It was through the genius of this man that his three sons were doing so well.  At the present day, Harry, the younger, took his ease in his arm-chair after his substantial but plain dinner, with little care about the markets or the general depression.  For much of the land was on high ground and dry, and the soil there benefited by the wet.  At the same time sheep sold well, and Harry’s flocks were large and noted.  So he sauntered round with his gun, and knocked over a hare, and came comfortably home to dinner, easy in his mind, body, and pocket.

Harry was not a man of energy and intense concentrated purpose like his father.  He could never have built up a fortune, but, the money being there, Harry was just the man to keep it.  He was sufficiently prudent to run no risk and to avoid speculation.  He was sufficiently frugal not to waste his substance on riotous living, and he was naturally of a placid temperament, so that he was satisfied to silently and gradually accumulate little by little.  His knowledge of farming, imbibed from his father, extended into every detail.  If he seldom touched an implement now, he had in his youth worked like the labourers, and literally followed the plough.  He was constantly about on the place, and his eye, by keeping the men employed, earned far more money than his single arm could have done.  Thus he dwelt in the lonely manor-house, a living proof of the wisdom of his father’s system.

Harry is now looking, in his slow complacent way, for a wife.  Being forty years of age, he is not in a great hurry, and is not at all inclined to make a present of himself to the first pretty face he meets.  He does not like the girl of the period; he fears she would spend too much money.  Nor, on the other hand, does he care for the country hoyden, whose mind and person have never risen above the cheese-tub, with red hands, awkward gait, loud voice, and limited conversation.  He has read too much, in his quiet way, and observed too much, in his quiet way, also, for that.  He wants a girl well educated, but not above her station, unaffected and yet comely, fond of home and home duties, and yet not homely.  And it would be well if she had a few hundreds—­a very small sum would do—­for her dower.  It is not that he wants the money, which can be settled on herself; but there is a vein of the old, prudent common sense running through Harry’s character.  He is in no hurry; in time he will meet with her somewhere.

CHAPTER VII

THE GIG AND THE FOUR-IN-HAND.  A BICYCLE FARMER