MIDDLEMARCH (Completed)

Chapter 24

"The offender's sorrow brings but small relief

To him who wears the strong offence's cross."

--SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.

I am sorry to say that only the third day after the propitious

events at Houndsley Fred Vincy had fallen into worse spirits than he

had known in his life before. Not that he had been disappointed

as to the possible market for his horse, but that before the bargain

could be concluded with Lord Medlicote's man, this Diamond,

in which hope to the amount of eighty pounds had been invested,

had without the slightest warning exhibited in the stable a most

vicious energy in kicking, had just missed killing the groom,

and had ended in laming himself severely by catching his leg in

a rope that overhung the stable-board. There was no more redress

for this than for the discovery of bad temper after marriage--

which of course old companions were aware of before the ceremony.

For some reason or other, Fred had none of his usual elasticity

under this stroke of ill-fortune: he was simply aware that he

had only fifty pounds, that there was no chance of his getting

any more at present, and that the bill for a hundred and sixty

would be presented in five days. Even if he had applied to his

father on the plea that Mr. Garth should be saved from loss,

Fred felt smartingly that his father would angrily refuse to rescue

Mr. Garth from the consequence of what he would call encouraging

extravagance and deceit. He was so utterly downcast that he could

frame no other project than to go straight to Mr. Garth and tell

him the sad truth, carrying with him the fifty pounds, and getting

that sum at least safely out of his own hands. His father, being at

the warehouse, did not yet know of the accident: when he did,

he would storm about the vicious brute being brought into his stable;

and before meeting that lesser annoyance Fred wanted to get away

with all his courage to face the greater. He took his father's nag,

for he had made up his mind that when he had told Mr. Garth,

he would ride to Stone Court and confess all to Mary. In fact,

it is probable that but for Mary's existence and Fred's love for her,

his conscience would have been much less active both in previously

urging the debt on his thought and impelling him not to spare

himself after his usual fashion by deferring an unpleasant task,

but to act as directly and simply as he could. Even much stronger

mortals than Fred Vincy hold half their rectitude in the mind of the

being they love best. "The theatre of all my actions is fallen,"