Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/207

 of using them upon a fit occasion, as she was. In her bed-room, or on her divàn, she always had a mace, which was spiked round the head, a steel battle-axe, and a dagger; but her favourite weapon was the mace. When she took it up, which sometimes was the case if vociferating to the men-servants, I have seen them flinch and draw back to be out of the reach of her arm; and, on one ccasion, a powerful Turk, a man about forty, of great muscular strenght, and with a remarkable black beard, on her making a gesture as if to strike him, flew back so suddenly that he knocked down another who was behind him, and fell himself. But, though fearless and unruffled in every danger, Lady Hester Stanhope was magnanimous, gentle to an enemy in her power, and ever mindful of those who had done her any service. Her martial spirit would have made a hero, and she had all the materials of one in her composition.

Two more anecdotes may serve to show how she sometimes rendered herself disliked. Once, at a cabinet dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope entered the room in a way so as to pass the Earl C. who was ushered in just at the same moment; and, as she did not bow or speak to him, Mr. Pitt said, "Hester, don't you see Lord C.?" Lady Hester replied, "No, I saw a great chameleon as I came in, all in pigoen-breasted colours, if that was Lord C:" this was because he was