THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON.
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
With Thirty Illustrations by H. Woods.
[Illustration: Waiting-Room at the Assize Court. (frontispiece)]
[Illustration for title page]
London:
Bradbury, Evans, and Co., 11, Bouverie Street.
1870.
PREFACE.
The writing of prefaces is, for the most part, work thrown away; and
the writing of a preface to a novel is almost always a vain thing.
Nevertheless, I am tempted to prefix a few words to this novel on
its completion, not expecting that many people will read them, but
desirous, in doing so, of defending myself against a charge which may
possibly be made against me by the critics,--as to which I shall be
unwilling to revert after it shall have been preferred.
I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of a girl
whom I will call,--for want of a truer word that shall not in its
truth be offensive,--a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with
qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought her back at
last from degradation at least to decency. I have not married her to
a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain that though there
was possible to her a way out of perdition, still things could not be
with her as they would have been had she not fallen.
There arises, of course, the question whether a novelist, who
professes to write for the amusement of the young of both sexes,
should allow himself to bring upon his stage such a character as that
of Carry Brattle? It is not long since,--it is well within the memory
of the author,--that the very existence of such a condition of life,
as was hers, was supposed to be unknown to our sisters and daughters,
and was, in truth, unknown to many of them. Whether that ignorance
was good may be questioned; but that it exists no longer is beyond
question. Then arises that further question,--how far the condition
of such unfortunates should be made a matter of concern to the sweet
young hearts of those whose delicacy and cleanliness of thought is a
matter of pride to so many of us. Cannot women, who are good, pity
the sufferings of the vicious, and do something perhaps to mitigate
and shorten them, without contamination from the vice? It will be
admitted probably by most men who have thought upon the subject that
no fault among us is punished so heavily as that fault, often so
light in itself but so terrible in its consequences to the less
faulty of the two offenders, by which a woman falls. All her own sex
is against her,--and all those of the other sex in whose veins runs
the blood which she is thought to have contaminated, and who, of
nature, would befriend her were her trouble any other than it is.
She is what she is, and remains in her abject, pitiless, unutterable
misery, because this sentence of the world has placed her beyond
the helping hand of Love and Friendship. It may be said, no doubt,
that the severity of this judgment acts as a protection to female
virtue,--deterring, as all known punishments do deter, from vice. But
this punishment, which is horrible beyond the conception of those who
have not regarded it closely, is not known beforehand. Instead of the
punishment there is seen a false glitter of gaudy life,--a glitter
which is damnably false,--and which, alas, has been more often
portrayed in glowing colours, for the injury of young girls, than
have those horrors, which ought to deter, with the dark shadowings
which belong to them.
To write in fiction of one so fallen as the noblest of her sex, as
one to be rewarded because of her weakness, as one whose life is
happy, bright, and glorious, is certainly to allure to vice and
misery. But it may perhaps be possible that if the matter be handled
with truth to life, some girl, who would have been thoughtless, may
be made thoughtful, or some parent's heart may be softened. It may
also at last be felt that this misery is worthy of alleviation, as is
every misery to which humanity is subject.
A. T.
CONTENTS
I. BULLHAMPTON
II. FLO'S RED BALL
III. SAM BRATTLE
IV. THERE IS NO ONE ELSE
V. THE MILLER
VI. BRATTLE'S MILL
VII. THE MILLER'S WIFE
VIII. THE LAST DAY
IX. MISS MARRABLE
X. CRUNCH'EM CAN'T BE HAD
XI. DON'T YOU BE AFEARD ABOUT ME
XII. BONE'M AND HIS MASTER
XIII. CAPTAIN MARRABLE AND HIS FATHER
XIV. COUSINHOOD
XV. THE POLICE AT FAULT
XVI. MISS LOWTHER ASKS FOR ADVICE
XVII. THE MARQUIS OF TROWBRIDGE
XVIII. BLANK PAPER
XIX. SAM BRATTLE RETURNS HOME
XX. I HAVE A JUPITER OF MY OWN NOW
XXI. WHAT PARSON JOHN THINKS ABOUT IT
XXII. WHAT THE FENWICKS THOUGHT ABOUT IT
XXIII. WHAT MR. GILMORE THOUGHT ABOUT IT
XXIV. THE REV. HENRY FITZACKERLEY CHAMBERLAINE
XXV. CARRY BRATTLE
XXVI. THE TURNOVER CORRESPONDENCE
XXVII. "I NEVER SHAMED NONE OF THEM"
XXVIII. MRS. BRATTLE'S JOURNEY
XXIX. THE BULL AT LORING
XXX. THE AUNT AND THE UNCLE
XXXI. MARY LOWTHER FEELS HER WAY
XXXII. MR. GILMORE'S SUCCESS
XXXIII. FAREWELL
XXXIV. BULLHAMPTON NEWS
XXXV. MR. PUDDLEHAM'S NEW CHAPEL
XXXVI. SAM BRATTLE GOES OFF AGAIN
XXXVII. FEMALE MARTYRDOM
XXXVIII. A LOVER'S MADNESS
XXXIX. THE THREE HONEST MEN
XL. TROTTER'S BUILDINGS
XLI. STARTUP FARM
XLII. MR. QUICKENHAM, Q.C.
XLIII. EASTER AT TURNOVER CASTLE
XLIV. THE MARRABLES OF DUNRIPPLE
XLV. WHAT SHALL I DO WITH MYSELF?
XLVI. MR. JAY OF WARMINSTER
XLVII. SAM BRATTLE IS WANTED
XLVIII. MARY LOWTHER RETURNS TO BULLHAMPTON
XLIX. MARY LOWTHER'S DOOM
L. MARY LOWTHER INSPECTS HER FUTURE HOME
LI. THE GRINDER AND HIS COMRADE
LII. CARRY BRATTLE'S JOURNEY
LIII. THE FATTED CALF
LIV. MR. GILMORE'S RUBIES
LV. GLEBE LAND
LVI. THE VICAR'S VENGEANCE
LVII. OIL IS TO BE THROWN UPON THE WATERS
LVIII. EDITH BROWNLOW'S DREAM
LIX. NEWS FROM DUNRIPPLE
LX. LORD ST. GEORGE IS VERY CUNNING
LXI. MARY LOWTHER'S TREACHERY
LXII. UP AT THE PRIVETS
LXIII. THE MILLER TELLS HIS TROUBLES
LXIV. IF I WERE YOUR SISTER!
LXV. MARY LOWTHER LEAVES BULLHAMPTON
LXVI. AT THE MILL
LXVII. SIR GREGORY MARRABLE HAS A HEADACHE
LXVIII. THE SQUIRE IS VERY OBSTINATE
LXIX. THE TRIAL
LXX. THE FATE OF THE PUDDLEHAMITES
LXXI. THE END OF MARY LOWTHER'S STORY
LXXII. AT TURNOVER CASTLE
LXXIII. CONCLUSION
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
WAITING-ROOM AT THE ASSIZE COURT. (_frontispiece_)
"YOU SHOULD GIVE HIM AN ANSWER, DEAR, ONE WAY
OR THE OTHER." (Chapter II)
"I THOUGHT I SHOULD CATCH YOU IDLE JUST AT THIS
MOMENT," SAID THE CLERGYMAN. (Chapter VI)
MR. FENWICK CAME ROUND FROM FARMER TRUMBULL'S
SIDE OF THE CHURCH, AND GOT OVER THE STILE
INTO THE CHURCHYARD. (Chapter VIII)
"I HOPE IT WILL BE ALL RIGHT NOW,
MR. FENWICK," THE GIRL SAID. (Chapter XI)
"HOW DARE YOU MENTION MY DAUGHTERS?" (Chapter XVII)
"IT IS ALL BLANK PAPER WITH YOU?" (Chapter XVIII)
"I HAVE COME TO SAY A WORD, IF I CAN,
TO COMFORT YOU." (Chapter XXIII)
"CARRY," HE SAID, COMING BACK TO HER, "IT
WASN'T ALL FOR HIM THAT I CAME." (Chapter XXV)
PARSON JOHN AND WALTER MARRABLE. (Chapter XXIX)
MARY LOWTHER WRITES TO WALTER MARRABLE. (Chapter XXXIII)
SITE OF MR. PUDDLEHAM'S NEW CHAPEL. (Chapter XXXVIII)
"DO COME IN, HARRY." (Chapter XXXVIII)
"I DARE SAY NOT," SAID MR. QUICKENHAM. (Chapter XLII)
SUNDAY MORNING AT DUNRIPPLE. (Chapter XLIV)
"WHO ARE YOU, SIR, THAT YOU SHOULD
INTERPRET MY WORDS?" (Chapter XLVII)
CARRY BRATTLE. (Chapter LII)
"IF I MAY BIDE WITH YOU,--IF I MAY
BIDE WITH YOU--." (Chapter LIII)
MR. QUICKENHAM'S LETTER DISCUSSED. (Chapter LV)
SHE HAD BROUGHT HIM OUT A CUP OF COFFEE. (Chapter LVIII)
"IT'S IN HERE, MUSTER FENWICK,--IN HERE." (Chapter LXIII)
"OH, FATHER," SHE SAID, "I WILL BE GOOD." (Chapter LXVI)
THE DRAWING-ROOM AT TURNOVER CASTLE. (Chapter LXXII)
THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON.
CHAPTER I.
BULLHAMPTON.
[Illustration]
I am disposed to believe that no novel reader in England has seen the
little town of Bullhampton, in Wiltshire, except such novel readers
as live there, and those others, very few in number, who visit it
perhaps four times a year for the purposes of trade, and who are
known as commercial gentlemen. Bullhampton is seventeen miles from
Salisbury, eleven from Marlborough, nine from Westbury, seven from
Haylesbury, and five from the nearest railroad station, which is
called Bullhampton Road, and lies on the line from Salisbury to
Yeovil. It is not quite on Salisbury Plain, but probably was so once,
when Salisbury Plain was wider than it is now. Whether it should be
called a small town or a large village I cannot say. It has no mayor,
and no market, but it has a fair. There rages a feud in Bullhampton
touching this want of a market, as there are certain Bullhamptonites
who aver that the charter giving all rights of a market to
Bullhampton does exist; and that at one period in its history the
market existed also,--for a year or two; but the three bakers and
two butchers are opposed to change; and the patriots of the place,
though they declaim on the matter over their evening pipes and
gin-and-water, have not enough of matutinal zeal to carry out their
purpose. Bullhampton is situated on a little river, which meanders
through the chalky ground, and has a quiet, slow, dreamy prettiness
of its own. A mile above the town,--for we will call it a town,--the
stream divides itself into many streamlets, and there is a district
called the Water Meads, in which bridges are more frequent than
trustworthy, in which there are hundreds of little sluice-gates for
regulating the irrigation, and a growth of grass which is a source
of much anxiety and considerable trouble to the farmers. There is a
water-mill here, too, very low, with ever a floury, mealy look, with
a pasty look often, as the flour becomes damp with the spray of the
water as it is thrown by the mill-wheel. It seems to be a tattered,
shattered, ramshackle concern, but it has been in the same family
for many years; and as the family has not hitherto been in distress,
it may be supposed that the mill still affords a fair means of
livelihood. The Brattles,--for Jacob Brattle is the miller's
name,--have ever been known as men who paid their way, and were able
to hold up their heads. But nevertheless Jacob Brattle is ever at
war with his landlord in regard to repairs wanted for his mill,
and Mr. Gilmore, the landlord in question, declares that he wishes
that the Avon would some night run so high as to carry off the mill
altogether. Bullhampton is very quiet. There is no special trade
in the place. Its interests are altogether agricultural. It has
no newspaper. Its tendencies are altogether conservative. It is
a good deal given to religion; and the Primitive Methodists have
a very strong holding there, although in all Wiltshire there is
not a clergyman more popular in his own parish than the Rev. Frank
Fenwick. He himself, in his inner heart, rather likes his rival,
Mr. Puddleham, the dissenting minister; because Mr. Puddleham is an
earnest man, who, in spite of the intensity of his ignorance, is
efficacious among the poor. But Mr. Fenwick is bound to keep up the
fight; and Mr. Puddleham considers it to be his duty to put down Mr.
Fenwick and the Church Establishment altogether.
The men of Bullhampton, and the women also, are aware that the glory
has departed from them, in that Bullhampton was once a borough, and
returned two members to Parliament. No borough more close, or shall
we say more rotten, ever existed. It was not that the Marquis of
Trowbridge had, what has often delicately been called, an interest in
it; but he held it absolutely in his breeches pocket, to do with it
as he liked; and it had been the liking of the late Marquis to sell
one of the seats at every election to the highest bidder on his side
in politics. Nevertheless, the people of Bullhampton had gloried
in being a borough, and the shame, or at least the regret of their
downfall, had not yet altogether passed away when the tidings of
a new Reform Bill came upon them. The people of Bullhampton are
notoriously slow to learn, and slow to forget. It was told of a
farmer of Bullhampton, in old days, that he asked what had become of
Charles I., when told that Charles II. had been restored. Cromwell
had come and gone, and had not disturbed him at Bullhampton.
At Bullhampton there is no public building, except the church, which
indeed is a very handsome edifice with a magnificent tower, a thing
to go to see, and almost as worthy of a visit as its neighbour the
cathedral at Salisbury. The body of the church is somewhat low, but
its yellow-gray colour is perfect, and there is, moreover, a Norman
door, and there are Early English windows in the aisle, and a
perfection of perpendicular architecture in the chancel, all of which
should bring many visitors to Bullhampton; and there are brasses in
the nave, very curious, and one or two tombs of the Gilmore family,
very rare in their construction, and the churchyard is large and
green, and bowery, with the Avon flowing close under it, and nooks in
it which would make a man wish to die that he might be buried there.
The church and churchyard of Bullhampton are indeed perfect, and yet
but few people go to see it. It has not as yet had its own bard to
sing its praises. Properly it is called Bullhampton Monachorum, the
living having belonged to the friars of Chiltern. The great tithes
now go to the Earl of Todmorden, who has no other interest in the
place whatever, and who never saw it. The benefice belongs to St.
John's, Oxford, and as the vicarage is not worth more than £400 a
year, it happens that a clergyman generally accepts it before he has
lived for twenty or thirty years in the common room of his college.
Mr. Fenwick took it on his marriage, when he was about twenty-seven,
and Bullhampton has been lucky.
The bulk of the parish belongs to the Marquis of Trowbridge, who,
however, has no residence within ten miles of it. The squire of the
parish is Squire Gilmore,--Harry Gilmore,--and he possesses every
acre in it that is not owned by the Marquis. With the village, or
town as it may be, Mr. Gilmore has no concern; but he owns a large
tract of the water meads, and again has a farm or two up on the
downs as you go towards Chiltern. But they lie out of the parish of
Bullhampton. Altogether he is a man of about fifteen hundred a year,
and as he is not as yet married, many a Wiltshire mother's eye is
turned towards Hampton Privets, as Mr. Gilmore's house is, somewhat
fantastically, named.
Mr. Gilmore's character must be made to develope itself in these
pages,--if such developing may be accomplished. He is to be our
hero,--or at least one of two. The author will not, in these early
words, declare that the squire will be his favourite hero, as he
will wish that his readers should form their own opinions on that
matter. At this period he was a man somewhat over thirty,--perhaps
thirty-three years of age, who had done fairly well at Harrow and at
Oxford, but had never done enough to make his friends regard him as a
swan. He still read a good deal; but he shot and fished more than he
read, and had become, since his residence at the Privets, very fond
of the outside of his books. Nevertheless, he went on buying books,
and was rather proud of his library. He had travelled a good deal,
and was a politician,--somewhat scandalising his own tenants and
other Bullhamptonites by voting for the liberal candidates for his
division of the county. The Marquis of Trowbridge did not know him,
but regarded him as an objectionable person, who did not understand
the nature of the duties which devolved upon him as a country
gentleman; and the Marquis himself was always spoken of by Mr.
Gilmore as--an idiot. On these various grounds the squire has
hitherto regarded himself as being a little in advance of other
squires, and has, perhaps, given himself more credit than he has
deserved for intellectuality. But he is a man with a good heart, and
a pure mind, generous, desirous of being just, somewhat sparing of
that which is his own, never desirous of that which is another's. He
is good-looking, though, perhaps, somewhat ordinary in appearance;
tall, strong, with dark-brown hair, and dark-brown whiskers, with
small, quick grey eyes, and teeth which are almost too white and too
perfect for a man. Perhaps it is his greatest fault that he thinks
that as a liberal politician and as an English country gentleman he
has combined in his own position all that is most desirable upon
earth. To have the acres without the acre-laden brains, is, he
thinks, everything.
And now it may be as well told at once that Mr. Gilmore is over head
and ears in love with a young lady to whom he has offered his hand
and all that can be made to appertain to the future mistress of
Hampton Privets. And the lady is one who has nothing to give in
return but her hand, and her heart, and herself. The neighbours all
round the country have been saying for the last five years that Harry
Gilmore was looking out for an heiress; for it has always been told
of Harry, especially among those who have opposed him in politics,
that he had a keen eye for the main chance. But Mary Lowther has not,
and never can have, a penny with which to make up for any deficiency
in her own personal attributes. But Mary is a lady, and Harry Gilmore
thinks her the sweetest woman on whom his eye ever rested. Whatever
resolutions as to fortune-hunting he may have made,--though probably
none were ever made,--they have all now gone to the winds. He is so
absolutely in love that nothing in the world is, to him, at present
worth thinking about except Mary Lowther. I do not doubt that he
would vote for a conservative candidate if Mary Lowther so ordered
him; or consent to go and live in New York if Mary Lowther would
accept him on no other condition. All Bullhampton parish is nothing
to him at the present moment, except as far as it is connected with
Mary Lowther. Hampton Privets is dear to him only as far as it can be
made to look attractive in the eyes of Mary Lowther. The mill is to
be repaired, though he knows he will never get any interest on the
outlay, because Mary Lowther has said that Bullhampton water-meads
would be destroyed if the mill were to tumble down. He has drawn for
himself mental pictures of Mary Lowther till he has invested her with
every charm and grace and virtue that can adorn a woman. In very
truth he believes her to be perfect. He is actually and absolutely in
love. Mary Lowther has hitherto neither accepted nor rejected him.
In a very few lines further on we will tell how the matter stands
between them.
It has already been told that the Rev. Frank Fenwick is Vicar of
Bullhampton. Perhaps he was somewhat guided in his taking of the
living by the fact that Harry Gilmore, the squire of the parish,
had been his very intimate friend at Oxford. Fenwick, at the period
with which we are about to begin our story, had been six years at
Bullhampton, and had been married about five and a half. Of him
something has already been said, and perhaps it may be only necessary
further to state that he is a tall, fair-haired man, already becoming
somewhat bald on the top of his head, with bright eyes, and the
slightest possible amount of whiskers, and a look about his nose and
mouth which seems to imply that he could be severe if he were not so
thoroughly good-humoured. He has more of breeding in his appearance
than his friend,--a show of higher blood; though whence comes such
show, and how one discerns that appearance, few of us can tell. He
was a man who read more and thought more than Harry Gilmore, though
given much to athletics and very fond of field sports. It shall
only further be said of Frank Fenwick that he esteemed both his
churchwardens and his bishop, and was afraid of neither.
His wife had been a Miss Balfour, from Loring, in Gloucestershire,
and had had some considerable fortune. She was now the mother of
four children, and, as Fenwick used to say, might have fourteen for
anything he knew. But as he also had possessed some small means
of his own, there was no poverty, or prospect of poverty at the
vicarage, and the babies were made welcome as they came. Mrs. Fenwick
is as good a specimen of an English country parson's wife as you
shall meet in a county,--gay, good-looking, fond of the society
around her, with a little dash of fun, knowing in blankets and
corduroys and coals and tea; knowing also as to beer and gin and
tobacco; acquainted with every man and woman in the parish; thinking
her husband to be quite as good as the squire in regard to position,
and to be infinitely superior to the squire, or any other man in
the world, in regard to his personal self;--a handsome, pleasant,
well-dressed lady, who has no nonsense about her. Such a one was, and
is, Mrs. Fenwick.
Now the Balfours were considerable people at Loring, though their
property was not county property; and it was always considered that
Janet Balfour might have done better than she did, in a worldly point
of view. Of that, however, little had been said at Loring, because it
soon became known there that she and her husband stood rather well in
the country round about Bullhampton; and when she asked Mary Lowther
to come and stay with her for six months, Mary Lowther's aunt, Miss
Marrable, had nothing to say against the arrangement, although she
herself was a most particular old lady, and always remembered that
Mary Lowther was third or fourth cousin to some earl in Scotland.
Nothing more shall be said of Miss Marrable at present, as it is
expedient, for the sake of the story, that the reader should fix his
attention on Bullhampton till he find himself quite at home there.
I would wish him to know his way among the water meads, to be quite
alive to the fact that the lodge of Hampton Privets is a mile and a
quarter to the north of Bullhampton church, and half a mile across
the fields west from Brattle's mill; that Mr. Fenwick's parsonage
adjoins the churchyard, being thus a little farther from Hampton
Privets than the church; and that there commences Bullhampton street,
with its inn,--the Trowbridge Arms, its four public-houses, its three
bakers, and its two butchers. The bounds of the parsonage run down
to the river, so that the Vicar can catch his trout from his own
bank,--though he much prefers to catch them at distances which admit
of the appurtenances of sport.
Now there must be one word of Mary Lowther, and then the story shall
be commenced. She had come to the vicarage in May, intending to stay
a month, and it was now August, and she had been already three months
with her friend. Everybody said that she was staying because she
intended to become the mistress of Hampton Privets. It was a month
since Harry Gilmore had formally made his offer, and as she had not
refused him, and as she still stayed on, the folk of Bullhampton were
justified in their conclusions. She was a tall girl, with dark brown
hair, which she wore fastened in a knot at the back of her head,
after the simplest fashion. Her eyes were large and grey, and full
of lustre; but they were not eyes which would make you say that Mary
Lowther was especially a bright-eyed girl. They were eyes, however,
which could make you think, when they looked at you, that if Mary
Lowther would only like you, how happy your lot would be,--that if
she would love you, the world would have nothing higher or better to
offer. If you judged her face by any rules of beauty, you would say
that it was too thin; but feeling its influence with sympathy, you
could never wish it to be changed. Her nose and mouth were perfect.
How many little noses there are on young women's faces which of
themselves cannot be said to be things of beauty, or joys for ever,
although they do very well in their places! There is the softness
and colour of youth, and perhaps a dash of fun, and the eyes above
are bright, and the lips below alluring. In the midst of such sweet
charms, what does it matter that the nose be puggish,--or even a
nose of putty, such as you think you might improve in the original
material by a squeeze of your thumb and forefinger? But with Mary
Lowther her nose itself was a feature of exquisite beauty, a feature
that could be eloquent with pity, reverence, or scorn. The curves of
the nostrils, with their almost transparent membranes, told of the
working of the mind within, as every portion of human face should
tell--in some degree. And the mouth was equally expressive, though
the lips were thin. It was a mouth to watch, and listen to, and read
with curious interest, rather than a mouth to kiss. Not but that
the desire to kiss would come, when there might be a hope to kiss
with favour;--but they were lips which no man would think to ravage
in boisterous play. It might have been said that there was a want
of capability for passion in her face, had it not been for the
well-marked dimple in her little chin,--that soft couch in which one
may be always sure, when one sees it, that some little imp of Love
lies hidden.
It has already been said that Mary Lowther was tall,--taller than
common. Her back was as lovely a form of womanhood as man's eye ever
measured and appreciated. Her movements, which were never naturally
quick, had a grace about them which touched men and women alike. It
was the very poetry of motion; but its chief beauty consisted in
this, that it was what it was by no effort of her own. We have all
seen those efforts, and it may be that many of us have liked them
when they have been made on our own behalf. But no man as yet could
ever have felt himself to be so far flattered by Miss Lowther. Her
dress was very plain; as it became her that it should be, for she was
living on the kindness of an aunt who was herself not a rich woman.
But it may be doubted whether dress could have added much to her
charms.
She was now turned one-and-twenty, and though, doubtless, there were
young men at Loring who had sighed for her smiles, no young man had
sighed with any efficacy. It must be acknowledged, indeed, that she
was not a girl for whom the most susceptible of young men would sigh.
Young men given to sigh are generally attracted by some outward and
visible sign of softness which may be taken as an indication that
sighing will produce some result, however small. At Loring it was
said that Mary Lowther was cold and repellent, and, on that account,
one who might very probably descend to the shades as an old maid in
spite of the beauty of which she was the acknowledged possessor. No
enemy, no friend, had ever accused her of being a flirt.
Such as she was, Harry Gilmore's passion for her much astonished his
friends. Those who knew him best had thought that, as regarded his
fate matrimonial,--or non-matrimonial,--there were three chances
before him: he might carry out their presumed intention of marrying
money; or he might become the sudden spoil of the bow and spear of
some red-cheeked lass; or he might walk on as an old bachelor, too
cautious to be caught at all. But none believed that he would become
the victim of a grand passion for a poor, reticent, high-bred,
high-minded specimen of womanhood. Such, however, was now his
condition.
He had an uncle, a clergyman, living at Salisbury, a prebendary
there, who was a man of the world, and in whom Harry trusted more
than in any other member of his own family. His mother had been
the sister of the Rev. Henry Fitzackerly Chamberlaine; and as Mr.
Chamberlaine had never married, much of his solicitude was bestowed
upon his nephew.
"Don't, my dear fellow," had been the prebendary's advice when he was
taken over to see Miss Lowther. "She is a lady, no doubt; but you
would never be your own master, and you would be a poor man till you
died. An easy temper and a little money are almost as common in our
rank of life as destitution and obstinacy." On the day after this
advice was given, Harry Gilmore made his formal offer.