Thus lived the Rockvilles for ages. In all the iron combats of those iron times they took care to have their quota. Whether it were Stephen against Matilda, or Richard against his father, or John against the barons; whether it were York or Lancaster, or Tudor or Stuart. The Rockvilles were to be found in the _mêlée_, and winning power and lands. So long as it required only stalwart frames and stout blows, no family cut a more conspicuous figure. The Rockvilles were at Bosworth Field. The Rockvilles fought in Ireland under Elizabeth. The Rockvilles were staunch defenders of the cause in the war of Charles I. with his Parliament. The Rockvilles even fought for James II. at the Boyne, when three-fourths of the most loyal of the English nobility and gentry had deserted him in disgust and indignation. But from that hour they had been less conspicuous. The opposition to the successful party, that of William of Orange, of course brought them into disgrace: and though they were never molested on that account, they retired to their estate, and found it convenient to be as unobtrusive as possible. Thenceforward you heard no more of the Rockvilles in the national annals. They became only of consequence in their own district. They acted as magistrates. They served as high sheriffs. They were a substantial county family, and nothing more. Education and civilisation advanced; a wider and very different field of action and ambition opened upon the aristocracy of England. Our fleets and armies abroad, our legislature at home, law and the church, presented brilliant paths to the ambition of those thirsting for distinction, and the good things that follow it. But somehow the Rockvilles did not expand with this expansion. So long as it required only a figure of six feet high, broad shoulders, and a strong arm, they were a great and conspicuous race. But when the head became the member most in request, they ceased to go a-head. Younger sons, it is true, served in army and in navy, and filled the family pulpit, but they produced no generals, no admirals, no archbishops. The Rockvilles of Rockville were very conservative, very exclusive, and very stereotype. Other families grew poor, and enriched themselves again by marrying plebeian heiresses. New families grew up out of plebeian blood into greatness, and intermingled the vigour of their fresh earth with the attenuated aristocratic soil. Men of family became great lawyers, great statesmen, great prelates, and even great poets and philosophers. The Rockvilles remained high, proud, bigotted, and _borné_. The Rockvilles married Rockvilles, or their first cousins, the Cesgvilles, simply to prevent property going out of the family. They kept the property together. They did not lose an acre, and they were a fine, tall, solemn race—and nothing more. What ailed them?