in his estimation, and he had certainly wished to call it his own.
But as Warren Hastings looked at gold and thought of buying Daylesford,

so Joshua Rigg looked at Stone Court and thought of buying gold.
He had a very distinct and intensevision of his chief good,

the vigorous greed which he had inherited having taken a special form
by dint of circumstance: and his chief good was to be a moneychanger.

From his earliest employment as an errand-boy in a seaport,
he had looked through the windows of the moneychangers as other

boys look through the windows of the pastry-cooks; the fascination
had wrought itself gradually into a deep special passion; he meant,

when he had property, to do many things, one of them being to marry
a genteel young person; but these were all accidents and joys that

imagination could dispense with. The one joy after which his soul
thirsted was to have a money-changer's shop on a much-frequented quay,

to have locks all round him of which he held the keys, and to look
sublimely cool as he handled the breeding coins of all nations,

while helpless Cupidity looked at him enviously from the other side
of an iron lattice. The strength of that passion had been a power

enabling him to master all the knowledge necessary to gratify it.
And when others were thinking that he had settled at Stone Court for life,

Joshua himself was thinking that the moment now was not far off when he
should settle on the North Quay with the best appointments in safes

and locks.
Enough. We are concerned with looking at Joshua Rigg's sale of his

land from Mr. Bulstrode's point of view, and he interpreted it
as a cheering dispensation conveying perhaps a sanction to a purpose

which he had for some time entertained without external encouragement;
he interpreted it thus, but not too confidently, offering up his

thanksgiving in guarded phraseology. His doubts did not arise from the
possible relations of the event to Joshua Rigg's destiny, which belonged

to the unmapped regions not taken under the providential government,
except perhaps in an imperfectcolonial way; but they arose from

reflecting that this dispensation too might be a chastisement
for himself, as Mr. Farebrother's induction to the living clearly was.

This was not what Mr. Bulstrode said to any man for the sake of
deceiving him: it was what he said to himself--it was as genuinely

his mode of explaining events as any theory of yours may be,
if you happen to disagree with him. For the egoism which enters

into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more
our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

However, whether for sanction or for chastisement, Mr. Bulstrode,
hardly fifteen months after the death of Peter Featherstone,

had become the proprietor of Stone Court, and what Peter would
say "if he were worthy to know," had become an inexhaustible and

consolatory subject of conversation to his disappointed relatives.
The tables were now turned on that dear brother departed,

and to contemplate the frustration of his cunning by the superior
cunning of things in general was a cud of delight to Solomon.

Mrs. Waule had a melancholytriumph in the proof that it did
not answer to make false Featherstones and cut off the genuine;

and Sister Martha receiving the news in the Chalky Flats said,
"Dear, dear! then the Almighty could have been none so pleased

with the almshouses after all."
Affectionate Mrs. Bulstrode was particularly glad of the advantage

which her husband's health was likely to get from the purchase of
Stone Court. Few days passed without his riding thither and looking

over some part of the farm with the bailiff, and the evenings were
delicious in that quiet spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were

sending forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old garden.
One evening, while the sun was still above the horizon and burning

in golden lamps among the great walnut boughs, Mr. Bulstrode was
pausing on horseback outside the front gate waiting for Caleb Garth,

who had met him by appointment to give an opinion on a question
of stabledrainage, and was now advising the bailiff in the rick-yard.

Mr. Bulstrode was conscious of being in a good spiritual frame and more
than usually serene, under the influence of his innocent recreation.

He was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit
in himself; but that doctrinal conviction may be held without pain

when the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory
and revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse. Nay, it may

be held with intensesatisfaction when the depth of our sinning
is but a measure for the depth of forgiveness, and a clenching

proof that we are peculiar instruments of the divine intention.
The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery

like a diorama. At this moment Mr. Bulstrode felt as if the
sunshine were all one with that of far-off evenings when he was

a very young man and used to go out preaching beyond Highbury.
And he would willingly have had that service of exhortation

in prospect now. The texts were there still, and so was his own
facility in expounding them. His brief reverie was interrupted

by the return of Caleb Garth, who also was on horseback,
and was just shaking his bridle before starting, when he exclaimed--

"Bless my heart! what's this fellow in black coming along the lane?
He's like one of those men one sees about after the races."

Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the lane, but made
no reply. The comer was our slight acquaintance Mr. Raffles,

whose appearance presented no other change than such as was due
to a suit of black and a crape hat-band. He was within three yards

of the horseman now, and they could see the flash of recognition
in his face as he whirled his stick upward, looking all the while

at Mr. Bulstrode, and at last exclaiming:--
"By Jove, Nick, it's you! I couldn't be mistaken, though the

five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us both! How are you,
eh? you didn't expect to see ME here. Come, shake us by the hand."

To say that Mr. Raffles' manner was rather excited would be only
one mode of saying that it was evening. Caleb Garth could see

that there was a moment of struggle and hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode,
but it ended in his putting out his hand coldly to Raffles and saying--

"I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote country place."
"Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine," said Raffles, adjusting himself

in a swaggering attitude. "I came to see him here before. I'm not
so surprised at seeing you, old fellow, because I picked up a letter--

what you may call a providential thing. It's uncommonly fortunate
I met you, though; for I don't care about seeing my stepson:

he's not affectionate, and his poor mother's gone now. To tell
the truth, I came out of love to you, Nick: I came to get your

address, for--look here!" Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.
Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to

linger on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man
whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the

banker's life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch
that they must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity.

But Caleb was peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly
strong were almost absent from his mind; and one of these was

curiosity about personal affairs. Especially if there was anything
discreditable to be found out concerning another man, Caleb preferred

not to know it; and if he had to tell anybody under him that his evil
doings were discovered, he was more embarrassed than the culprit.

He now spurred his horse, and saying, "I wish you good evening,
Mr. Bulstrode; I must be getting home," set off at a trot.

"You didn't put your full address to this letter," Raffles continued.
"That was not like the first-rate man of business you used to be.

`The Shrubs,'--they may be anywhere: you live near at hand, eh?--
have cut the London concern altogether--perhaps turned country squire--

have a rural mansion to invite me to. Lord, how many years it is ago!
The old lady must have been dead a pretty long while--gone to glory

without the pain of knowing how poor her daughter was, eh? But, by Jove!
you're very pale and pasty, Nick. Come, if you're going home,

I'll walk by your side."
Mr. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in fact taken an almost deathly hue.

Five minutes before, the expanse of his life had been submerged in its
evening sunshine which shone backward to its remembered morning:

sin seemed to be a question of doctrine and inward penitence,
humiliation an exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter

of private vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions
of the divine purposes. And now, as if by some hideous magic,

this loud red figure had risen before him in unmanageable solidity--
an incorporate past which had not entered into his imagination

of chastisements. But Mr. Bulstrode's thought was busy, and he
was not a man to act or speak rashly.