At any rate, the Hamleys were a very old family, if not aborigines.They had not increased their estate for centuries; they had held their own, if even with an effort, and had not sold a rood of it for the last hundred years or so.But they were not an adventurous race.They never traded, or speculated, or tried agricultural improvements of any kind.They had no capital in any bank; nor what perhaps would have been more in character, hoards of gold in any stocking.Their mode of life was simple, and more like that of yeomen than squires.Indeed Squire Hamley, by continuing the primitive manners and customs of his forefathers, the squires of the eighteenth century, did live more as a yeoman, when such a class existed, than as a squire of this generation.There was a dignity in this quiet conservatism that gained him an immense amount of respect both from high and low; and he might have visited at every house in the county had he so chosen.But he was very indifferent to the charms of society; and perhaps this was owing to the fact that the squire, Roger Hamley, who at present lived and reigned at Hamley, had not received so good an education as he ought to have done.His father, Squire Stephen, had been plucked at Oxford, and, with stubborn pride, he had refused to go up again.Nay, more! he had sworn a great oath, as men did in those days, that none of his children to come should ever know either university by becoming a member of it.He had only one child, the present squire, and he was brought up according to his father's word; he was sent to a petty provincial school, where he saw much that he hated, and then turned loose upon the estate as its heir.Such a bringing up did not do him all the harm that might have been anticipated.He was imperfectly educated, and ignorant on many points; but he was aware of his deficiency, and regretted it in theory.He was awkward and ungainly in society, and so kept out of it as much as possible; and he was obstinate, violent-tempered, and dictatorial in his own immediate circle.On the other side, he was generous, and true as steel; the very soul of honour in fact.
第20章 MR GIBSONS NEIGHBOURS (3)（1 / 3）