The children of Sir Joshua Walmsley – a revised version

This post seems to be getting rather more interest, and it is probably time to re-visit and revise it. It was published almost two years ago at the start of the whole thing. The original information came from a  website called http://www.researchers.plus.com which is now, I think, rather moribund. Some of the information was a useful spur, some was a distraction, and some just needs more verification before it can be taken as solid fact. So this is a recent update and addition to the original from November 2016.

 

So lets start with some basics. Joshua Walmsley married Adeline Mulleneux at St. James’ church in Toxteth on the 24th June 1815, six days after the battle of Waterloo. They had eight children, five girls and three boys.

• Elizabeth Walmsley b. 1817 – d. bef 1861
• Joshua Walmsley II b. 1819 – d. 1872
• Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley b. 1822 – d. 1881
• Adeline Walmsley b 1824 – d. 1842 – died aged 18.
• James Mulleneux Walmsley b. 1826 – d. 1867
• Emily Walmsley b. 1830 – 1919
• Mary Walmsley b. 1832 –  d. bef.1851
• Adah Walmsley b. 1839 – 1876

 

The eldest child,  Elizabeth married Charles Binns (1815 – 1887) in 1839. Charles was the son of Jonathan Binns, a Liverpool-born land agent and surveyor living in Lancaster. The Binns were a fairly prominent Quaker family; Jonathan Binns was a Poor Law commissioner who did a survey of Ireland in 1835 and 1836 which was both insightful, and rather heart-breaking. His father Dr Jonathan Binns was an early slavery abolitionist, and later headmaster of the Quaker boarding school at Ackworth in Yorkshire.  Charles was George Stephenson’s private secretary, and later manager of the coal mines and ironworks at Clay Cross, Derbyshire, which had been established by George Stephenson, and of which Sir Joshua Walmsley was a co-owner and director.  The family connection with Clay Cross continued for almost a hundred years. Charles and Elizabeth had four children, all girls; but Elizabeth seems to have died in the early 1850s. Charles remarried in 1871, and died in 1887.   Emily Rachel Binns, Elizabeth and Charles’s youngest daughter married Samuel Rickman. Her first cousin Adah Russell, the daughter of Adah Williams [neé Walmsley] had married Charles Russell who was a prominent London solicitor, the son of the Lord Chief Justice, and the brother and uncle of two more Law Lords.

Much less is known about Sir Joshua’s eldest son Joshua Walmsley II (1819-1872). He seems to have joined the Army, attaining the rank of captain. He lived in southern Africa for many years and served as a border agent in Natal on the Zulu frontier. He crops up as a peripheral character  in some of the accounts of the British dealings with the Zulus, particularly the Battle of Ndondakasuka – 1856, and he employed a very strange man called John Dunn as a translator in his dealings with the Zulus. In the aftermath of the battle, the young Zulu King Cetshwayo was so impressed by the equally youthful John Dunn’s conduct in the midst of Zulu internecine clan bloodletting, that he invited the Scot [Dunn]  to become his secretary and diplomatic adviser. Cetshwayo rewarded Dunn with traditional gifts of a chieftainship, land, cattle and two Zulu virgins to be his wives. This last gift greatly upset Catherine, Dunn’s 15-year-old mixed-race wife. But it did not deter him from taking at least another 46 Zulu wives. By some unofficial accounts, Dunn fathered 131 children by 65 wives, though his will records only 49 wives and 117 offspring. Catherine retained the title of “Great Wife”, giving her the privilege of being the only wife allowed to enter his presence unannounced.  How, and why he [Joshua] went to South Africa is still unknown, but the Army, and then colonial service, was probably regarded as a step up from trade. It may well also have helped escape the shadow of his father.

He was buried at St Mary’s, Edge Hill [the same cemetery as his brothers, sisters, parents, and a large numbers of the Mulleneux family including his maternal grandparents]  in Liverpool on 14th December 1872, having died at “Chantilly, Zulu Frontier, in South Africa” on 20th April the same year. He left his widow £2,000, so a fairly respectable amount of money.

Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley (1822-1882) also joined the Army. He served time with the 25^th Bengal Native Infantry, and then volunteered to join the Bashi Bazouks, which was a semi-mercenary Ottoman force – the name literally translates as “crazy-heads”. The Bashi Bazouks mainly recruited Albanians, Bulgarians, and Kurds, and had a reputation for bravery, savagery and indiscipline. They weren’t salaried and relied on looting for pay. In due course he rose to the Ottoman rank of colonel, and described himself as such in the 1871 census ” Ret. Colonel Ottoman Ind. Corps, late 65th Foot [ie. a British regiment]”. So it doesn’t appear to be something he was ashamed of.  On his return to England sometime in the 1850s he started to write. The books included several describing his own military service, a biography of his late father and also some adventure novels including The Ruined Cities of Zulu Land based on Josh junior’s travels. He married Angelina Skey (b 1826) in 1870 and moved to Hampshire close to his parents.  He too was buried at St Mary’s, Edge Hill in Liverpool, along with large numbers of the family, on 12th December 1881. His burial record states he died at ” St. André “ in France, which could be any one of thirty-plus places.

The next child is another Adeline Walmsley (1824-1842), this is the second daughter born in 1824, in Liverpool. All the children are named either after their parents or grandparents, or other family members. Elizabeth is easy, named after both their  mothers, this Adeline was named after her own mother. Joshua II, Hugh, and James are named after father, grandfather, and uncle respectively. There is very little to be known about this Adeline, she appears on the 1841 census when the family have moved out of Liverpool to Wavertree Hall, then in a country village outside the city. Her death is recorded  in the autumn of 1842 in Staffordshire, just as the family had moved to Ranton Hall in Staffordshire

James Mulleneux Walmsley (1826-1867), by contrast to his brothers became a civil engineer.James aged 15 is shown at home at Wavertree Hall in 1841.  In the 1851 census, he was lodging and working in Derbyshire. He was at  Egstow House, very close to Clay Cross, suggesting he was involved with the family mining and ironworks business. His brother-in-law Charles Binns [Elizabeth’s husband] and family were already there living at Clay Cross Hall about a mile away. Ten years later, he is living with his parents, and two youngest sisters at Wolverton Park, in Hampshire.   He died on December 6th, 1867 aged 41 and was buried on December 12th with his sisters [Adeline, and Mary] at St Mary’s, Edge Hill. He died in Torquay. James was unmarried, and his addresses for probate were given as 101 Westbourne Terrace, and also Wolverton Park, Hampshire, both his father’s houses, and “latterly of Torquay, Devon”. Probate was granted to his father’s executors because Sir Josh was the “Universal Legatee”. It wasn’t granted until 1874, about three years after Sir Josh’s death in 1871. James left  a fairly respectable  £2,000.

Emily (1830 -1919) the third daughter, in contrast to James lived until almost 90, and was a widow for almost forty years. She was the second wife of William Ballantyne Hodgson (1815-1880), who was a Scottish educational reformer and political economist, even though he spent more of his time working in England. In 1839, Hodgson was employed at the new Mechanics’ Institution (later Liverpool Institute) just before Sir Joshua became mayor, and went on to become its Principal. He married Emily in 1863 and they mostly lived in London till Hodgson was appointed the first Professor of Political Economy in Edinburgh University in 1871. After he died in 1880, Emily stayed on in Edinburgh with their  children, it’s not entirely sure how many. The Dictionary of National Biography says two sons and two daughters, however I can only find Alexander Ireland Hodgson (1874-1958) and Lucy Walmsley Hodgson (1867-1931)

The youngest daughter Adah (b 1839) married a Welsh banker, William Williams, in 1866. They went to live in Merionethshire and had at least two daughters. Adah possibly died as early as 1876. Their daughter Adah Adeline Walmsley Williams (1867–1959) married Charles Russell in 1889. Charles Russell was a solicitor who worked for the Marquis of Queensbury during his libel case with Oscar Wilde. Charles Russell’s father was Lord Chief Justice between 1894 and 1900. The first Catholic to hold the office for centuries. Charles Russell was made a baronet in 1916, and then got the K.C.V.O in 1921, so I suppose that technically he was Sir Sir Charles, and Adah was Lady Russell twice over. Charles’ baronetcy was inherited by their nephew Alec Russell because he [Charles] had arranged a special remainder allowing it to be inherited by male heirs of his father. A nicely lawyerly touch given that he and Adah had a daughter, and by the time he was made a baronet it was extremely unlikely they would have a son. Adah was 49 at the time. But even better, because their daughter Monica married her cousin Alec, she, Monica, became Lady Russell as well because her husband inherited her father’s baronetcy

Gwendoline Walmsley Williams, her sister, married Denis Kane in 1897. He was an Army officer; the wedding was ” hastened owing to Mr. Kane’s being ordered to join his regiment at once in the Tirah Field Force on the Indian frontier. ” He survived that but died about a year later playing polo in India.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV.  This all takes place between 1816 – 1819.

The young couple took a house in Gloucester Street, at a rental of seventeen pounds per annum; the furnishing of which proved no easy matter, but by his old age there was no greater delight to Sir Joshua than the retrospect of these happy days, to tell of their many straits, and the difficulty they had to make the two ends meet, of their various vicissitudes and unvarying affection.

It was a time when the bare necessaries of life were hard to get, for the harvest of 1816 proved the worst England had known for years. The Corn Laws of 1815, prohibiting the importation of grain until homegrown wheat had reached eighty shillings per quarter, increased the distress. Misery was widespread over the country ; in Liverpool we find twenty thousand persons depending upon parish relief for support, and to feed this starving multitude the rate of one shilling and threepence levied upon the pound. As it inevitably happens, the heaviest burden fell upon small incomes, and accordingly it became imperative upon Mr. Walmsley to devise some means by which to increase his.

“My first resolve,” he says, ” was that my duty to my employers should not be interfered with, nor the time I owed them encroached upon. To solve this problem of reconciling the two conflicting interests seemed no easy matter, yet it was not long before I hit upon a plan, and I set to work at once. At the county markets, of which Warrington and Manchester were the principal, I was getting well known. My discrimination in grain had earned me a reputation. I now determined to try some modest speculations on my own account. I therefore bought small packets of rice, arrowroot, Indian corn, and disposed of them at those markets. My plan succeeded beyond my expectations. It saved us from penury. Those small speculations in grain succeeded so well in the county markets that I took a room, or rather a barn, in South John Street. There, in the early morning, I weighed out my packages and carried them to their various destinations. I was never a moment behind time at Messrs. Carter and Piers’ office, although before this regular business hour I had often done a hard morning’s work. I never slackened my energy in my employers’ interest, and in the early hours I was earning more than double the salary they allowed me. Thanks to Peter Evans’ training, on the Corn Exchange I was recognised as a first-rate judge of cereals. By plunging my hand into a sack, I could recognise by the touch alone the quality and kind of grain it contained.”

Queens Dock, Liverpool

To this period belongs an incident which Sir Joshua often related :

“ One morning, very early,” he said, ” I issued out of my modest warehouse, carrying a heavy bag of rice on my back. It was destined for Mr. Harrison, a ship-biscuit baker, residing close to the dock. The percentage on it would be barely two shillings. I quietly wended my way — few passengers being in the streets as yet — when suddenly on approaching Queen’s Dock, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of porters, shaking their fists in my face, yelling that I was encroaching on their rights, that I was taking the bread out of their mouths. They threatened to throw me and my bag into the river. The crowd of furious men was swelling. The expression of their faces, their gestures, told me that the execution of their threat was imminent. No help could be looked for from the ‘ Old Charlies.’  For one moment I was startled, then I leaned my back and my bag up against a wall. I shouted at the top of my voice, bidding them be still. I told them, I too was poor, poor as the poorest of them. I was the last who would encroach upon the poor man’s rights, but I claimed that right for myself — the right to earn honestly what lay in my power. I told them what percentage this bag of rice would bring me, scarce enough to pay one of them to carry it to its destination ; and this I could not give, for it would be the price of my dinner.”

“The words appealed to the men’s sense of fair play, and their yells were turned to cheers. When I moved on they walked behind me in procession, hurrahing lustily. Mr. Harrison, attracted by the noise, came to his door to ascertain its cause. He was not a little astonished to see his expected rice-dealer coming towards him, his bag hoisted on his back, surrounded by a cheering crew of dock-porters. He could scarcely believe his eyes, but when I told him the story of that morning’s adventure, he offered there and then to take me into partnership. The days of my apprenticeship however not being ended, I could not accept his offer.”

Circumstances were brightening in the little household in Gloucester Street When, after two years, the eldest son was born, [Again this is a little hazy with the facts, Joshua Walmsley II was born in 1819, four years after the marriage, and Elizabeth Walmsley, the eldest daughter was almost two.] Mr. Mulleneux, who had been watching his son-in-law’s career, forgave the two offenders. His daughter’s husband might be poor, but he was made of the right stuff; his principles and aims were upright and manly, and his determination to carry them out indomitable.

The following is the account Sir Joshua gives of his coach-travelling days, as Messrs. Carter and Piers’ salesman :

” The speed at which coaches travelled now was very different from the slow old days of my childhood. Once I remember having left Liverpool at seven in the morning, breakfasting at Prescott, dining at Warrington, taking tea at Hallam’s Green, eating Eccles cakes at Eccles, and reaching Manchester at eight. The thirty-six miles had taken thirteen hours to perform. Now the thirty -six miles were accomplished within three hours and a half. Travelling had become safe too. Highwaymen were almost an extinct race. During the time I travelled thrice weekly between Liverpool, Warrington, and Manchester, there was but one coach robbery on record, and by a sort of poetic justice the robbed man was himself his employer’s robber. The hours of travel we often spent in playing whist. There was a Quaker whose name was well known in Liverpool, a worthy member of the Society of Friends. He often travelled down by the Warrington coach, or in the gig. He did not play whist himself, but he lent his great- coat to be spread on the players’ knees to form a temporary table. He also held the candle for them when it was too dark to distinguish hands. With unaccountable interest he watched the game, and often when I was about to play a wrong card he would jog my elbow, a hint I always followed.”

Mr. Walmsley had long been following with keen interest the progress of steam navigation. He foresaw that this marvellous propelling power would usher in a new era in commerce. Men’s minds were divided on the subject, some holding the expectation of any great change for the better resulting from it to be visionary, whilst others watched and half believed.

Mr. Egerton Smith, in the columns of The Liverpool Mercury, strenuously advocated the use of steam to tow sailing-vessels out to sea. Pointing to the ruinous delay caused to merchants by the prevalence of north-west winds off the coast, detaining whole fleets for weeks in the Mersey, he urged that by the use of steam they might be towed out and go on their way, and also that during calms the river and docks might be relieved from momentary pressure.

Gradually he went further and collected evidence to prove how steam might be applied to sea-going ships.

” The famous Dr. Lardner vigorously opposed the idea. He admitted that on the calm waters of the great American rivers it might work, but to apply it to ocean-going ships was insanity. At a lecture, to which I listened with breathless attention, the doctor laughed to scorn the notion of steam as an ocean- going motive power. He stated boldly and decisively that not only was it an impossibility, but that it would ever remain so, that no vessel ever could cross the Atlantic and carry her own coal. This he theoretically demonstrated to the satisfaction of his hearers and himself. On the 30th June, 1815, I formed a unit in a great crowd assembled on the frontage towards the river. About noon of that day arrived the first steamboat ever seen on the Mersey. I shall never forget my emotion as I watched the strange ship ploughing the waters, and sending puffs of smoke upwards in the air.”

Beaumaris and the Menai Straights

He records his first trip in a steamer :

“ One of the first steamships seen on the Mersey was placed at the disposal of the mayor, Jonathan Hollinghead, and the municipality, in order that by means of a short trip to Beaumaris and back they might satisfy themselves of the practicability of steam as a motive power. A ticket was offered me, and I gladly availed myself of it. It was a glorious day, but just sufficient sea on to make the plunging of the vessel testify to the power of the engine. The destination was reached in safety, and the mayor and his guests landed, visited this lovely and romantic spot, then once more embarked, and the St. George steamed out of the little harbour amid the wild cheers of the inhabitants, who crowded the shore to behold the crowning wonder of the age. The afternoon sun was shining brightly, the sea had gone down. On deck a bounteous repast was laid, the host’s jovial merriment communicating itself to all his guests. Presently two Manx herring-boats were seen luffing up into the wind, their sails shivering to slacken their way, in order that the fishermen might gaze on a vessel advancing without sails. Willing to gratify them, the captain slackened speed, and the St. George steered right between the two tiny craft. The boats, as it neared them, both filled and stood on the same tack. The breeze was fair, and they easily kept way with the steamer, one to starboard, the other to port. Suddenly, one of our party seized an apple and flung it at one of the fishermen. Another and another followed, then a volley, and the mania spreading, apples, oranges, cakes were thrown in a perfect storm. It was the broadside of the ship-of-war together with the file-firing of the marines. The mayor forgot his dignity and shouted with glee. Aldermen and common-councilmen grew young again, and grave grey-haired men pelted and shouted like children. A moment the fishermen were staggered and utterly bewildered, then with a howl of vengeance, they seized upon their finny prey, and the air grew dark with herrings. They fell in showers upon the assailants, the deck was slippery with them, the table was covered with them, still on they came, thicker and faster.

‘Go ahead full steam !’ shouted the captain, and the St. George obeyed, drawing out of Herring reach, while the mayor gave a parting cheer, and hurled his hat in defiance in the direction of the Manxmen, whose responding shouts were heard as the lost hat bobbed up and down on the waves.”

Thus a naval encounter marked Mr. Walmsley’s first trip to sea.

The time of his apprenticeship now approached its close. He could choose his future path. Messrs. Carter and Piers offered him a liberal salary to remain. Mr. Harrison was ready to take him into partnership. There was a third opening for him : Mr. Booth, a gentleman he had often travelled with, who had begun business two years before, also offered to make him his partner. It had often occurred to Mr. Walmsley that a first-rate and secure business might be got together in the corn trade by buying brokers. Mr. Booth agreed to the plan, and Mr. Walmsley closed with the offer. His reputation at the different markets, his knowledge of all his future customers, had formed for him an extensive commercial acquaintance, and he felt sure of success.

The life of Sir Joshua Walmsley – Chapter III

CHAPTER III. – This is 1815. On Saturday 24th June, six days after the Battle of Waterloo Joshua Walmsley and Adeline Mulleneux got married at St. James’ church in Toxteth. He was twenty-one years old, she was nineteen. It’s not quite the romantic tale uncle Hugh tells us below. As can be seen from the marriage register, it was a conventional marriage, the banns would have been read aloud on three Sundays before the wedding ceremony, and not a rush straight to the church to find a vicar to marry them instantly. This is however a chapter that contains almost all the detail about any sort of personal life.

When Joshua Walmsley obtained the long-wished-for post, he had a stronger incentive to push his fortune than the remembrance of his father’s prognostics — the only woman he had ever loved had promised to become his wife. We can dwell but lightly on the details of this story of a love that began in childhood, and endured to the last day of a long and eventful life.

” When I was seven years old,” he says, ” I met at a dancing-school Adeline Mulleneux, aged six. She was the daughter of a wealthy wine merchant. I remember we noticed each other the first day of my arrival. Soon after I was allowed to escort her home from the dancing-school, and very proud I felt to be her protector. We played together in the old court, and we loved each other. A story is still told how a portrait of Adeline, as a baby, was shown to me. It represented her sitting in her mother’s lap, grasping three enormous cherries in her tiny fingers.  “Do you like it?’ asked Mrs, Mulleneux. After gazing solemnly at it for a long time, it is related that I answered: ‘Yes, but I like herself much better.’  The family bantered little Adeline on the conquest she had made ; but we were soon separated, for the state of my father’s affairs obliged him to send his children into the country. Years elapsed, and we met again at Mr. Knowles’ school Adeline Mulleneux, who was now eighteen, came there to take drawing lessons, and as I was the principal teacher, we met. Once more we became intimate, and once more we loved each other. When I took my seat on the high stool in Mr. Carter’s office, with a salary of forty pounds [present-day value about £35,000], and a prospect of seventy [present-day value about £75,000] in four years, she had promised to become my wife when I should be in somewhat more prosperous circumstances.”

” I now took a modest lodging at Edge Hill, and resolved to live upon one shilling a day [That works out to £18,5s. per year which would have a present-day value about £16,500]. Bread and milk for breakfast, a penny roll and a basin of soup were my daily bill of fare. My duties were those that fall to apprentices in a large establishment — the post- office, petty cash, and the copying of letters. I thought the time must still be very far off when I could walk into Mr. Mulleneux’s house and ask the rich merchant to give me his daughter. But I had her promise and knew it was steadfast enough to stand any test, and for my part, above all other prizes, my mind was set to win this one.”

Here then we find the young man in possession of the long-coveted berth in a merchant’s office. The old days with their irksome duties have passed away, leaving only wholesome traces of their hard discipline. His new duties were subordinate, and could train him to be only an ordinary clerk, and in this routine he might have remained for years, but he determined to make himself of special value to his employers. His natural energy spurred him on ; and then there was, too, that secret incentive, that goal which he kept ever in view, and which, sooner than he thought, was to crown the runner with victory. Thus he tells how he set about acquiring a knowledge of grain, which was the qualification of most value in the office of Messrs. Carter and Piers : —

” Old Peter Evans was their warehouseman. He was a practical man of the old school, and liked to see a lad eager to learn, and when I questioned him about samples of grain he answered readily. Peter was willing to teach me all he knew. Twice a week before breakfast, and long before my appointed hour for work, he and I used to meet and go together to the stores and ships. The old man would take samples and show them to me. The number and variety of grain at first bewildered me. It seemed a hopeless task trying to learn to distinguish them all. But perseverance conquered in the end. Peter now began to take pride in a pupil who was mastering the mysteries and intricacies of grain. He grew ingenious in devices to puzzle me, till at last I was a match for all his resources. Then he would take a handful of every sort of grain and pulse — English, Irish, Scotch, foreign — and spreading them before me, ask the quality, weight, and condition of each ; of what county, province, and country they were, with such observations as the case required. All the while he watched me from under his shaggy eyebrows, and would give a satisfied growl when the answer proved correct.”

” Peter prided himself on possessing a knowledge of grain beyond anyone in Liverpool, and I was on the way of becoming as great an adept as himself. No one knew of these early meetings in the stores and ships, and my employers wondered at my sharpness. Customers also soon discovered my proficiency, and sometimes consulted me in preference to old Peter.”

” Scarcely had I been a year in Mr. Carter’s service when the traveller and salesman, Mr. Robinson, a very able man, gave notice, on his entering into partnership with one of the leading merchants of Liverpool. This was a serious loss, and Mr. Carter, puzzled how to fill up the vacancy, consulted his retiring salesman. Mr. Robinson pointed me out as the man best fitted to fill the post. Accordingly it was offered to me, but no mention was made of an increase of salary, although my predecessor’s had been a large one. Morally speaking, however, the rise was a great one, and I closed with the offer at once.”

The year 1815 was a memorable one for England and Liverpool. Peace with America was restored. On a brilliant spring morning in April, the British flag flying at her mainmast, the American at her mizen peak, the Mild sailed up the Mersey — the first American vessel, come on a peaceful enterprise, that had entered the port for nearly three years. Some months later came news of Waterloo and of Bonaparte’s final downfall. But the year was to be marked for the young man by an event, more important to himself personally than the vast changes which were gradually being effected.

Mr. [Hugh] Mulleneux refused to sanction his daughter’s engagement. The wealthy merchant had more ambitious views for his child than a marriage with a poor clerk with no apparent prospects ; but the lovers were not to be deterred by such considerations. They were willing to wait, but determined to be faithful to one another. According to the ordinary course of events, there could hardly be a more unrealisable romance than was theirs. Any jury of wise men would have given a unanimous verdict against the marriage. A poor clerk, with a salary of fifty pounds per annum, and a prospect of seventy pounds, whose compulsory economy amounted to extreme privation, offering himself to a lady of position and expectations, with no other plea than that she loved him.  Family prejudices and family prudence had to yield to it, nevertheless, and it was not the modest lover who precipitated the crisis. They met one day and spoke to each other in presence of Mr. Mulleneux. That afternoon, Mr. Walmsley received a note bidding him attend next morning at the office of Mr. Mulleneux’s eldest son[also called Hugh]. Never did a day of more perplexing foreboding break upon the course of true love, for the note was couched in terms that showed some decision was pending.

The account of that interview and its result we give in Mr. Walmsley’s words :

” I went at the appointed hour with a beating heart : what new turn of affairs did this meeting bode? In a corner of the room Adeline sat, brightening the dingy office to me. Young Mulleneux’s expression was very stern as he looked at me, and, pointing to his sister, said :

‘ Are you prepared to marry this lady?’

The question was meant for a clincher. The thought of my poverty rushed full upon me ; but there was no sign of fear in Adeline’s face.

‘ Yes,’ I answered boldly.

” But when, sir ? ‘ asked my interlocutor derisively.

‘ At once,’ I replied quietly.

“ Perhaps I had better send for a coach ? ‘ said young Mr. Mulleneux ironically.

‘ We can walk,’ I answered undauntedly, going up to my betrothed. There was no faltering in the hand she laid upon my arm. To St. James’ Church we accordingly walked ; but none of the necessary preliminaries had been gone through, and the clergyman refused to perform the ceremony. We made an appointment to be at church the next morning at half-past ten.

Matters having reached this pass, Mr. Mulleneux made no further opposition. ‘ Let them marry,’  he said, ‘ but I will never see them again.’

 

At half-past ten next morning we met at the altar. The ceremony was performed. Adeline Mulleneux and I plighted our troths to each other. Then we parted ; I to return to my work, my wife to go to the house of friends, but not to her home.

” On my entering the office, Mr. Carter’s greeting showed he knew the reason of my late arrival. ‘Are you aware of the cost of living ? ‘ he asked me with a grim smile.  I knew the cost well ; and, although I was supremely happy, I was not without misgivings.”