For the Squire's wife had died long ago, and the Red House was
without that presence of the wife and mother which is the fountain
of wholesome love and fear in parlour and kitchen; and this helped
to account not only for there being more profusion than finished
excellence in the holiday provisions, but also for the frequency
with which the proud Squire condescended to preside in the parlour
of the Rainbow rather than under the shadow of his own dark
wainscot; perhaps, also, for the fact that his sons had turned out
rather ill. Raveloe was not a place where moral censure was severe,
but it was thought a weakness in the Squire that he had kept all his
sons at home in idleness; and though some licence was to be allowed to
young men whose fathers could afford it, people shook their heads at
the courses of the second son, Dunstan, commonly called Dunsey Cass,
whose taste for swopping and betting might turn out to be a sowing
of something worse than wild oats. To be sure, the neighbours said, it
was no matter what became of Dunsey- a spiteful jeering fellow, who
seemed to enjoy his drink the more when other people went dry-
always provided that his doings did not bring trouble on a family like
Squire Cass's, with a monument in the church, and tankards older
than King George. But it would be a thousand pities if Mr Godfrey, the
eldest, a fine, open-faced, good-natured young man, who was to come
into the land some day, should take to going along the same road as
his brother, as he had seemed to do of late.
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