Colonel Cecil Cruikshank retired from the Indian service with a sound liver, a short temper, and opinions that have not required revision since. He keeps Cruikshank Manor as he kept his regiment: the dinner hour is immovable, the port is decanted to the minute, and the servants are drilled rather than managed. His temper is called choleric by those who have survived it and character by those who have not yet had occasion to.
The late Mrs Cruikshank was taken from him in India, by an elephant, a circumstance of which he will not speak and about which he speaks constantly. Her memory governs the Manor still: a weekly sitting is held for her benefit, or for his, and the Colonel pays for it in the coin of a grief grown comfortable. His will, meanwhile, remains unsettled — a fact he mentions often, to no one in particular, and which keeps his relations in a state of attentive affection.