And more than twenty years
later, the old lady might have been seen dauntlessly beginning the
study of Hebrew. This is the more ethereal part of courage; nor
was she wanting in the more material. Once when a neighbouring
groom, a married man, had seduced her maid, Mrs. Jenkin mounted her
horse, rode over to the stable entrance and horsewhipped the man
with her own hand.
How a match came about between this talented and spirited girl and
the young midshipman, is not very I easy to conceive. Charles
Jenkin was one of the finest creatures breathing; loyalty,
devotion, simple natural piety, boyish cheerfulness, tender and
manly sentiment in the old sailor fashion, were in him inherent and
inextinguishable either by age, suffering, or injustice. He
looked, as he was, every inch a gentleman; he must have been
everywhere notable, even among handsome men, both for his face and
his gallant bearing; not so much that of a sailor, you would have
said, as like one of those gentle and graceful soldiers that, to
this day, are the most pleasant of Englishmen to see.
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