He was what is called an essentially worthy man, and he was an essentially modern product of modern energies.
He had no perceivable sins, he conformed to all religious observances, he had always kept on the right side of the law, he never made a jest, and he never lost a shilling. As a husband he was faithful, as a father exemplary, as a Christian devout, and as a citizen blameless. If thousands of people had cursed him, if tens of thousands of workmen had sweated for him, if hundreds of thousands of cattle had perished for him, if gambling hells and drinking-shops and opium dens had enriched him, if rotten ships and starved crews, and poisonous trades and famished families had helped to make the splendors of Harrenden House and the glories of Vale Royal, these facts did not matter to either society or Christianity, and were mere personal details into which nobody could enter. William Massarene was one of those persons who are the pillars of the great middle class and the sources of that healthy plebeian blood from which a decaying patriciate is recruited.
“I stand by all as upholds property,” he said one day to Lord Greatrex, the great Conservative leader.
“The Northern Farmer has said it before you,” murmured that gentleman. “The creed is sound and simple, if not popular.”
Massarene dared not swear in such a presence, but he thought, “Damn popularity!”
He did not want to be popular. He despised the people: which was very natural, for he had come from them. He liked to drive behind his sleek high-bred carriage-horses and see the crowd part in the Strand or on the Embankment, and women and children scurry and stumble to make way for his progress; it made him realize the vast distance which now separated himself from the common multitude.
He would have liked, if it had been possible, to knock down half-a-dozen of the rabble as a sign of his superiority. But he was in a country full of policemen and prejudices, and so he had to show his superiority in another manner. One morning, when he was driving to a meeting in the City with a member of parliament, who was a noted philanthropist, in his brougham, his high-stepping bays did knock down an old woman, lame and very poorly clad. William Massarene held all women in slight esteem, but old women were in his estimate wholly useless and obnoxious; he would have put them all at forty years old in lethal chambers. When cattle were past bearing they went to the shambles, eh?
But, having a philanthropist beside him, and two policemen at his carriage-door, he busied himself about this maimed old female, had her put in a cab, told his footman to go on the box with her, and ordered his card to be given to the authorities of the nearest hospital.
“Say I will provide for her for life,” he said to his servant rather loudly.
The people in the street cheered him.