"Come off her, my lord, for God's sake! | my Epictetus?" he asked himself, feeling Off with you!" cried Malcolm as he leaped in his coat-pocket." at her head. moment." "She'll be on her back in a He swung her toward him with all his strength, and just as his lordship fell off behind her she fell sideways to Malcolm and clear of Liftore. As Malcolm was on the side away from the little group, and their own horses were excited, those who had looked breathless on at the struggle could not tell how he had managed it, but when they expected to see the groom writhing under the weight of the demoness, there he was with his knee upon her head while Liftore was gathering himself up from the ground, only just beyond the reach of her iron-shod hoofs. "Thank God," said Florimel, "there is no harm done! - Well, have you had enough of her yet, Liftore?" 66 Pretty nearly, I think," said his lordship, with an attempt at a laugh as he walked rather feebly and foolishly toward his horse. He mounted with some difficulty and looked very pale. "I hope you're not much hurt," said Florimel kindly as she moved alongside of him. "Not in the least-only disgraced," he answered almost angrily. "The brute's a perfect Satan. You must part with her. With such a horse and such a groom you'll get yourself talked of all over London. I believe the fellow himself was at the bottom of it. You really must sell her." "I would, my lord, if you were my groom," answered Florimel, whom his accusation of Malcolm had filled with angry contempt; and she moved away toward the still prostrate mare. Malcolm was quietly seated on her head. She had ceased sprawling, and lay nearly motionless, but for the heaving of her sides with her huge inhalations. She knew from experience that struggling was useless. . "Do as you please," answered his mistress. "Let me see you when you get I should like to know you are home. safe." "Thank you, my lady: there's little fear of that," said Malcolm. Florimel returned to the gentlemen, and they rode homeward. On the way she said suddenly to the earl, "Can you tell me, Liftore, who Epictetus was?" "I'm sure I don't know," answered his lordship. "One of the old fellows." She turned to Lenorme. Happily, the Christian heathen was not altogether unknown to the painter. May I inquire why your ladyship asks?" he said when he had told all he could at the moment recollect. "Because," she answered, "I left my groom sitting on his horse's head reading Epictetus." "Ha! 66 By Jove!" exclaimed Liftore. ha! ha! In the original, I suppose!" "I don't doubt it," said Florimel. In about two hours Malcolm reported himself. Lord Liftore had gone home, they told him. The painter-fellow, as Wallis called him, had stayed to lunch, but was now gone also, and Lady Lossie was alone in the drawing-room. She sent for him. "I am glad to see you safe, MacPhail," she said. "It is clear your Kelpie don't be alarmed: I am not going to make you part with herbut it is clear she won't always do for you to attend me upon. Suppose now I wanted to dismount and make a call or go into a shop?" "There is a sort of friendship between your Abbot and her, my lady: she would stand all the better if I had him to hold." "Well, but how would you put me up again?" "I never thought of that, my lady. Of course I daren't let you come near Kelpie." 66 "Could you trust yourself to buy another horse to ride after me about town?" No, my lady, not without a ten days' trial. If lies stuck like London mud, there's many a horse would never be seen again. But there's Mr. Lenorme. If he would go with me, I fancy between us we could do pretty well." "Ah! a good idea!" returned his mistress. "But what makes you think of him?" she added, willing enough to talk about him. "The look of the gentleman and his horse together, and what I heard him That is no small privilege to one of his say," answered Malcolm. station." "What did you hear him say? "That he knew he had to treat horses something like human beings. I've often fancied, within the last few months, that God does with some people something like as I do with Kelpie.' "I know nothing about theology." "I don't fancy you do, my lady, but this concerns biography rather than theology. No one could tell what I meant except he had watched his own history and that of people he knew." "And horses too?" "The schoolmaster of Portlossie." "Is he in London, then?" "Yes, my lady. He believed too much to please the presbytery, and they turned him out." "I should like to see him. He was very attentive to my father on his deathbed." "Your ladyship will never know till you are dead yourself what Mr. Graham did for my lord." "What do you mean? What could he do for him?” "He helped him through sore trouble of mind, my lady." Florimel was silent for a little, then repeated, "I should like to see him. I ought to pay him some attention. Couldn't I make them give him his school again? "I don't know about that, my lady, but I am sure he would not take it against the will of the presbytery." "I should like to do something for him. Ask him to call." "If your ladyship lays your commands upon me," answered Malcolm: "otherwise I would rather not." "Why so, pray? " "Because except he can be of to you he will not come." any use "But I want to be of use to him." "How, if I may ask, my lady?" "That I can't exactly say on the spur of the moment. I must know the man first, especially if you are right in supposing he would not enjoy a victory over the presbytery. I should. He wouldn't take money, I fear." 66 Except it came of love or work, he would put it from him as he would brush the dust from his coat." "I could intr-duce him to good society. "He has more of that and better than your ladyship could give him. He holds company with Socrates and Saint Paul, and greater still." - "But they're not like living people." "Very like them, my lady; only far better company in general. But Mr. Graham would leave Plato.himself - yes, or Saint Paul either, though he were sitting beside him in the flesh- to go and help any old washerwoman that wanted him." "Then I want him." "No, my lady, you don't want him." If you did you would go to him." Florimel's eyes flashed and her pretty lip curled. She turned to her writingtable, annoyed with herself that she could not find a fitting word wherewith to rebuke his presumption— rudeness, was it not? - and a feeling of angry shame arose in her that she, the Marchioness of Lossie, had not dignity enough to prevent her own groom from treating her like a child. But he was far too valuable to quarrel with. She sat down and wrote a note. "There," she said, "take that note to Mr. Lenorme. I have asked him to help you in the choice of a horse." "What price would you be willing to go to, my lady?" - "I leave that to Mr. Lenorme's judg ment and your own," she added. "Thank you, my lady,” said Malcolm, and was leaving the room when Florimel called him back. "Next time you see Mr. Graham," she said, "give him my compliments, and ask him if I can be of any service to him." "I'll do that, my lady: I am sure he will take it very kindly."" Florimel made no answer, and Malcolm went to find the painter. been put into the mouth of a certain man, suggestion that a knight who had passed his word could ever break it. When reproached with his repeated breaches of his promises to the nation which had saved his crown for him, he answered that no man could keep all his promises. But this one class of promises, promises made in the character of knight and gentleman, Rufus always did keep. The popular conception of his character leaves out this side, the chivalrous side of it, just as the popular conception of Francis the First dwells mainly on the chivalrous side of his character, and puts out of sight its genIt would perhaps have been possible to eral blackness both as a man and as a go back to an earlier period of history for king. Francis is rather a popular characanother example of the same difficulty. ter with ordinary readers of history, while What can be the nature, what can be the Rufus is certainly the opposite. value, of that kind of virtue, that form of Rufus in his own day seems to have had good faith, which was systematically prac- to some extent the same reputation as tised by William Rufus? Perhaps William Francis. Men who condemned his private Rufus would not be so easily accepted as and public crimes still half admired the Francis the First as the type of the honor- quality which in his own day was called able or chivalrous character. William bis magnanimity. The difference between Rufus stands out in popular conception, as the lasting reputation of the two kings is he does also in sober truth, as one of the probably owing to the different relations most hateful characters in English or in in which each of them stood to the reany other history. He stands out as the ceived religion of his time. Francis, in oath-breaker, the treaty-breaker, the man the eyes of many of his contemporaries, given up to the foulest vices, the general half atoned for his crimes and vices by the oppressor of every class, the man who, merit of his religious persecutions. Rufus without a sign of intellectual scepticism, added to his crimes and vices a form of delighted to proclaim himself as the enemy irreligion which was almost peculiar to and the blasphemer of the God in whom himself. Again, in doing wrong to all he had not ceased to believe. Such is the classes, he did wrong to churchmen, also, common conception of the Red King; and and churchmen had, in his age, the best it is a conception which, as far as it goes, means of making their wrongs known to is fully borne out by the facts of his his- the world. That Francis was a patron of tory. But this side of him does not make art and literature, while Rufus bears no up the whole man. Besides the fact that such character, is a difference in the times William Rufus was, whenever he chose to rather than in the men. The builder of be either, not only a great captain but a the first Hall of Westminster was a patron great ruler, there is also some reason for of art, as art was understood in his time. looking on him as the first recorded gen- As for literature, while in the days of tleman. He is certainly the first recorded Francis its patronage was the fashion man by whom the doctrines of honor and among kings and princes, in the days of chivalry are constantly and ostentatiously Rufus the learned Henry stood out as put forward as his ruling principles of something without a parallel in western action. When we look more narrowly Europe. Altogether, allowing for the difinto the actions of the Red King, we see ference of their times, the two men were that they were guided by a law, though perhaps not quite so unlike as they seem that law was neither the law of God nor at first sight. And in the point with which the law of his kingdom. The law of Rufus I am now chiefly concerned they stand or was the law of the knight and gentleman, fall together. Each is a type of the man the law of honor. Reckless both of justice who has the formule of honor and chivand of mercy, he was quite capable of gen-alry on his lips. From their examples we erosity. Reckless of his oaths to his peo- may perhaps learn what honor and chivalry ple and of his treaties with princes, when are really worth. he pledged his word as "probus miles"as an officer and a gentleman then he kept it faithfully. He not only kept it himself, but he cast aside with scorn the 66 What then is the real nature of the qual ities called honor and chivalry? What is the real character of the knight or gentleman, who makes honor or chivalry his rule www of actions? One thing strikes us at first sight, that the word "honor" and the word "gentleman " have both of them acquired rather singular secondary meanings. Honor is primarily the tribute of respect which man receives from others. In its secondary sense, it has come to mean a rule by which a man guides his own actions, even when those actions are not likely to bring him any honor. We should perhaps look on conduct as specially honorable, if it was done with a certainty that it could never be known, and therefore could never be honored. Again, with regard to the man who is supposed to have a special regard for honor, the knight or in more modern language the gentleman, it is singular that a word which in itself simply means a certain social rank should have come to be so completely identified with certain moral or quasi-moral qualities. In itself, to say that a man is no gentleman is no more of an insult than to say that he is no nobleman. Both propositions might equally express an undoubted fact as to a man's rank in life. Yet there is probably no one, however lowly his rank, who would not think himself insulted if he were told that he was no gentleman. But to call a man by way of insult no nobleman, would be so purely meaningless that the phrase has most likely never been used by any one to any one. almost irrespective of rank, if it had not in its first use simply expressed rank, if it had not at the beginning marked out men of a certain rank as the exclusive possessors of certain qualities. If a tinker shows delicacy of feeling, or any of the other qualities which are supposed to distinguish the gentleman, and on the strength of it the tinker is pronounced to be a gentleman by nature, those who use such a phrase most likely take credit to themselves for altogether ignoring artificial ranks. And so, in their own feelings for the moment, they very possibly do. But the form of words which they use is none the less the strongest possible witness to the strictest theory of artificial ranks. To say that the tinker is a gentleman by nature implies a certain degree of surprise that the conduct by which he earns that name should be found in any one who is not a gentleman by rank. I have not the least doubt that not a few people will at once cry out at this way of putting the matter. They will say that what they mean by a gentleman is something irrespective of birth or rank. They will say that many a man who is not a gentleman by birth or rank is a gentleman by conduct, and that many a man who is a gentleman by birth or rank is not a gentleman by conduct. They do not see that Both these usages of language are in- such a way of speaking is the best proof structive. They are far more than mere of the truth of what I am saying. The caprices. It is quite certain that many ideal gentleman by conduct, though he people, when they speak of honor as a may not in every case coincide with the rule of action, have no thought at all of gentleman by rank, yet assumes the genreceiving honor as a reward for honorable tleman by rank as his starting-point. He actions. It is quite certain that, in the is what the gentleman by rank is not aluse of the word "gentleman," the notion ways, but what he always ought to be. of mere social rank is often quite forgot- He is what the gentleman by rank ought ten. Men will often say, by way of praise, to be, not in the character of an honest of a man who is not a gentleman by rank, man, a pious Christian, a good citizen, or that his conduct is that of a gentleman. any other, but distinctly in his character They will call him one of "nature's gen- of gentleman. The more people try by tlemen" and the like. The point which is using this kind of language to wipe out really instructive is that words can be the distinction, the more they assert the used in this kind of way. Words often distinction, the more they assume the gendepart widely from the etymological mean- tleman by rank as a standard of conduct. ings with which they started; but they That is to say, they set up a certain artificommonly still carry some trace of those cial rank as a model, as a type—at least etymological meanings about them. "Hon- a probable type — of certain qualities, to or" could never have come to be spoken which men of other ranks are honored by of as a rule of conduct, or rule of conduct being compared. They would see the which, in particular cases, often puts the absurdity of saying that a man acted like opinion of others out of sight, unless that a duke, earl, baron, or baronet, because rule of conduct had been first of all defined duke, earl, baron, and baronet are conby the opinion of others, and by the honor fessedly mere artificial ranks. But "genwhich others were likely to pay to those tleman" is in its origin as purely an arti who acted according to that opinion. ficial rank as any of the others. Only, as it "Gentleman" could never get a meaning | happens to be the rank which includes all the others, it is the one which has been | ious belief. But they all agree in this, taken as a standard. We do not say that that none of them has any reference to a man acts as a duke or a baronet, be- exclusive artificial rank. Each name may cause dukes and baronets are only varie- with equal ease belong to the highest or ties of the larger class of gentlemen, and to the lowest rank. Our duke and our it is in their general character of gentle- tinker may either of them be honest man, men that they are all expected to act. good citizen, or good Christian, as either of, them may be the opposite. And in applying those names to either of them, there is no paradox, no second intention, nothing of that peculiar kind of meaning which is implied if we say that a particu lar duke is not a gentleman or that a particular tinker is. It is then, I say, the artificial rank of gentleman, the rank which includes all higher artificial ranks, which is taken by a large class of people as setting the standard of conduct. Every man of that rank is expected as a matter of course to act in a particular way. If any man of lower rank acts in the same way, it is a kind of work of supererogation for which he deserves the special honor of being compared to the favored rank, perhaps of being deemed to be personally raised to it. It makes no difference that the artificial rank of gentleman is not so easy to be defined now as it once was. Defined or undefined, it is still assumed, assumed as a certain quasi-moral standard. Frank Gresham, the honest young squire in Mr. Trollope's novel, is most characteristically made to say of the overbearing peer, "Were he ten times Duke of Omnium, he cannot be more than a gentleman, and, as a gentleman, I am his equal." Frank Gresham, in such a state of mind, might well have gone on to say that some dukes were not gentlemen, and that many men below his own class of squire were gentlemen. And such language might sound, and might be meant to sound, as not a little levelling. In truth no language is more oligarchic and exclusive. A certain artificial rank, whether that of duke or simple gentleman does not matter, is set up as a quasi-moral standard. If any others who do not belong to that artificial rank are thought to have reached its standard of conduct, their highest reward is to be received as its adopted members. No way of speaking more distinctly starts from the exclusive standing-ground of an artificial class. 66 66 Now if for "gentleman we substitute any such form of words as "honest man," good citizen," loyal subject,' "good Christian," or "good Mussulman," we at once find ourselves in another range of ideas. These various formulæ have important differences among themselves; but they have one great point of at least negative agreement. None indeed but the first simply contemplates man as man; all the rest contemplate man as a member of some political or religious society, bound to other members of that society by common political allegiance or common relig All this leads us up to the fact that there are at least four distinct standards of human conduct, four distinct ways of looking at human actions with the object of praise or blame. I do not mean that all four are always kept distinct in practice. On the contrary, in a great many cases all four prescribe exactly the same line of conduct, and a man may often be sorely puzzled to say which he has followed as his own guide in any particular case. Of these four standards - I am far from saying that there may not be more than four; but these four they certainly arefirst is that of abstract morality, the doing or abstaining from a thing simply because it is right or wrong in itself, without regard to any law or sanction of any kind. Questions as to the origin of moral sentiments, whether they are innate or revealed or the growth of hereditary habit, do not concern me here. It is enough for my purpose that we have moral sentiments, however we came by them. It is enough that, as a matter of fact, men do sometimes act from a conviction that such a course is right or wrong in itself, without thinking either of the law of the land or of the law of God or of the opinion of other people. To conduct coming under this head, conduct of which abstract right and wrong is the standard, we properly apply such words as virtuous, moral, honest,* and the like. The outward acts may be exactly the same as those which one or more of the other standards would have prescribed; but the motive is different. By virtuous conduct, as we mean something which has no reference whatever to the opinion of others, so we mean some * Etymologically "honest" and "honorable" are the same thing. Both came from honor, and that, And in the philologers tell us, is the same as onus. English of a few centuries back, the use of the two words was not so distinct as it is now. But in modern usage it is plain that the two words have quite different standards of action according to the division which I meanings, and that they severally belong to distinct have laid down. |