men.  In this array Lady Racial beheld him.  The curtains of the bed were drawn aside.  The beams of evening fell soft through the blinds of the room, and cast a subdued light on the figure of the vanquished warrior.  The Presence, dumb now for evermore, was sadly illumined for its last exhibition.  But one who looked closely might have seen that Time had somewhat spoiled that perfect fit which had aforetime been his pride; and now that the lofty spirit had departed, there had been extreme difficulty in persuading the sullen excess of clay to conform to the dimensions of those garments.  The upper part of the chest alone would bear its buttons, and across one portion of the lower limbs an ancient seam had started; recalling an incident to them who had known him in his brief hour of glory.  For one night, as he was riding home from Fallow field, and just entering the gates of the town, a mounted trooper spurred furiously past, and slashing out at him, gashed his thigh.  Mrs. Melchisedec found him lying at his door in a not unwonted way; carried him up-stairs in her arms, as she had done many a time before, and did not perceive his condition till she saw the blood on her gown.  The cowardly assailant was never discovered; but Mel was both gallant and had, in his military career, the reputation of being a martinet.  Hence, divers causes were suspected.  The wound failed not to mend, the trousers were repaired:  Peace about the same time was made, and the affair passed over.

Looking on the fine head and face, Lady Racial saw nothing of this.  She had not looked long before she found covert employment for her handkerchief.  The widow standing beside her did not weep, or reply to her whispered excuses at emotion; gazing down on his mortal length with a sort of benignant friendliness; aloof, as one whose duties to that form of flesh were well-nigh done.  At the feet of his master, Jacko, the monkey, had jumped up, and was there squatted, with his legs crossed, very like a tailor!  The imitative wretch had got a towel, and as often as Lady Racial’s handkerchief travelled to her eyes, Jacko’s peery face was hidden, and you saw his lithe skinny body doing grief’s convulsions till, tired of this amusement, he obtained possession of the warrior’s helmet, from a small round table on one side of the bed; a calque of the barbarous military-Georgian form, with a huge knob of horse-hair projecting over the peak; and under this, trying to adapt it to his rogue’s head, the tricksy image of Death extinguished himself.

All was very silent in the room.  Then the widow quietly disengaged Jacko, and taking him up, went to the door, and deposited him outside.  During her momentary absence, Lady Racial had time to touch the dead man’s forehead with her lips, unseen.

CHAPTER III

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE SHEARS