FLEEMING'S UNCLE JOHN 25 



me the strangest part of this story. From the 

 death of the treacherous aunt, Charles Jenkin 

 senior had still some nine years to live ; it was 

 perhaps too late for him to turn to saving, and 

 perhaps his affairs were past restoration. But his 

 family at least had all this while to prepare ; they 

 were still young men, and knew what they had 

 to look for at their father's death ; and yet when 

 that happened in September 1831, the heir was still 

 apathetically waiting. Poor John, the days of his Fieeming's 

 whips and spurs and Yeomanry dinners were quite 

 over ; and with that incredible softness of the Jenkin 

 nature, he settled down, for the rest of a long life, 

 into something not far removed above a peasant. 

 The mill farm at Stowting had been saved out of 

 the wreck ; and here he built himself a house on 

 the Mexican model, and made the two ends meet 

 with rustic thrift, gathering dung with his own 

 hands upon the road and not at all abashed at his 

 employment. In dress, voice and manner, he fell 

 into mere country plainness ; lived without the 

 least care for appearances, the least regret for the 

 past or discontentment with the present ; and when 

 he came to die, died with Stoic cheerfulness, an- 

 nouncing that he had had a comfortable time and 

 was yet well pleased to go. One would think there 

 was little active virtue to be inherited from such a 

 race ; and yet in this same voluntary peasant, the 

 special gift of Fleeming Jenkin was already half 



