han to present happiness
from that source. When the boy came home for his holidays, the father
would sometimes walk with him, and discourse on certain chosen
subjects,--on the politics of the day, in regard to which Mr. Caldigate
was an advanced Liberal, on the abomination of the Game Laws, on the
folly of Protection, on the antiquated absurdity of a State Church;--as
to all which matters his son John lent him a very inattentive ear. Then
the lad would escape and kill rabbits, or rats, or even take birds'
nests, with a zest for such pursuits which was disgusting to the father,
though he would not absolutely forbid them. Then John would be allured
to go to his uncle Babington's house, where there was a pony on which he
could hunt, and fishing-rods, and a lake with a boat, and three fine
bouncing girl-cousins, who made much of him, and called him Jack; so
that he soon preferred his uncle Babington's house, and would spend much
of his holidays at Babington House.

Mr. Caldigate was a country squire with a moderate income, living in a
moderate house called Folking, in the parish of Utterden, about ten
miles from Cambridge. Here he owned nearly the entire parish, and some
portion of Netherden, which lay next to it, having the reputation of an
income of L3,000 a-year. It probably amounted to about two-thirds of
that. Early in life he had been a very poor man, owing to the
improvidence of his father; but he had soon quarrelled with his
father,--as he had with almost everyone else,--and had for some ten
years earned his own bread in the metropolis among the magazines and
newspapers. Then, when his father died, the property was his own, with
such encumbrances as the old squire had been able to impose upon it.
Daniel Caldigate had married when he was a poor man, but did not go to
Folking to live till the estate was clear, at which time he was forty
years old. When he was endeavouring to inculcate good Liberal principles
into that son of his, who was burning the while to get off to a battle
of rats among the corn-stacks, he was not yet fifty. There might
therefore be some time left to him for the promised joys of
companionship if he could only convince the boy that politics were
better than rats.

But he did not long make himself any such promise. It seemed to him that
his son's mind was of a nature very different from his own; and much
like to that of his grandfather. The lad could be awakened to no
enthusiasm in the abuse of C