In the least thing as well as in the greatest, in every province of
life as well as in her novels, she displayed the same capacity of
taking infinite pains, which descended to her son. When she was
about forty (as near as her age was known) she lost her voice; set
herself at once to learn the piano, working eight hours a day; and
attained to such proficiency that her collaboration in chamber
music was courted by professionals. 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.
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