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,