She never
advanced a proposition that he did not immediately bristle up,
and she could only evade the encounter by a graceful
submission. As for the vicar, a frequent guest, he would fain
have taken refuge in silence, but the earl, especially when
alone, would what he called "draw him out," and the game once
unearthed, with so skilled a pack there was but little fear of
a bad run. When all were reduced to silence, Lord Marney
relinquishing controversy, assumed the positive. He eulogized
the new poor law, which he declared would be the salvation of
the country, provided it was "carried out" in the spirit in
which it was developed in the Marney Union; but then he would
add that there was no district except their union in which it
was properly observed. He was tremendously fierce against
allotments and analysed the system with merciless sarcasm,
Indeed he had no inconsiderable acquaintance with the
doctrines of the economists, and was rather inclined to carry
them into practice in every instance, except that of the
landed proprietary, which he clearly proved "stood upon
different grounds" to that of any other "interest." There was
nothing he hated so much as a poacher, except a lease; though
perhaps in the catalogue of his aversions, we ought to give
the preference to his anti-ecclesiastical prejudice: this
amounted even to acrimony.
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