ckening pity and labor of
body and mind. That side of it he kept rigidly out of sight. But all
that he could hurl against the Squire's feeling, as it were, he gathered
up, strangely conscious through it all of his own young persistent
yearning to right himself with this man, whose mental history, as it lay
chronicled in these rooms, had been to him, at a time of intellectual
hunger, so stimulating, so enriching.

But passion, and reticence, and bidden sympathy were alike lost upon the
Squire. Before he paused Mr. Wendover had already risen restlessly
from his chair, and from the rug was glowering down on his, unwelcome
visitor.

Good heavens! had he come home to be lectured in his own library by this
fanatical slip of a parson? As for his stories, the Squire barely took
the trouble to listen to them.

Every popularity-hunting fool, with a passion for putting his hand
into other people's pockets, can tell pathetic stories; but it was
intolerable that his scholar's privacy should be at the mercy of one of
the tribe.

'Mr. Elsmere,' he broke out at last with contemptuous emphasis, 'I
imagine it would have been better--infinitely better--to have spared
both yourself and me the disagreeables of this interview. However, I am
not sorry we should understand each other. I have lived a life which is
at least double the length of yours in very tolerable peace and comfort.
The world has been good enough for me, and I for it, so far. I have been
master in my own estate, and intend to remain so. As for the new-fangled
ideas of a landowner's duty, with which your mind seems to be full'--the
scornful irritation of the tone was unmistakable--' I have never dabbled
in them, nor do I intend to begin now. I am like the rest of my kind;
I have no money to chuck away in building schemes, in order that
the Rector of the parish may pose as the apostle of the agricultural
laborer. That, however, is neither here nor there. What is to the
purpose is, that my business affairs are in the hands of a business man,
deliberately chosen and approved by me, and that I have nothing to do
with them. Nothing at all!' he repeated with emphasis. 'It may seem
to you very shocking. You may reward it as the object in life of the
English landowner to inspect the pigstyes and amend the habits of the
English laborer. I don't quarrel with the conception, I only ask you not
to expect me to live up to it. I am a student first and foremost, and
desire to be left t