Page 230 (2/2)

After that, Hintock House, so frequently deserted, was again to be let

Spring had notrumor, founded on the

best of evidence, reached the parish and neighborhood Mrs Charether in Baden, in relations which set

at rest the question that had agitated the little community ever since

the winter

Melbury had entered the Valley of Humiliation even farther than Grace

His spirit seemed broken

But once a week he mechanically went toby the conduit one day, his ait, he heard his name spoken by a voice formerly

familiar He turned and saw a certain Fred Beaucock--once a pro

lawyer's clerk and local dandy, who had been called the cleverest

fellow in Sherton, without whose brains the fir him would be nowhere But later on Beaucock had fallen into

the ricultural

esses' dinners; in sum, victualled hiood for the clever brains or body

either He lost his situation, and after an absence spent in trying

his powers elsewhere, caoing events in Hintock, he gave legal advice for

astonishingly s on his profession on

public-house settles, in whose recesses hecountry-people's wills for half a crown; calling with

a learned voice for pen-and-ink and a halfpenny sheet of paper, on

which he drew up the testa it in a little space wiped

with his hand on the table alasses An idea implanted early in life is difficult to uproot,

andto the notion that Fred

Beaucock knew a great deal of law