Now few such opportunities are left to men of his stamp, and
they are, perhaps as a consequence, dying out of an age which is
unsuited to them, and indeed to most strong growths of individual
character. It would be much easier to deal with a gentleman like the
Squire of this history if we could only reach down one of those suits
of armour from the walls of his vestibule, and put it on his back, and
take that long two-handled sword which last flashed on Flodden Field
from its resting-place beneath the clock, and at the end see him die
as a loyal knight should do in the forefront of his retainers, with
the old war cry of "/a Delamol--a Delamol/" upon his lips. As it is,
he is an aristocratic anachronism, an entity unfitted to deal with the
elements of our advanced and in some ways emasculated age. His body
should have been where his heart was--in the past. What chance have
such as he against the Quests of this polite era of political economy
and penny papers?
No wonder that Edward Cossey felt his inferiority to this symbol and
type of the things that no more are, yes even in the shadow of his
thirty thousand pounds. For here we have a different breed. Goldsmiths
two centuries ago, then bankers from generation to generation, money
bees seeking for wealth and counting it and hiving it from decade to
decade, till at last gold became to them what honour is to the nobler
stock--the pervading principle, and the clink of the guinea and the
rustling of the bank note stirred their blood as the clank of armed
men and the sound of the flapping banner with its three golden hawks
flaming in the sun, was wont to set the hearts of the race of Boissey,
of Dofferleigh and of de la Molle, beating to that tune to which
England marched on to win the world.
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