One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
with the gloves, and was persuaded to enter the militia, and
grew soon to be a corporal. Thus there was profit of the affair,
though the navvy sank out of sight. Let us hope and
pray he will not insult the hearing of females again. If only
females knew how necessary it is, for their sakes, to be able
to give a lesson now and then! Ladies are positively opposed.
And Judges too, who dress so like them. The manhood of
our country is kept down, in consequence. Mr. Durance was
right, when he said something about the state of war being
wanted to weld our races together: and yet we are always
praying for the state of peace, which causes cracks and gaps
among us! Was that what he meant by illogical? It seemed to
Skepsey—oddly, considering his inferior estimate of the value
of the fair sex—that a young woman with whom he had
recently made acquaintance; and who was in Brighton now,
upon missionary work; a member of the ‘Army,’ an officer of
advancing rank, Matilda Pridden, by name; was nearer to
the secret of the right course of conduct for individual citizens
and the entire country than any gentleman he knew.
Yes, nearer to it than his master was! Thinking of Mr. Victor
Radnor, Skepsey fetched a sigh. He had knocked at his
master’s door at the office one day, and imagining the call to
enter, had done so, and had seen a thing he could not expunge.
Lady Grace Halley was there. From matters he gathered,
Skepsey guessed her to be working for his master among
the great folks, as he did with Jarniman, and Mr. Fenellan
with Mr. Carling. But is it usual; he asked himself—his natural
veneration framing the rebuke to his master thus—to repay
the services of a lady so warmly?—We have all of us an
ermined owl within us to sit in judgement of our superiors
as well as our equals; and the little man, notwithstanding a
servant’s bounden submissiveness, was forced to hear the
judicial pronouncement upon his master’s behaviour. His
master had, at the same time, been saying most weighty kind
words more and more of late: one thing:—that, if he gave all
he had to his fellows, and did all he could, he should still be
in their debt. And he was a very wealthy gentleman. What
are we to think? The ways of our superiors are wonderful.
We do them homage: still we feel, we painfully feel, we are
beginning to worship elsewhere. It is the pain of a detachment
of the very roots of our sea-weed heart from a rock.
Mr. Victor Radnor was an honour to his country. Skepsey
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