On the other hand, his admiration of her devotedness to Dr. Shrapnel was unbounded.  There shone a strictly feminine quality! according to the romantic visions of the sex entertained by Commander Beauchamp, and by others who would be the objects of it.  But not alone the passive virtues were exhibited by Jenny Denham:  she proved that she had high courage.  No remonstrance could restrain Dr. Shrapnel from going out to watch the struggle, and she went with him as a matter of course on each occasion.  Her dress bore witness to her running the gauntlet beside him.

‘It was not thrown at me purposely,’ she said, to quiet Beauchamp’s wrath.  She saved the doctor from being rough mobbed.  Once when they were surrounded she fastened his arm under hers, and by simply moving on with an unswerving air of serenity obtained a passage for him.  So much did she make herself respected, that the gallant rascals became emulous in dexterity to avoid powdering her, by loudly execrating any but dead shots at the detested one, and certain boys were maltreated for an ardour involving clumsiness.  A young genius of this horde conceiving, in the spirit of the inventors of our improved modern ordnance, that it was vain to cast missiles which left a thing standing, hurled a stone wrapped in paper.  It missed its mark.  Jenny said nothing about it.  The day closed with a comfortable fight or two in by-quarters of the town, probably to prove that an undaunted English spirit, spite of fickle Fortune, survived in our muscles.

CHAPTER XXVIII

TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY’S HEART AND HER INTELLECT

Mr. Tuckham found his way to Dr. Shrapnel’s cottage to see his kinsman on the day after the election.  There was a dinner in honour of the Members for Bevisham at Mount Laurels in the evening, and he was five minutes behind military time when he entered the restive drawing-room and stood before the colonel.  No sooner had he stated that he had been under the roof of Dr. Shrapnel, than his unpunctuality was immediately overlooked in the burst of impatience evoked by the name.

‘That pestilent fellow!’ Colonel Halkett ejaculated.  ’I understand he has had the impudence to serve a notice on Grancey Lespel about encroachments on common land.’

Some one described Dr. Shrapnel’s appearance under the flour storm.

‘He deserves anything,’ said the colonel, consulting his mantelpiece clock.

Captain Baskelett observed:  ’I shall have my account to settle with Dr. Shrapnel.’  He spoke like a man having a right to be indignant, but excepting that the doctor had bestowed nicknames upon him in a speech at a meeting, no one could discover the grounds for it.  He nodded briefly.  A Radical apple had struck him on the left cheekbone as he performed his triumphal drive through the town, and a slight disfigurement remained, to which his hand was applied sympathetically at intervals, for the cheek-bone was prominent in his countenance, and did not well bear enlargement.  And when a fortunate gentleman, desiring to be still more fortunate, would display the winning amiability of his character, distension of one cheek gives him an afflictingly false look of sweetness.