‘Beatrice,’ said he, ‘I am to go to Courcy Castle to-morrow.’

‘So I heard mamma say.’

’Well; I only came of age to-day, and I will not begin by running counter to them.  But I tell you what, I won’t stay above a week at Courcy Castle for all the De Courcys in Barsetshire.  Tell me, Beatrice, did you ever hear of a Miss Dunstable?’

CHAPTER IX

SIR ROGER SCATCHERD

Enough has been said in this narrative to explain to the reader that Roger Scatcherd, who was whilom a drunken stone-mason in Barchester, and who had been so prompt to avenge the injury done to his sister, had become a great man in the world.  He had become a contractor, first for little things, such as half a mile or so of a railway embankment, or three or four canal bridges, and then a contractor for great things, such as Government hospitals, locks, docks, and quays, and had latterly had in his hands the making of whole lines of railway.

He had been occasionally in partnership with one man for one thing, and then with another for another; but had, on the whole, kept his interests to himself, and now at the time of our story, he was a very rich man.

And he had acquired more than wealth.  There had been a time when the Government wanted the immediate performance of some extraordinary piece of work, and Roger Scatcherd had been the man to do it.  There had been some extremely necessary bit of a railway to be made in half the time that such work would properly demand, some speculation to be incurred requiring great means and courage as well, and Roger Scatcherd had been found to be the man for the time.  He was then elevated for the moment to the dizzy pinnacle of a newspaper hero, and became one of those ‘whom the king delighteth to honour’.  He went up one day to kiss Her Majesty’s hand, and come down to his new grand house at Boxall Hill, Sir Roger Scatcherd, Bart.

‘And now, my lady,’ said he, when he explained to his wife the high state to which she had been called by his exertions and the Queen’s prerogative, ‘let’s have a bit of dinner, and a drop of som’at hot.’  Now the drop of som’at hot signified a dose of alcohol sufficient to send three ordinary men very drunk to bed.

While conquering the world Roger Scatcherd had not conquered his old bad habits.  Indeed, he was the same man at all points that he had been when formerly seen about the streets of Barchester with his stone-mason’s apron tucked up round his waist.  The apron he had abandoned, but not the heavy prominent thoughtful brow, with the wildly flashing eye beneath it.  He was still the same good companion, and still also the same hard-working hero.  In this only had he changed, that now he would work, and some said equally well, whether he were drunk or sober.  Those who were mostly inclined to make a miracle of him—­and there was a school of worshippers