"Not but what the roan was a better trotter than yours."
"I'm quite satisfied with his paces, I know," said Fred, who requiredall the consciousness of being in gay company to support him; "I say histrot is an uncommonly clean one, eh, Horrock?"
Mr. Horrock looked before him with as complete a neutrality as if hehad been a portrait by a great master.
Fred gave up the fallacious hope of getting a genuine opinion; but onreflection he saw that Bambridge's depreciation and Horrock's silencewere both virtually encouraging, and indicated that they thought betterof the horse than they chose to say.
That very evening, indeed, before the fair had set in, Fred thought hesaw a favorable opening for disposing advantageously of his horse, butan opening which made him congratulate himself on his foresight inbringing with him his eighty pounds. A young farmer, acquainted withMr. Bambridge, came into the Red Lion, and entered into conversationabout parting with a hunter, which he introduced at once as Diamond,implying that it was a public character. For himself he only wanted auseful hack, which would draw upon occasion; being about to marry andto give up hunting. The hunter was in a friend's stable at some littledistance; there was still time for gentlemen to see it before dark. Thefriend's stable had to be reached through a back street where you mightas easily have been poisoned without expense of drugs as in any grimstreet of that unsanitary period. Fred was not fortified against disgust bybrandy, as his companions were, but the hope of having at last seen thehorse that would enable him to make money was exhilarating enough tolead him over the same ground again the first thing in the morning. Hefelt sure that if he did not come to a bargain with the farmer, Bambridgewould; for the stress of circumstances, Fred felt, was sharpening hisacuteness and endowing him with all the constructive power ofsuspicion. Bambridge had run down Diamond in a way that he neverwould have done (the horse being a friend's) if he had not thought ofbuying it; every one who looked at the animal—even Horrock—wasevidently impressed with its merit. To get all the advantage of being withmen of this sort, you must know how to draw your inferences, and notbe a spoon who takes things literally. The color of the horse was adappled gray, and Fred happened to know that Lord Medlicote's manwas on the look-out for just such a horse. After all his running down,Bambridge let it out in the course of the evening, when the farmer wasabsent, that he had seen worse horses go for eighty pounds. Of course hecontradicted himself twenty times over, but when you know what islikely to be true you can test a man's admissions. And Fred could not butreckon his own judgment of a horse as worth something. The farmer hadpaused over Fred's respectable though broken-winded steed long enoughto show that he thought it worth consideration, and it seemed probablethat he would take it, with five-and-twenty pounds in addition, as theequivalent of Diamond. In that case Fred, when he had parted with hisnew horse for at least eighty pounds, would be fifty-five pounds inpocket by the transaction, and would have a hundred and thirty-fivepounds towards meeting the bill; so that the deficit temporarily thrownon Mr. Garth would at the utmost be twenty-five pounds. By the time hewas hurrying on his clothes in the morning, he saw so clearly theimportance of not losing this rare chance, that if Bambridge and Horrockhad both dissuaded him, he would not have been deluded into a directinterpretation of their purpose: he would have been aware that thosedeep hands held something else than a young fellow's interest. Withregard to horses, distrust was your only clew. But scepticism, as weknow, can never be thoroughly applied, else life would come to astandstill: something we must believe in and do, and whatever thatsomething may be called, it is virtually our own judgment, even when itseems like the most slavish reliance on another. Fred believed in theexcellence of his bargain, and even before the fair had well set in, hadgot possession of the dappled gray, at the price of his old horse andthirty pounds in addition—only five pounds more than he had expectedto give.
But he felt a little worried and wearied, perhaps with mental debate,and without waiting for the further gayeties of the horse-fair, he set outalone on his fourteen miles' journey, meaning to take it very quietly andkeep his horse fresh.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"The offender's sorrow brings but small relief
To him who wears the strong offence's cross."
—SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.
I am sorry to say that only the third day after the propitious eventsat Houndsley Fred Vincy had fallen into worse spirits than he had knownin his life before. Not that he had been disappointed as to the possiblemarket for his horse, but that before the bargain could be concluded withLord Medlicote's man, this Diamond, in which hope to the amount ofeighty pounds had been invested, had without the slightest warningexhibited in the stable a most vicious energy in kicking, had just missedkilling the groom, and had ended in laming himself severely by catchinghis leg in a rope that overhung the stable-board. There was no moreredress for this than for the discovery of bad temper after marriage—which of course old companions were aware of before the ceremony. Forsome reason or other, Fred had none of his usual elasticity under thisstroke of ill-fortune: he was simply aware that he had only fifty pounds,that there was no chance of his getting any more at present, and that thebill for a hundred and sixty would be presented in five days. Even if hehad applied to his father on the plea that Mr. Garth should be savedfrom loss, Fred felt smartingly that his father would angrily refuse torescue Mr. Garth from the consequence of what he would callencouraging extravagance and deceit. He was so utterly downcast that hecould frame no other project than to go straight to Mr. Garth and tellhim the sad truth, carrying with him the fifty pounds, and getting thatsum at least safely out of his own hands. His father, being at thewarehouse, did not yet know of the accident: when he did, he wouldstorm about the vicious brute being brought into his stable; and beforemeeting that lesser annoyance Fred wanted to get away with all hiscourage to face the greater. He took his father's nag, for he had made uphis mind that when he had told Mr. Garth, he would ride to Stone Courtand confess all to Mary. In fact, it is probable that but for Mary'sexistence and Fred's love for her, his conscience would have been muchless active both in previously urging the debt on his thought andimpelling him not to spare himself after his usual fashion by deferring anunpleasant task, but to act as directly and simply as he could. Evenmuch stronger mortals than Fred Vincy hold half their rectitude in themind of the being they love best. "The theatre of all my actions is fallen,"said an antique personage when his chief friend was dead; and they arefortunate who get a theatre where the audience demands their best.Certainly it would have made a considerable difference to Fred at thattime if Mary Garth had had no decided notions as to what wasadmirable in character.
Mr. Garth was not at the office, and Fred rode on to his house,which was a little way outside the town—a homely place with an orchardin front of it, a rambling, old-fashioned, half-timbered building, whichbefore the town had spread had been a farm-house, but was nowsurrounded with the private gardens of the townsmen. We get the fonderof our houses if they have a physiognomy of their own, as our friendshave. The Garth family, which was rather a large one, for Mary had fourbrothers and one sister, were very fond of their old house, from which allthe best furniture had long been sold. Fred liked it too, knowing it byheart even to the attic which smelt deliciously of apples and quinces, anduntil to-day he had never come to it without pleasant expectations; buthis heart beat uneasily now with the sense that he should probably haveto make his confession before Mrs. Garth, of whom he was rather morein awe than of her husband. Not that she was inclined to sarcasm and toimpulsive sallies, as Mary was. In her present matronly age at least, Mrs.Garth never committed herself by over-hasty speech; having, as she said,borne the yoke in her youth, and learned self-control. She had that raresense which discerns what is unalterable, and submits to it withoutmurmuring. Adoring her husband's virtues, she had very early made upher mind to his incapacity of minding his own interests, and had met theconsequences cheerfully. She had been magnanimous enough to renounceall pride in teapots or children's frilling, and had never poured anypathetic confidences into the ears of her feminine neighbors concerningMr. Garth's want of prudence and the sums he might have had if he hadbeen like other men. Hence these fair neighbors thought her either proudor eccentric, and sometimes spoke of her to their husbands as "your fineMrs. Garth." She was not without her criticism of them in return, beingmore accurately instructed than most matrons in Middlemarch, and—where is the blameless woman?—apt to be a little severe towards herown sex, which in her opinion was framed to be entirely subordinate. Onthe other hand, she was disproportionately indulgent towards the failingsof men, and was often heard to say that these were natural. Also, it mustbe admitted that Mrs. Garth was a trifle too emphatic in her resistanceto what she held to be follies: the passage from governess into housewifehad wrought itself a little too strongly into her consciousness, and sherarely forgot that while her grammar and accent were above the townstandard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family dinner, and darned allthe stockings. She had sometimes taken pupils in a peripatetic fashion,making them follow her about in the kitchen with their book or slate.She thought it good for them to see that she could make an excellentlather while she corrected their blunders "without looking,"—that awoman with her sleeves tucked up above her elbows might know allabout the Subjunctive Mood or the Torrid Zone—that, in short, shemight possess "education" and other good things ending in "tion," andworthy to be pronounced emphatically, without being a useless doll.When she made remarks to this edifying effect, she had a firm littlefrown on her brow, which yet did not hinder her face from lookingbenevolent, and her words which came forth like a procession wereuttered in a fervid agreeable contralto. Certainly, the exemplary Mrs.Garth had her droll aspects, but her character sustained her oddities, asa very fine wine sustains a flavor of skin.
Towards Fred Vincy she had a motherly feeling, and had always beendisposed to excuse his errors, though she would probably not haveexcused Mary for engaging herself to him, her daughter being included inthat more rigorous judgment which she applied to her own sex. But thisvery fact of her exceptional indulgence towards him made it the harderto Fred that he must now inevitably sink in her opinion. And thecircumstances of his visit turned out to be still more unpleasant than hehad expected; for Caleb Garth had gone out early to look at some repairsnot far off. Mrs. Garth at certain hours was always in the kitchen, andthis morning she was carrying on several occupations at once there—making her pies at the well-scoured deal table on one side of that airyroom, observing Sally's movements at the oven and dough-tub through anopen door, and giving lessons to her youngest boy and girl, who werestanding opposite to her at the table with their books and slates beforethem. A tub and a clothes-horse at the other end of the kitchen indicatedan intermittent wash of small things also going on.
Mrs. Garth, with her sleeves turned above her elbows, deftlyhandling her pastry—applying her rolling-pin and giving ornamentalpinches, while she expounded with grammatical fervor what were theright views about the concord of verbs and pronouns with "nouns ofmultitude or signifying many," was a sight agreeably amusing. She was ofthe same curly-haired, square-faced type as Mary, but handsomer, withmore delicacy of feature, a pale skin, a solid matronly figure, and aremarkable firmness of glance. In her snowy-frilled cap she reminded oneof that delightful Frenchwoman whom we have all seen marketing,basket on arm. Looking at the mother, you might hope that the daughterwould become like her, which is a prospective advantage equal to adowry—the mother too often standing behind the daughter like amalignant prophecy—"Such as I am, she will shortly be."
"Now let us go through that once more," said Mrs. Garth, pinchingan apple-puff which seemed to distract Ben, an energetic young malewith a heavy brow, from due attention to the lesson. "'Not withoutregard to the import of the word as conveying unity or plurality ofidea'—tell me again what that means, Ben."
(Mrs. Garth, like more celebrated educators, had her favorite ancientpaths, and in a general wreck of society would have tried to hold her"Lindley Murray" above the waves.)
"Oh—it means—you must think what you mean," said Ben, ratherpeevishly. "I hate grammar. What's the use of it?"
"To teach you to speak and write correctly, so that you can beunderstood," said Mrs. Garth, with severe precision. "Should you like tospeak as old Job does?"
"Yes," said Ben, stoutly; "it's funnier. He says, 'Yo goo'—that's just asgood as 'You go.'"
"But he says, 'A ship's in the garden,' instead of 'a sheep,'" said Letty,with an air of superiority. "You might think he meant a ship off the sea."
"No, you mightn't, if you weren't silly," said Ben. "How could a shipoff the sea come there?"
"These things belong only to pronunciation, which is the least part ofgrammar," said Mrs. Garth. "That apple-peel is to be eaten by the pigs,Ben; if you eat it, I must give them your piece of pasty. Job has only tospeak about very plain things. How do you think you would write orspeak about anything more difficult, if you knew no more of grammarthan he does? You would use wrong words, and put words in the wrongplaces, and instead of making people understand you, they would turnaway from you as a tiresome person. What would you do then?"
"I shouldn't care, I should leave off," said Ben, with a sense that thiswas an agreeable issue where grammar was concerned.
"I see you are getting tired and stupid, Ben," said Mrs. Garth,accustomed to these obstructive arguments from her male offspring.Having finished her pies, she moved towards the clothes-horse, and said,"Come here and tell me the story I told you on Wednesday, aboutCincinnatus."
