![]() Warricombe put on a pair of eyeglasses which had dangled against his waistcoat, and began to scrutinise carefully the sculptured lineaments. ![]() Of the young girl it could only be said that she exhibited a graceful immaturity, with perchance a little more earnestness than is common at her age her voice, even when she spoke gaily, was seldom audible save by the person addressed.Ĭoming to a pause before Sir Job, Mr. Save her fresh yet delicate complexion the lady had no particular personal charm. Warricombe and her daughter were more fashionably equipped, with taste which proclaimed their social standing. He wore a grey felt hat, and a light jacket which displayed the straightness of his shoulders. His attire was informal, as if he disliked abandoning the freedom of the country even when summoned to urban ceremonies. of Thornhaw, a small estate some five miles from Kingsmill,) had a countenance suggestive of engaging qualities-genial humour, mildness, a turn for meditation, perhaps for study. On alighting from a carriage, they first of all directed their steps towards the statue, conversing together with pleasant animation. The students had nothing distinctive in their garb, but here and there flitted the cap and gown of Professor or lecturer, signal for doffing of beavers along the line of its progress.Īmong the more deliberate of the throng was a slender, upright, ruddy-cheeked gentleman of middle age, accompanied by his wife and a daughter of sixteen. An interval of two or three hours dispersed the rain-clouds and bestowed such grace of sunshine as Kingsmill might at this season temperately desire then, whilst the marble figure was getting dried,-with soot-stains which already foretold its negritude of a year hence,-again streamed towards the College a varied multitude, official, parental, pupillary. Beneath such a sky, orations were necessarily curtailed but Sir Job had always been impatient of much talk. ![]() Living, he opposed the desire of his fellow-citizens to exhibit even on canvas his gnarled features and bald crown but when his modesty ceased to have a voice in the matter, no time was lost in raising a memorial of the great manufacturer, the self-made millionaire, the borough member in three Parliaments, the enlightened and benevolent founder of an institute which had conferred humane distinction on the money-making Midland town. The honoured baronet had been six months dead. At eleven in the morning (just as a heavy shower fell from the smoke-canopy above the roaring streets) the municipal authorities, educational dignitaries, and prominent burgesses of Kingsmill assembled on an open space before the College to unveil a statue of Sir Job Whitelaw. The summer day in 1874 which closed the annual session of Whitelaw College was marked by a special ceremony, preceding the wonted distribution of academic rewards.
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