Men who met him for the first time on the banks of a Norwegian river, or at a regatta at Cowes, were more impressed by his physical than his intellectual strength.

They would perhaps have suspected him of obstinacy, the obstinacy of the inveterate prejudice of the country gentleman.

They would not, unless they knew him, have given him credit for being a man of wide reading, and a judgment in literary matters as sound as his decisions in court.
Sir Gilbert had spent nearly a week in the Bournemouth villa which he had taken for Lady Hawkesby.

The place wearied him, and nothing but a chivalrous sense of the duty he owed to his wife kept him there so long.

Lady Hawkesby was a little exacting in some ways; and though she recognised that the judge had a right to go fishing, she disliked his running away without spending a few days with her after the busy season was over, and she was able to leave London.