occasionally the two young Messrs. Mason; for the master of Groby
Park was blessed with five children. He himself was a big, broad,
heavy-browed man, in whose composition there was nothing of
tenderness, nothing of poetry, and nothing of taste; but I cannot say
that he was on the whole a bad man. He was just in his dealings, or
at any rate endeavoured to be so. He strove hard to do his duty as a
county magistrate against very adverse circumstances. He endeavoured
to enable his tenants and labourers to live. He was severe to his
children, and was not loved by them; but nevertheless they were dear
to him, and he endeavoured to do his duty by them. The wife of his
bosom was not a pleasant woman, but nevertheless he did his duty by
her; that is, he neither deserted her, nor beat her, nor locked her
up. I am not sure that he would not have been justified in doing one
of these three things, or even all the three; for Mrs. Mason of Groby
Park was not a pleasant woman.

But yet he was a bad man in that he could never forget and never
forgive. His mind and heart were equally harsh and hard and
inflexible. He was a man who considered that it behoved him as a man
to resent all injuries, and to have his pound of flesh in all cases.
In his inner thoughts he had ever boasted to himself that he had
paid all men all that he owed. He had, so he thought, injured no
one in any of the relations of life. His tradesmen got their money
regularly. He answered every man's letter. He exacted nothing from
any man for which he did not pay. He never ill-used a servant either
by bad language or by over-work. He never amused himself, but devoted
his whole time to duties. He would fain even have been hospitable,
could he have gotten his neighbours to come to him and have induced
his wife to put upon the table sufficient food for them to eat.

Such being his virtues, what right had any one to injure him? When he
got from his grocer adulterated coffee,--he analyzed the coffee, as
his half-brother had done the guano,--he would have flayed the man
alive if the law would have allowed him. Had he not paid the man
monthly, giving him the best price as though for the best article?
When he was taken in with a warranty for a horse, he pursued the
culprit to the uttermost. Maid-servants who would not come from their
bedrooms at six o'clock, he would himself disturb while enjoying
their stolen slumbers. From his children he exacted all titles of
respect, becaus