tle, a thunderstorm had broken over the
building, and Mr. Warrington gladly enough accepted a seat in my Lord
March's chariot, leaving his own phaeton to be driven home by his groom.
Harry was in great delectation with the noble sight he had witnessed:
be pronounced this indeed to be something like sport, and of the best
he had seen since his arrival in England: and, as usual, associating any
pleasure which he enjoyed with the desire that the dear companion of
his boyhood should share the amusement in common with him, he began by
sighing out, "I wish..." then he stopped. "No, I don't," says he.
"What do you wish and what don't you wish?" asks Lord March.
"I was thinking, my lord, of my elder brother, and wished he had been
with me. We had promised to have our sport together at home, you see;
and many's the time we talked of it. But he wouldn't have liked this
rough sort of sport, and didn't care for fighting, though he was the
bravest lad alive."
"Oh! he was the bravest lad alive, was he?" asks my lord, lolling on his
cushion, and eyeing his Virginian friend with some curiosity.
"You should have seen him in a quarrel with a very gallant officer,
our friend--an absurd affair, but it was hard to keep George off him. I
never saw a fellow so cool, nor more savage and determined, God help me.
Ah! I wish for the honour of the country, you know, that he could have
come here instead of me, and shown you a real Virginian gentleman."
"Nay, sir, you'll do very well. What is this I hear of Lady Yarmouth
taking you into favour?" said the amused nobleman.
"I will do as well as another. I can ride, and, I think, I can shoot
better than George; but then my brother had the head, sir, the head!"
says Harry, tapping his own honest skull. "Why, I give you my word, my
lord, that he had read almost every book that was ever written; could
play both on the fiddle and harpsichord, could compose poetry and
sermons most elegant. What can I do? I am only good to ride and play at
cards, and drink Burgundy." And the penitent hung down his head. "But
them I can do as well as most fellows, you see. In fact, my lord, I'll
back myself," he resumed, to the other's great amusement.
Lord March relished the young man's naivete, as the jaded voluptuary
still to the end always can relish the juicy wholesome mutton-chop. "By
Gad, Mr. Warrington," says he, "you ought to be taken to Exeter 'Change,
and put in a show."
"And for why?"
"A gentlem
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