h heavy, dirty,
sleepy bargemen, and rickety, ill-used barge-horses, are common in
the neighbourhood. In parts it is very pretty, as it runs under the
chalky downs, and there are a multiplicity of locks, and the turf
of the sheep-walks comes up to the towing path; but in the close
neighbourhood of the town the canal is straight and uninteresting;
the ground is level, and there is a scattered community of small,
straight-built light-brick houses, which are in themselves so ugly
that they are incompatible with anything that is pretty in landscape.

Parson John, always so called to distinguish him from the late
parson, his cousin, who had been the Rev. James Marrable, had taken
occasion, on behalf of his nephew, to tell the story of his wrong to
Miss Marrable, and by Miss Marrable it had been told to Mary. To both
these ladies the thing seemed to be so horrible,--the idea that a
father should have robbed his son,--that the stern ferocity of the
slow-moving eyes was forgiven, and they took him to their hearts, if
not for love, at least for pity. Twenty thousand pounds ought to have
become the property of Walter Marrable, when some maternal relative
had died. It had seemed hard that the father should have none of it,
and, on the receipt in India of representations from the Colonel,
Walter had signed certain fatal papers, the effect of which was that
the father had laid his hands on pretty nearly the whole, if not on
the whole, of the money, and had caused it to vanish. There was now a
question whether some five thousand pounds might not be saved. If so,
Walter would stay in England; if not, he would exchange and go back
to India; "or," as he said himself, "to the Devil."

"Don't speak of it in that way," said Mary.

"The worst of it is," said he "that I am ashamed of myself for being
so absolutely cut up about money. A man should be able to bear that
kind of thing; but this hits one all round."

"I think you bear it very well."

"No, I don't. I didn't bear it well when I called my father a
swindler. I didn't bear it well when I swore that I would put him in
prison for robbing me. I don't bear it well now, when I think of it
every moment. But I do so hate India, and I had so absolutely made
up my mind never to return. If it hadn't been that I knew that this
fortune was to be mine, I could have saved money, hand over hand."

"Can't you live on your pay here?"

"No!" He answered her almost as though he were angry with h