Rhoda Fleming | Page 8

Bank. The
position of Anthony Hackbut in that celebrated establishment, and the
degree of influence exercised by him there, were things unknown; but
he had stuck to the Bank for a great number of years, and he had once
confessed to his sister that he was not a beggar. Upon these joint facts
the farmer speculated, deducing from them that a man in a London
Bank, holding money of his own, must have learnt the ways of turning
it over--farming golden ground, as it were; consequently, that amount
must now have increased to a very considerable sum. You ask, What

amount? But one who sits brooding upon a pair of facts for years, with
the imperturbable gravity of creation upon chaos, will be as successful
in evoking the concrete from the abstract. The farmer saw round figures
among the possessions of the family, and he assisted mentally in this
money-turning of Anthony's, counted his gains for him, disposed his
risks, and eyed the pile of visionary gold with an interest so remote,
that he was almost correct in calling it disinterested. The
brothers-in-law had a mutual plea of expense that kept them separate.
When Anthony refused, on petition, to advance one hundred pounds to
the farmer, there was ill blood to divide them. Queen Anne's Farm
missed the flourishing point by one hundred pounds exactly. With that
addition to its exchequer, it would have made head against its old
enemy, Taxation, and started rejuvenescent. But the Radicals were in
power to legislate and crush agriculture, and "I've got a miser for my
brother-in-law," said the farmer. Alas! the hundred pounds to back him,
he could have sowed what he pleased, and when it pleased him,
partially defying the capricious clouds and their treasures, and playing
tunefully upon his land, his own land. Instead of which, and while too
keenly aware that the one hundred would have made excesses in any
direction tributary to his pocket, the poor man groaned at continuous
falls of moisture, and when rain was prayed for in church, he had to be
down on his knees, praying heartily with the rest of the congregation. It
was done, and bitter reproaches were cast upon Anthony for the
enforced necessity to do it.
On the occasion of his sister's death, Anthony informed his bereaved
brother-in-law that he could not come down to follow the hearse as a
mourner. "My place is one of great trust;" he said, "and I cannot be
spared." He offered, however, voluntarily to pay half the expenses of
the funeral, stating the limit of the cost. It is unfair to sound any man's
springs of action critically while he is being tried by a sorrow; and the
farmer's angry rejection of Anthony's offer of aid must pass. He
remarked in his letter of reply, that his wife's funeral should cost no less
than he chose to expend on it. He breathed indignant fumes against
"interferences." He desired Anthony to know that he also was "not a
beggar," and that he would not be treated as one. The letter showed a
solid yeoman's fist. Farmer Fleming told his chums, and the shopkeeper

of Wrexby, with whom he came into converse, that he would honour
his dead wife up to his last penny. Some month or so afterward it was
generally conjectured that he had kept his word.
Anthony's rejoinder was characterized by a marked humility. He
expressed contrition for the farmer's misunderstanding of his motives.
His fathomless conscience had plainly been reached. He wrote again,
without waiting for an answer, speaking of the Funds indeed, but only
to pronounce them worldly things, and hoping that they all might meet
in heaven, where brotherly love, as well as money, was ready made,
and not always in the next street. A hint occurred that it would be a
gratification to him to be invited down, whether he could come or no;
for holidays were expensive, and journeys by rail had to be thought
over before they were undertaken; and when you are away from your
post, you never knew who maybe supplanting you. He did not promise
that he could come, but frankly stated his susceptibility to the
friendliness of an invitation. The feeling indulged by Farmer Fleming
in refusing to notice Anthony's advance toward a reconciliation, was,
on the whole, not creditable to him. Spite is more often fattened than
propitiated by penitence. He may have thought besides (policy not
being always a vacant space in revengeful acts) that Anthony was
capable of something stronger and warmer, now that his humanity had
been aroused. The speculation is commonly perilous; but Farmer
Fleming had the desperation of a man who has run slightly into debt,
and has heard the first din of dunning, which to the unaccustomed
imagination is