Mr Huntingdon was a country gentleman of good fortune and popular manners, warm in his temper, hasty in his speech, upright in his transactions, and liberal in his dealings. No man could make a better speech, when he had those to address who substantially agreed with him; while in ordinary conversation he generally succeeded in silencing an opponent, though, perhaps, more by the vehemence of his utterances than by the cogency of his reasonings. He had a considerable knowledge of field-sports and farming, rather less of literature, and less still of character. Naturally, he had a high opinion of his own judgment, in which opinion his dependants agreed with him before his face, but differed from it behind his back. However, every one allowed that he was a worthy man, a good landlord, a kind master, and a faithful friend. A cloud, however, rested on his home.
He had married early, and had made, in the estimation of his friends and of the county generally, an excellent choice of a wife in the person of the eldest daughter of a neighbouring squire. The marriage was apparently a very happy one; for the bride brought her husband a fair face, a loving heart, and a good fortune, and entertained his friends with due courtesy and cordiality. Moreover, she neither thwarted his tastes nor squandered his money; while he, on his part, pursued his hunting, shooting, and fishing, and his occasional magisterial duties, with due consideration for his wife’s domestic and social engagements, so that their married life ran its course with as little friction or creaking as could reasonably be expected. Then there came, in due time, the children: first, a little girl, the object of her mother’s passionate love, and as dear to her father as the mistake of her not having been a boy would allow her to be; then, after an interval of three years, came a son.
Now it so happened that at the time of this son’s birth there was residing as a guest at the Manor-house a middle-aged gentleman reputed to be very rich. His name was Amos Sutterby. Mr Huntingdon had met him abroad in the second year after his marriage when taking a tour in Switzerland with his wife. Mr Sutterby was an old bachelor, rather bluff in his manners, but evidently in easy circumstances. The Huntingdons and himself had met on the Rigi, and the squire had taken to him at once—in a great measure, it may be, because Mr Amos was a good listener, and was very ready to ask Mr Huntingdon’s opinion and advice. So the squire gave his new acquaintance a general invitation to Flixworth Manor, which the other cordially accepted: and in a little while this acquaintanceship ripened into a steady friendship, though by no means entirely to the satisfaction of Mrs Huntingdon. The result, however, was that Mr Sutterby spent several weeks of every year, at the close of the summer and beginning of the autumn, at the Manor, and was the constant companion of the squire in his field-sports. Mr Huntingdon had taken care to satisfy himself that his new friend, though somewhat of an oddity, was a man of substance. True, he was only living in bachelor style, and possessed no landed property; but then he was able at all times to command ready money, and was reputed by persons who had long known him to be the holder of a large amount in the funds, an impression which seemed to be justified by some elegant and costly presents of which Mr Sutterby begged his friend’s acceptance, as a token of his esteem and a mark of his appreciation of that kind hospitality which, as he said, an eccentric old bachelor living in lodgings in London was unable to return in kind.
Now it was, as has been said, during a visit of Mr Sutterby to Flixworth Manor that a son and heir was given to the Huntingdons. Of course there were great rejoicings, and no one seemed more glad than Mr Sutterby; and when he was asked if he would stand godfather to the child, he declared that nothing could please him more. So the christening day was fixed, and now the question of a name for the child was discussed, as father, mother, and their guest were sitting round the fire after dinner on the first day of Mrs Huntingdon’s appearing downstairs.
“Of course he must be ‘Walter,’ after yourself,” said the lady.
“Unless you would like to call him ‘Amos,’ after his godfather,” said the squire, laughing.
“Capital!” exclaimed Mr Sutterby, with a roar of merriment. “In that case, of course, I shall feel it nothing less than my duty to make him my heir.”
Now these words of their guest, though spoken just on the spur of the moment, and probably only in jest, made an impression on the mind of Mr Huntingdon which he could not get rid of. Why should not his friend have really meant what he said? He was rich, and an old bachelor, and had no near relations, so far as the squire knew; and though Mr Huntingdon’s estate and fortune were large, yet his open-house way of living left him little to spare at the year’s end, so that Mr Sutterby’s money would be very acceptable, should he see fit to leave it to his godson. He therefore represented this view of the matter to his wife in private; but she would not hear of such a name as Amos being given to her son.
“Better lose a thousand fortunes, and quarrel with every friend they had or might have, rather than bring such an odious combination as ‘Amos Huntingdon’ into the family genealogy.” The squire’s temper, however, was roused by this opposition, and he wound up the only sharp altercation which had occurred between himself and his wife since their marriage by a vehement asseveration that “Amos” and nothing but “Amos” should be the Christian name of his first-born son.
Sorely against her will, his wife was obliged to yield; for though Mr Huntingdon had his own secret regrets that he had gone so far, yet he was one of those who, wanting that true greatness of character which leads its possessor to change a hastily adopted decision for one resulting from a maturer judgment, abide by what they have said simply because they have said it, and thus mistake obstinacy for a right-minded firmness. “Amos,” therefore, was the name given, considerably to the satisfaction of Mr Sutterby, who made his godson handsome presents from time to time, and often spoke of him playfully as “my godson and heir.” His mother, however, never forgave his name, and it was clear to all that the poor child himself had but a cold place in that mother’s heart.