t spoilt a whole
day for a farmer, if he had to dress himself in his best and leave his
work in the forenoon (and my lady liked to see her tenants come in their
Sunday clothes; she would not say a word, maybe, but she would take her
spectacles slowly out, and put them on with silent gravity, and look at a
dirty or raggedly-dressed man so solemnly and earnestly, that his nerves
must have been pretty strong if he did not wince, and resolve that,
however poor he might be, soap and water, and needle and thread, should
be used before he again appeared in her ladyship's anteroom). The out-
lying tenants had always a supper provided for them in the servants'-hall
on Thursdays, to which, indeed all comers were welcome to sit down. For
my lady said, though there were not many hours left of a working man's
day when their business with her was ended, yet that they needed food and
rest, and that she should be ashamed if they sought either at the
Fighting Lion (called at this day the Hanbury Arms). They had as much
beer as they could drink while they were eating; and when the food was
cleared away, they had a cup a-piece of good ale, in which the oldest
tenant present, standing up, gave Madam's health; and after that was
drunk, they were expected to set off homewards; at any rate, no more
liquor was given them. The tenants one and all called her "Madam;" for
they recognized in her the married heiress of the Hanburys, not the widow
of a Lord Ludlow, of whom they and their forefathers knew nothing; and
against whose memory, indeed, there rankled a dim unspoken grudge, the
cause of which was accurately known to the very few who understood the
nature of a mortgage, and were therefore aware that Madam's money had
been taken to enrich my lord's poor land in Scotland. I am sure--for you
can understand I was behind the scenes, as it were, and had many an
opportunity of seeing and hearing, as I lay or sat motionless in my
lady's room with the double doors open between it and the anteroom
beyond, where Lady Ludlow saw her steward, and gave audience to her
tenants,--I am certain, I say, that Mr. Horner was silently as much
annoyed at the money that was swallowed up by this mortgage as any one;
and, some time or other, he had probably spoken his mind out to my lady;
for there was a sort of offended reference on her part, and respectful
submission to blame on his, while every now and then there was an implied
protest--whenever the payments of