he shoulders, like the old
gentleman himself and the carpenter, who is an old man too, and has
been watching them forty years in hopes of their tumbling, and gives
them a good lusty bang after him every time he passes through, swears
they must have been made in the days of King Canute. The squire has an
old coach drawn by two and occasionally by four old fat horses, and
driven by a jolly old coachman, in which his old lady and his old maiden
sister ride; for he seldom gets into it himself, thinking it a thing fit
only for women and children, preferring infinitely the back of Jack, his
old roadster.

If you went to dine with him, you would find him just as you would have
found his father; not a thing has been changed since his days. There is
the great entrance hall, with its cold stone floor, and its fine
tall-backed chairs, and an old walnut cabinet; and on the walls a
quantity of stags' horns, with caps and riding-whips hung on them; and
the pictures of his ancestors, in their antiquated dresses, and slender,
tarnished, antiquated frames. In his drawing-room you will find none of
your new grand pianos and fashionable couches and ottomans; but an old
spinet and a fiddle, another set of those long-legged, tall-backed
chairs, two or three little settees, a good massy table, and a fine
large carved mantle-piece, with bright steel dogs instead of a modern
stove, and logs of oak burning, if it be cold. At table, all his plate
is of the most ancient make, and he drinks toasts and healths in
tankards of ale that is strong enough to make a horse reel, but which he
continually avows is as mild as mother's milk, and wouldn't hurt an
infant. He has an old rosy butler, and loves very old venison, which
fills the whole house with its perfume while roasting; and an old
double-Gloucester cheese, full of jumpers and mites; and after it a
bottle of old port, at which he is often joined by the parson, and
always by a queer, quiet sort of a tall, thin man, in a seedy black
coat, and with a crimson face, bearing testimony to the efficacy of the
squire's port and "mother's milk."

This man is always to be seen about, and has been these twenty years. He
goes with the squire a-coursing and shooting, and into the woods with
him. He carries his shot-belt and powder-flask, and gives him out his
chargings and his copper caps. He is as often seen about the steward's
house; and he comes in and out of the squire's just as he pleases,
always seatin