d achieved county rank. It
was a fact not generally remembered at the present day that the
grandfather of the colonel of the Sussex Rangers had been a successful
and estimable manufacturer of brushes. In the early days of Queen
Victoria he owned a much-frequented emporium in Regent Street, at which
you could get anything in the line from a tooth-brush to a currycomb.
Retiring from business in the fifties, with a considerable fortune for
the time, this Mr. Ashley had purchased Heneage from the impoverished
representatives of the Umfravilles. As luck would have it, the new
owners found a not unattractive Miss Umfraville almost going with the
place, since she lived in select but inexpensive lodgings in the
village. Her manners being as gentle as her blood, and her face even
gentler than either, if such a thing could be, it was in keeping with
the spirit that had borne the Ashleys along to look upon her as an
opportunity. Young Mr. Ashley, to whom his father had been able to give
the advantages of Oxford, knew at a glance that with this lady at his
side recognition by the county would be assured. Being indifferent to
recognition by the county except in so far as it expressed a phase of
advancement, and superior to calculation as a motive for the matrimonial
state, young Ashley proceeded with all due formality to fall in love;
and it was from the passion incidental to this episode that Lucky Ashley
was born.

All this had happened so long ago, according to modern methods of
reckoning, that the county had already forgotten what it was the
original Ashley had manufactured, or that he had manufactured anything
at all. By the younger generation it was assumed that Heneage had passed
to the Ashley family through intermarriage with the Umfravilles. Certain
it was that the Ashleys maintained the Umfraville tradition and used the
Umfraville arms. What chiefly survived of the spirit that had made the
manufacture of brushes so lucrative a trade was the intention young
Rupert Ashley took with him into the army--to get on.

He had got on. Every one spoke of him nowadays as a coming man. It was
conceded that when generals like Lord Englemere or Lord Bannockburn
passed away, it would be to such men as Rupert Ashley--the number of
them could be counted on the fingers of your two hands!--that the
country would look for its defenders. They were young men,
comparatively, as yet; but they were waiting and in training. It was a
national asset