To an American, the sense of the domination of this family over so considerable a tract of earth was even oppressive; and as I considered their simple annals, gathered from the legends of the engravings, surprise began to mingle with my disgust.  “Mr. Recorder” doubtless occupies an honourable post; but I thought that, in the course of so many generations, one Carthew might have clambered higher.  The soldier had stuck at Major-General; the churchman bloomed unremarked in an archidiaconate; and though the Right Honourable Bailley seemed to have sneaked into the privy council, I have still to learn what he did when he had got there.  Such vast means, so long a start, and such a modest standard of achievement, struck in me a strong sense of the dulness of that race.

I found that to come to the hamlet and not visit the Hall, would be regarded as a slight.  To feed the swans, to see the peacocks and the Raphaels—­for these commonplace people actually possessed two Raphaels—­to risk life and limb among a famous breed of cattle called the Carthew Chillinghams, and to do homage to the sire (still living) of Donibristle, a renowned winner of the oaks:  these, it seemed, were the inevitable stations of the pilgrimage.  I was not so foolish as to resist, for I might have need before I was done of general good-will; and two pieces of news fell in which changed my resignation to alacrity.  It appeared in the first place, that Mr. Norris was from home “travelling “; in the second, that a visitor had been before me and already made the tour of the Carthew curiosities.  I thought I knew who this must be; I was anxious to learn what he had done and seen; and fortune so far favoured me that the under-gardener singled out to be my guide had already performed the same function for my predecessor.

“Yes, sir,” he said, “an American gentleman right enough.  At least, I don’t think he was quite a gentleman, but a very civil person.”

The person, it seems, had been civil enough to be delighted with the Carthew Chillinghams, to perform the whole pilgrimage with rising admiration, and to have almost prostrated himself before the shrine of Donibristle’s sire.

“He told me, sir,” continued the gratified under-gardener, “that he had often read of the ’stately ‘omes of England,’ but ours was the first he had the chance to see.  When he came to the ’ead of the long alley, he fetched his breath.  ‘This is indeed a lordly domain!’ he cries.  And it was natural he should be interested in the place, for it seems Mr. Carthew had been kind to him in the States.  In fact, he seemed a grateful kind of person, and wonderful taken up with flowers.”

I heard this story with amazement.  The phrases quoted told their own tale; they were plainly from the shyster’s mint.  A few hours back I had seen him a mere bedlamite and fit for a strait-waistcoat; he was penniless in a strange country; it was highly probable he had gone without breakfast; the absence of Norris must have been a crushing blow; the man (by all reason) should have been despairing.  And now I heard of him, clothed and in his right mind, deliberate, insinuating, admiring vistas, smelling flowers, and talking like a book.  The strength of character implied amazed and daunted me.