Roger Scatcherd had also a reputation, but not for beauty or propriety of conduct.  He was known for the best stone-mason in the four counties, and as the man who could, on occasion, drink the most alcohol in a given time in the same localities.  As a workman, indeed, he had higher reputation even than this:  he was not only a good and very quick stone-mason, but he had also a capacity for turning other men into good stone-masons:  he had a gift of knowing what a man could and should do; and, by degrees, he taught himself what five, and ten, and twenty—­latterly, what a thousand and two thousand men might accomplish among them:  this, also, he did with very little aid from pen and paper, with which he was not, and never became, very conversant.  He had also other gifts and other propensities.  He could talk in a manner dangerous to himself and to others; he could persuade without knowing that he did so; and being himself an extreme demagogue, in those noisy times just prior to the Reform Bill, he created a hubbub in Barchester of which he himself had had no previous conception.

Henry Thorne among his other bad qualities had one which his friends regarded as worse than all the others, and which perhaps justified the Ullathorne people in their severity.  He loved to consort with low people.  He not only drank in tap-rooms with vulgar drinkers; so said his friends, and so said his enemies.  He denied the charge as being made in the plural number, and declared that his only low co-reveller was Roger Scatcherd.  With Roger Scatcherd, at any rate, he associated, and became as democratic as Roger himself.  Now the Thornes of Ullathorne were of the very highest order of Tory excellence.

Whether or not Mary Scatcherd at once accepted the offer of the respectable tradesman, I cannot say.  After the occurrence of certain events which must here shortly be told, she declared that she had never done so.  Her brother averred that she most positively had.  The respectable tradesman himself refused to speak on the subject.

It is certain, however, that Scatcherd, who had hitherto been silent enough about his sister in those social hours which he passed with his gentleman friend, boasted of the engagement when it was, as he said, made; and then boasted also of the girl’s beauty.  Scatcherd, in spite of his occasional intemperance, looked up in the world, and the coming marriage of his sister was, he thought, suitable to his own ambition for his family.

Henry Thorne had already heard of, and already seen, Mary Scatcherd; but hitherto she had not fallen in the way of his wickedness.  Now, however, when he heard that she was to be decently married, the devil tempted him to tempt her.  It boots not to tell all the tale.  It came out clearly enough when all was told, that he made her most distinct promises of marriage; he even gave her such in writing; and having in this way obtained from her her company during some of her little holidays—­her Sundays or summer evenings—­he seduced her.  Scatcherd accused him openly of having intoxicated her with drugs; and Thomas Thorne, who took up the case, ultimately believed the charge.  It became known in Barchester that she was with child, and that the seducer was Henry Thorne.