Her fortune,
independent by her father's bequest, was rendered
opulent by the death of more than one brave brother,
who fell successively in the service of their
@@@ 92
beside the gate, and acted as porter. To this office
he had been promoted by my friend's charitable
feelings for an old soldier, and partly by an idea,
that his bead, which was a very fine one, bore some
resemblance to that of Garrick in the character of
Lusignan. He was a man saturnine, silent, and
slow in his proceedings, and would never open the
_porte coch
re_ to a hackney coach; indicating the
wicket with his finger, as the proper passage for all
who came in that obscure vehicle, which was not
permitted to degrade with its ticketed presence the
dignity of Baliol's Lodging. I do not think this
peculiarity would have met with his lady's approbation,
any more than the occasional partiality of
Lusignan, or, as mortals called him, Archy Macready,
to a dram. But Mrs Martha Bethune Baliol,
conscious that, in case of conviction, she could
never have prevailed upon, herself to dethrone the
King of Palestine from the stone bench on which
he sat for hours, knitting his stocking, refused, by
accrediting the intelligence, even to put him upon
his trial; well judging that he would observe more
wholesome caution if he conceived his character
unsuspected, than if be were detected, and suffered
to pass unpunished.
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