‘I think they all are,’ the Lady Arabella had replied; wishing, perhaps, to remind her sister-in-law that the breed of brutes was as rampant in West Barsetshire as in the eastern division of that county.

The squire, however, had not fought on this occasion with all his vigour.  There had, of course, been some passages between him and his son, and it had been agreed that Frank should go for a fortnight to Courcy Castle.

‘We mustn’t quarrel with them, you know, if we can help it,’ said the father; ‘and, therefore, you must go sooner or later.’

‘Well, I suppose so; but you don’t know how dull it is, governor.’

‘Don’t I!’ said Gresham.

‘There’s a Miss Dunstable to be there; did you ever hear of her, sir?’

‘No, never.’

’She’s a girl whose father used to make ointment, or something of that sort.’

’Oh, yes, to be sure; the ointment of Lebanon.  He used to cover all the walls of London.  I haven’t heard of him this year past.’

’No; that is because he’s dead.  Well, she carries on the ointment now, I believe; at any rate, she has got all the money.  I wonder what she’s like?’

‘You’d better go and see,’ said the father, who now began to have some inkling of an idea why the two ladies were so anxious to carry his son off to Courcy Castle at this exact time.  And so Frank had packed up his best clothes, given a last fond look at the new black horse, repeated his last special injunctions to Peter, and had then made one of the stately cortege which proceeded through the county from Greshamsbury to Courcy Castle.

‘I am very glad of that, very,’ said the squire, when he heard that the money was to be forthcoming.  ’I shall get it on easier terms from him than elsewhere; and it kills me to have continual bother about such things.’  And Mr Gresham, feeling that that difficulty was tided over for a time, and that the immediate pressure of little debts would be abated, stretched himself on his easy chair as though he were quite comfortable;—­one may say almost elated.

How frequent it is that men on their road to ruin feel elation such as this!  A man signs away moiety of his substance; nay, that were nothing; but a moiety of the substance of his children; he puts his pen to the paper that ruins him and them; but in doing so he frees himself from a source of immediate little pestering, stinging troubles:  and, therefore, feels as though fortune has been almost kind to him.

The doctor felt angry with himself for what he had done when he saw how easily the squire adapted himself to this new loan.  ’It will make Scatcherd’s claim upon you very heavy,’ said he.

Mr Gresham at once read all that was passing through the doctor’s mind.  ‘Well, what else can I do?’ said he.  ’You wouldn’t have me allow my daughter to lose this match for the sake of a few thousand pounds?  It will be well at any rate to have one of them settled.  Look at that letter from Moffat.’