"You cannot have worse. It is dreadful to have to depend on a fool,—to have to trust to a man who cannot tell wrong from right. Your uncle intends to be a good man. If it were brought home to him that he were doing a wrong he would not do it. He would not rob; he would not steal; he must not commit murder, and the rest of it. But he is a fool, and he does not know when he is doing these things."
"I will wash my hands of him."
"Yes; and he will wash his hands of you. You do not know him as I do. He has taken it into his silly head that you are the chief of sinners because you said what was not true to that man, who seems really to be the sinner, and nothing will eradicate the idea. He will go and marry that woman because he thinks that in that way he can best carry his purpose, and then he will repent at leisure. I used to tell you that you had better listen to the sermons."
"And now I must pay for it!"
"Well, my boy, it is no good crying for spilt milk. As I was saying just now, there is nothing worse than a fool."
CHAPTER XXVI.
MARMADUKE LODGE.
On the 7th of next month two things occurred, each of great importance. Hunting commenced in the Puckeridge country, and Harry with that famous mare Belladonna was there. And Squire Prosper was driven in his carriage into Buntingford, and made his offer with all due formality to Miss Thoroughbung. The whole household, including Matthew, and the cook, and the coachman, and the boy, and the two house-maids, knew what he was going to do. It would be difficult to say how they knew, because he was a man who never told anything. He was the last man in England who, on such a matter, would have made a confidant of his butler. He never spoke to a servant about matters unconnected with their service. He considered that to do so would be altogether against his dignity. Nevertheless when he ordered his carriage, which he did not do very frequently at this time of the year, when the horses were wanted on the farm,—and of which he gave twenty-four hours' notice to all the persons concerned,—and when early in the morning he ordered that his Sunday suit should be prepared for wearing, and when his aspect grew more and more serious as the hour drew nigh, it was well understood by them all that he was going to make the offer that day.
He was both proud and fearful as to the thing to be done,—proud that he, the Squire of Buston, should be called on to take so important a step; proud by anticipation of his feelings as he would return home a jolly thriving wooer,—and yet a little fearful lest he might not succeed. Were he to fail the failure would be horrible to him. He knew that every man and woman about the place would know all about it. Among the secrets of the family there was a story, never now mentioned, of his having done the same thing, once before. He was then a young man, about twenty-five, and he had come forth to lay himself and Buston at the feet of a baronet's daughter who lived some twenty-five miles off. She was very beautiful, and was said to have a fitting dower, but he had come back, and had shut himself up in the house for a week afterward. To no human ears had he ever since spoken of his interview with Miss Courteney. The doings of that day had been wrapped in impenetrable darkness. But all Buston and the neighboring parishes had known that Miss Courteney had refused him. Since that day he had never gone forth again on such a mission.