The Trotter. 137 



and generous disposition, was a first-rate sportsman, and possessed a 

 spirit of daring and energy which would have been invaluable if 

 directed in a good cause. He was positively afraid of nothing had 

 immense strength, and a power of endurance such as few could 

 boast. Scarcely a month passed without some fresh lawless or 

 daring exploit, in which he had figured, being recorded in the 

 county paper ; and he was being continually bound over to keep 

 the peace for some assault or another. Up to the age of thirty-five 

 he was unmarried, but suddenly a new actress came upon the stage 

 to reign as queen over Ashby Grange. Where he picked her up, 

 who she was, or what she had been, no one at the time knew ; but 

 she was one of the most beautiful women that had entered those 

 old portals for many a year, and her grace and manners might have 

 adorned a Court. 



There was a good deal of " the tragedy queen " about her ; her 

 manners were quiet, composed, and lady-like, her carriage dignified 

 and graceful, and she was altogether the very last sort of woman 

 that any man who knew Sam West would have dreamt of his taking 

 as a wife. Her age might be about twenty-five ; she was above the 

 middle height, superbly formed, and her long glossy ringlets, black 

 as jet, clustered round a brow and over a neck and shoulders as 

 white and pure as alabaster. 



It turned out that she had been a second-rate actress in a low 

 London theatre, which Sam had happened to visit in one of his 

 nights about town. Whatever he did was generally off-hand. He 

 rarely gave up much time to reflection. If he liked a horse he 

 bought him at once without further parley ; and fancying he saw 

 something about this woman a little better than the generality of his 

 female associates, he procured an introduction to her, and after 

 trying her with proposals which she indignantly scouted, he married 

 her at once, and brought her down to be the mistress of Ashby 

 Grange. 



And he did right ; for if any mortal hand could save him from 

 the ruin which was just then hanging over him, it was hers. What- 

 ever her antecedents, she was well fitted to fill the post to which 



