re meant to have, and did not fear any opponent, Abel Grundy bid for
it, and bought it, striking the old steward actually dumb with
astonishment; and then it was found that all the scattered lots which
Grundy had been buying up, lay on one side or other of this farm, and
made a most imposing whole. To make bad worse, Grundy, instead of taking
off his hat when he met the old squire, began now to lift up his own
head very high; built a grand house on the land plump opposite to the
squire's hall-gates; has brought a grand wife--a rich citizen's
daughter; set up a smart carriage; and as the old squire is riding out
on his old horse Jack, with his groom behind him, on a roan pony with a
whitish mane and tail, the said groom having his master's great coat
strapped to his back, as he always has on such occasions, drives past
with a dash and a cool impudence that are most astonishing.

The only comfort that the old squire has in the case is talking of the
fellow's low origin. "Only to think," says he, "that this fellow's
father hadn't even wood enough to make a wheel-barrow till my family
helped him; and I have seen this scoundrel himself scraping manure in
the high roads, before he went to the village school in the morning,
with his toes peeping out of his shoes, and his shirt hanging like a
rabbit's tail out of his ragged trowsers; and now the puppy talks of 'my
carriage,' and 'my footman,' and says that 'he and _his lady purpose_ to
spend the winter in _the_ town,' meaning London!"

Wagstaff laughs at the squire's little criticism on Abel Grundy, and
shakes his head; but he can not shake the chagrin out of the old
gentleman's heart. Abel Grundy's upstart greatness will be the death of
the OLD SQUIRE.

* * * * *

THE YOUNG SQUIRE.

By smiling fortune blessed
With large demesnes, hereditary wealth.
SOMERVILLE.

The Old Squire and the Young Squire are the antipodes of each other.
They are representatives of two entirely different states of society in
this country; the one, but the vestige of that which has been; the
other, the full and perfect image of that which is. The old squires are
like the last fading and shriveled leaves of autumn that yet hang on
the tree. A few more days will pass; age will send one of his nipping
nights, and down they will twirl, and be swept away into the oblivious
hiding-places of death, to be seen no more. But the young s