e again as it was."

I could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on so
whimsical a subject; but I found that the peacocks were birds of some
consequence at the hall, for Frank Bracebridge informed me that they
were great favourites with his father, who was extremely careful to keep
up the breed; partly because they belonged to chivalry, and were in
great request at the stately banquets of the olden time; and partly
because they had a pomp and magnificence about them, highly becoming an
old family mansion. Nothing, he was accustomed to say, had an air of
greater state and dignity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone
balustrade.

[Illustration]

Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment at the parish
church with the village choristers, who were to perform some music of
his selection. There was something extremely agreeable in the cheerful
flow of animal spirits of the little man; and I confess I had been
somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly were
not in the range of every-day reading. I mentioned this last
circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told me with a smile that Master
Simon's whole stock of erudition was confined to some half-a-dozen old
authors, which the Squire had put into his hands, and which he read over
and over, whenever he had a studious fit; as he sometimes had on a rainy
day, or a long winter evening. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's Book of
Husbandry; Markham's Country Contentments; the Tretyse of Hunting, by
Sir Thomas Cockayne, Knight; Izaak Walton's Angler, and two or three
more such ancient worthies of the pen, were his standard authorities;
and, like all men who know but a few books, he looked up to them with a
kind of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions. As to his songs,
they were chiefly picked out of old books in the Squire's library, and
adapted to tunes that were popular among the choice spirits of the last
century. His practical application of scraps of literature, however, had
caused him to be looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge by all the
grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighbourhood.

While we were talking we heard the distant toll of the village bell, and
I was told that the Squire was a little particular in having his
household at church on a Christmas morning; considering it a day of
pouring out of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old Tusser observed,

"At Christmas be merry, _and thank