Raffles, John

Rigg Featherstone's stepfather; a dissipated bully who had been associated with Mr. Bulstrode in his dishonourable transactions. "He was a man obviously on the way towards sixty, very florid and hairy, with much grey in his bushy whiskers and thick curly hair, a stoutish body which showed to disadvantage the somewhat worn joinings of hie clothes, and the air of a swaggerer." Discovering Mr. Buletrode's whereabouts, he threatens to disclose the dishonesty of Bulstrode's early life, and is bribed to keep silence. At last he comes to Mr. Bulstrode at Stone Court ill and worn out from dissipation. Mr. Bulstrode, desiring his death, allows the doctor's orders to be disobeyed, and Raffles dies, but his death does not save Mr. Bulstrode, for Raffles had previously told the story of Mr. Bulstrode's dishonesty.

<em>Middlemarch</em>

Text