The Bucklers, too, were religious, after
their fashion; that is to say, the squire seldom
failed to appear and to slumber in the huge
enclosed family pew, safe behind curtains
from inspection; except from that of the charity
boys in the Buckler uniform of green and
yellow in the gallery. The Bucklers did not
approve of education for the poor, and it
must be confessed, that nothing serious was
done in the Buckler charity school to interfere
with their prejudice.

The Buckler tenantry were settled down
on some of the richest land in the county, at
rents which had not been raised for many
generations. They grew magnificent crops
of weeds; and trusted to a good season, now
and then, to set them all straight. A Buckler
tenant was commonly, at least, a year in
arrear. His farm-buildings—profusely patched
with green timber, which he used wastefully,
because he got it for nothing—almost tumbling
about his ears. He was always grumbling,
as was natural; for those who grumbled got
an allowance. One knowing fellow obtained
two reductions of rent by asking for a new
barn, which he eventually built of the squire's
timber, carted by the squire's team. Another
deluded tenant, whom accident had sent to
an uncle in the north, in his youth, was rewarded
for some spirited improvements, by
having his rent raised. He did not seem to
mind that much; but, on its being observed
that his daughter played the piano, he
received notice to quit—the only instance of
ejectment ever known.

You might know the Riverport and Buckler
labourers anywhere by their lounging gait,
and the ingenuity with which, when standing
still, they managed to lean against a tree or
a post. They seemed to crawl through life with
one eye constantly turned toward the Hall
kitchen, and the other, toward the workhouse,
as the final, certain end of their journey.
They touched their hat to the squire, with
the profoundest humility, and mocked him,
behind his back, in their peculiar dialect,
over his own harvest-beer.

With such landlords, such tenants, and such
labourers on the outlying farms, the Home
Park farm, and the park itself kept pace in
decline. Everything was taken out, and nothing
put in; weeds buried the corn, thistles,
rushes, moss, and nettles, overran the turf.
The old fruit trees died out in the gardens,
no one troubled himself to graft or plant.
Once or twice, one of the squires ordered a
collection of young fruit trees for walls and
standard; but, when them came no one took
the trouble to tend them when planted. The
gardeners were the only persons who got a
good supply of vegetables. They kept pigs in
their own Dutch garden. The squires of
Buckler Hall were like the Dutch-planted
pippins; the gradually wore out without any
special extravagance; they muddled their
income away in miserable litigation, and the
expenses of buying more land, and borrowing
money to pay for it, and each succeeding inheritor
grew poorer, prouder, feebler in
constitution, shier, and more reserved than
his predecessor.

The last squire, Arthur Buckler, declined
invitations, and, by degrees, his neighbours
ceased to call. He was not a young man
when he came to the property; and, as he did
not show any signs of marrying, in spite of
vigorous assaults made on his bachelorship
by ladies willing to renew the glories of
Buckler Hall, the rnoss-covered walks up to
the hall were never marked by the carriage
wheels of neighbouring squires, and were only
trodden by villagers hurrying thanklessly
along to receive their charity-doles—the last
remnant of the pride of the Bucklers.

At length, a few months after my visit,
the bell tolled, and the last, of the De
Bucklers was magnificently buried; leaving
behind him a village of paupers, where strapping,
able-bodied fellows kept the relieving
officers in constant work, and took their
relief as if it had been their wages—a workhouse
full of silly children, deserted wives,
and mothers never wed, and an estate so
covered with mortgages, bonds, and law costs,
that it was not worth claiming by any of the
remote descendants of female heirs, whom the
pride and coach-and-four of the Bucklers had
sent wandering to distant counties and to
foreign lands.

After due time for the performance of
those solemn ceremonies with which the tribe
of legal boa-constrictors consume an estate,
huge placards and column-long advertisements
informed the neighbouring squires and
squiresses that the estate which the first De
Buckleigh won with his battle-axe was to
pass away under the hammer of Mr. Cerule
Smug, the noted auctioneer. Then curiosity
broke loose; the hall, the gardens, the park,
the home-farm were all explored. The
neighbouring town sent forth fly-loads armed with
catalogues of the pictures, furniture, plate,
valuable library, carriages, harness, farm-stock
of the late Arthur de Malpas de Buckleigh,
Esquire;—the auctioneer having revived the
old names. The moss-covered avenues were
cut up with vehicles of all descriptions, from
the Honorable Ridley Rowpoint's four-in-hand
drag to Moses Mordecai's racing-pony
dog-cart. But there was very little to see.
The furniture as worn out, and its fashion
was neither ancient nor modern. Of rich oak
carvings and quaint needleworked tapestry
there was none. The varied cellar of wines
was strongly suspected by the knowing to
have been imported, with a collection of
pictures, by the bland auctioneer. The
library was composed of dark volumes of controversial
divinity of Queen Anne's day, a few
stray volumes of the St. James's Chronicle,
Clater's Farriery, Racing Calendars, and a set
of the Ladies' Magazine. The gardens were
a waste; in the park half a dozen mangy
does wandered dolefully. A monstrous barn,