Lydgate felt uncomfortable under these kindly suppositions.
They made more distinct within him the uneasy consciousness
which had shown its first dim stirrings only a few
hours before, that Bulstrode’s motives for his
sudden beneficence following close upon the chillest
indifference might be merely selfish. He let
the kindly suppositions pass. He could not tell
the history of the loan, but it was more vividly present
with him than ever, as well as the fact which the
Vicar delicately ignored—that this relation
of personal indebtedness to Bulstrode was what he had
once been most resolved to avoid.
He began, instead of answering, to speak of his projected
economies, and of his having come to look at his life
from a different point of view.
“I shall set up a surgery,” he said.
“I really think I made a mistaken effort in
that respect. And if Rosamond will not mind,
I shall take an apprentice. I don’t like
these things, but if one carries them out faithfully
they are not really lowering. I have had a severe
galling to begin with: that will make the small
rubs seem easy.”
Poor Lydgate! the “if Rosamond will not mind,”
which had fallen from him involuntarily as part of
his thought, was a significant mark of the yoke he
bore. But Mr. Farebrother, whose hopes entered
strongly into the same current with Lydgate’s,
and who knew nothing about him that could now raise
a melancholy presentiment, left him with affectionate
congratulation.
Clown. . . . ’Twas in
the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed,
you have a delight to sit, have you not?
Froth. I have so: because it is an open
room, and good for winter.
Clo. Why, very well then: I hope here
be truths.
—Measure
for Measure.
Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge
was standing at his leisure under the large archway
leading into the yard of the Green Dragon. He
was not fond of solitary contemplation, but he had
only just come out of the house, and any human figure
standing at ease under the archway in the early afternoon
was as certain to attract companionship as a pigeon
which has found something worth peeking at.
In this case there was no material object to feed upon,
but the eye of reason saw a probability of mental sustenance
in the shape of gossip. Mr. Hopkins, the meek-mannered
draper opposite, was the first to act on this inward
vision, being the more ambitious of a little masculine
talk because his customers were chiefly women.
Mr. Bambridge was rather curt to the draper, feeling
that Hopkins was of course glad to talk to him,
but that he was not going to waste much of his talk
on Hopkins. Soon, however, there was a small
cluster of more important listeners, who were either
deposited from the passers-by, or had sauntered to
the spot expressly to see if there were anything going
on at the Green Dragon; and Mr. Bambridge was finding
