eward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow
to relinquish her resolution, took her message to the squire. Mr.
Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended at the boy's obstinate refusal
to make the amende honorable to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed a
hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son.
It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more gentle,
since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow, he sent
his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and brusque
enough on her own account, and in such business as might especially be
transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never appeared as
the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a herald of peace and
mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that she undertook
this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son were great
favourites of hers. She entered the cottage with the friendliest beam
in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest tone of her
frank cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she was no more
successful than the steward had been. The truth is, that I don't believe
the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so proud as your
plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and deal
with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my own
literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so sensitively
alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr. Riccabocca, as that
same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is
true, from his superiors (though, thank Heaven! that he rarely meets
with unjustly); but to be looked down upon and mocked and pointed at by
his own equals--his own little world--cuts him to the soul. And if you
can succeed in breaking this pride and destroying this sensitiveness,
then he is a lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and
you have chucked him half-way--a stolid, inert, sullen victim--to the
perdition of the prison or the convict-ship.

Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the
honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not
have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended.
But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff,
plain-spoken one; and after all she had some little feeling for the son
of a gentleman, and a decayed, fallen gentleman, who