compounded by an apology, a solemn
retractation in writing, and the payment of four thousand pounds; his
counsel assured him his client was very lucky to get off so cheap.

Bassett paid the money, with the assistance of his wife's father: but
it was a sickener; it broke his spirit, and even injured his health for
some time.

Sir Charles improved the village with the money, and gave a copy-hold
tenement to each of the men Bassett had got imprisoned. So they and
their sons and their grandsons lived rent free--no, now I think of it,
they had to pay four pence a year to the Lord of the Manor.

Defeated at every point, and at last punished severely, Richard Bassett
fell into a deep dejection and solitary brooding of a sort very
dangerous to the reason. He would not go out-of-doors to give his
enemies a triumph. He used to sit by the fire and mutter, "Blow upon
blow, blow upon blow. My poor boy will never be lord of Huntercombe
now!" and so on.

Wheeler pitied him, but could not rouse him. At last a person for whose
narrow attainments and simplicity he had a profound, though, to do him
justice, a civil contempt, ventured to his rescue. Mrs. Bassett went
crying to her father, and told him she feared the worst if Richard's
mind could not be diverted from the Huntercombe estate and his hatred
of Sir Charles and Lady Bassett, which had been the great misfortune of
her life and of his own, but nothing would ever eradicate it. Richard
had great abilities; was a linguist, a wonderful accountant; could her
dear father find him some profitable employment to divert his thoughts?

"What! all in a moment?" said the old man. "Then I shall have to _buy_
it; and if I go on like this I shall not have much to leave you."

Having delivered this objection, he went up to London, and, having many
friends in the City, and laying himself open to proposals, he got scent
at last of a new insurance company that proposed also to deal in
reversions, especially to entailed estates. By prompt purchase of
shares in Bassett's name, and introducing Bassett himself, who, by
special study, had a vast acquaintance with entailed estates, and a
genius for arithmetical calculation, he managed somehow to get him into
the direction, with a stipend, and a commission on all business he
might introduce to the office.

Bassett yielded sullenly, and now divided his time between London and
the country.

Wheeler worked with him on a share of commission, and t