A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 137 



Above the bookcase, whose top carries desueta 

 anna, an old gun-case and a lashless whip, hangs a 

 row of engravings ; a very fair second state of Ben 

 Arthur, half a dozen Constable mezzotints, a Samuel 

 Palmer, a pencil scribble of Leech's, and two or three 

 unknown hands that bide their time to be the vogue. 

 Beside the chimneypiece are five silhouettes in oval 

 frames my family portraits. The first of these, with 

 capacious gills done in white on the black, and gilt 

 lines to indicate the hair, presents my mother's father, 

 whom I can remember by his shirt-frill and a story 

 he told how he once left the Dragoons, who were 

 ready to charge the Luddites in the market-place, 

 and walked out alone with his hat in his hand to 

 speak to the mob, and how he got them out of the 

 Square, and down the Vicar's Croft, and on to the 

 Moor, without so much as throwing a stone. There 

 was another story, which I liked when I grew older, 

 about a bank failing and my grandfather going to a 

 friend in trade and asking for a loan to save his 

 credit. The friend gave him a draft for the amount 

 without saying a word, and put my grandfather's 

 receipt in the middle of the parlour fire confidence 

 that was not mistaken. They were rough days in the 

 North-country town where he was brought up : one of 

 his first recollections was of his father's house being 



