“Captain Chapman”--as Stephen was called by courtesy in that neighbourhood, having held a commission in a fashionable regiment, until it was ordered to the war--this man was better than his father in some ways, and much worse in others. He was better, from weakness; not having the strength to work out works of iniquity; and also from having some touches of kindness, whereof his father was intact. He was worse, because he had no sense of honour, no rudiment of a principle; not even a dubious preference for the truth, at first sight, against a lie. Captain Chapman, however, could do one manly thing, and only one. He could drive, having cultivated the art, in the time when it meant something. Horses were broken then, not trained--as nowadays they must be--and skill and nerve were needed for the management of a four-in-hand. Captain Chapman was the first in those parts to drive like Ericthonius, and it took him a very long time to get his father to sit behind him. For the roads were still very bad and perilous, and better suited for postilions, than for Stephen Chapman’s team. He durst not drive up Coombe Lorraine, or at any rate he feared the descent as yet, though he meant some day to venture it. And now that he was come upon his wooing, he left his gaudy equipage at the foot of the hill, to be sent back to Steyning and come for him at an appointed time. Then he and his father, with mutual grumblings, took to the steep ascent on foot. Sir Roland had asked them, a few days ago, to drive over and dine with him, either on Thursday, or any other day that might suit them. They came on the Thursday, with their minds made up to be satisfied with anything. But they certainly were not very well pleased to find that the fair Mistress Alice had managed to give them the slip entirely. She was always ready to meet Sir Remnant, and discharge the duties of a hostess to him; but, from some deep instinctive aversion, she could not even bear to sit at table with the Captain. She knew not at all what his character was; neither did Sir Roland know a tenth part of his ill repute; otherwise he had never allowed him to approach the maiden. He simply looked upon Captain Chapman as a fashionable man of the day, who might have been a little wild perhaps, but now meant to settle down in the country, and attend to his father’s large estates. However, neither of the guests suspected that their visit had fixed the date of another little visit pending long at Horsham; and one girl being as good as another to men of the world of that stamp, they were well content, when the haunch went out, to clink a glass with the Rector’s daughters, instead of receiving a distant bow from a diffident and very shy young lady.