Cheverel, Sir Christopher

The proud, strong-willed, but kind-hearted, owner of Cheverel Manor. "As fine a specimen of the old English gentleman as could well have been found in those venerable days of cocked-hats and pigtails. His dark eyes sparkled under projecting brows, made more prominent by bushy grizzled eyebrows; but any apprehension of severity excited by these penetrating eyes, and by a somewhat aquiline nose, was allayed by the good-natured lines about the mouth, which retained all its teeth and its vigour of expression in spite of sixty winters. The forehead sloped a little from the projecting brows, and its peaked outline was made conspicuous by the arrangement of the profusely powdered hair, drawn backward and gathered into a pigtail." His pride and ambition are centred in his beautiful house, which he is rebuilding, and in his nephew and heir, Captain Wybrow, whose marriage to Miss Assher he uses every effort to further. He is fond also of his protegee, Caterina Sarti, and, quite blind to her passion for Captain Wybrow, is anxious to have her marry Mr. Gilfil, his ward. He is deeply affected by the death of his nephew and Caterina's unhappiness. The original of Sir Christopher was Sir Roger Newdigate, fifth baronet. (See Newdigate, The Cheverels, pp. 229-31; Stephen, George Eliot, pp. 56-7.)

<em>Mr. Gilfil's Love Story, Scenes of Clerical Life</em>

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