’Twas an old family and a good one in the matter of lineage, but through the debaucheries of the last baronets its estates had become impoverished and its reputation of an ill savour.  It had ever been known as a family noted for the great physical strength and beauty of its men and women.  For centuries the men of the house of Wildairs had been the biggest and the handsomest in England.  They had massive frames, black eyes, thick hair and beards, and feared neither man nor devil, but openly defied both.  They were men who lived wildly, ate and drank hugely, pursued women, were great at all deeds of prowess, and bursting with rough health and lawless high spirits.  ’Twas a saying of their house that “a Wildairs who could not kill an ox with a blow and eat half of him when he was roasted, was a poor wight indeed.”  The present baronet, Sir Jeoffry, was of somewhat worse reputation than any Sir Jeoffry before him.  He lived a wild life in the country, rarely going up to town, as he was not fond of town manners and town customs, but liked better hunting, coursing, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and engaging in intrigues with dairy maids and the poppy-cheeked daughters of his cottagers.  He had married a sweet creature of fifteen, whom after their brief honeymoon he had neglected as such men neglect a woman, leaving her to break her heart and lose her bloom and beauty in her helpless mourning for his past passion for her.  He was at drawn swords with his next of kin, who despised him and his evil, rough living, and he had set his mind upon leaving sons enough to make sure his title should be borne only by his own offspring.  He being of this mind, ’twas not to be wondered at that he had no welcome for the daughters who should have pleased him by being sons.  When the first was born he flouted its mother bitterly, the poor young lady, who was but sixteen and a delicate creature, falling into a fit of illness through her grief and disappointment.  The coming of the second threw him into a rage, the third into a fury; and the birth of a fourth being announced, he stormed like a madman, would not look at it, and went upon a debauch so protracted and disgraceful as to be the scandal of the county and the subject of gossip for many a day.

From that hour the innocent Lady Wildairs did not raise her head.  Her family had rejected her on account of her marriage with a rake so unfashionable and of reputation so coarse.  Wildairs Hall, ill kept, and going to ruin through the wasteful living of its spendthrift master, was no place for such guests as were ladies and gentlemen.  The only visitors who frequented it were a dozen or so chosen spirits who shared Sir Jeoffry’s tastes—­hunted, drank, gambled with him, and were as loose livers as himself.  My Lady Wildairs, grown thin, yellow, and haggard, shrank into her own poor corner of the big house, a bare west wing where she bore her children in lonely suffering and saw them die, one after the other, two only having the strength to survive.  She was her lord’s hopeless slave, and at the same time the mere knowledge of her existence was an irritation to him, she being indeed regarded by him as a Sultan might regard the least fortunate of his harem.