'Is there no one to look; after it?' continued the traveller. 'No squire, no clergyman?'
'A fox-hunting parson,' answered the coachman; 'who lives half-a-dozen miles off, and gallops over for the service.'
Guy knew that the last presentation had been sold in the days of his grandfather's extravagance, and beheld another effect of ancestral sin.
'Do you know who is the owner of the place?'
'Yes, sir; 'tis Sir Guy Morville. You have heard tell of the old Sir Guy Morville, for he made a deal of noise in the world.'
'What! The noted--'
'I ought not to allow you to finish your sentence,' said Guy, very courteously, 'without telling you that I am his grandson.'
'I beg your pardon!' exclaimed the traveller.
'Nay,' said Guy, with a smile; 'I only thought it was fair to tell you.'
'Sir Guy himself!' said the coachman, turning round, and touching his hat, anxious to do the honours of his coach. 'I have not seen you on this road before, sir, for I never forget a face; I hope you'll often be this way.'
After a few more civilities, Guy was at liberty to attend to the fresh influx of sad musings on thoughtless waste affecting not only the destiny of the individual himself, but whole generations besides. How many souls might it not have ruined? 'These sheep, what had they done!' His grandfather had repented, but who was to preach repentance unto these? He did not wonder now that his own hopes of happiness had been blighted; he only marvelled that a bright present or future had ever been his-While souls were wandering far and wide, And curses swarmed on every side.
The traveller was, meanwhile, observing the heir of Redclyffe, possessor of wealth and wide lands. Little did he guess how that bright-eyed youth looked upon his riches.
Miles were passed in one long melancholy musing, till Guy was roused by the sight of familiar scenes, and found himself rattling over the stones of the little borough of Moorworth, with the gray, large-windowed, old-fashioned houses, on each side, looking at him with friendly eyes. There, behind those limes cut out in arches, was the commercial school, where he had spent many an hour in construing with patient Mr. Potts; and though he had now a juster appreciation of his old master's erudition, which he had once thought so vast, he recollected with veneration his long and patient submission to an irksome, uncongenial life. Rumbling on, the coach was in the square market-place, the odd-looking octagon market-house in the middle, and the inn--the respectable old 'George'--with its long rank of stables and out-buildings forming one side. It was at this inn that Guy had been born, and the mistress having been the first person who had him in her arms, considered herself privileged to have a great affection for him, and had delighted in the greetings he always exchanged with her when he put up his pony at her stable, and went to his tutor.