CHAPTER LI. POPULARITY. : THE storm is lulled the billows of temptation have ebbed away from shore, and the clouds of Adversity have flown to other skies. "The winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land: the figtree putteth forth his green figs, and the blossoms of the vine smell sweetly. Arise, and come away." Yesterday's trial, and its unlooked-for issue, have raised Roger Acton to the rank of hero. The town's excitement is intense: and the little inn, where he and Grace had spent the night in gratitude and prayerful praise, is besieged by carriages full of lords and gentlemen, eager to see and speak with Roger. Humbly and reverently, yet preserving an air of quiet self-possession, the labourer received their courteous kindnesses: and acquitted himself of what may well be called the honours of that levee, with a dignity native to the trueborn Briton, from the time of Caractacus at Rome to our own. But if Roger was a demigod, Grace was at the least a goddess; she charmed all hearts with her modest beauty. Back with the shades of night, and the prison-funeral of Jennings, fled envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness: the elderly sisterhood of Hurstley, not to be out of a fashion set by titled dames, hastened to acknowledge her perfections: Calumny was shamed and hid his face; the uncles, aunts, and cousins of the hilltop yonder, were glad to hold their tongues, and bite their nails in peace: farmer Floyd and his Mrs. positively came with peace offerings, some sausage-meat, elder-wine, jam, and other dainties, which were to them the choicest sweets of life and as for Jonathan, he never felt so proud of Grace in all his life before; the handsome fellow stood at least a couple of inches taller. : Honest Ben Burke, too, that most important witness, whose coming was as Blucher's at Waterloo and gained the day, though it must be confessed that his appearance was something of the satyr, still, had he been Phoebus Apollo in person, he would scarcely have excited sincerer admiration. More than one fair creature sketched his unkempt head, and loudly wished that its owner was a bandit; more than one bright eye discovered beauty in his open countenance, though a little soap and water might have made it more distinguishable. Well, well, honest Ben, they looked, and wisely looked, at the frank and friendly mind hidden under that rough carcase, and little wonder that they loved it. Now, to all this stream of hearty English sympathy, the kind and proper feeling of young Sir John resolved to give a right direction. His fashionable friends were gone, except Silliphant and Poynter, both good fellows in the main, and all the better for the absence (amongst others) of that padded old debauchee Sir Richard Hunt, knight of the order of St. Sapphira, that frivolous inanity Lord George Pypp, and that professed gentleman of gallantry Mr. Harry Mynton. The follies and the vices had decamped, had scummed off, so to speak, leaving the more rectified spirits behind them, to recover at leisure, as best they might, from all that ferment of dissipation. So then, there was now neither ridicule, nor interest to stand in the way of a young and wealthy heir's well-timed schemes of generosity. Well-timed they were, and Sir John knew it, though calculation seldom had a footing in his warm and heedless heart; but he could not shut his eyes to the fact, that the state of feeling amongst his hereditary labourers was anything but pleasant. In truth, owing to the desperate mal-practices of Quarles and Jennings, perhaps no property in the kingdom had got so ill a name as Hurstley discontent reigned paramount; incendiary fires had more than once occurred; threatening notices, very illspelt, and signed by one soidisant Captain Blood, had been dropped, in dead of winter, at the doorsills of the principal farmers; and all the other fruits of long-continued penury, extortion, and misgovernment, were hanging ripe upon the bough, a foul and fatal harvest. : Therefore did the kind young landlord, who had come to live amongst his own peasantry, resolve, not more nobly than wisely, to seize an opportunity so good as this, for restoring, by a stroke of generous policy, peace and con tent on his domain. No doubt, the Baronet rejoiced, as well he might, at the honourable acquittal of innocence, and the mysteries of murder now cleared up; he made small secret of his satisfaction at the doom of Jennings, and, as for Bridget Quarles, by all he could learn of her from tenants' wives, and other female dependants, he had no mind to wish her back again, or to think her fate ill-timed : nevertheless, he was even more glad of an occasion to vindicate his own good feelings; and prove to the world that bailiff Simon Jennings, was a very opposite character to landlord Sir John Devereux Vincent. With this view, To carry out his plan, he determined to redress all wrongs within one day, and to commence by bringing "honest Roger" in triumph home again to Hurstley; following the suggestion of Baron Parker, to make some social compensation for his wrongs. Sir John took counsel of the county-town authorities, and it was agreed unanimously, excepting only one dissentient vote,—a rich and radical quaker, one Isaac Sneak, Grocer, and of the body Corporate, who refused to lose one day's service of his shopmen, and thereby (I rejoice to add) succeeded in getting rid of fif |