"I have been hunted—it's much more exciting than chasing foxes; and as for shooting, there isn't much sport in butchering tame pheasants," he said to the Squire, standing squarely against his mantelpiece.
The Squire remonstrated.
"It's all very well for me, Derwent. I know every inch of the place and every fool living within twenty miles. I was born here. I fit it and it fits me. I was at sea at Oxford, and when I came down I was glad. My father mortgaged most of the land, I've done the rest. I'm not rich. I'm growing poorer every day. Land isn't what it was. But I love the place. There's a whole army of Blakistons in the church, and please God I shall add to their number. I am someone here—I'm nobody away. I like to potter after the hounds on a half-bred. I like to catch my trout. I have old friends here, and can talk to them of old times. But you? Why, bless me, Derwent, you are rich, not bad looking, and young. What do you want to bury yourself here for? It's no life for you. It isn't as though you were married even."
At all of which Derwent smiled. He smiled habitually. It was not a pleasant smile, for in it lurked a suspicion of irony.
"Blakiston, no man can understand another. This place suits me. It's quiet, and I want quiet. I have had my fill of excitement out West. I am young—but forty does not mean a boy."
"Forty! pooh! what's forty?" cried the Squire. He was well over sixty, and looked upon the vault in the church of which he was fond of speaking as a possibility very hazy from its remoteness.
"Forty, my friend, is middle age. I am not married, and am not anxious for a wife. A wife seems to me a risky bargain; because you are lucky, that is no reason why I should be."
The Squire shifted his hands from his knees and shuffled his feet. He did not regard his wife as absolutely essential to his happiness.
"Of course, of course," he said, testily. "Mary is an excellent woman, a really excellent woman."
"Yes, but it was a lottery. She might not have been excellent, Blakiston; she might have been bad-tempered, she might have attempted to rule you."