THE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN; OR, The Fields and the Woods. BY JOHN MILLS, AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF A RACEHORSE." PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. I HAD both the honour and pleasure of dedicating this work to His Grace the late Duke of Beaufort, who bore the undisputed title of being the most popular sportsman living. It was, therefore, with no little gratification that I received from His Grace the flattering assurance that"While a thorough sportsman was to be found, The Old English Gentleman' would find a hearty welcome." The lips are silent now which so kindly spoke of this my first literary effort; but they were words never to be forgotten by one between hope and dread of the levelled and bristling shafts of criticism. Years have passed since then, and if the merits of anything may be measured by its success, the third edition offers, perhaps, the best proof of "The Old English Gentleman" still possessing many friends. ORIGINAL PREFACE. THE writer of the following pages would be acting unfairly, no less to his readers than to himself, if he were to neglect saying a few words as to his design and object in writing them. Though very far from being indifferent to the criticism which may await this first production of his almost untried pen, and still farther from hoping to escape those just censures to which his want of practice may have rendered him liable, he would fain avoid the charge of having failed to accomplish what he has, in fact, not attempted. In writing these scenes of "The Fields and the Woods," his object has been, not to construct an elaborate plot, making it subservient to the formal development of a series of characters; not, in a word, to write a mere fiction; but only so to throw together and arrange some of the most attractive scenes of Country Life in England-and especially those connected with Field Sports-as to strengthen and disseminate that love for them which amounts to a passion in his own breast, and which, when it ceases to warm those of his fellow-countrymen, will take from them one of the proudest and happiest features of their character. There is nothing in continental life that may for a moment compare, either in solid worth, or in social and political value, with "The Old English Gentleman" of the past and (the writer of these pages must venture to insist) the present times of rural life in England: for there cannot be a greater mistake than to suppose that the class is extinct, or that it is even greatly reduced or deteriorated. It is not a few railroads or steam-boats more or less, that can blot out that inherent feature in our national character, which has ever distinguished us favourably from the rest of the civilised world. Next to the love of country, the love of the country is that passion, or sympathy, or tendency-call it what we will-which leads to the highest and purest results, and the absence or abrogation of which opens a way to the lowest and the basest: and in no country does this love prevail to any thing like the extent and degree that it does in England; nor did it ever prevail there in more strength and purity than in our own day. It is partly to give vent to the overflowings of this feeling in himself, partly to communicate it to others, that the writer of these pages has endeavoured to depict the scenes amid which alone it can be born; though happily it may be cherished and kept intact, even in the artificial scenes of the most high-viced city. On the other hand, as it is chiefly for the meridian of the latter that he has written, the author of "The Old English Gentleman " has thought proper to adopt that form, and adapt himself to that taste, which seem to offer him the best chance of being extensively read: for an unread book-even a good one is as valueless as an unfulfilled good intention. But though he has endeavoured to bind his desultory scenes together by a thread of narrative which will give to them a continuous and consecutive interest, no one can set less value than he himself does on the materials of which that thread is composed, or the skill with which it is spun. In a word, if the reader be but satisfied with his scenes of "The Fields and the Woods," and his portrait-drawn from the life, and con amore-of "The Old English Gentleman," with whose habitat they so essentially connect themselves, he cares but little what may be thought or said of his skill as a writer; if it be but admitted that he has some claim to the character of a SPORTSMAN, let who will dispute his pretensions as a NOVELIST. THE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. CHAPTER I. THE OLD WHIPPER-IN. IT was a cold, comfortless night in December. The wind swept over the heath, whistling through the woods in sudden gusts accompanied by sleet and rain, as Tom Bolton, the old whipper-in, sat in his "snuggery," as he called his cottage, before a log fire blazing cheerfully upon the hearth. The rain battered against the windows with a chilling sound, and the old man continued to heap fresh wood upon the fire, until the little room was warmed and illuminated to his heart's content. "There, that's as it should be," exclaimed he, stretching out his legs, and filling the bowl of a short pipe. Tom Bolton's hair was thin, and the many winters that had passed since he was a "feather weight" had frosted the few remaining locks. Threescore and seven years numbered his age; but the health of youth glowed in his rubicund visage, and strength was still in his sinewy and well-moulded limbs. Time had not frozen his blood, or weakened his voice, if it had thinned his hair. Still to him the dashing leap and highmettled horse were the same objects of fearless attraction and delight; still his voice rang merrily through copse and cover, as he cheered his darling pack; and, for many miles round Woodland Hall, Squire Scourfield's old whipper-in was frequently the subject of the fox-hunters' toast, and even of the ladies' admiration. The old man puffed cloud after cloud, watching with upturned face each succeeding volume of smoke as it rolled along the ceiling. Occasionally, he glanced at a capacious china bowl, in which was a fawn-handled silver ladle. It was empty; but near it were placed some lemons and a knife, and upon a half-consumed log hissed a small kettle of boiling water. old clock, that had been tick-tacking for half a century and upwards, in a corner of the room, struck nine; and after the carved representative of a bird had "cuckoo'd" for a minute An |