Chapter viii.
A receipt to regain the lost affections of a wife, which hath neverbeen known to fail in the most desperate cases.
The captain was made large amends for the unpleasant minutes which hepassed in the conversation of his wife (and which were as few as hecould contrive to make them), by the pleasant meditations he enjoyedwhen alone.
These meditations were entirely employed on Mr Allworthy's fortune;for, first, he exercised much thought in calculating, as well as hecould, the exact value of the whole: which calculations he often sawoccasion to alter in his own favour: and, secondly and chiefly, hepleased himself with intended alterations in the house and gardens,and in projecting many other schemes, as well for the improvement ofthe estate as of the grandeur of the place: for this purpose heapplied himself to the studies of architecture and gardening, and readover many books on both these subjects; for these sciences, indeed,employed his whole time, and formed his only amusement. He at lastcompleted a most excellent plan: and very sorry we are, that it is notin our power to present it to our reader, since even the luxury of thepresent age, I believe, would hardly match it. It had, indeed, in asuperlative degree, the two principal ingredients which serve torecommend all great and noble designs of this nature; for it requiredan immoderate expense to execute, and a vast length of time to bringit to any sort of perfection. The former of these, the immense wealthof which the captain supposed Mr Allworthy possessed, and which hethought himself sure of inheriting, promised very effectually tosupply; and the latter, the soundness of his own constitution, and histime of life, which was only what is called middle-age, removed allapprehension of his not living to accomplish.
Nothing was wanting to enable him to enter upon the immediateexecution of this plan, but the death of Mr Allworthy; in calculatingwhich he had employed much of his own algebra, besides purchasingevery book extant that treats of the value of lives, reversions, &c.From all which he satisfied himself, that as he had every day a chanceof this happening, so had he more than an even chance of its happeningwithin a few years.
But while the captain was one day busied in deep contemplations ofthis kind, one of the most unlucky as well as unseasonable accidentshappened to him. The utmost malice of Fortune could, indeed, havecontrived nothing so cruel, so mal-a-propos, so absolutely destructiveto all his schemes. In short, not to keep the reader in long suspense,just at the very instant when his heart was exulting in meditations onthe happiness which would accrue to him by Mr Allworthy's death, hehimself--died of an apoplexy.
This unfortunately befel the captain as he was taking his evening walkby himself, so that nobody was present to lend him any assistance, ifindeed, any assistance could have preserved him. He took, therefore,measure of that proportion of soil which was now become adequate toall his future purposes, and he lay dead on the ground, a great(though not a living) example of the truth of that observation ofHorace:
_Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus; et sepulchri Immemor, struis domos._
Which sentiment I shall thus give to the English reader: "You providethe noblest materials for building, when a pickaxe and a spade areonly necessary: and build houses of five hundred by a hundred feet,forgetting that of six by two."