Dr Thorne - Anthony Trollope [12]
XII When Greek meets Greek, then Comes the Tug-of-War
XIII The Two Uncles
XIV Sentence of Exile
XV Courcy
XVI Miss Dunstable
XVII The Election
XVIII The Rivals
XIX The Duke of Omnium
XX The Proposal
XXI Mr Moffat Falls into Trouble
XXII Sir Roger is Unseated
XXIII Retrospective
XXIV Louis Scatcherd
XXV Sir Roger Dies
XXVI War
XXVII Miss Thorne Goes on a Visit
XXVIII The Doctor Hears Something to his Advantage
XXIX The Donkey Ride
XXX Post Prandial
XXXI The Small End of the Wedge
XXXII Mr Oriel
XXXIII A Morning Visit
XXXIV A Barouche and Four Arrives at Greshamsbury
XXXV Sir Louis Goes Out to Dinner
XXXVI Will He Come Again?
XXXVII Sir Louis Leaves Greshamsbury
XXXVIII De Courcy Precepts and De Courcy Practice
XXXIX What the World Says about Blood
XL The Two Doctors Change Patients
XLI Doctor Thorne Won’t Interfere
XLII What Can You Give in Return?
XLIII The Race of Scatcherd Becomes Extinct
XLIV Saturday Evening and Sunday Morning
XLV Law Business in London
XLVI Our Pet Fox Finds a Tail
XLVII How the Bride was Received, and Who were Asked to the Wedding
CHAPTER I
The Greshams of Ghreshamsbury
BEFORE the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession.
There is a county in the west of England not so full of life, indeed, nor so widely spoken of as some of its manufacturing leviathan brethren in the north, but which is, nevertheless, very dear to those who know it well. Its green pastures, its waving wheat, its deep and shady and – let us add – dirty lanes, its paths and stiles, its tawny-coloured, well-built rural churches, its avenues of beeches, and frequent Tudor mansions, its constant county hunt, its social graces, and the general air of clanship which pervades it, has made it to its own inhabitants a favoured land of Goshen.1 It is purely agricultural; agricultural in its produce, agricultural in its poor, and agricultural in its pleasures. There are towns in it, of course; depots from whence are brought seeds and groceries, ribbons and fire-shovels; in which markets are held and county balls are carried on; which return members to Parliament, generally – in spite of reform bills, past, present, and coming – in accordance with the dictates of some neighbouring land magnate: from whence emanate the country postmen, and where is located the supply of post-horses necessary for county visitings. But these towns add nothing to the importance of the county; they consist, with the exception of the assize town, of dull, all but death-like single streets. Each possesses two pumps, three hotels, ten shops, fifteen beer-houses, a beadle, and a market-place.
Indeed, the town population of the county reckons for nothing when the importance of the county is discussed, with the exception, as before said, of the assize town, which is also a cathedral city. Herein is a clerical aristocracy, which is certainly not without its due weight. A resident bishop, a resident dean, an archdeacon, three or four resident prebendaries, and all their numerous chaplains, vicars, and ecclesiastical satellites, do make up a society sufficiently powerful to be counted as something by the county squirearchy. In other respects the greatness of Barsetshire depends wholly on the landed powers.
Barsetshire, however, is not now so essentially one whole as it was before the Reform Bill divided it. There is in these days an East Barsetshire, and there is a West Barsetshire; and people conversant with Barsetshire doings declare that they can already decipher some difference of feeling, some division of interests. The eastern moiety of the county is more purely Conservative than the western; there is, or was, a taint of Peelism2