“Mr. Richard Middlemas,” said Hartley,
“I wish it were possible for me to tell you,
in the few words which I intend to bestow on you, whether
I pity you or despise you, the most. Heaven has
placed happiness, competence, and content within your
power, and you are willing to cast them away, to gratify
ambition and avarice. Were I to give any advice
on this subject either to Dr. Gray or his daughter,
it would be to break of all connexion with a man,
who, however clever by nature, may soon show himself
a fool, and however honestly brought up, may also,
upon temptation, prove himself a villain.—You
may lay aside the sneer, which is designed to be a
sarcastic smile. I will not attempt to do this,
because I am convinced that my advice would be of no
use, unless it could come unattended with suspicion
of my motives. I will hasten my departure from
this house, that we may not meet again; and I will
leave it to God Almighty to protect honesty and innocence
against the dangers which must attend vanity and folly.”
So saying, he turned contemptuously from the youthful
votary of ambition, and left the garden.
“Stop,” said Middlemas, struck with the
picture which had been held up to his conscience—“Stop,
Adam Hartley, and I will confess to you”——
But his words were uttered in a faint and hesitating
manner, and either never reached Hartley’s ear,
or failed in changing his purpose of departure.
When he was out of the garden, Middlemas began to
recall his usual boldness of disposition—“Had
he staid a moment longer,” he said, “I
would have turned Papist, and made him my ghostly confessor.
The yeomanly churl!—I would give something
to know how he has got such a hank over me. What
are Menie Gray’s engagements to him? She
has given him his answer, and what right has he to
come betwixt her and me? If old Moncada had done
a grandfather’s duty, and made suitable settlements
on me, this plan of marrying the sweet girl, and settling
here in her native place, might have done well enough.
But to live the life of the poor drudge her father—to
be at the command and call of every boor for twenty
miles round!—why, the labours of a higgler,
who travels scores of miles to barter pins, ribbons,
snuff and tobacco, against the housewife’s private
stock of eggs, mort-skins, and tallow, is more profitable,
less laborious, and faith I think, equally respectable.
No, no,—unless I can find wealth nearer
home, I will seek it where every one can have it for
the gathering; and so I will down to the Swan Inn,
and hold a final consultation with my friend.”
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
The friend whom Middlemas expected to meet at the
Swan, was a person already mentioned in this history
by the name of Tom Hillary, bred an attorney’s
clerk in the ancient town of Novum Castrum—doctus
utriusque juris, as far as a few months in the
service of Mr. Lawford, Town-clerk of Middlemas, could
render him so. The last mention that we made of
this gentleman, was when his gold-laced hat veiled
its splendour before the fresher mounted beavers of
the ’prentices of Dr. Gray. That was now
about five years since, and it was within six months
that he had made his appearance in Middlemas, a very
different sort of personage from that which he seemed
at his departure.
