Perhaps Tifto
driving a nail into his horse's foot had on the whole been
serviceable. That apostasy from the political creed of the
Pallisers had been a blow,--much more felt than the loss of the
seventy thousand pounds;--but even under that blow he had consoled
himself by thinking that a conservative patriotic nobleman may
serve his country,--even as a Conservative. In the midst of this he
had felt that the surest resource for his son against evil would
be in an early marriage. If he would marry becomingly, then might
everything still be made pleasant. If his son should marry
becomingly nothing which a father could do should be wanting to
add splendour and dignity to his son's life.
In thinking of all this he had by no means regarded his own mode
of life with favour. He knew how jejune his life had been,--now
devoid of other interests than that of the public service to which
he had devoted himself. He was thinking of this when he told his
son that he had neither ploughed and sowed or been the owner of
sheep or oxen. He often thought of this, when he heard those round
him talking of the sports, which, though he condemned them as the
employment of a life, he now regarded wistfully, hopelessly as far
as he himself was concerned, as proper recreations for a man of
wealth.
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