father was with those of the country. And in dress, manner, conversation, and tone they marked the difference between themselves and him as ostentatiously as possible. [28] Thus, while the squire wore the old-fashioned Ramillies wig, with its bush of powdered hair at the sides, and long pigtail tied at the top and bottom with black ribbon, and the loosely-fitting scarlet coat which he had worn for any number of years, his good wife and two round-faced, simpering daughters were all attired in the latest modes of the town. They all three wore the loose sacque or negligee, which was then the height of fashion; they tottered about in slim-heeled shoes, under huge hoops which swayed as they walked; while their hair was all dressed in the same way—knotted up tightly under the smallest and closest of caps, making their heads look singularly small and mean, when compared with the enormous width of their distended skirts. They all seemed the most amiable of living creatures; and Lieutenant Tregenna found at last the sympathy he wanted when he expressed that horror and hatred of smugglers which was at present the ruling passion of his mind. The[29] squire had left him with the ladies, and he had been entertaining them with an account of the adventure of the preceding night. [29] “And I can assure you, madam,” he said to his hostess, when they had hung attentively on his words, and cried, “Wretch!” “Villains!” “How monstrous shocking!” at appropriate intervals, “that so deep-rooted has this evil become, that even the parson and his young daughter appeared to grieve more for the smuggler whom I wounded than they did for the poor fellow whom the ruffians shot!” “His daughter! Oh, do you mean Mistress Joan?” said Mrs. Waldron, pursing her mouth a little. “Sure, sir, what would you expect from a country-bred wench like that, who tramps the villages and moors with her father like a man, and is almost as much among these fearsome wretches, the smugglers, as if she were their own kin?” “Oh, la, sir; you must know they call her ‘the curate,’” cried one of the young ladies, tittering, and looking languishingly at the visitor out of her little pink-rimmed eyes with the whitish eyelashes; “for she’s quite as useful in his parish as he is.” [30] [30] “And
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