Chapter: "What suit of grace hath Virtue to put on
     If Vice shall wear as good, and do as well?
     If Wrong, if Craft, if Indiscretion
     Act as fair parts with ends as laudable?
     Which all this mighty volume of events
     The world, the universal map of deeds,
     Strongly controls, and proves from all descents,
     That the directest course still best succeeds.
     For should not grave and learn'd Experience
     That looks with the eyes of all the world beside,
     And with all ages holds intelligence,
     Go safer than Deceit without a guide!
                                --DANIEL: Musophilus.


That change of plan and shifting of interest which Bulstrode stated or
betrayed in his conversation with Lydgate, had been determined in him
by some severe experience which he had gone through since the epoch of
Mr. Larcher's sale, when Raffles had recognized Will Ladislaw, and when
the banker had in vain attempted an act of restitution which might move
Divine Providence to arrest painful consequences.

His certainty that Raffles, unless he were dead, would return to
Middlemarch before long, had been justified.  On Christmas Eve he had
reappeared at The Shrubs.  Bulstrode was at home to receive him, and
hinder his communication with the rest of the family, but he could not
altogether hinder the circumstances of the visit from compromising
himself and alarming his wife.  Raffles proved more unmanageable than
he had shown himself to be in his former appearances, his chronic state
of mental restlessness, the growing effect of habitual intemperance,
quickly shaking off every impression from what was said to him.  He
insisted on staying in the house, and Bulstrode, weighing two sets of
evils, felt that this was at least not a worse alternative than his
going into the town.  He kept him in his own room for the evening and
saw him to bed, Raffles all the while amusing himself with the
annoyance he was causing this decent and highly prosperous
fellow-sinner, an amusement which he facetiously expressed as sympathy
with his friend's pleasure in entertaining a man who had been
serviceable to him, and who had not had all his earnings.  There was a
cunning calculation under this noisy joking--a cool resolve to extract
something the handsomer from Bulstrode as payment for release from this
new application of torture.  But his cunning had a little overcast its
mark.

Bulstrode was indeed more tortured than the coarse fibre of Raffles
could enable him to imagine.  He had told his wife that he was simply
taking care of this wretched creature, the victim of vice, who might
otherwise injure himself; he implied, without the direct form of
falsehood, that there was a family tie which bound him to this care,
and that there were signs of mental alienation in Raffles which urged
caution.  He would himself drive the unfortunate being away the next
morning.  In these hints he felt that he was supplying Mrs. Bulstrode
with precautionary information for his daughters and servants, and
accounting for his allowing no one but himself to enter the room even
with food and drink.  But he sat in an agony of fear lest Raffles
should be overheard in his loud and plain references to past facts--lest
Mrs. Bulstrode should be even tempted to listen at the door.  How
could he hinder her, how betray his terror by opening the door to
detect her?  She was a woman of honest direct habits, and little likely
to take so low a course in order to arrive at painful knowledge; but
fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.

In this way Raffles had pushed the torture too far, and produced an
effect which had not been in his plan.  By showing himself hopelessly
unmanageable he had made Bulstrode feel that a strong defiance was the
only resource left.  After taking Raffles to bed that night the banker
ordered his closed carriage to be ready at half-past seven the next
morning.  At six o'clock he had already been long dressed, and had
spent some of his wretchedness in prayer, pleading his motives for
averting the worst evil if in anything he had used falsity and spoken
what was not true before God.  For Bulstrode shrank from a direct lie
with an intensity disproportionate to the number of his more indirect
misdeeds.  But many of these misdeeds were like the subtle muscular
movements which are not taken account of in the consciousness, though
they bring about the end that we fix our mind on and desire.  And it is
only what we are vividly conscious of that we can vividly imagine to be
seen by Omniscience.

Bulstrode carried his candle to the bedside of Raffles, who was
apparently in a painful dream.  He stood silent, hoping that the
presence of the light would serve to waken the sleeper gradually and
gently, for he feared some noise as the consequence of a too sudden
awakening.  He had watched for a couple of minutes or more the
shudderings and pantings which seemed likely to end in waking, when
Raffles, with a long half-stifled moan, started up and stared round him
in terror, trembling and gasping.  But he made no further noise, and
Bulstrode, setting down the candle, awaited his recovery.

It was a quarter of an hour later before Bulstrode, with a cold
peremptoriness of manner which he had not before shown, said, "I came
to call you thus early, Mr. Raffles, because I have ordered the
carriage to be ready at half-past seven, and intend myself to conduct
you as far as Ilsely, where you can either take the railway or await a
coach." Raffles was about to speak, but Bulstrode anticipated him
imperiously with the words, "Be silent, sir, and hear what I have to
say.  I shall supply you with money now, and I will furnish you with a
reasonable sum from time to time, on your application to me by letter;
but if you choose to present yourself here again, if you return to
Middlemarch, if you use your tongue in a manner injurious to me, you
will have to live on such fruits as your malice can bring you, without
help from me.  Nobody will pay you well for blasting my name: I know
the worst you can do against me, and I shall brave it if you dare to
thrust yourself upon me again.  Get up, sir, and do as I order you,
without noise, or I will send for a policeman to take you off my
premises, and you may carry your stories into every pothouse in the
town, but you shall have no sixpence from me to pay your expenses
there."

Bulstrode had rarely in his life spoken with such nervous energy: he
had been deliberating on this speech and its probable effects through a
large part of the night; and though he did not trust to its ultimately
saving him from any return of Raffles, he had concluded that it was the
best throw he could make.  It succeeded in enforcing submission from
the jaded man this morning: his empoisoned system at this moment
quailed before Bulstrode's cold, resolute bearing, and he was taken off
quietly in the carriage before the family breakfast time.  The servants
imagined him to be a poor relation, and were not surprised that a
strict man like their master, who held his head high in the world,
should be ashamed of such a cousin and want to get rid of him.  The
banker's drive of ten miles with his hated companion was a dreary
beginning of the Christmas day; but at the end of the drive, Raffles
had recovered his spirits, and parted in a contentment for which there
was the good reason that the banker had given him a hundred pounds.
Various motives urged Bulstrode to this open-handedness, but he did not
himself inquire closely into all of them.  As he had stood watching
Raffles in his uneasy sleep, it had certainly entered his mind that the
man had been much shattered since the first gift of two hundred pounds.

He had taken care to repeat the incisive statement of his resolve not
to be played on any more; and had tried to penetrate Raffles with the
fact that he had shown the risks of bribing him to be quite equal to
the risks of defying him.  But when, freed from his repulsive presence,
Bulstrode returned to his quiet home, he brought with him no confidence
that he had secured more than a respite.  It was as if he had had a
loathsome dream, and could not shake off its images with their hateful
kindred of sensations--as if on all the pleasant surroundings of his
life a dangerous reptile had left his slimy traces.

Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the
thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric of
opinion is threatened with ruin?

Bulstrode was only the more conscious that there was a deposit of
uneasy presentiment in his wife's mind, because she carefully avoided
any allusion to it.  He had been used every day to taste the flavor of
supremacy and the tribute of complete deference: and the certainty that
he was watched or measured with a hidden suspicion of his having some
discreditable secret, made his voice totter when he was speaking to
edification.  Foreseeing, to men of Bulstrode's anxious temperament, is
often worse than seeing; and his imagination continually heightened the
anguish of an imminent disgrace.  Yes, imminent; for if his defiance of
Raffles did not keep the man away--and though he prayed for this result
he hardly hoped for it--the disgrace was certain.  In vain he said to
himself that, if permitted, it would be a divine visitation, a
chastisement, a preparation; he recoiled from the imagined burning; and
he judged that it must be more for the Divine glory that he should
escape dishonor.  That recoil had at last urged him to make
preparations for quitting Middlemarch.  If evil truth must be reported
of him, he would then be at a less scorching distance from the contempt
of his old neighbors; and in a new scene, where his life would not have
gathered the same wide sensibility, the tormentor, if he pursued him,
would be less formidable.  To leave the place finally would, he knew,
be extremely painful to his wife, and on other grounds he would have
preferred to stay where he had struck root.  Hence he made his
preparations at first in a conditional way, wishing to leave on all
sides an opening for his return after brief absence, if any favorable
intervention of Providence should dissipate his fears.  He was
preparing to transfer his management of the Bank, and to give up any
active control of other commercial affairs in the neighborhood, on the
ground of his failing health, but without excluding his future
resumption of such work.  The measure would cause him some added
expense and some diminution of income beyond what he had already
undergone from the general depression of trade; and the Hospital
presented itself as a principal object of outlay on which he could
fairly economize.

This was the experience which had determined his conversation with
Lydgate.  But at this time his arrangements had most of them gone no
farther than a stage at which he could recall them if they proved to be
unnecessary.  He continually deferred the final steps; in the midst of
his fears, like many a man who is in danger of shipwreck or of being
dashed from his carriage by runaway horses, he had a clinging
impression that something would happen to hinder the worst, and that to
spoil his life by a late transplantation might be over-hasty--especially
since it was difficult to account satisfactorily to his wife for the
project of their indefinite exile from the only place where she would
like to live.

Among the affairs Bulstrode had to care for, was the management of the
farm at Stone Court in case of his absence; and on this as well as on
all other matters connected with any houses and land he possessed in or
about Middlemarch, he had consulted Caleb Garth.  Like every one else
who had business of that sort, he wanted to get the agent who was more
anxious for his employer's interests than his own.  With regard to
Stone Court, since Bulstrode wished to retain his hold on the stock,
and to have an arrangement by which he himself could, if he chose,
resume his favorite recreation of superintendence, Caleb had advised
him not to trust to a mere bailiff, but to let the land, stock, and
implements yearly, and take a proportionate share of the proceeds.

"May I trust to you to find me a tenant on these terms, Mr. Garth?"
said Bulstrode.  "And will you mention to me the yearly sum which would
repay you for managing these affairs which we have discussed together?"

"I'll think about it," said Caleb, in his blunt way.  "I'll see how I
can make it out."

If it had not been that he had to consider Fred Vincy's future, Mr.
Garth would not probably have been glad of any addition to his work, of
which his wife was always fearing an excess for him as he grew older.
But on quitting Bulstrode after that conversation, a very alluring idea
occurred to him about this said letting of Stone Court.  What if
Bulstrode would agree to his placing Fred Vincy there on the
understanding that he, Caleb Garth, should be responsible for the
management?  It would be an excellent schooling for Fred; he might make
a modest income there, and still have time left to get knowledge by
helping in other business.  He mentioned his notion to Mrs. Garth with
such evident delight that she could not bear to chill his pleasure by
expressing her constant fear of his undertaking too much.

"The lad would be as happy as two," he said, throwing himself back in
his chair, and looking radiant, "if I could tell him it was all
settled.  Think; Susan!  His mind had been running on that place for
years before old Featherstone died.  And it would be as pretty a turn
of things as could be that he should hold the place in a good
industrious way after all--by his taking to business.  For it's likely
enough Bulstrode might let him go on, and gradually buy the stock.  He
hasn't made up his mind, I can see, whether or not he shall settle
somewhere else as a lasting thing.  I never was better pleased with a
notion in my life.  And then the children might be married by-and-by,
Susan."

"You will not give any hint of the plan to Fred, until you are sure
that Bulstrode would agree to the plan?" said Mrs. Garth, in a tone of
gentle caution.  "And as to marriage, Caleb, we old people need not
help to hasten it."

"Oh, I don't know," said Caleb, swinging his head aside.  "Marriage is
a taming thing.  Fred would want less of my bit and bridle.  However, I
shall say nothing till I know the ground I'm treading on.  I shall
speak to Bulstrode again."

He took his earliest opportunity of doing so.  Bulstrode had anything
but a warm interest in his nephew Fred Vincy, but he had a strong wish
to secure Mr. Garth's services on many scattered points of business at
which he was sure to be a considerable loser, if they were under less
conscientious management.  On that ground he made no objection to Mr.
Garth's proposal; and there was also another reason why he was not
sorry to give a consent which was to benefit one of the Vincy family.
It was that Mrs. Bulstrode, having heard of Lydgate's debts, had been
anxious to know whether her husband could not do something for poor
Rosamond, and had been much troubled on learning from him that
Lydgate's affairs were not easily remediable, and that the wisest plan
was to let them "take their course." Mrs. Bulstrode had then said for
the first time, "I think you are always a little hard towards my
family, Nicholas.  And I am sure I have no reason to deny any of my
relatives.  Too worldly they may be, but no one ever had to say that
they were not respectable."

"My dear Harriet," said Mr. Bulstrode, wincing under his wife's eyes,
which were filling with tears, "I have supplied your brother with a
great deal of capital.  I cannot be expected to take care of his
married children."

That seemed to be true, and Mrs. Bulstrode's remonstrance subsided into
pity for poor Rosamond, whose extravagant education she had always
foreseen the fruits of.

But remembering that dialogue, Mr. Bulstrode felt that when he had to
talk to his wife fully about his plan of quitting Middlemarch, he
should be glad to tell her that he had made an arrangement which might
be for the good of her nephew Fred.  At present he had merely mentioned
to her that he thought of shutting up The Shrubs for a few months, and
taking a house on the Southern Coast.

Hence Mr. Garth got the assurance he desired, namely, that in case of
Bulstrode's departure from Middlemarch for an indefinite time, Fred
Vincy should be allowed to have the tenancy of Stone Court on the terms
proposed.

Caleb was so elated with his hope of this "neat turn" being given to
things, that if his self-control had not been braced by a little
affectionate wifely scolding, he would have betrayed everything to
Mary, wanting "to give the child comfort."  However, he restrained
himself, and kept in strict privacy from Fred certain visits which he
was making to Stone Court, in order to look more thoroughly into the
state of the land and stock, and take a preliminary estimate.  He was
certainly more eager in these visits than the probable speed of events
required him to be; but he was stimulated by a fatherly delight in
occupying his mind with this bit of probable happiness which he held in
store like a hidden birthday gift for Fred and Mary.

"But suppose the whole scheme should turn out to be a castle in the
air?" said Mrs. Garth.

"Well, well," replied Caleb; "the castle will tumble about nobody's
head."

 Bulstrodes decision to withdraw from the new hospital and retire to another area had been prompted by the increasingly bold demands of Raffles. He now comes to Bulstrodes house and insists on staying overnight. The desperate Bulstrode gives him an ultimatum next morning that future demands should be made by letter. He says if Raffles comes there in prison he will report him to the police and take the consequences. His sternness convinces Raffles and he leaves with a hundred pounds. Bulstrode is aware that the matter has not ended. After this he tries to get his affair in order before leaving. He requests Caleb Garth to take charge of Stone Court. Caleb suggests leasing out Stone Court and taking a share of the proceeds. Bulstrode asks him to arrange it. Caleb has the pleasant thought of arranging for Fred to take the lease of Stone Court. Bulstrode agrees to it partly because his wife feels he hasnt helped her relatives. Only Susan urges Caleb to be silent until it has all been arranged.

