By George Eliot
Original text available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/145
[Editor’s note: Middlemarch contains many mentions of “Cambridge” and “Bainbridge”. We intend to publish an updated version of this story that filters out those non-bridge mentions]
“Sir Humphry Davy?” said Mr. Brooke, over the soup, in his easy smiling
way, taking up Sir James Chettam’s remark that he was studying Davy’s
Agricultural Chemistry. “Well, now, Sir Humphry Davy; I dined with him
years ago at Cartwright’s, and Wordsworth was there too—the poet
Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular. I was at
Cambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him—and I dined
with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright’s. There’s an oddity in
things, now. But Davy was there: he was a poet too. Or, as I may say,
Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two. That was true in every
sense, you know.”
—
appointments, it happened that very ignorant young gentlemen were
promoted in town, and many more got a legal right to practise over
large areas in the country. Also, the high standard held up to the
public mind by the College of Physicians, which gave its peculiar
sanction to the expensive and highly rarefied medical instruction
obtained by graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, did not hinder quackery
from having an excellent time of it; for since professional practice
chiefly consisted in giving a great many drugs, the public inferred
that it might be better off with more drugs still, if they could only
be got cheaply, and hence swallowed large cubic measures of physic
prescribed by unscrupulous ignorance which had taken no degrees.
Fred Vincy, we have seen, had a debt on his mind, and though no such
immaterial burthen could depress that buoyant-hearted young gentleman
for many hours together, there were circumstances connected with this
debt which made the thought of it unusually importunate. The creditor
was Mr. Bambridge, a horse-dealer of the neighborhood, whose company
was much sought in Middlemarch by young men understood to be “addicted
to pleasure.” During the vacations Fred had naturally required more
amusements than he had ready money for, and Mr. Bambridge had been
accommodating enough not only to trust him for the hire of horses and
the accidental expense of ruining a fine hunter, but also to make a
small advance by which he might be able to meet some losses at
billiards. The total debt was a hundred and sixty pounds. Bambridge was
in no alarm about his money, being sure that young Vincy had backers;
but he had required something to show for it, and Fred had at first
given a bill with his own signature. Three months later he had renewed
this bill with the signature of Caleb Garth. On both occasions Fred had
felt confident that he should meet the bill himself, having ample funds
pounds, and there was no knowing what might happen; it would be folly
to balk himself of luck beforehand. It was a hundred to one that some
good chance would fall in his way; the longer he thought of it, the
less possible it seemed that he should not have a good chance, and the
less reasonable that he should not equip himself with the powder and
shot for bringing it down. He would ride to Houndsley with Bambridge
and with Horrock “the vet,” and without asking them anything expressly,
he should virtually get the benefit of their opinion. Before he set
out, Fred got the eighty pounds from his mother.
Most of those who saw Fred riding out of Middlemarch in company with
Bambridge and Horrock, on his way of course to Houndsley horse-fair,
thought that young Vincy was pleasure-seeking as usual; and but for an
unwonted consciousness of grave matters on hand, he himself would have
had a sense of dissipation, and of doing what might be expected of a
gay young fellow. Considering that Fred was not at all coarse, that he
rather looked down on the manners and speech of young men who had not
been to the university, and that he had written stanzas as pastoral and
unvoluptuous as his flute-playing, his attraction towards Bambridge and
Horrock was an interesting fact which even the love of horse-flesh
would not wholly account for without that mysterious influence of
Naming which determinates so much of mortal choice. Under any other
name than “pleasure” the society of Messieurs Bambridge and Horrock
must certainly have been regarded as monotonous; and to arrive with
them at Houndsley on a drizzling afternoon, to get down at the Red Lion
in a street shaded with coal-dust, and dine in a room furnished with a
dirt-enamelled map of the county, a bad portrait of an anonymous horse
in a stable, His Majesty George the Fourth with legs and cravat, and
A mixture of passions was excited in Fred—a mad desire to thrash
Horrock’s opinion into utterance, restrained by anxiety to retain the
advantage of his friendship. There was always the chance that Horrock
might say something quite invaluable at the right moment.
Mr. Bambridge had more open manners, and appeared to give forth his
ideas without economy. He was loud, robust, and was sometimes spoken of
as being “given to indulgence”—chiefly in swearing, drinking, and
beating his wife. Some people who had lost by him called him a vicious
man; but he regarded horse-dealing as the finest of the arts, and might
have argued plausibly that it had nothing to do with morality. He was
undeniably a prosperous man, bore his drinking better than others bore
their moderation, and, on the whole, flourished like the green
bay-tree. But his range of conversation was limited, and like the fine
old tune, “Drops of brandy,” gave you after a while a sense of
returning upon itself in a way that might make weak heads dizzy. But a
slight infusion of Mr. Bambridge was felt to give tone and character to
several circles in Middlemarch; and he was a distinguished figure in
the bar and billiard-room at the Green Dragon. He knew some anecdotes
about the heroes of the turf, and various clever tricks of Marquesses
and Viscounts which seemed to prove that blood asserted its
pre-eminence even among black-legs; but the minute retentiveness of his
memory was chiefly shown about the horses he had himself bought and
sold; the number of miles they would trot you in no time without
turning a hair being, after the lapse of years, still a subject of
passionate asseveration, in which he would assist the imagination of
his hearers by solemnly swearing that they never saw anything like it.
In short, Mr. Bambridge was a man of pleasure and a gay companion.
Fred was subtle, and did not tell his friends that he was going to
Houndsley bent on selling his horse: he wished to get indirectly at
their genuine opinion of its value, not being aware that a genuine
opinion was the last thing likely to be extracted from such eminent
critics. It was not Mr. Bambridge’s weakness to be a gratuitous
flatterer. He had never before been so much struck with the fact that
this unfortunate bay was a roarer to a degree which required the
roundest word for perdition to give you any idea of it.
“You made a bad hand at swapping when you went to anybody but me,
yours.”
“Why, you said just now his was worse than mine,” said Fred, more
irritable than usual.
“I said a lie, then,” said Mr. Bambridge, emphatically. “There wasn’t a
penny to choose between ’em.”
Fred spurred his horse, and they trotted on a little way. When they
slackened again, Mr. Bambridge said—
“Not but what the roan was a better trotter than yours.”
“I’m quite satisfied with his paces, I know,” said Fred, who required
all the consciousness of being in gay company to support him; “I say
Mr. Horrock looked before him with as complete a neutrality as if he
had been a portrait by a great master.
Fred gave up the fallacious hope of getting a genuine opinion; but on
reflection he saw that Bambridge’s depreciation and Horrock’s silence
were both virtually encouraging, and indicated that they thought better
of the horse than they chose to say.
That very evening, indeed, before the fair had set in, Fred thought he
saw a favorable opening for disposing advantageously of his horse, but
an opening which made him congratulate himself on his foresight in
bringing with him his eighty pounds. A young farmer, acquainted with
Mr. Bambridge, came into the Red Lion, and entered into conversation
about parting with a hunter, which he introduced at once as Diamond,
implying that it was a public character. For himself he only wanted a
useful hack, which would draw upon occasion; being about to marry and
to give up hunting. The hunter was in a friend’s stable at some little
distance; there was still time for gentlemen to see it before dark. The
street of that unsanitary period. Fred was not fortified against
disgust by brandy, as his companions were, but the hope of having at
last seen the horse that would enable him to make money was
exhilarating enough to lead him over the same ground again the first
thing in the morning. He felt sure that if he did not come to a bargain
with the farmer, Bambridge would; for the stress of circumstances, Fred
felt, was sharpening his acuteness and endowing him with all the
constructive power of suspicion. Bambridge had run down Diamond in a
way that he never would have done (the horse being a friend’s) if he
had not thought of buying it; every one who looked at the animal—even
Horrock—was evidently impressed with its merit. To get all the
advantage of being with men of this sort, you must know how to draw
your inferences, and not be a spoon who takes things literally. The
color of the horse was a dappled gray, and Fred happened to know that
Lord Medlicote’s man was on the look-out for just such a horse. After
all his running down, Bambridge let it out in the course of the
evening, when the farmer was absent, that he had seen worse horses go
for eighty pounds. Of course he contradicted himself twenty times over,
but when you know what is likely to be true you can test a man’s
admissions. And Fred could not but reckon his own judgment of a horse
as worth something. The farmer had paused over Fred’s respectable
eighty pounds, would be fifty-five pounds in pocket by the transaction,
and would have a hundred and thirty-five pounds towards meeting the
bill; so that the deficit temporarily thrown on Mr. Garth would at the
utmost be twenty-five pounds. By the time he was hurrying on his
clothes in the morning, he saw so clearly the importance of not losing
this rare chance, that if Bambridge and Horrock had both dissuaded him,
he would not have been deluded into a direct interpretation of their
purpose: he would have been aware that those deep hands held something
else than a young fellow’s interest. With regard to horses, distrust
was your only clew. But scepticism, as we know, can never be thoroughly
applied, else life would come to a standstill: something we must
uncommonly hard on my father to say so, after he has spent a good deal
of money in educating me for it.” Fred paused again an instant, and
then repeated, “and I can’t see anything else to do.”
“I did talk to your father about it, Fred, but I made little way with
him. He said it was too late. But you have got over one bridge now:
what are your other difficulties?”
“Merely that I don’t like it. I don’t like divinity, and preaching, and
feeling obliged to look serious. I like riding across country, and
doing as other men do. I don’t mean that I want to be a bad fellow in
But the slower wits, such as Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule, who both
occupied land of their own, took a long time to arrive at this
conclusion, their minds halting at the vivid conception of what it
would be to cut the Big Pasture in two, and turn it into three-cornered
bits, which would be “nohow;” while accommodation-bridges and high
payments were remote and incredible.
“The cows will all cast their calves, brother,” said Mrs. Waule, in a
tone of deep melancholy, “if the railway comes across the Near Close;
and I shouldn’t wonder at the mare too, if she was in foal. It’s a poor
classes with leisure at command: to some, who risked making bids in
order simply to raise prices, it was almost equal to betting at the
races. The second day, when the best furniture was to be sold,
“everybody” was there; even Mr. Thesiger, the rector of St. Peter’s,
had looked in for a short time, wishing to buy the carved table, and
had rubbed elbows with Mr. Bambridge and Mr. Horrock. There was a
wreath of Middlemarch ladies accommodated with seats round the large
table in the dining-room, where Mr. Borthrop Trumbull was mounted with
desk and hammer; but the rows chiefly of masculine faces behind were
often varied by incomings and outgoings both from the door and the
large bow-window opening on to the lawn.
this was too exasperating. Bowyer couldn’t afford it, and only wanted
to hinder every other man from making a figure. The current carried
even Mr. Horrock with it, but this committal of himself to an opinion
fell from him with so little sacrifice of his neutral expression, that
the bid might not have been detected as his but for the friendly oaths
of Mr. Bambridge, who wanted to know what Horrock would do with blasted
stuff only fit for haberdashers given over to that state of perdition
which the horse-dealer so cordially recognized in the majority of
earthly existences. The lot was finally knocked down at a guinea to Mr.
Spilkins, a young Slender of the neighborhood, who was reckless with
his pocket-money and felt his want of memory for riddles.
some paintings, were sold to leading Middlemarchers who had come with a
special desire for them, and there was a more active movement of the
audience in and out; some, who had bought what they wanted, going away,
others coming in either quite newly or from a temporary visit to the
refreshments which were spread under the marquee on the lawn. It was
this marquee that Mr. Bambridge was bent on buying, and he appeared to
like looking inside it frequently, as a foretaste of its possession. On
the last occasion of his return from it he was observed to bring with
him a new companion, a stranger to Mr. Trumbull and every one else,
whose appearance, however, led to the supposition that he might be a
relative of the horse-dealer’s—also “given to indulgence.” His large
prejudicial inference that he was not able to afford himself as much
indulgence as he liked.
“Who is it you’ve picked up, Bam?” said Mr. Horrock, aside.
“Ask him yourself,” returned Mr. Bambridge. “He said he’d just turned
in from the road.”
Mr. Horrock eyed the stranger, who was leaning back against his stick
with one hand, using his toothpick with the other, and looking about
him with a certain restlessness apparently under the silence imposed on
very long after that airy notion of getting aid from his uncle had been
excluded, was a strong sign of the effect that might have followed any
extant opportunity of gambling.
The billiard-room at the Green Dragon was the constant resort of a
certain set, most of whom, like our acquaintance Mr. Bambridge, were
regarded as men of pleasure. It was here that poor Fred Vincy had made
part of his memorable debt, having lost money in betting, and been
obliged to borrow of that gay companion. It was generally known in
Middlemarch that a good deal of money was lost and won in this way; and
the consequent repute of the Green Dragon as a place of dissipation
billiard-room to see what was going on. Lydgate, who had the muscular
aptitude for billiards, and was fond of the game, had once or twice in
the early days after his arrival in Middlemarch taken his turn with the
cue at the Green Dragon; but afterwards he had no leisure for the game,
and no inclination for the socialities there. One evening, however, he
had occasion to seek Mr. Bambridge at that resort. The horsedealer had
engaged to get him a customer for his remaining good horse, for which
Lydgate had determined to substitute a cheap hack, hoping by this
reduction of style to get perhaps twenty pounds; and he cared now for
every small sum, as a help towards feeding the patience of his
tradesmen. To run up to the billiard-room, as he was passing, would
save time.
Mr. Bambridge was not yet come, but would be sure to arrive by-and-by,
said his friend Mr. Horrock; and Lydgate stayed, playing a game for the
sake of passing the time. That evening he had the peculiar light in the
eyes and the unusual vivacity which had been once noticed in him by Mr.
Farebrother. The exceptional fact of his presence was much noticed in
the room, where there was a good deal of Middlemarch company; and
several lookers-on, as well as some of the players, were betting with
animation. Lydgate was playing well, and felt confident; the bets were
dropping round him, and with a swift glancing thought of the probable
gain which might double the sum he was saving from his horse, he began
to bet on his own play, and won again and again. Mr. Bambridge had come
in, but Lydgate did not notice him. He was not only excited with his
play, but visions were gleaming on him of going the next day to
Brassing, where there was gambling on a grander scale to be had, and
where, by one powerful snatch at the devil’s bait, he might carry it
off without the hook, and buy his rescue from his daily solicitings.
served him better. Lydgate had not before seen that Fred was present,
and his sudden appearance with an announcement of Mr. Farebrother had
the effect of a sharp concussion.
“No, no,” said Lydgate; “I have nothing particular to say to him.
But—the game is up—I must be going—I came in just to see Bambridge.”
“Bambridge is over there, but he is making a row—I don’t think he’s
ready for business. Come down with me to Farebrother. I expect he is
going to blow me up, and you will shield me,” said Fred, with some
adroitness.
Lydgate felt shame, but could not bear to act as if he felt it, by
proposed that they should make a circuit to the old church by the
London road. The next thing he said was—
“I thought Lydgate never went to the Green Dragon?”
“So did I,” said Fred. “But he said that he went to see Bambridge.”
“He was not playing, then?”
Fred had not meant to tell this, but he was obliged now to say, “Yes,
he was. But I suppose it was an accidental thing. I have never seen him
Froth. I have so: because it is an open room, and good for winter.
Clo. Why, very well then: I hope here be truths.
—Measure for Measure.
Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge was standing at his
leisure under the large archway leading into the yard of the Green
Dragon. He was not fond of solitary contemplation, but he had only just
come out of the house, and any human figure standing at ease under the
archway in the early afternoon was as certain to attract companionship
as a pigeon which has found something worth pecking at. In this case
there was no material object to feed upon, but the eye of reason saw a
probability of mental sustenance in the shape of gossip. Mr. Hopkins,
the meek-mannered draper opposite, was the first to act on this inward
vision, being the more ambitious of a little masculine talk because his
customers were chiefly women. Mr. Bambridge was rather curt to the
draper, feeling that Hopkins was of course glad to talk to him, but
that he was not going to waste much of his talk on Hopkins. Soon,
however, there was a small cluster of more important listeners, who
were either deposited from the passers-by, or had sauntered to the spot
expressly to see if there were anything going on at the Green Dragon;
and Mr. Bambridge was finding it worth his while to say many impressive
things about the fine studs he had been seeing and the purchases he had
made on a journey in the north from which he had just returned.
Gentlemen present were assured that when they could show him anything
to cut out a blood mare, a bay, rising four, which was to be seen at
Doncaster if they chose to go and look at it, Mr. Bambridge would
gratify them by being shot “from here to Hereford.” Also, a pair of
blacks which he was going to put into the break recalled vividly to his
mind a pair which he had sold to Faulkner in ’19, for a hundred
guineas, and which Faulkner had sold for a hundred and sixty two months
later—any gent who could disprove this statement being offered the
privilege of calling Mr. Bambridge by a very ugly name until the
exercise made his throat dry.
When the discourse was at this point of animation, came up Mr. Frank
Hawley. He was not a man to compromise his dignity by lounging at the
Green Dragon, but happening to pass along the High Street and seeing
Bambridge on the other side, he took some of his long strides across to
ask the horsedealer whether he had found the first-rate gig-horse which
he had engaged to look for. Mr. Hawley was requested to wait until he
had seen a gray selected at Bilkley: if that did not meet his wishes to
a hair, Bambridge did not know a horse when he saw it, which seemed to
be the highest conceivable unlikelihood. Mr. Hawley, standing with his
back to the street, was fixing a time for looking at the gray and
seeing it tried, when a horseman passed slowly by.
“Bulstrode!” said two or three voices at once in a low tone, one of
them, which was the draper’s, respectfully prefixing the “Mr.;” but
nobody having more intention in this interjectural naming than if they
had said “the Riverston coach” when that vehicle appeared in the
distance. Mr. Hawley gave a careless glance round at Bulstrode’s back,
but as Bambridge’s eyes followed it he made a sarcastic grimace.
“By jingo! that reminds me,” he began, lowering his voice a little, “I
picked up something else at Bilkley besides your gig-horse, Mr. Hawley.
I picked up a fine story about Bulstrode. Do you know how he came by
his fortune? Any gentleman wanting a bit of curious information, I can
“What do you mean?” said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his hands into his
pockets, and pushing a little forward under the archway. If Bulstrode
should turn out to be a rascal, Frank Hawley had a prophetic soul.
“I had it from a party who was an old chum of Bulstrode’s. I’ll tell
you where I first picked him up,” said Bambridge, with a sudden gesture
of his fore-finger. “He was at Larcher’s sale, but I knew nothing of
him then—he slipped through my fingers—was after Bulstrode, no doubt.
He tells me he can tap Bulstrode to any amount, knows all his secrets.
However, he blabbed to me at Bilkley: he takes a stiff glass. Damme if
I think he meant to turn king’s evidence; but he’s that sort of
bragging fellow, the bragging runs over hedge and ditch with him, till
he’d brag of a spavin as if it ’ud fetch money. A man should know when
to pull up.” Mr. Bambridge made this remark with an air of disgust,
satisfied that his own bragging showed a fine sense of the marketable.
“What’s the man’s name? Where can he be found?” said Mr. Hawley.
“As to where he is to be found, I left him to it at the Saracen’s Head;
but his name is Raffles.”
“Raffles!” exclaimed Mr. Hopkins. “I furnished his funeral yesterday.
He was buried at Lowick. Mr. Bulstrode followed him. A very decent
funeral.” There was a strong sensation among the listeners. Mr.
Bambridge gave an ejaculation in which “brimstone” was the mildest
word, and Mr. Hawley, knitting his brows and bending his head forward,
exclaimed, “What?—where did the man die?”
“At Stone Court,” said the draper. “The housekeeper said he was a
relation of the master’s. He came there ill on Friday.”
“Why, it was on Wednesday I took a glass with him,” interposed
Bambridge.
“Did any doctor attend him?” said Mr. Hawley
“Yes. Mr. Lydgate. Mr. Bulstrode sat up with him one night. He died the
third morning.”
“Go on, Bambridge,” said Mr. Hawley, insistently. “What did this fellow
say about Bulstrode?”
The group had already become larger, the town-clerk’s presence being a
guarantee that something worth listening to was going on there; and Mr.
Bambridge delivered his narrative in the hearing of seven. It was
mainly what we know, including the fact about Will Ladislaw, with some
local color and circumstance added: it was what Bulstrode had dreaded
the betrayal of—and hoped to have buried forever with the corpse of
Raffles—it was that haunting ghost of his earlier life which as he rode
past the archway of the Green Dragon he was trusting that Providence