She would too, he knew, hurl upon him expressions of contempt, for having inveigled her with so splendid a jointure, from her castle home in the Highlands--where a great deal of dirty state was maintained at a small cost--only to subject her to the degradation of being compelled, when she formed a wish suggested for the gratification of her darling pride, to take the means of accomplishing it into consideration.
He therefore said not a word to her, and went on as before, save that he looked more closely into his own affairs, raised his rents where possible to the highest limits, forgave no tenant, on any plea, arrears, and squeezed all he could out of renewals of leases. Hard, uncompromising, refusing to spend a shilling on his land, he was hated by the whole tenantry, and when, to gratify the stately dreams of his wife, he paid an annual visit to the castle, his tenants, one and all uttered reluctantly the hurrahs which, under the dark threats of the steward, they gave to greet his arrival.
In spite of his efforts, he found it impossible to pay off his liabilities, and make his income support the style in which he lived. What he contrived to save, his wife expended, growing, as her family increased in years, more arrogantly proud than ever. It was not that she lavished or squandered money, but her tastes were enormously expensive. She bought as an empress, preferring to give many hundreds for rare objects rather than single pounds for articles equally handsome, but more common; and it was these heavy drains upon his resources which kept Mr. Grahame in a perpetual state of embarrassment.
At length many of his debts assumed a pressing character; he shrank from appearing in a tradesman’s eyes deficient in funds, and, to obtain ready cash, a first mortgage on a portion of his property was executed.
Once within the vortex, rescue by the aid of his remaining property, without the most rigid curtailment of every unnecessary expense, was utterly hopeless, and at the moment of his forging Wilton’s name to the deed which Chewkle had that morning stolen, a few thousand pounds at his bankers was all he possessed to meet heavy engagements, and all the future, for every acre of his lands was in the possession of a mortgagee.