, the
river widened, the forestry systematically organized. The estate
appeared to have attained new strength and vigour when dissevered from
the old manor-house; whose shadow might be supposed to have exercised
a baleful influence on the lands wherever it presided.

But it was not his recognition of this that was likely to animate the
esteem of Sir Laurence Altham for Mr Jonas Sparks. On the contrary, he
felt every accession of value to the Lexley property as so much
subtracted from his belongings; and his detestation of the upstarts,
whose fine mansion was perceptible from his lordly towers--like a blot
upon the fairness of the landscape--increased with the increase of
their prosperity.

Without having expected to take delight in a sojourn at Lexley Hall--a
spot where he had only resided for a few weeks now and then, from the
period of his early boyhood--he was not prepared for the excess of
irritation that arose in his heart on witnessing the total
estrangement of the retainers of his family. For the mortification of
seeing a fine new house, with gorgeous furniture, and a pompous
establishment, he came armed to the teeth. But no presentiments had
forewarned him, that at Lexley the living Althams were already as much
forgotten as those who were sleeping in the family vault. The sudden
glow that pervaded his whole frame when he chanced to encounter on the
highroad the rich equipage of the Sparkses; or the imprecation that
burst from his lips, when, on going to the window of a morning to
examine the state of the weather for the day, the first objects that
struck him was the fair mansion in the plain below, laughing as it
were in the sunshine, the deer grouped under its fine old trees, and
the river rippling past its lawns as if delighting in their
verdure----Yes! there was decided animosity betwixt the hill and the
valley.

Every successive season served to quicken the pulses of this growing
hatred. Whether on the spot or at a distance, a thousand aggravations
sprang up betwixt the parties: disputes between gamekeepers, quarrels
between labourers, encroachments by tenants. Every thing and nothing
was made the groundwork of ill-will. To Sir Laurence Altham's
embittered feelings, the very rooks of Lexley Park seemed evermore to
infringe upon the privileges of the rookery at Lexley Hall; and when,
in the parish church, the new squire (or rather his workmen, for he
was absent at the time attending his duties in Parliame