The Westcotes | Page 2

brick, adorned with a porch of plaster
fluted to the shape of a sea-shell, out of which a. Cupid smiled down
upon a brass plate and the inscription "WESTCOTE AND
WESTCOTE," and on the first floor, with windows as tall as the rooms,
so that from the street you could see through one the shapely legs of Mr.
Endymion Westcote at his knee-hole table, and through another the
legs of Mr. Narcissus. The third and midmost window was a dummy,
having been bricked up to avoid the window-tax imposed by Mr.
Pitt--in whose statesmanship, however, the brothers had firmly believed.
Their somewhat fantastic names were traditional in the Westcote
pedigree and dated from, the seventeenth century.
Endymion, the elder, (who took the lead of Narcissus in all, things),
was the fine flower of the Westcote stocks, and, out of question, the
most influential man in Axcester and for many a mile round justice of
the Peace for the county of Somerset and Major of its Yeomanry, he
served "our town," (so he called it) as Overseer of the Poor, Governor
of the Grammar School, Chairman of Feoffees, Churchwarden,

everything in short but Mayor--an office which he left to the tradesmen,
while taking care to speak of it always with respect, and indeed to see it
properly filled. The part of County Magistrate--to which he had been
born--he played to perfection, and with a full sense of its dignified
amenity. (It was whispered that the Lord Lieutenant himself stood in
some awe of him.) His favourite character, however, was that of plain
citizen of his native town. "I'm an Axcester man," he would declare in
his public speeches, and in his own way he loved and served the little
borough. For its good he held its Parliamentary representation in the
hollow of his hand; and, as Overseer of the Poor, had dared public
displeasure by revising the Voters' List and defying a mandamus of the
Court of King's Bench rather than allow Axcester to fail in its duty of
returning two members to support Mr. Percevall's Ministry. In 1800,
when the price of wheat rose to 184s a quarter, a poor woman dropped
dead in the market place of starvation. At once a mob collected, hoisted
a quartern-loaf on a pole with the label--"We will have Bread or
Blood," and started to pillage the shop's in High Street. It was
Endymion Westcote who rode up single-handed, (they, were carrying
the only constable on their shoulders) and faced and dispersed the
rioters. It was he who headed the subscription list, prevailed on the
purchase a wagon-load of potatoes and persuaded the people to plant
them--for even the seed potatoes had been eaten, and the gardens lay
undigged. It was he who met the immediate famine by importing large
quantities of rice. Finally, it was he, through his influence with the
county, who brought back prosperity by getting the French prisoners
sent to Axcester.
We shall talk of these French prisoners by and by. To conclude this
portrait of Endymion Westcote. He was a handsome,
fresh-complexioned man, over six feet in height, and past his forty-fifth
year; a bachelor and a Protestant. In his youth he had been noted for
gallantry, and preserved some traces of it in his address. His
grandfather had married a French lady, and although this union had not
sensibly diluted the Westcote blood, Endymion would refer to it to
palliate a youthful taste for playing the fiddle. He spoke French fluently,
with a British accent which, when appointed Commissary, he took
pains to improve by conversation with the prisoners, and was fond of

discussing heredity with the two most distinguished of them--the
Vicomte de Tocqueville and General Rochambeau.
Narcissus, the younger brother, had neither the height nor the good
looks nor the masterful carriage of Endymion, and made no pretence to
rival him as a man of affairs. He professed to be known as the student
of the family, dabbled in archaeology, and managed two or three local
societies and field clubs, which met ostensibly to listen to his papers,
but really to picnic. An accident had decided this bent of his --the
discovery, during some repairs, of a fine Roman pavement beneath the
floor of Bayfield House, At the age of eighteen, during a Cambridge
vacation, Narcissus had written and privately printed a description of
this pavement, proving not only that its tessellae represented scenes in
the mythological story of Bacchus, but that the name "Bayfield," in
some old deeds and documents written "Bagvil" or "Baggevil," was
neither more nor less than a corruption of Bacchi Villa. Axcester and its
neighbourhood are rich in Roman remains--the town stands, indeed, on
the old Fosse Way--and, tempted by early success, Narcissus rode his
hobby further and further afield. Now, at the