“I am very glad he omitted to do so,” said Egremont; “I prefer Grouse to Slimsey.”
“I dare say you do,” said Lord Marney, filling his glass and looking very black; “you would like, I have no doubt, to see a fine gentleman-saint, like your friend Mr St Lys, at Marney, preaching in cottages, filling the people with discontent, lecturing me about low wages, soliciting plots of grounds for new churches, and inveigling Arabella into subscriptions to painted windows.”
“I certainly should like to see a man like Aubrey St Lys at Marney,” said Egremont quietly, but rather doggedly.
“And if he were here, I would soon see who should be master,” said Lord Marney; “I would not succumb like Mowbray. One might as well have a jesuit in the house at once.”
“I dare say St Lys would care very little about entering your house,” said Egremont. “I know it was with great reluctance that he ever came to Mowbray Castle.”
“I dare say; very great reluctance indeed. And very reluctant he was, I make no doubt, to sit next to Lady Maud. I wonder he does not fly higher, and preach to Lady Joan; but she is too sensible a woman for such fanatical tricks.”
“St Lys thinks it his duty to enter all societies. That is the reason why he goes to Mowbray Castle, as well as to the squalid courts and cellars of the town. He takes care that those who are clad in purple and fine linen shall know the state of their neighbours. They cannot at least plead ignorance for the nonfulfilment of their duty. Before St Lys’s time, the family at Mowbray Castle might as well have not existed, as far as benefiting their miserable vicinage. It would be well perhaps for other districts not less wretched, and for other families as high and favoured as the Mowbrays, if there were a Mr St Lys on the spot instead of a Mr Slimsey.”
“I suppose that is meant for a cut,” said Lord Marney; “but I wish the people were as well off in every part of the country as they are on my estate. They get here their eight shillings a week, always at least seven, and every hand is at this moment in employ, except a parcel of scoundrels who prefer woodstealing and poaching, and who would prefer wood-stealing and poaching if you gave them double the wages. The rate of wages is nothing: certainty is the thing; and every man at Marney may be sure of his seven shillings a-week for at least nine months in the year; and for the other three, they can go to the House, and a very proper place for them; it is heated with hot air, and has every comfort. Even Marney Abbey is not heated with hot air. I have often thought of it; it makes me mad sometimes to think of those lazy, pampered menials passing their lives with their backs to a great roaring fire; but I am afraid of the flues.”
“I wonder, talking of fires, that you are not more afraid of burning ricks,” said Egremont.
“It’s an infernal lie,” said Lord Marney, very violently.