d the good fortune
to win the Ministers favour, I might be made a Secretary at some small
legation and have five hundred--that is, however, a piece of luck not to
be thought of."

"Well, I'm sure," sighed Martin; "I'm no judge of these matters; but it
strikes me that's very poor pay, and that a man like myself, who has his
ten or twelve hundreds a-year--fifteen in good seasons--is better off
than the great folk dining with kings or emperors."

"Of course you are," said I; "who doubts it? But we must all do
something. England is not a country where idleness is honourable."

"Why not turn farmer?" said Martin, energetically; "you'd soon learn
the craft, I've not met any one this many a-year picks up the knowledge
about it like yourself. You seem to like the life too."

"If you mean such as I live now, I delight in it."

"Do you, my dear boy?" cried he, grasping my hand, and squeezing it
between both his own. "If so, then never leave us. You shall live with
us--we'll take that great piece of land there near the haugh--I've had
an eye on it for years back; there's a sheep run there as fine as any
in Europe. I'll lay down the whole of those two fields into meadow, and
keep the green crops to the back altogether. Such partridge-shooting
we will have there yet. In winter, too, the Duke's hounds meet twice
a-week. I've got such a strapping three-year-old--you haven't seen him,
but he'll be a clipper. Well, don't say nay. You'll stay and marry
Amy. I'll give her twenty thousand down, and leave you all I have
afterwards."

This was poured forth in such a voluble strain, that an interruption was
impossible; and at last, when over, the speaker stood with tearful eyes,
gazing on me, as if on my reply his very existence was hanging.

Surprise and gratitude for the unbounded confidence he had shewn in
me were my first sensations, soon to be followed by a hundred other
conflicting and jarring ones. I should shame--even now, after years
have gone by--to own to some of these. Alas! our very natures are at the
mercy of the ordinances we ourselves have framed; and the savage red man
yields not more devotion to the idol he has carved, than do we to the
fashion we have made our Deity! I thought of the Lady Georginas and
Carolines of my acquaintance, and grew ashamed of Amy Haverstock! If
I had loved, this I am sure would not have been the case, but I cannot
acquit myself that principle and good feeling should not have been
sufficient