umble virtues. On the other side,
the wild, cruel, proud, and somewhat blackguard stock of the Scots
Campbell-Jacksons had put forth, in the person of the mother, all its
force and courage.

The marriage fell in evil days. In 1823 the bubble of the golden aunt's
inheritance had burst. She died holding the hand of the nephew she had
so wantonly deceived; at the last she drew him down and seemed to bless
him, surely with some remorseful feeling; for when the will was opened
there was not found so much as the mention of his name. He was deeply in
debt; in debt even to the estate of his deceiver, so that he had to sell
a piece of land to clear himself. "My dear boy," he said to Charles,
"there will be nothing left for you. I am a ruined man." And here
follows for 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 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,
announcing 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 developed. The old man to the
end was perpetually inventing; his strange, ill-spelled, unpunctuated
correspondence is full (when he does not drop into cookery receipts) of
pumps, road-engines, steam-diggers, steam-ploughs, and steam
threshing-machines; and I ha