E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
SIR HARRY HOTSPUR OF HUMBLETHWAITE.
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE,
Author of "Framley Parsonage," etc.
London:
Hurst and Blackett, Publishers,
13, Great Marlborough Street.
1871
The right of Translation is reserved.
London:
R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, Printers,
Bread Street Hill.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. SIR HARRY HOTSPUR.
CHAPTER II. OUR HEROINE.
CHAPTER III. LORD ALFRED'S COURTSHIP.
CHAPTER IV. VACILLATION.
CHAPTER V. GEORGE HOTSPUR.
CHAPTER VI. THE BALL IN BRUTON STREET.
CHAPTER VII. LADY ALTRINGHAM.
CHAPTER VIII. AIREY FORCE.
CHAPTER IX. "I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE."
CHAPTER X. MR. HART AND CAPTAIN STUBBER.
CHAPTER XI. MRS. MORTON.
CHAPTER XII. THE HUNT BECOMES HOT.
CHAPTER XIII. "I WILL NOT DESERT HIM."
CHAPTER XIV. PERTINACITY.
CHAPTER XV. COUSIN GEORGE IS HARD PRESSED.
CHAPTER XVI. SIR HARRY'S RETURN.
CHAPTER XVII. "LET US TRY."
CHAPTER XVIII. GOOD ADVICE.
CHAPTER XIX. THE NEW SMITHY.
CHAPTER XX. COUSIN GEORGE'S SUCCESS.
CHAPTER XXI. EMILY HOTSPUR'S SERMON.
CHAPTER XXII. GEORGE HOTSPUR YIELDS.
CHAPTER XXIII. "I SHALL NEVER BE MARRIED."
CHAPTER XXIV. THE END.
SIR HARRY HOTSPUR OF HUMBLETHWAITE.
CHAPTER I.
SIR HARRY HOTSPUR.
Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite was a mighty person in Cumberland,
and one who well understood of what nature were the duties, and of
what sort the magnificence, which his position as a great English
commoner required of him. He had twenty thousand a year derived from
land. His forefathers had owned the same property in Cumberland for
nearly four centuries, and an estate nearly as large in Durham for
more than a century and a half. He had married an earl's daughter,
and had always lived among men and women not only of high rank, but
also of high character. He had kept race-horses when he was young, as
noblemen and gentlemen then did keep them, with no view to profit,
calculating fairly their cost as a part of his annual outlay, and
thinking that it was the proper thing to do for the improvement
of horses and for the amusement of the people. He had been in
Parliament, but had made no figure there, and had given it up. He
still kept his house in Bruton Street, and always spent a month or
two in London. But the life that he led was led at Humblethwaite, and
there he was a great man, with a great domain around him,--with many
tenants, with a world of dependants among whom he spent his wealth
freely, saving little, but lavishing nothing that was not his own
to lavish,--understanding that his enjoyment was to come from the
comfort and respect of others, for whose welfare, as he understood
it, the good things of this world had been bestowed upon him. He was
a proud man, with but few intimacies,--with a few dear friendships
which were the solace of his life,--altogether gracious in his
speech, if it were not for an apparent bashfulness among strangers;
never assuming aught, deferring much to others outwardly, and showing
his pride chiefly by a certain impalpable _noli me tangere_, which
just sufficed to make itself felt and obeyed at the first approach of
any personal freedom. He was a handsome man,--if an old man near to
seventy may be handsome,--with grey hair, and bright, keen eyes, and
arched eyebrows, with a well-cut eagle nose, and a small mouth, and a
short dimpled chin. He was under the middle height, but nevertheless
commanded attention by his appearance. He wore no beard save a slight
grey whisker, which was cut away before it reached his chin. He was
strongly made, but not stout, and was hale and active for his age.
Such was Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite. The account of Lady
Elizabeth, his wife, may be much shorter. She was known,--where she
was known,--simply as Sir Harry's wife. He indeed was one of those
men of whom it may be said that everything appertaining to them takes
its importance from the fact of its being theirs. Lady Elizabeth was
a good woman, a good wife, and a good mother, and was twenty years
younger than her husband. He had been forty-five years old when he
had married her, and she, even yet, had not forgotten the deference
which was due to his age.
Two years before the time at which our story will begin, a great
sorrow, an absolutely crushing grief, had fallen upon the House
of Humblethwaite. An only son had died just as he had reached his
majority. When the day came on which all Humblethwaite and the
surrounding villages were to have been told to rejoice and make merry
because another man of the Hotspurs was ready to take the reins of
the house as soon as his father should have been gathered to his
fathers, the poor lad lay a-dying, while his mother ministered by
his bedside, and the Baronet was told by the physician--who had been
brought from London--that there was no longer for him any hope that
he should leave a male heir at Humblethwaite to inherit his name and
his honours.
For months it was thought that Lady Elizabeth would follow her boy.
Sir Harry bore the blow bravely, though none who do not understand
the system well can conceive how the natural grief of the father was
increased by the disappointment which had fallen upon the head of the
house. But the old man bore it well, making but few audible moans,
shedding no tears, altering in very little the habits of life; still
spending money, because it was good for others that it should be
spent, and only speaking of his son when it was necessary for him to
allude to those altered arrangements as to the family property which
it was necessary that he should make. But still he was a changed man,
as those perceived who watched him closest. Cloudesdale the butler
knew well in what he was changed, as did old Hesketh the groom, and
Gilsby the gamekeeper. He had never been given to much talk, but was
now more silent than of yore. Of horses, dogs, and game there was
no longer any mention whatever made by the Baronet. He was still
constant with Mr. Lanesby, the steward, because it was his duty to
know everything that was done on the property; but even Mr. Lanesby
would acknowledge that, as to actual improvements,--the commencement
of new work in the hope of future returns, the Baronet was not at all
the man he had been. How was it possible that he should be the man he
had been when his life was so nearly gone, and that other life had
gone also, which was to have been the renewal and continuation of his
own?
When the blow fell, it became Sir Harry's imperative duty to make
up his mind what he would do with his property. As regarded the two
estates, they were now absolutely, every acre of them, at his own
disposal. He had one child left him, a daughter,--in whom, it is
hoped, the reader may be induced to take some interest, and with
her to feel some sympathy, for she will be the person with whom the
details of this little story must most be concerned; and he had a
male heir, who must needs inherit the title of the family, one George
Hotspur,--not a nephew, for Sir Harry had never had a brother, but
the son of a first cousin who had not himself been much esteemed at
Humblethwaite.
Now Sir Harry was a man who, in such a condition as this in which
he was now placed, would mainly be guided by his ideas of duty. For
a month or two he said not a word to any one, not even to his own
lawyer, though he himself had made a will, a temporary will, duly
witnessed by Mr. Lanesby and another, so that the ownership of the
property should not be adjusted simply by the chance direction of law
in the event of his own sudden demise; but his mind was doubtless
much burdened with the subject. How should he discharge this fresh
responsibility which now rested on him? While his boy had lived, the
responsibility of his property had had nothing for him but charms.
All was to go to the young Harry,--all, as a matter of course; and
it was only necessary for him to take care that every acre should
descend to his heir not only unimpaired by him in value, but also
somewhat increased. Provision for his widow and for his girl had
already been made before he had ventured on matrimony,--provision
sufficient for many girls had Fortune so far favoured him. But that
an eldest son should have all the family land,--one, though as many
sons should have been given to him as to Priam,--and that that one
should have it unencumbered, as he had had it from his father,--this
was to him the very law of his being. And he would have taught that
son, had already begun to teach him when the great blow came, that
all this was to be given to him, not that he might put it into
his own belly, or wear it on his own back, or even spend it as he
might list himself, but that he might so live as to do his part in
maintaining that order of gentlehood in England, by which England had
become--so thought Sir Harry--the proudest and the greatest and the
justest of nations.
But now he had no son, and yet the duty remained to him of
maintaining his order. It would perhaps have been better for him,
it would certainly have been easier, had some settlement or family
entail fixed all things for him. Those who knew him well personally,
but did not know the affairs of his family, declared among themselves
that Sir Harry would take care that the property went with the title.
A marriage might be arranged. There could be nothing to object to a
marriage between second cousins. At any rate Sir Harry Hotspur was
certainly not the man to separate the property from the title. But
they who knew the family, and especially that branch of the family
from which George Hotspur came, declared that Sir Harry would never
give his daughter to such a one as was this cousin. And if not his
daughter, then neither would he give to such a scapegrace either
Humblethwaite in Cumberland or Scarrowby in Durham. There did exist a
party who said that Sir Harry would divide the property, but they who
held such an opinion certainly knew very little of Sir Harry's social
or political tenets. Any such division was the one thing which he
surely would not effect.
When twelve months had passed after the death of Sir Harry's son,
George Hotspur had been at Humblethwaite and had gone, and Sir
Harry's will had been made. He had left everything to his daughter,
and had only stipulated that her husband, should she marry, should
take the name of Hotspur. He had decided, that should his daughter,
as was probable, marry within his lifetime, he could then make what
settlements he pleased, even to the changing of the tenor of his
will, should he think fit to change it. Should he die and leave her
still a spinster, he would trust to her in everything. Not being
a man of mystery, he told his wife and his daughter what he had
done,--and what he still thought that he possibly might do; and
being also a man to whom any suspicion of injustice was odious, he
desired his attorney to make known to George Hotspur what had been
settled. And in order that this blow to Cousin George might be
lightened,--Cousin George having in conversation acknowledged to a
few debts,--an immediate present was made to him of four thousand
pounds, and double that amount was assured to him at the Baronet's
death.
The reader may be sure that the Baronet had heard many things
respecting Cousin George which he did not like. To him personally it
would have been infinitely preferable that the title and the estates
should have gone together, than that his own daughter should be a
great heiress. That her outlook into the world was fair and full of
promise of prosperity either way, was clear enough. Twenty thousand
a year would not be necessary to make her a happy woman. And then it
was to him a manifest and a sacred religion that to no man or to no
woman were appointed the high pinnacles of fortune simply that that
man or that woman might enjoy them. They were to be held as thrones
are held, for the benefit of the many. And in the disposition of this
throne, the necessity of making which had fallen upon him from the
loss of his own darling, he had brought himself to think--not of his
daughter's happiness, or to the balance of which, in her possessing
or not possessing the property, he could venture on no prophecy,--but
of the welfare of all those who might measure their weal or woe from
the manner in which the duties of this high place were administered.
He would fain that there should still have been a Sir Harry or a Sir
George Hotspur of Humblethwaite; but he found that his duty required
him to make the other arrangement.
And yet he had liked the cousin, who indeed had many gifts to win
liking both from men and women. Previously to the visit very little
had been known personally of young George Hotspur at Humblethwaite.
His father, also a George, had in early life quarrelled with the
elder branch of the family, and had gone off with what money belonged
to him, and had lived and died in Paris. The younger George had been
educated abroad, and then had purchased a commission in a regiment of
English cavalry. At the time when young Harry died it was only known
of him at Humblethwaite that he had achieved a certain reputation
in London, and that he had sold out of the army. He was talked of
as a man who shot birds with precision. Pigeons he could shoot with
wonderful dexterity,--which art was at Humblethwaite supposed to be
much against him. But then he was equally successful with partridges
and pheasants; and partly on account of such success, and partly
probably because his manner was pleasant, he was known to be a
welcome guest at houses in which men congregate to slaughter game. In
this way he had a reputation, and one that was not altogether cause
for reproach; but it had not previously recommended him to the notice
of his cousin.
Just ten months after poor Harry's death he was asked, and went, to
Humblethwaite. Probably at that moment the Baronet's mind was still
somewhat in doubt. The wish of Lady Elizabeth had been clearly
expressed to her husband to the effect that encouragement should be
given to the young people to fall in love with each other. To this
Sir Harry never assented; though there was a time,--and that time had
not yet passed when George Hotspur reached Humblethwaite,--in which
the Baronet was not altogether averse to the idea of the marriage.
But when George left Humblethwaite the Baronet had made up his mind.
Tidings had reached him, and he was afraid of the cousin. And other
tidings had reached him also; or rather perhaps it would be truer
to him to say that another idea had come to him. Of all the young
men now rising in England there was no young man who more approved
himself to Sir Harry's choice than did Lord Alfred Gresley, the
second son of his old friend and political leader the Marquis of
Milnthorp. Lord Alfred had but scanty fortune of his own, but was
in Parliament and in office, and was doing well. All men said all
good things of him. Then there was a word or two spoken between
the Marquis and the Baronet, and just a word also with Lord Alfred
himself. Lord Alfred had no objection to the name of Hotspur. This
was in October, while George Hotspur was still declaring that Gilbsy
knew nothing of getting up a head of game; and then Lord Alfred
promised to come to Humblethwaite at Christmas. It was after this
that George owned to a few debts. His confession on that score did
him no harm. Sir Harry had made up his mind that day. Sir Harry had
at that time learned a good deal of his cousin George's mode of life
in London, and had already decided that this young man was not one
whom it would be well to set upon the pinnacle.
And yet he had liked the young man, as did everybody. Lady Elizabeth
had liked him much, and for a fortnight had gone on hoping that all
difficulties might have solved themselves by the young man's marriage
with her daughter. It need hardly be said that not a word one way or
the other was spoken to Emily Hotspur; but it seemed to the mother
that the young people, though there was no love-making, yet liked
each other. Sir Harry at this time was up in London for a month or
two, hearing tidings, seeing Lord Alfred, who was at his office; and
on his return, that solution by family marriage was ordered to be for
ever banished from the maternal bosom. Sir Harry said that it would
not do.
Nevertheless, he was good to the young cousin, and when the time was
drawing nigh for the young man's departure he spoke of a further
visit. The coverts at Humblethwaite, such as they were, would always
be at his service. This was a week before the cousin went; but by the
coming of the day on which the cousin took his departure Sir Harry
regretted that he had made that offer of future hospitality.