Donnithorne, Captain (Later Colonel) Arthur

The Old Squire's grandson, a handsome, warm-hearted, thoughtless and impressionable young man, just coming of age. "But to the Hayslope tenants he was more intensely a captain than all the young gentlemen of the same rank in his Majesty's regulars. . . . If you want to know more particularly how he looked, call to your remembrance some tawny-whiskered, brownlocked, clear-complexioned young Englishman... well-washed, high-bred, white-handed, yet looking as if he could deliver well from the left shoulder, and floor his man: I will not be so much of a tailor as to trouble your imagination with the difference of costume, and insist on the striped waistooat, long-tailed coat, and low topboots." "His own approbation was necessary to him, and it was not an approbatfon to be enjoyed quite gratuitously; it must be won by a fair amount of merit. He had never yet forfeited that approbation, and he had considerable reliance on his own virtues. No young man could oonfees his faults more candidly; candour was one of his favourite virtues; and how can a man's candour be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of? But he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous kind-impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty, reptilian. It was not posaible for Arthur Donnithome to do anything mean, dastardly, or cruel." He is much liked by his grandfather's tenantry, who look forward to the time when he will be the Squire. As a boy he was much attached to Adam Bede, and this friendship continues after Arthur is grown up, causing him to plan the many things which he will do for Adam when he inherits the estate. At the opening of the story he is invalided home from his regiment with a broken arm, and beguiles the tedium of his inaction by noticing pretty Hetty Sorrel, not knowing that Adam Bede is courting her. Finding that her attraction is becoming too strong, he resolves to break away, but cannot keep his good resolution and ends by really falling in love with her, without any idea on his part of marriage, although Hetty believes that he will marry her. When Adam finds Hetty and Arthur together, he and Arthur fight, and the latter, forced to it by Adam who does not know how far things have gone, writes a letter to Hetty breaking off their relationship, but telling her how to reach him if she needs him, and then joins his regiment. When he learns that Adam and Hetty are to be married he is relieved that the affair has ended so well, and salves his conscience with the thought of the kind things that he means to do for them. His remorse is great when, called home by his grandfather's death, he learns that Hetty is being tried on the charge of murdering his child and hers. At the very last minute he succeeds in having her sentence of death commuted to transportation, and then exiles himself from home, to the army on the Contment.

<em>Adam Bede</em>

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