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Yet neither the insults of the rebels nor the entreaty of the inhabitants could move the imperturbable Skeffington.
The retreat being made by water, the British Lake Navy, under Captain Skeffington Lutwidge, with whom Nelson had served a few years before in the Arctic seas, had a conspicuous part in the pursuit; severing the boom blockading the narrow upper lake and joining impetuously in an attack upon the floating material, the flat-boat transports, and the few relics of Arnold's flotilla which had escaped the destruction of the previous year.
He and Mary the cook and Ellen the upstairs girl and old Miss Skeffington, generalissimo of the Hargrave household, were the only persons present keenly conscious that there was in progress a wedding, a supposedly irrevocable union of a man and woman for life and for death and for posterity. Even old Dr.
"Probably the girl's in the kitchen; and old Miss Skeffington is so deaf she couldn't hear," he thought. He had known the persons and the habits of that household from earliest boyhood. He followed the path round the house and thus came in sight of a small outbuilding at the far corner of the yard, on the edge of the bank overlooking and almost overhanging the river Dory's "workshop."
He appointed Lord Leonard Grey, brother-in-law of the Countess of Kildare, chief marshal of the army; but he would not even send Grey over till the summer, and he left Skeffington an opportunity of recovering his reputation in the campaign which was to open with the spring.
He despatched agents to the Emperor, Charles V., and the Pope, but before those agents could well have returned March, 1535 Maynooth had been assaulted and taken by Sir William Skeffington and the bands collected by the young lord had melted away.
The soldiers were eager for employment, but Skeffington refused to give his officers an opportunity for distinction in which he did not share, and a few ineffectual skirmishes in the neighbourhood were the sole exploits which for five months they were allowed to achieve.
Probably, however, the best diagnosis of the situation immediately preceding the outbreak was the letter published by the New Statesman of May 6th, that had been written as early as April 7th, and which, coming from the most eminent victim of the danger so clearly foreseen by him, must have special force at the present moment. It was from no less than F. Sheehy Skeffington.
The man turned to Mavis and said: "If your references are satisfactory, you can consider yourself as engaged from next week." "Oh, thank you," said Mavis, trying to voice her gratitude. "Call to-morrow with your references at eleven and ask for Mr Skeffington Dawes," said the stranger.
Another dandy of the day was Sir Lumley Skeffington, who used to paint his face, so that he looked like a French toy; he dressed a la Robespierre, and practised other follies, although the consummate old fop was a man of literary attainments, and a great admirer and patron of the drama.
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