Book Sixth.

A VAIN REPRIEVE.

CHAPTER I.

"A FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN."

SIR ETHELRED HARKYSIDE sat in his den. He belonged to that class of men to whom a den is not so much a matter of privilege or profession as a necessity-a painful and disgusting necessity. He seldom found his mind sufficiently subdued to enter this region of dullness and disorder, and when he was driven to entering it, he submitted with the grace of a bear who has returned to the bosom of his family after an unsuccessful search for grub; and if his mind was in a subdued state, one required to be told as much, and even when assured of the fact, an impression prevailed that his mind was but loosely bottled up at the best, rather than effectually chastened.

Business was the dire necessity to which even the most confirmed indolence of downright dissipation was obliged occasionally to succumb. He was not cut out for business at all, as indeed his very name would suffice to show. His notions of good breeding were so high, so peculiarly high, that he would have greatly preferred to let it wholly aloneto relinquish it into the plebeian hands of Mr. Grogram, or the almost equally low-blooded hands of Lady H. But the latter was much of his own way of thinking, and endeavoured to infuse some of that much desired quality into her blood which was her one great lack, by pretensions to

refinements so difficult to maintain in any circumstances, that she retreated with unfeigned horror from all contact with the gross vulgarities of ways and means; to her the end not only sanctified the means, but was the only sanctifying circumstance about the means, and the only subject of thought which ever found admission to her select circle of ideas. She would just as soon have thought of kissing the rector's old woman, as of admitting into her little elegant mental boudoir any notion whatever for which her sensitive conscience might reproach her as ungenteel.

As for Mr. Grogram, the case was widely different, but the result was the same to some extent, for he did actually leave some business to his employer; very little, it is true, and indeed about as little as well could be, to be any business at all. If Mr. Grogram had been a man to take advantage of his neighbour's weakness, he certainly had a bona fide opportunity in this quarter. But, then, happily for Mr. G.'s character, he did not more than half believe all that the old baronet said. There was a trifling measure of business which from time to time did necessitate at least the signature of Sir Ethelred; and so the worthy land-manager made a virtue of necessity, a sickly, untoward virtue, it must be confessed, but still to some extent a vírtue, remarkable as being solitary. All men gazed in mute wonder at its brilliance, as devotees were wont to gaze at the kingly Koh-i-noor. But Mr. Jabez Grogram was not an incautious man; there was scarcely any amount of snare which his virtue could not resist, i.e., avoid. If at any time he yielded to temptation, it was after careful sounding of all its boggy places, and in much assurance. We say he did not, happily for his immaculate reputation, more than half believe the nonchalance of this particular patron, and the reason for his incredulity was just simply that his average experience had been decidedly the other way that even very rich and largely landed proprietors, and even inveterate absentees, were periodically very strict and wonderfully patient in their endeavours to discover that he had plundered them. He had in more than one instance presumed (but he was young then) on the seeming indifference of these men, and had been very nearly found out. The

warning was not lost. It laid a very powerful restraint on him; and his friends-that is, those who did not know him, -said he wanted encouraging.

On the whole, we should say his kind friends were labouring under some mistake; although, of a truth, the longcontinued caution which he exercised in the matter of the Beetleskin property (Sir Ethelred's), notwithstanding the carelessness of the owner, might go far to warrant the assertion that he wanted confidence. The fact was, to an old stager like that, the affectation of indifference in this case was a little overdone-it did not sit easy on so rich a man ; it was too gross and palpable; and he never felt the force of that great moral teaching which he actively promoted among the neighbouring peasantry-after the national school fashion of white boards and large emphatic letters,-"Beware of man-traps," so keenly as when his deadly-lively patron flung the rent-book at his head, saying, "Confound your figures and flam, have it your own way, Grog." But we have reason for believing that the steward was beginning to feel his way a little, was edging round to the belief that he could do (and with perfect safety) pretty nearly what he liked with this particular property, provided he applied unsparingly his profound knowledge of arithmetic to the confusion of each separate account. And the worthy man felt happy, was recovering his tone of mind; for, indeed, the conflict between fear and desire was wearing him out,- -snares were his bugbear, had been this many a day; but at length he was beginning to be of the mind of adventurous and enlightened boyhood, that "boards stuck on trees was all fudge." Perhaps this returning confidence was attributable to the evident increase of his patron's irritability, and dislike to dry details about property, favourable or otherwise, and this again was attributable partly to increasing self-indulgence, and partly to a violent, because unprovoked, hatred to the next heir on the part of the present childless possessor of the Beetleskin estates.

The timid observer was brought to reason by reasoning thus, "If Harky ever did think of making a fool of me, he must, I should think, be pretty well satisfied in his own

mind that it won't do; perhaps he thinks I am honest, and is really trusting while I think he's only trying me. Well, as to being honest-or at least as to his thinking me so-be that as it may, I should hardly think so, I know I don't look honest; but at any rate, he knows by this time that as long as he watches there really will be nothing to find out; and then you see he's got the way of watching without looking as if he was, perhaps he does not like to change-he'd be ashamed of himself to let out that he'd been playing the spy on a faithful old servant; perhaps he can't change, or perhaps -but that is too good to be true-he never did suspect me. Anyhow it's a plain case, that so long as he has as much out of the estate as will float him through the voyage, he has no rational grounds for caring whether his agent be honest or not. Certainly, the last thing he would ever think of would be leaving wittingly a single rap behind him for anybody, especially the heir. So it will be safe to commence a graduated series of experiments; and, bless my soul, it's about time, for he's getting very blue about the gills, short-necked, and a short man altogether, and, as one may say, a short life, statistically considered.

The graduated scale of experiments had been in operation several years, and was so very successful that the old caution had been entirely thrown aside, and the unchecked maw of the confidential plunderer was widening with practice, and constantly devouring something or other. This was to be expected, and, it will be said, was nobody's business but that of the two principals-the devourer and the devouree; but then it fostered a bad general habit in the once scrupulous confidential agent-not intentionally, perhaps, but quite as systematically as though it had been on purpose. He became a schemer, constructed the most elaborate and immense machinery of humbug for the attainment of what were respectively very insignificant slices of other men's property, but which, when regarded collectively (and that was the light in which he viewed them), were worth something-anythingeven the sacrifice of a conscience which, at the best of times, was more for show than use, and was hardly worth keeping clean, or indeed keeping at all. Even those very particular