It is not to be supposed that such an encounter as Mr. Preston had
just had with Roger Hamley sweetened the regards in which the two
young men henceforward held each other. They had barely spoken to one
another before, and but seldom met; for the land-agent's employment
had hitherto lain at Ashcombe, some sixteen or seventeen miles from
Hamley. He was older than Roger by several years; but during the
time he had been in the county Osborne and Roger had been at school
and at college. Mr. Preston was prepared to dislike the Hamleys for
many unreasonable reasons. Cynthia and Molly had both spoken of
the brothers with familiar regard, implying considerable intimacy;
their flowers had been preferred to his on the occasion of the ball;
most people spoke well of them; and Mr. Preston had an animal's
instinctive jealousy and combativeness against all popular young men.
Their "position"--poor as the Hamleys might be--was far higher than
his own in the county; and, moreover, he was agent to the great Whig
lord, whose political interests were diametrically opposed to those
of the old Tory squire. Not that Lord Cumnor troubled himself much
about his political interests. His family had obtained property and
title from the Whigs at the time of the Hanoverian succession; and
so, traditionally, he was a Whig, and had belonged in his youth to
Whig clubs, where he had lost considerable sums of money to Whig
gamblers. All this was satisfactory and consistent enough. And if
Lord Hollingford had not been returned for the county on the Whig
interest--as his father had been before him, until he had succeeded
to the title--it is quite probable Lord Cumnor would have considered
the British constitution in danger, and the patriotism of his
ancestors ungratefully ignored. But, excepting at elections, he had
no notion of making Whig and Tory a party cry. He had lived too much
in London, and was of too sociable a nature, to exclude any man who
jumped with his humour from the hospitality he was always ready to
offer, be the agreeable acquaintance Whig, Tory, or Radical. But in
the county of which he was lord-lieutenant, the old party distinction
was still a shibboleth by which men were tested as to their fitness
for social intercourse, as well as on the hustings. If by any chance
a Whig found himself at a Tory dinner-table--or vice versâ--the food
was hard of digestion, and wine and viands were criticized rather
than enjoyed. A marriage between the young people of the separate
parties was almost as unheard-of and prohibited an alliance as that
of Romeo and Juliet's. And of course Mr. Preston was not a man in
whose breast such prejudices would die away. They were an excitement
to him for one thing, and called out all his talent for intrigue on
behalf of the party to which he was allied. Moreover, he considered
it as loyalty to his employer to "scatter his enemies" by any means
in his power. He had always hated and despised the Tories in general;
and after that interview on the marshy common in front of Silas's
cottage, he hated the Hamleys and Roger especially, with a very
choice and particular hatred. "That prig," as hereafter he always
designated Roger--"he shall pay for it yet," he said to himself by
way of consolation, after the father and son had left him. "What a
lout it is!"--watching the receding figures, "The old chap has twice
as much spunk," as the Squire tugged at his bridle reins. "The old
mare could make her way better without being led, my fine fellow. But
I see through your dodge. You're afraid of your old father turning
back and getting into another rage. Position indeed! a beggarly
squire--a man who did turn off his men just before winter, to rot
or starve, for all he cared--it's just like a brutal old Tory." And,
under the cover of sympathy with the dismissed labourers, Mr. Preston
indulged his own private pique very pleasantly.