Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/194

184 as five hundred thousand. Bless your soul, sir! people who get their money out of land are as long scraping five pounds together as your trading men are in turning five pounds into a hundred."

"That's a wicked thing, though," said Mr Crowder, meditatively. "However," he went on, retreating from this difficult ground, "trade or no trade, the Transomes have been poor enough this many a long year. I've a brother a tenant on their estate—I ought to know a little bit about that."

"They've kept up no establishment at all," said Mr Scales, with disgust. "They've even let their kitchen gardens. I suppose it was the eldest son's gambling. I've seen something of that. A man who has always lived in first-rate families is likely to know a thing or two on that subject."

"Ah, but it wasn't gambling did the first mischief," said Mr Crowder, with a slight smile, feeling that it was his turn to have some superiority. "New-comers don't know what happened in this country twenty and thirty year ago. I'm turned fifty myself, and my father lived under Sir Maxum's father. But if anybody from London can tell me more than I know about this country-side, I'm willing to listen."

"What was it, then, if it wasn't gambling?" said