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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
Poor Peter 92

CHAPTER VII.

Visiting 110

CHAPTER VIII.

‘Your Ladyship’ 126

CHAPTER IX.

Signor Brunoni 147

CHAPTER X.

The Panic 162

CHAPTER XI.

Samuel Brown 186

CHAPTER XII.

Engaged to be Married 204

CHAPTER XIII.

Stopped Payment 219

 CHAPTER XIV.

Friends in Need 239

CHAPTER XV.

A Happy Return 267

CHAPTER XVI.

Peace to Cranford 286

 PAGE

Miss Matty Frontispiece

Heading to Preface v

Heading to Contents xxv

Heading to List of Illustrations xxvii

Heading to Chapter I. 1

‘A magnificent family red silk umbrella’ 3

‘Clattered home in their pattens’ 6

‘To see the Alderney’ 9

‘Sang out loud and joyfully’ 11

‘Coming out of church’ 12

‘The account of the “Swarry”’ 16

Tailpiece to Chapter I. 18

Heading to Chapter II. 19

‘Carrying her baked mutton and potatoes’ 20

‘No one could black his boots except himself’ 22

‘Miss Jenkyns’ 24

‘One with whom his lordship held conversation’ 26

‘And he shuddered at the recollection’ 31

‘He shook hands with Miss Jessie’ 38

Tailpiece to Chapter II. 41

Heading to Chapter III. 42

‘If you please, my love, will you call me Matilda?’ 44

‘So as to throw the shadow on the clock face’ 46

‘She "nudged" the major’ 51

‘How are you? how are you?’ 54

Tailpiece to Chapter III. 56

Heading to Chapter IV. 57

‘Requested her to fill the bowl’ 62

‘Or glimpse of distant upland pastures’ 64

‘He had begun a long poem’ 66

‘Here are the poems for you’ 68

‘God forbid that I should grieve any young hearts’ 73

Tailpiece to Chapter IV. 74

Heading to Chapter V. 75

‘When Martha brought in the lighted candle and tea’ 78

‘Preached before some judge’ 81

A Post Boy 86

‘Turning out of the volunteers’ 88

Tailpiece to Chapter V. 91

Heading to Chapter VI. 92

‘The little curtseys’ 95

‘Have you done enough, sir?’ 98

‘He and my father were such friends!’ 108

Heading to Chapter VII. 110

‘With bland satisfaction’ 111

Mrs. ffarringdon and Mr. ffoulkes 118

‘Hush, ladies! if you please, hush!’ 122

Tailpiece to Chapter VII. 125

Heading to Chapter VIII. 126

‘We sedulously talked together’ 130

Mr. Mulliner 132

Miss Pole and the brooches 135

‘In dignified surprise’ 141

Tailpiece to Chapter VIII. 146

Heading to Chapter IX. 147

‘Making such a graceful bow’ 151

‘Walk mincingly up the room’ 156

‘The Church smiling approval’ 160

Heading to Chapter X. 162

‘A regular expedition’ 163

‘Armed with a footstool’ 167

‘Called out valiantly’ 170

‘Speaking very ominously’ 173

‘To have her teeth examined’ 175

‘Implored the chairman’ 178

‘He was a sharp lad’ 181

‘Leading questions’ 183

Tailpiece to Chapter X. 185

Heading to Chapter XI. 186

‘Perplexed about the exact path’ 187

‘Riding over’ 189

‘Airing the Sedan Chair’ 191

‘In Darkness Lane’ 193

‘The boys who stole the apples’ 195

‘A diary in two columns’ 198

Heading to Chapter XII. 204

‘Miss Jenkyns used to say’ 207

‘It was too big for words’ 209

‘Bread and cheese’ 211

‘Lady Glenmire’ 213

‘Mr. Hoggins looked radiant’ 216

Tailpiece to Chapter XII. 218

Heading to Chapter XIII. 219

‘Each individual coin’ 221

‘Over the counter’ 225

‘The country people came in’ 226

‘Our neighbour’ 227

‘“Dang it!” said he’ 229

‘He hung back’ 232

‘The civil Mr. Johnson’ 234

‘The account-books’ 236

Heading to Chapter XIV. 239

‘Posting the letter’ 240

‘Don’t “but Martha” me’ 242

‘There!’ 247

‘He’s only Jem Hearn’ 250

‘Soothed by her lover’ 253

‘Mrs. Fitz-Adam’ 255

‘Drumming with his fingers upon it’ 263

Tailpiece to Chapter XIV. 266

Heading to Chapter XV. 267

‘All the smiling glory of his face’ 269

‘A complimentary speech’ 275

‘Absorbed in contemplation’ 278

‘Gleefully awaited the shower of comfits and 284

lozenges’

Tailpiece to Chapter XV. 285

Heading to Chapter XVI. 286

‘The Father of the Faithful’ 288

‘The proof sheet of a great placard’ 294

‘He had shot a cherubim!’ 296

‘Mrs. Jamieson on one side, and my lady, Mrs. 298

Hoggins, on the other’
 n the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons;
all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.
If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow
the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to
death by being the only man in the Cranford evening
parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship,
or closely engaged in business all the week in the great
neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles
on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen,
they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The
surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but
every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of
choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening away
little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the railings;
for rushing out at the geese that occasionally venture into the
gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all questions of
literature and politics without troubling themselves with unnecessary
reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of
everybody’s affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maidservants
in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor,
and real tender good offices to each other whenever they are in
distress,—the ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. ‘A man,’ as one
of them observed to me once, ‘is so in the way in the house!’
Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other’s proceedings,
they are exceedingly indifferent to each other’s opinions. Indeed, as
each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly
developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but, somehow,
goodwill reigns among them to a considerable degree.
The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirted
out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the head; just
enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too
flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion; as they observe,
‘What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where
everybody knows us?’ And if they go from home, their reason is
equally cogent, ‘What does it signify how we dress here, where
nobody knows us?’ The materials of their clothes are, in general,
good and plain, and most of them are nearly as scrupulous as Miss
Tyler, of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it, the last gigot, the
last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England, was seen in
Cranford—and seen without a smile.
 ‘A magnificent family red silk umbrella.’

I can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which

a gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used
to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in
London? We had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in
Cranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it ‘a stick in
petticoats.’ It might have been the very red silk one I have
described, held by a strong father over a troop of little ones; the
poor little lady—the survivor of all—could scarcely carry it.
Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and
they were announced to any young people, who might be staying in
the town, with all the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were
read once a year on the Tinwald Mount.
‘Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your journey
to-night, my dear’ (fifteen miles in a gentleman’s carriage); ‘they will
give you some rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt,
they will call; so be at liberty after twelve—from twelve to three are
our calling-hours.’
Then, after they had called—
‘It is the third day; I daresay your mamma has told you, my dear,
never to let more than three days elapse between receiving a call
and returning it; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a
quarter of an hour.’
‘But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a
quarter of an hour has passed?’
‘You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow
yourself to forget it in conversation.’
As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received
or paid a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken
about. We kept ourselves to short sentences of small talk, and were
punctual to our time.
I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and
had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the
Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none
of us spoke of money, because that subject savoured of commerce
and trade, and though some might be poor, we were all aristocratic.
The Cranfordians had that kindly esprit de corps which made them
overlook all deficiencies in success when some among them tried to
conceal their poverty. When Mrs. Forrester, for instance, gave a party
in her baby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the
ladies on the sofa by a request that she might get the tea-tray out
from underneath, every one took this novel proceeding as the most
natural thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and
ceremonies as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular
servants’ hall, second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead
of the one little charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms
could never have been strong enough to carry the tray upstairs if
she had not been assisted in private by her mistress, who now sat in
state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she
knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that
she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making
tea-bread and sponge-cakes.
There were one or two consequences arising from this general but
unacknowledged poverty, and this very much acknowledged gentility,
which were not amiss, and which might be introduced into many
circles of society to their great improvement. For instance, the
inhabitants of Cranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their
pattens, under the guidance of a lantern-bearer, about nine o’clock
at night; and the whole town was abed and asleep by half-past ten.
Moreover, it was considered ‘vulgar’ (a tremendous word in
Cranford) to give anything expensive, in the way of eatable or
drinkable, at the evening entertainments. Wafer bread-and-butter
and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson
gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of Glenmire,
although she did practise such ‘elegant economy.’
‘Elegant economy!’ How naturally
one falls back into the phraseology of
Cranford! There, economy was always
‘elegant,’ and money-spending always
‘vulgar and ostentatious’; a sort of
sour grapism which made us very
peaceful and satisfied. I never shall
forget the dismay felt when a certain
Captain Brown came to live at
Cranford, and openly spoke about his
being poor—not in a whisper to an
intimate friend, the doors and
windows being previously closed, but
‘Clattered home in their pattens.’ in the public street! in a loud military
voice! alleging his poverty as a reason
for not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were
already rather moaning over the invasion of their territories by a
man and a gentleman. He was a half-pay Captain, and had obtained
some situation on a neighbouring railroad, which had been
vehemently petitioned against by the little town; and if, in addition
to his masculine gender, and his connection with the obnoxious
railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being poor—why, then,
indeed, he must be sent to Coventry. Death was as true and as
common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in
the streets. It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite. We
had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on
terms of visiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from
doing anything that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it
was because the night was so fine, or the air so refreshing, not
because sedan chairs were expensive. If we wore prints, instead of
summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material; and
so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of
us, people of very moderate means. Of course, then, we did not
know what to make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it was
not a disgrace. Yet, somehow, Captain Brown made himself
respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all resolutions
to the contrary. I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as
authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he
had settled in the town. My own friends had been among the
bitterest opponents of any proposal to visit the Captain and his
daughters only twelve months before; and now he was even
admitted in the tabooed hours before twelve. True, it was to discover
the cause of a smoking chimney, before the fire was lighted; but still
Captain Brown walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice
too large for the room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man
about the house. He had been blind to all the small slights, and
omissions of trivial ceremonies, with which he had been received. He
had been friendly, though the Cranford ladies had been cool; he had
answered small sarcastic compliments in good faith; and with his
manly frankness had overpowered all the shrinking which met him
as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And, at last, his
excellent masculine common sense, and his facility in devising
expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had gained him an
extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He
himself went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as he
had been of the reverse; and I am sure he was startled one day
when he found his advice so highly esteemed as to make some
counsel which he had given in jest to be taken in sober, serious
earnest.
It was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which
she looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the short quarter-
of-an-hour call without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful
intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly
regarded Miss Betsy Barker’s Alderney; therefore great was the
sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow
tumbled into a limepit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon
heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of
her hair, and came out looking naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare
skin. Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain
their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely
cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she thought of trying
a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one
of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it
was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown’s decided
‘Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma’am, if you wish
to keep her alive. But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once.’
 ‘To see the Alderney.’

Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain
heartily; she set to work, and by and by all the town turned out to
see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark gray
flannel. I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see
cows dressed in gray flannel in London?
Captain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the
town, where he lived with his two daughters. He must have been
upwards of sixty at the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I
had left it as a residence. But he had a wiry, well-trained, elastic
figure, a stiff military throw-back of his head, and a springing step,
which made him appear much younger than he was. His eldest
daughter looked almost as old as himself, and betrayed the fact that
his real was more than his apparent age. Miss Brown must have
been forty; she had a sickly, pained, careworn expression on her
face, and looked as if the gaiety of youth had long faded out of
sight. Even when young she must have been plain and hard-
featured. Miss Jessie Brown was ten years younger than her sister,
and twenty shades prettier. Her face was round and dimpled. Miss
Jenkyns once said, in a passion against Captain Brown (the cause of
which I will tell you presently), ‘that she thought it was time for Miss
Jessie to leave off her dimples, and not always to be trying to look
like a child.’ It was true there was something childlike in her face;
and there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live to a
hundred. Her eyes were large blue wondering eyes, looking straight
at you; her nose was unformed and snub, and her lips were red and
dewy; she wore her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which
heightened this appearance. I do not know whether she was pretty
or not; but I liked her face, and so did everybody, and I do not think
she could help her dimples. She had something of her father’s
jauntiness of gait and manner; and any female observer might
detect a slight difference in the attire of the two sisters—that of Miss
Jessie being about two pounds per annum more expensive than Miss
Brown’s. Two pounds was a large sum in Captain Brown’s annual
disbursements.
 ‘Sang out loud and joyfully.’

Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family

when I first saw them all together in Cranford Church. The Captain I
had met before—on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he
had cured by some simple alteration in the flue. In church, he held
his double eye-glass to his eyes during the Morning Hymn, and then
lifted up his head erect and sang out loud and joyfully. He made the
responses louder than the clerk—an old man with a piping feeble
voice, who, I think, felt aggrieved at the Captain’s sonorous bass,
and quavered higher and higher in consequence.
 ‘Coming out of church.’

On coming out of church, the brisk Captain paid the most gallant
attention to his two daughters. He nodded and smiled to his
acquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped
Miss Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer-
book, and had waited patiently till she, with trembling nervous
hands, had taken up her gown to walk through the wet roads.
I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at
their parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was
no gentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the
card-parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of
the evenings; and, in our love for gentility and distaste of mankind,
we had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be
‘vulgar’; so that when I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns,
was going to have a party in my honour, and that Captain and the
Miss Browns were invited, I wondered much what would be the
course of the evening. Card-tables, with green-baize tops, were set
out by daylight, just as usual; it was the third week in November, so
the evenings closed in about four. Candles and clean packs of cards
were arranged on each table. The fire was made up; the neat
maidservant had received her last directions; and there we stood,
dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands, ready
to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in
Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely
elated as they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three
had arrived, we sat down to ‘Preference,’ I being the unlucky fourth.
The next four comers were put down immediately to another table;
and presently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in the
storeroom as I passed in the morning, were placed each on the
middle of a card-table. The china was delicate egg-shell; the old-
fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables were of the
slightest description. While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain
and the Miss Browns came in; and I could see that, somehow or
other, the Captain was a favourite with all the ladies present. Ruffled
brows were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss
Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie smiled
as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father. He
immediately and quietly assumed the man’s place in the room;
attended to every one’s wants, lessened the pretty maidservant’s
labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies;
and yet did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as
if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak,
that he was a true man throughout. He played for threepenny points
with as grave an interest as if they had been pounds; and yet, in all
his attention to strangers, he had an eye on his suffering daughter—
for suffering I was sure she was, though to many eyes she might
only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play cards, but she
talked to the sitters-out, who, before her coming, had been rather
inclined to be cross. She sang, too, to an old cracked piano, which I
think had been a spinnet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang ‘Jock o’
Hazeldean’ a little out of tune; but we were none of us musical,
though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to
be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a
little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie
Brown’s unguarded admission (à propos of Shetland wool) that she
had an uncle, her mother’s brother, who was a shopkeeper in
Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible
cough—for the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-
table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she
found out she was in the same room with a shopkeeper’s niece! But
Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we all agreed the next
morning) would repeat the information, and assure Miss Pole she
could easily get her the identical Shetland wool required, ‘through
my uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods of any
one in Edinbro’.’ It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths,
and the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed
music; so I say again, it was very good of her to beat time to the
song.
When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a
quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, and
talking over tricks; but by and by Captain Brown sported a bit of
literature.
‘Have you seen any numbers of The Pickwick Papers?’ said he.
(They were then publishing in parts.) ‘Capital thing!’
Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford;
and, on the strength of a number of manuscript sermons, and a
pretty good library of divinity, considered herself literary, and looked
upon any conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she
answered and said, ‘Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say
she had read them.’
‘And what do you think of them?’ exclaimed Captain Brown. ‘Aren’t
they famously good?’
So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
 ‘I must say, I don’t think they are by any means equal to Dr.
Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let him persevere, and
who knows what he may become if he will take the great Doctor for
his model.’ This was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take
placidly; and I saw the words on the tip of his tongue before Miss
Jenkyns had finished her sentence.
‘It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam,’ he began.

‘The account of the “swarry.”’

‘I am quite aware of that,’ returned she. ‘And I make allowances,

Captain Brown.’
 ‘Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month’s number,’
pleaded he. ‘I had it only this morning, and I don’t think the
company can have read it yet.’
‘As you please,’ said she, settling herself with an air of resignation.
He read the account of the ‘swarry’ which Sam Weller gave at Bath.
Some of us laughed heartily. I did not dare, because I was staying in
the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity. When it was ended,
she turned to me, and said, with mild dignity—
‘Fetch me Rasselas, my dear, out of the book-room.’
When I brought it to her she turned to Captain Brown—
‘Now allow me to read you a scene, and then the present
company can judge between your favourite, Mr. Boz, and Dr.
Johnson.’
She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in
a high-pitched majestic voice; and when she had ended she said, ‘I
imagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr. Johnson as a
writer of fiction.’ The Captain screwed his lips up, and drummed on
the table, but he did not speak. She thought she would give a
finishing blow or two.
‘I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish
in numbers.’
‘How was The Rambler published, ma’am?’ asked Captain Brown,
in a low voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.
‘Dr. Johnson’s style is a model for young beginners. My father
recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I have formed
my own style upon it; I recommend it to your favourite.’
‘I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such
pompous writing,’ said Captain Brown.
Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the
Captain had not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her friends
considered as her forte. Many a copy of many a letter have I seen
written and corrected on the slate, before she ‘seized the half-hour
just previous to post-time to assure’ her friends of this or of that;
and Dr. Johnson was, as she said, her model in these compositions.
She drew herself up with dignity, and only replied to Captain Brown’s
last remark by saying, with marked emphasis on every syllable, ‘I
prefer Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boz.’
It is said—I won’t vouch for the fact—that Captain Brown was
heard to say, sotto voce, ‘D——n Dr. Johnson!’ If he did, he was
penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss
Jenkyns’s armchair, and endeavouring to beguile her into
conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was
inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have mentioned
about Miss Jessie’s dimples.
 t was impossible to live a month at Cranford and not know
the daily habits of each resident; and long before my visit
was ended I knew much concerning the whole Brown trio.
There was nothing new to be discovered respecting their
poverty; for they had spoken simply and openly about that
from the very first. They made no mystery of the necessity
for their being economical. All that remained to be
discovered was the Captain’s infinite kindness of heart, and
the various modes in which, unconsciously to himself, he manifested
it. Some little anecdotes were talked about for some time after they
occurred. As we did not read much, and as all the ladies were pretty
well suited with servants, there was a dearth of subjects for
conversation. We therefore discussed the circumstance of the
Captain taking a poor old woman’s dinner out of her hands one very
slippery Sunday. He had met her returning from the bakehouse as
he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing; and, with
the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved her of
her burden, and steered along the street by her side, carrying her
baked mutton and potatoes safely home. This was thought very
eccentric; and it was rather expected that he would pay a round of
calls, on the Monday morning, to explain and apologise to the
Cranford sense of propriety: but he did no such thing; and then it
was decided that he was ashamed, and was keeping out of sight. In
a kindly pity for him we began to say, ‘After all, the Sunday
morning’s occurrence showed great goodness of heart,’ and it was
resolved that he should be comforted on his next appearance
amongst us; but, lo! he came down upon us, untouched by any
sense of shame, speaking loud and bass as ever, his head thrown
back, his wig as jaunty and well-curled as usual, and we were
obliged to conclude he had forgotten all about Sunday.
 ‘Carrying her baked mutton and potatoes.’

Miss Pole and Miss Jessie Brown had set up a kind of intimacy on
the strength of the Shetland wool and the new knitting stitches; so it
happened that when I went to visit Miss Pole I saw more of the
Browns than I had done while staying with Miss Jenkyns, who had
never got over what she called Captain Brown’s disparaging remarks
upon Dr. Johnson as a writer of light and agreeable fiction. I found
that Miss Brown was seriously ill of some lingering incurable
complaint, the pain occasioned by which gave the uneasy expression
to her face that I had taken for unmitigated crossness. Cross, too,
she was at times, when the nervous irritability occasioned by her
disease became past endurance. Miss Jessie bore with her at these
times, even more patiently than she did with the bitter self-
upbraidings by which they were invariably succeeded. Miss Brown
used to accuse herself, not merely of hasty and irritable temper, but
also of being the cause why her father and sister were obliged to
pinch, in order to allow her the small luxuries which were
necessaries in her condition. She would so fain have made sacrifices
for them, and have lightened their cares, that the original generosity
of her disposition added acerbity to her temper. All this was borne by
Miss Jessie and her father with more than placidity—with absolute
tenderness. I forgave Miss Jessie her singing out of tune, and her
juvenility of dress, when I saw her at home. I came to perceive that
Captain Brown’s dark Brutus wig and padded coat (alas! too often
threadbare) were remnants of the military smartness of his youth,
which he now wore unconsciously. He was a man of infinite
resources, gained in his barrack experience. As he confessed, no one
could black his boots to please him except himself: but, indeed, he
was not above saving the little maidservant’s labours in every way—
knowing, most likely, that his daughter’s illness made the place a
hard one.
 ‘No one could black his boots except himself.’

He endeavoured to make peace with Miss Jenkyns, soon after the

memorable dispute I have named, by a present of a wooden fire-
shovel (his own making), having heard her say how much the
grating of an iron one annoyed her. She received the present with
cool gratitude, and thanked him formally. When he was gone, she
bade me put it away in the lumber-room; feeling, probably, that no
present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be
less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.
 ‘Miss Jenkyns.’

Such was the state of things when I left Cranford and went to
Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me au
fait as to the proceedings of the dear little town. There was Miss
Pole, who was becoming as much absorbed in crochet as she had
been once in knitting, and the burden of whose letter was something
like, ‘But don’t you forget the white worsted at Flint’s’ of the old
song; for at the end of every sentence of news came a fresh
direction as to some crochet commission which I was to execute for
her. Miss Matilda Jenkyns (who did not mind being called Miss Matty
when Miss Jenkyns was not by) wrote nice, kind, rambling letters,
now and then venturing into an opinion of her own; but suddenly
pulling herself up, and either begging me not to name what she had
said, as Deborah thought differently, and she knew, or else putting
in a postscript to the effect that, since writing the above, she had
been talking over the subject with Deborah, and was quite convinced
that, etc.—(here probably followed a recantation of every opinion
she had given in the letter). Then came Miss Jenkyns—Debōrah, as
she liked Miss Matty to call her, her father having once said that the
Hebrew name ought to be so pronounced. I secretly think she took
the Hebrew prophetess for a model in character; and, indeed, she
was not unlike the stern prophetess in some ways, making
allowance, of course, for modern customs and difference in dress.
Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and
altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although
she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to
men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior. But to return to
her letters. Everything in them was stately and grand, like herself. I
have been looking them over (dear Miss Jenkyns, how I honoured
her!), and I will give an extract, more especially because it relates to
our friend Captain Brown——
The Honourable Mrs. Jamieson has only just quitted me; and, in
the course of conversation, she communicated to me the intelligence
that she had yesterday received a call from her revered husband’s
quondam friend, Lord Mauleverer. You will not easily conjecture what
brought his lordship within the precincts of our little town. It was to
see Captain Brown, with whom, it appears, his lordship was
acquainted in the “plumed wars,” and who had the privilege of
averting destruction from his lordship’s head, when some great peril
was impending over it, off the misnomered Cape of Good Hope. You
know our friend the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson’s deficiency in the
spirit of innocent curiosity; and you will therefore not be so much
surprised when I tell you she was quite unable to disclose to me the
exact nature of the peril in question. I was anxious, I confess, to
ascertain in what manner Captain Brown, with his limited
establishment, could receive so distinguished a guest; and I
discovered that his lordship retired to rest, and, let us hope, to
refreshing slumbers, at the Angel Hotel; but shared the Brunonian
meals during the two days that he honoured Cranford with his
august presence. Mrs. Johnson, our civil butcher’s wife, informs me
that Miss Jessie purchased a leg of lamb; but, besides this, I can
hear of no preparation whatever to give a suitable reception to so
distinguished a visitor. Perhaps they entertained him with “the feast
of reason and the flow of soul”; and to us, who are acquainted with
Captain Brown’s sad want of relish for “the pure wells of English
undefiled,” it may be matter for congratulation that he has had the
opportunity of improving his taste by holding converse with an
elegant and refined member of the British aristocracy. But from
some mundane failings who is altogether free?’

‘One with whom his lordship held conversation.’

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