My Lady Ludlow

oung women of good descent, and allied (however distantly) to people of rank. When we were not with my lady, Mrs. Medlicott looked after us; a gentle little woman, who had been companion to my lady

ng lace, with which all my lady’s napkins and table-linen were trimmed. We worked under her during a great part of the day, either in the still-room, or at our sewing in a chamber that opened out of the great hall. My lady despised every kind of work that would now be called Fancy-work. She considered that the use of coloured threads or worsted was only fit to amuse children; but that grown women ought not to be taken with mere blues and reds, but to restrict their pleasure in sewing to making small and delicate stitches. She would speak of the old tapestry in the hall as t

; but we were careful in putting labels on them, which looked very mysterious to those who could not read, and helped the medicine to do its work. I have sent off many a bottle of salt and water coloured red; and whenever we had nothing else to do in the still-room, Mrs. Medlicott would set us to making bread-pills, by way of practice; and, as far as I can say, they were very efficacious, as before we gave out a box Mrs. Medlicott always told the patient what symptoms to expect; and I hardly ever inquired without hearing that they had produced their effect. There was one old man, who took six pills a-night, of any kind we liked to give him, to make him sleep; and if, by any chance, his daughter had forgotten to let us know that he was out of his medicine, he was so restless and miserable that, as he said, he thought he was like to die. I think ours was what would be called homoeopathic practice now-a-days. Then we learnt to make all the cakes and dishes of the season in the still-room. We had plum-porridge and mince-pies at Christmas, fritters and pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, furmenty on Mothering Sunday, violet-cakes in Passion Week, tansy-pudding on Easter Sunday, three-cornered cakes on Trinity Sunday, and so on through the year: all made from good old Church receipts, handed down from one of my lady’s earliest Protestant ancestresse

a good deal of it. My lady hardly liked the opinions of any man who wore his own hair; but this she would say was rather a prejudice: only in her youth none but the mob had gone wigless, and she could not get over the association of wigs with birth and breeding; a man’s own hair with that class of people who had formed the rioters in seventeen hundred and eighty, when Lord George Gordon had been one of the bugbears of my lady’s life. Her husband and his brothers, she told us, had been put into breeches, and had their heads shaved on their seventh

found Mr. Gray awaiting my lady’s coming. I believe he had paid his respects to her before, but we had never seen him; and he had declined her invitation to spend Sunday evening a

he would have liked to speak to us, if he could but have found something to say; and every time he coughed he became hotter-looking than e

e us kept waiting — and, as she entered, she gave us all round one of those graceful sweeping curtsies, of which I think the art must have died o

ing hostess, and he, a new guest. She asked him if he would not prefer speaking to her in her own private parlour, and looked as though she would have conducted him there. But he bu

uade you to exert your kind interest with Mr.

stopped to take the breath he had lost in his h

he took the oaths not a mo

s have held Hathaway since Edward the First, and Mr. Lath

y the Squires hang so together that they can’t be brought to see justice, and are all for sending Job to gaol, out of compliment to Mr. Lathom, saying it his first committal, and it wo

committals; and Job Gregson was the father of a girl who had been lately turned away from her place as scullery-maid for sauciness to Mrs. Adams, her ladyship’s own maid; and Mr. Gray had not said a word of the reasons why he believed the man innocent —

interfere. Mr. Harry Lathom is a sensible kind of young ma

broke in Mr. Gray. My lady went a little

bears a very indifferent character — has been strongly suspected of poaching, coming from no one knows where, squatting on Hareman’s Common — which, by the way, is extra-parochial, I believe; consequently you, as a clergyman, are not responsible for what goe

only a few weeks’ standing — to set up my judgment as to men’s character against that of residents —” Lady Ludlow gave a little bow of acquiescence, which was, I think, involuntary on her part, and which I don’t think h

ll as words could have told me, that she was affronted at the expression being used by a man inferior in rank to t

ways did so when she was annoyed; it was a certa

p the subject. It is one on whi

my lady and he had forgotten our presence; and we were beginning to feel too awkward to wish t

Little as was his stature, and awkward and embarrassed as he had been only a few mi

rishioners on many subjects on which they do not agree with me. I am

quences but as if he was determined to bear them without flinching. For a minute there was silence. Then my lady replied —“Mr. Gray, I respect your plain speaking, although I may wonder whether

t he was in that state of excitement which in a child would have ended in a good fit of crying. He looked as if he had nerved himself up to doing and saying things, which he disliked above everything, and which nothing short of

nversation? But as you talk of your parish, allow me to remind you that Hareman’s Common is beyond the bounds, and

speaking to you about the affair at all

sad. Lady Ludlow caught

h she had been speaking. “Remember, Job Gregson is a notorious poacher and evil

but my lady did not; although she saw that he spoke. “What did he say?” she asked in a somewhat hurri

im! he was responsible for all the

ith both of us, for having been present, and with me for having repeated what Mr. Gray had said. But it was not o

ade us accompany her i

on in the old way. This day she did not pay any great attention to the road by which we were going, and Coachman took his own way. We were very silent, as my lady did not speak, and looked very serious. Or else, in general, she made these rides very pleasant (to those who were not qualmish with riding backwards), by talking to us in a very ag

, “where are we? Surely

for further speech or orders. My lady thought a while, a

ause they had been in fashion in her youth), among the yellow pools of stagnant water that had gathered in the clayey soil. John Footman followed, stately, after; afraid too, for all

w saw enough of the interiors of these places to make her hesitate before entering, or even speaking to any of the children who were playing about in the puddles. After a pause, she disappeared into one of the cottages. It seemed to us

ve to when she got into the carriage again. John

thing to do for Mrs. Medlicott, I can drop you at Barford Co

dy must have gone to Job Gregson’s, we were far too anxious to know the end of it all to say that we were tired. So we all set off to Hathaway. Mr. Harry L

gentleman at Hanbury — tell his master, with her compliments, that she wished to speak to him. You may think how pleased we were to find that we should hear all that was said; though, I thi

ruptly for her — but she was very full of her s

d and vexed, but dared n

less aware of his character; a man who sets nets and springes in long cover, and f

or of poaching for this very reason): “but I imagine you

ay be sent to prison for being a vagabond; for no

ladyship for one moment

wife tells me he can prove he was some miles distant from Holmwood, where the r

ht before me when I gave the warrant. I am not answerable for the other magistrates’ decision, when the

ht a glimpse of Mr. Gray through the open door, standing in the shadow of the hall. Doubtless Lady Ludlow’s arrival had interrupted a conversation between Mr. Lathom and Mr. Gray. The latter must have heard every word of what

seen the misery in that poor fellow’s cottage.” She spoke lower, and Mr. Gray drew near, in a sort of involuntary manner; as if to hear all she was saying. We saw him, and doubtless Mr. Lathom heard his footstep, and knew who it was that was listening behind him, and approving of

fer to bail the fellow out, and to be responsible for his ap

theft is not bai

ent to you, and against all evidence, as far as I can learn. He will have to rot in gaol for two months, and his wife and

nst the law

e House of Commons. We, who make the laws in St. Stephen’s, may break the mere forms

y take away my commissi

o administer justice through the land! I always said a good despotism was the best form of government; and I am twice as much in favour of it now I see what a quorum is! My dears!” sudd

id Mr. Lathom, anxious no doubt to escape from his tete-a-tete drive with my lady, and possibly n

r. Gray had finished his offer of escorting us back to Hanbury Court, my lady had recovered herself. There was neither surprise nor displeasure in her manner, as she answered —“I thank you, Mr. Gray. I was not aware that you were here, but I think I can understand on what errand you came. And seeing you here, recalls me to a duty I owe Mr. Lathom. Mr. Lathom, I have spoken to you pretty plainly — forgetting, until I saw Mr. Gray, that only this very afternoon I differed from him on this very question; taking completely, at that time, the same view of the whole subject which you have done; thinking that the county would be well rid of such a man as Job Gregson,

to take. Lady Ludlow, however, took no notice of his murmur, but sat in an attitude of polite expectancy; and as we turned off on our walk, I saw Mr. Lathom getting into the coach with t

every stile he hesitated — sometimes he half got over it, thinking that he could assist us better in that way; then he would turn back unwilling to go