gberg Sandal, and perhaps all
the rest of his ancestral wraiths, if he merged their ancient name in
that of Baron of Torver. The sentiment was one the German King of
England could understand and respect; and Sandal received, in place of a
costly title, the lucrative office of High Sheriff of Cumberland, and a
good share besides of the forfeited lands of the rebel houses of
Huddleston and Millom.

Then he took his place among the great county families of England. He
passed over his own hills, and went up to London, and did homage for the
king's grace to him. And that strange journey awakened in the mountain
lord some old spirit of adventure and curiosity. He came home by the
ocean, and perceived that he had only half lived before. He sent his
sons to Oxford; he made them travel; he was delighted when the youngest
two took to the sea as naturally as the eider-ducks fledged in a
sea-sand nest.

Good fortune did not spoil the old, cautious family. It went "cannily"
forward, and knew how "to take occasion by the hand," and how to choose
its friends. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, an opportune
loan again set the doors of the House of Lords open to the Sandals; but
the head of the family was even less inclined to enter it than his
grandfather had been.

"Nay, then," was his answer, "t' Sandals are too old a family to hide
their heads in a coronet. Happen, I am a bit opinion-tied, but it's over
late to loosen knots made centuries ago; and I don't want to loosen
them, neither."

So it will be perceived, that, though the Sandals moved, they moved
slowly. A little change went a great way with them. The men were all
conservative in politics, the women intensely so in all domestic
traditions. They made their own sweet waters and unguents and pomades,
long after the nearest chemist supplied a far better and cheaper
article. Their spinning-wheels hummed by the kitchen-fire, and their
shuttles glided deftly in the weaving-room, many a year after Manchester
cottons were cheap and plentiful. But they were pleasant, kindly women,
who did wonderful needlework, and made all kinds of dainty dishes and
cordials and sirups. They were famous florists and gardeners, and the
very neatest of housewives. They visited the poor and sick, and never
went empty-handed. They were hearty Churchwomen. They loved God, and
were truly pious, and were hardly aware of it; for those were not days
of much inquiry. People did their duty and were