Then there are the Wilsons (Matthew and his family) of Low Beech, and High Beech also. It falls to my lot to report of them that they are prospering in the world, apparently. Matthew is as industrious and plodding as ever; so is his wife. He pays his rent (of both farms), and also his tithe and poor's-rate punctually, and without more than the regular amount of grumbling which certain days in the year (especially tithe-paying days) always witnessed, for they were not yet commuted.
The married son lives at High Beech, as has been previously intimated, and being of a prudent turn of mind, and having got his late uncle's furniture at a low valuation, he is contented with the knobby-seated parlour chairs aforementioned. He is the better satisfied with them that he rarely uses them, preferring to rest and refresh himself in the roomy kitchen of the old farmhouse.
His younger brothers work on the farm, or on one or other of the farms, and are understood to be keeping an eye (of hope and expectation) on two other of the squire's farms which report says will soon be vacant. So "Long live the Plough," say we.
It is a small trouble to the Matthew Wilsons that they never hear from Walter—never have heard from him, nor of him, except indirectly, since he went to Australia.
"His spirit is that high," says the father, "that he doesn't choose to let us know what he is doing; which isn't much, I reckon, or else we should have heard his brag soon enough, I'll warrant."
But for all he talks about his eldest son in this fashion, he knows in his heart, what he does not care to acknowledge, that why Walter keeps such silence has a deeper and sadder reason, or unreason; and that the quarrel (for a quarrel there is) is traceable to much underdealing on the part of himself and his.
They never say much, if anything—these thriving Wilsons—of their niece or cousin, Sarah Tincroft. I am afraid it rather galls them to think of her being "a grand lady;" and that, in fact, their ill-nature and injustice towards her turned out to be, as they believe, the making of her. There are few sayings oftener found true, than that people almost always dislike those whom they have striven without cause to injure, except, perhaps, this other saying, that a sure way to incur the lasting ill-will of some persons is to confer on them a signal benefit. I do not know how this too well-known fact is to be accounted for, except by supposing that to receive a great boon with true gratitude from one whom we had always looked upon as an equal, requires magnanimity of which few are capable. This, however, is a digression: we return to our narrative.
There is yet another reason, however, why the Wilsons are chary of speaking of Mrs. Tincroft. They dare not do this in the hearing of their daughter Elizabeth, of whom I have not yet spoken, but of whom I have somewhat to say. Poor remorse-stricken Elizabeth! Here is her little story:
Not long after the death of her uncle Mark, and the annexation of High Beech to Low Beech by her father, Miss Elizabeth was made sensible of having, of course undesignedly and unaidingly on her part, become the object of admiration to a certain rich young farmer in the neighbouring parish. How could she help this? She wanted to know, when her brothers joked her about it.
And how could she prevent his leaving his own parish church every Sunday to walk three miles, through almost all weathers, to hers—being suddenly enlightened, as he said, as to the superiority of dear good Mr. Rubric's discourses? No, she couldn't prevent this any more than she was able to prevent his offering her his arm on her return home from church, and his insisting on relieving her of the weight of her prayer-book even before they had left the building. And this, although it took Mr. Admirer, otherwise named Smith, another long mile out of his way.