriage. Her father was dead; but her
brother inherited some of his keenness. He interested the priests, who made
inquiries and found that the Galindo succession was worth securing to an
heir of the true faith. They stirred about it, obtained advice at the English
Embassy; and hence that letter to the lawyers, calling upon Sir Hubert to
relinquish title and property, and to refund what money he had expended.
He was vehement in his opposition to this claim. He could not bear to think
of his brother having married a foreigner—a papist, a fisherman’s daughter;
nay, of his having become a papist himself. He was in despair at the thought
of his ancestral property going to the issue of such a marriage. He fought
tooth and nail, making enemies of his relations, and losing almost all his
own private property; for he would go on against the lawyer’s advice, long
after every one was convinced except himself and his wife. At last he was
conquered. He gave up his living in gloomy despair. He would have

changed his name if he could, so desirous was he to obliterate all tie
between himself and the mongrel papist baronet and his Italian mother, and
all the succession of children and nurses who came to take possession of the
Hall soon after Mr. Hubert Galindo’s departure, stayed there one winter, and
then flitted back to Naples with gladness and delight. Mr. and Mrs. Hubert
Galindo lived in London. He had obtained a curacy somewhere in the city.
They would have been thankful now if Mr. Mark Gibson had renewed his
offer. No one could accuse him of mercenary motives if he had done so.
Because he did not come forward, as they wished, they brought his silence
up as a justification of what they had previously attributed to him. I don’t
know what Miss Galindo thought herself; but Lady Ludlow has told me
how she shrank from hearing her parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow
supposed that he was aware that they were living in London. His father
must have known the fact, and it was curious if he had never named it to his
son. Besides, the name was very uncommon; and it was unlikely that it
should never come across him, in the advertisements of charity sermons
which the new and rather eloquent curate of Saint Mark’s East was asked to
preach. All this time Lady Ludlow never lost sight of them, for Miss
Galindo’s sake. And when the father and mother died, it was my lady who
upheld Miss Galindo in her determination not to apply for any provision to
her cousin, the Italian baronet, but rather to live upon the hundred a-year
which had been settled on her mother and the children of his son Hubert’s
marriage by the old grandfather, Sir Lawrence.
Mr. Mark Gibson had risen to some eminence as a barrister on the
Northern Circuit; but had died unmarried in the lifetime of his father, a
victim (so people said) to intemperance. Doctor Trevor, the physician who
had been called in to Mr. Gray and Harry Gregson, had married a sister of
his. And that was all my lady knew about the Gibson family. But who was
Bessy?
That mystery and secret came out, too, in process of time. Miss Galindo
had been to Warwick, some years before I arrived at Hanbury, on some kind
of business or shopping, which can only be transacted in a county town.
There was an old Westmoreland connection between her and Mrs. Trevor,
though I believe the latter was too young to have been made aware of her
brother’s offer to Miss Galindo at the time when it took place; and such
affairs, if they are unsuccessful, are seldom spoken about in the gentleman’s
family afterwards. But the Gibsons and Galindos had been county

neighbours too long for the connection not to be kept up between two
members settled far away from their early homes. Miss Galindo always
desired her parcels to be sent to Doctor Trevor’s, when she went to
Warwick for shopping purchases. If she were going any journey, and the
coach did not come through Warwick as soon as she arrived (in my lady’s
coach or otherwise) from Hanbury, she went to Doctor Trevor’s to wait. She
was as much expected to sit down to the household meals as if she had been
one of the family; and in after-years it was Mrs. Trevor who managed her
repository business for her.
So, on the day I spoke of, she had gone to Doctor Trevor’s to rest, and
possibly to dine. The post in those times came in at all hours of the
morning; and Doctor Trevor’s letters had not arrived until after his
departure on his morning round. Miss Galindo was sitting down to dinner
with Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, when the Doctor came in. He was
flurried and uncomfortable, and hurried the children away as soon as he
decently could. Then (rather feeling Miss Galindo’s presence an advantage,
both as a present restraint on the violence of his wife’s grief, and as a
consoler when he was absent on his afternoon round), he told Mrs. Trevor
of her brother’s death. He had been taken ill on circuit, and had hurried
back to his chambers in London, only to die. She cried terribly; but Doctor
Trevor said afterwards, he never noticed that Miss Galindo cared much
about it one way or another. She helped him to soothe his wife, promised to
stay with her all the afternoon instead of returning to Hanbury, and
afterwards offered to remain with her while the Doctor went to attend the
funeral. When they heard of the old love-story between the dead man and
Miss Galindo,—brought up by mutual friends in Westmoreland, in the
review which we are all inclined to take of the events of a man’s life when
he comes to die,—they tried to remember Miss Galindo’s speeches and
ways of going on during this visit. She was a little pale, a little silent; her
eyes were sometimes swollen, and her nose red; but she was at an age when
such appearances are generally attributed to a bad cold in the head, rather
than to any more sentimental reason. They felt towards her as towards an
old friend, a kindly, useful, eccentric old maid. She did not expect more, or
wish them to remember that she might once have had other hopes, and more
youthful feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked her very warmly for staying with
his wife, when he returned home from London (where the funeral had taken
place). He begged Miss Galindo to stay with them, when the children were

gone to bed, and she was preparing to leave the husband and wife by
themselves. He told her and his wife many particulars—then paused—then
went on—
“And Mark has left a child—a little girl——”
“But he never was married,” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor.
“A little girl,” continued her husband, “whose mother, I conclude, is
dead. At any rate, the child was in possession of his chambers; she and an
old nurse, who seemed to have the charge of everything, and has cheated
poor Mark, I should fancy, not a little.”
“But the child!” asked Mrs. Trevor, still almost breathless with
astonishment. “How do you know it is his?”
“The nurse told me it was, with great appearance of indignation at my
doubting it. I asked the little thing her name, and all I could get was
‘Bessy!’ and a cry of ‘Me wants papa!’ The nurse said the mother was dead,
and she knew no more about it than that Mr. Gibson had engaged her to
take care of the little girl, calling it his child. One or two of his lawyer
friends, whom I met with at the funeral, told me they were aware of the
existence of the child.”
“What is to be done with her?” asked Mrs. Gibson.
“Nay, I don’t know,” replied he. “Mark has hardly left assets enough to
pay his debts, and your father is not inclined to come forward.”
That night, as Doctor Trevor sat in his study, after his wife had gone to
bed, Miss Galindo knocked at his door. She and he had a long conversation.
The result was that he accompanied Miss Galindo up to town the next day;
that they took possession of the little Bessy, and she was brought down, and
placed at nurse at a farm in the country near Warwick, Miss Galindo
undertaking to pay one-half the expense, and to furnish her with clothes,
and Dr. Trevor undertaking that the remaining half should be furnished by
the Gibson family, or by himself in their default.
Miss Galindo was not fond of children, and I daresay she dreaded taking
this child to live with her for more reasons than one. My Lady Ludlow
could not endure any mention of illegitimate children. It was a principle of
hers that society ought to ignore them. And I believe Miss Galindo had
always agreed with her until now, when the thing came home to her
womanly heart. Still she shrank from having this child of some strange
woman under her roof. She went over to see it from time to time; she

worked at its clothes long after every one thought she was in bed; and,
when the time came for Bessy to be sent to school, Miss Galindo laboured
away more diligently than ever, in order to pay the increased expense. For
the Gibson family had, at first, paid their part of the compact, but with
unwillingness and grudging hearts; then they had left it off altogether, and it
fell hard on Doctor Trevor with his twelve children; and, latterly, Miss
Galindo had taken upon herself almost all the burden. One can hardly live
and labour, and plan and make sacrifices, for any human creature, without
learning to love it. And Bessy loved Miss Galindo, too, for all the poor
girl’s scanty pleasures came from her, and Miss Galindo had always a kind
word, and, latterly, many a kind caress, for Mark Gibson’s child; whereas, if
she went to Doctor Trevor’s for her holiday, she was overlooked and
neglected in that bustling family, who seemed to think that if she had
comfortable board and lodging under their roof, it was enough.
I am sure, now, that Miss Galindo had often longed to have Bessy to live
with her; but, as long as she could pay for her being at school, she did not
like to take so bold a step as bringing her home, knowing what the effect of
the consequent explanation would be on my lady. And as the girl was now
more than seventeen, and past the age when young ladies are usually kept at
school, and as there was no great demand for governesses in those days, and
as Bessy had never been taught any trade by which to earn her own living,
why I don’t exactly see what could have been done but for Miss Galindo to
bring her to her own home in Hanbury. For, although the child had grown
up lately, in a kind of unexpected manner, into a young woman, Miss
Galindo might have kept her at school for a year longer, if she could have
afforded it; but this was impossible when she became Mr. Horner’s clerk,
and relinquished all the payment of her repository work; and perhaps, after
all, she was not sorry to be compelled to take the step she was longing for.
At any rate, Bessy came to live with Miss Galindo, in a very few weeks
from the time when Captain James set Miss Galindo free to superintend her
own domestic economy again.
For a long time, I knew nothing about this new inhabitant of Hanbury.
My lady never mentioned her in any way. This was in accordance with
Lady Ludlow’s well-known principles. She neither saw nor heard, nor was
in any way cognisant of the existence of those who had no legal right to
exist at all. If Miss Galindo had hoped to have an exception made in
Bessy’s favour, she was mistaken. My lady sent a note inviting Miss

Galindo herself to tea one evening, about a month after Bessy came; but
Miss Galindo “had a cold and could not come.” The next time she was
invited, she “had an engagement at home”—a step nearer to the absolute
truth. And the third time, she “had a young friend staying with her whom
she was unable to leave.” My lady accepted every excuse as bonâ fide, and
took no further notice. I missed Miss Galindo very much; we all did; for, in
the days when she was clerk, she was sure to come in and find the
opportunity of saying something amusing to some of us before she went
away. And I, as an invalid, or perhaps from natural tendency, was
particularly fond of little bits of village gossip. There was no Mr. Horner—
he even had come in, now and then, with formal, stately pieces of
intelligence—and there was no Miss Galindo, in these days. I missed her
much. And so did my lady, I am sure. Behind all her quiet, sedate manner, I
am certain her heart ached sometimes for a few words from Miss Galindo,
who seemed to have absented herself altogether from the Hall now Bessy
was come.
Captain James might be very sensible, and all that; but not even my lady
could call him a substitute for the old familiar friends. He was a thorough
sailor, as sailors were in those days—swore a good deal, drank a good deal
(without its ever affecting him in the least), and was very prompt and kind-
hearted in all his actions; but he was not accustomed to women, as my lady
once said, and would judge in all things for himself. My lady had expected,
I think, to find some one who would take his notions on the management of
her estate from her ladyship’s own self; but he spoke as if he were
responsible for the good management of the whole, and must, consequently,
be allowed full liberty of action. He had been too long in command over
men at sea to like to be directed by a woman in anything he undertook, even
though that woman was my lady. I suppose this was the common-sense my
lady spoke of; but when common-sense goes against us, I don’t think we
value it quite so much as we ought to do.
Lady Ludlow was proud of her personal superintendence of her own
estate. She liked to tell us how her father used to take her with him in his
rides, and bid her observe this and that, and on no account to allow such and
such things to be done. But I have heard that the first time she told all this
to Captain James, he told her point-blank that he had heard from Mr.
Smithson that the farms were much neglected and the rents sadly behind-
hand, and that he meant to set to in good earnest and study agriculture, and

see how he could remedy the state of things. My lady would, I am sure, be
greatly surprised, but what could she do? Here was the very man she had
chosen herself, setting to with all his energy to conquer the defect of
ignorance, which was all that those who had presumed to offer her ladyship
advice had ever had to say against him. Captain James read Arthur Young’s
‘Tours’ in all his spare time, as long as he was an invalid; and shook his
head at my lady’s accounts as to how the land had been cropped or left
fallow from time immemorial. Then he set to, and tried too many new
experiments at once. My lady looked on in dignified silence; but all the
farmers and tenants were in an uproar, and prophesied a hundred failures.
Perhaps fifty did occur; they were only half as many as Lady Ludlow had
feared; but they were twice as many, four, eight times as many as the
captain had anticipated. His openly-expressed disappointment made him
popular again. The rough country people could not have understood silent
and dignified regret at the failure of his plans; but they sympathised with a
man who swore at his ill success—sympathised, even while they chuckled
over his discomfiture. Mr. Brooke, the retired tradesman, did not cease
blaming him for not succeeding, and for swearing. “But what could you
expect from a sailor?” Mr. Brooke asked, even in my lady’s hearing; though
he might have known Captain James was my lady’s own personal choice,
from the old friendship Mr. Urian had always shown for him. I think it was
this speech of the Birmingham baker’s that made my lady determine to
stand by Captain James, and encourage him to try again. For she would not
allow that her choice had been an unwise one, at the bidding (as it were) of
a Dissenting tradesman; the only person in the neighbourhood, too, who had
flaunted about in coloured clothes, when all the world was in mourning for
my lady’s only son.
Captain James would have thrown the agency up at once, if my lady had
not felt herself bound to justify the wisdom of her choice, by urging him to
stay. He was much touched by her confidence in him, and swore a great
oath, that the next year he would make the land such as it had never been
before for produce. It was not my lady’s way to repeat anything she had
heard, especially to another person’s disadvantage. So I don’t think she ever
told Captain James of Mr. Brooke’s speech about a sailor’s being likely to
mismanage the property; and the captain was too anxious to succeed in this,
the second year of his trial, to be above going to the flourishing, shrewd Mr.
Brooke, and asking for his advice as to the best method of working the

estate. I dare say, if Miss Galindo had been as intimate as formerly at the
Hall, we should all of us have heard of this new acquaintance of the agent’s
long before we did. As it was, I am sure my lady never dreamed that the
captain, who held opinions that were even more Church and King than her
own, could ever have made friends with a Baptist baker from Birmingham,
even to serve her ladyship’s own interests in the most loyal manner.
We heard of it first from Mr. Gray, who came now often to see my lady,
for neither he nor she could forget the solemn tie which the fact of his being
the person to acquaint her with my lord’s death had created between them.
For true and holy words spoken at that time, though having no reference to
aught below the solemn subjects of life and death, had made her withdraw
her opposition to Mr. Gray’s wish about establishing a village school. She
had sighed a little, it is true, and was even yet more apprehensive than
hopeful as to the result; but, almost as if as a memorial to my lord, she had
allowed a kind of rough school-house to be built on the green, just by the
church; and had gently used the power she undoubtedly had, in expressing
her strong wish that the boys might only be taught to read and write, and the
first four rules of arithmetic; while the girls were only to learn to read, and
to add up in their heads, and the rest of the time to work at mending their
own clothes, knitting stockings and spinning. My lady presented the school
with more spinning-wheels than there were girls, and requested that there
might be a rule that they should have spun so many hanks of flax, and
knitted so many pairs of stockings, before they ever were taught to read at
all. After all, it was but making the best of a bad job with my poor lady—
but life was not what it had been to her. I remember well the day that Mr.
Gray pulled some delicately fine yarn (and I was a good judge of those
things) out of his pocket, and laid it and a capital pair of knitted stockings
before my lady, as the first-fruits, so to say, of his school. I recollect seeing
her put on her spectacles, and carefully examine both productions. Then she
passed them to me.
“This is well, Mr. Gray. I am much pleased. You are fortunate in your
schoolmistress. She has had both proper knowledge of womanly things and
much patience. Who is she? One out of our village?”
“My lady,” said Mr. Gray, stammering and colouring in his old fashion,
“Miss Bessy is so very kind as to teach all those sorts of things—Miss
Bessy, and Miss Galindo, sometimes.”

My lady looked at him over her spectacles: but she only repeated the
words “Miss Bessy,” and paused, as if trying to remember who such a
person could be; and he, if he had then intended to say more, was quelled
by her manner, and dropped the subject. He went on to say, that he had
thought it his duty to decline the subscription to his school offered by Mr.
Brooke, because he was a Dissenter; that he (Mr. Gray) feared that Captain
James, through whom Mr. Brooke’s offer of money had been made, was
offended at his refusing to accept it from a man who held heterodox
opinions; nay, whom Mr. Gray suspected of being infected by Dodwell’s
heresy.
“I think there must be some mistake,” said my lady, “or I have
misunderstood you. Captain James would never be sufficiently with a
schismatic to be employed by that man Brooke in distributing his charities.
I should have doubted, until now, if Captain James knew him.”
“Indeed, my lady, he not only knows him, but is intimate with him, I
regret to say. I have repeatedly seen the captain and Mr. Brooke walking
together; going through the fields together; and people do say——”
My lady looked up in interrogation at Mr. Gray’s pause.
“I disapprove of gossip, and it may be untrue; but people do say that
Captain James is very attentive to Miss Brooke.”
“Impossible!” said my lady, indignantly. “Captain James is a loyal and
religious man. I beg your pardon, Mr. Gray, but it is impossible.”
CHAPTER XIV.
Like many other things which have been declared to be impossible, this
report of Captain James being attentive to Miss Brooke turned out to be
very true.
The mere idea of her agent being on the slightest possible terms of
acquaintance with the Dissenter, the tradesman, the Birmingham democrat,
who had come to settle in our good, orthodox, aristocratic, and agricultural
Hanbury, made my lady very uneasy. Miss Galindo’s misdemeanor in
having taken Miss Bessy to live with her, faded into a mistake, a mere error
of judgment, in comparison with Captain James’s intimacy at Yeast House,
as the Brookes called their ugly square-built farm. My lady talked herself
quite into complacency with Miss Galindo, and even Miss Bessy was

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