The Steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow to relinquish her resolution, took her message to the Squire. Mr. Hazeldean, who was indeed rarely offended at the boy's obstinate refusal to make the _amende honorable_ to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed a hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son. It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more gentle, since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow, he sent his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and _brusque_ enough on her own account, and in such business as might especially be transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a herald of peace and mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that she undertook this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son were great favorites of hers. She entered the cottage with the friendliest beam in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest tone of her frank, cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she was no more successful than the Steward had been. The truth is, that I don't believe the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so proud as your plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and deal with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr. Riccabocca, as that same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is true, from his superiors, (though, thank Heaven! _that_ he rarely meets with unjustly); but to be looked down upon, and mocked, and pointed at by his own equals--his own little world--cuts him to the soul. And if you can succeed in breaking this pride, and destroying this sensitiveness, then he is a lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and you have chucked him half way--a stolid, inert, sullen victim--to the perdition of the prison or the convict-ship. Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended. But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff, plain-spoken one--and, after all, she had some little feeling for the son of a gentleman, and a decayed fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor could she, with her strong common sense, attach all the importance which Mrs. Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs, which, she said truly, "would soon die away if no notice was taken of it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs. Hazeldean departed--with much chagrin and some displeasure.