all of us, from the very first, and the especial
darling of his grandfather; the old man soon
taught him to whip Scarcliff stream, and
throw a line well clear of its overhanging
oak branches, as well as he could himself.
Harry and I have had many and many
a fishing bout together. He had the run of
my little library, and used it pretty freely, so
that we had subjects enough for conversation
in that direction, but I liked his original talk
best. His opinions were singularly generous
and liberal, and I was wont to rally him
upon that point, saying that if ever he
became Sir Harry, he would alter his political
views. He was now but one remove from
the Hindon lands, his grandfather being
already dead; but his uncle, as much in spite
towards the young man, it was said, as for
love towards his intended bride, was about
to marry. It is fair to say, however, that
immediately upon his succession to the title
he had offered to adopt the boy, upon
condition that he left his mother, and promised
to cease all connection with Scarcliff; a small
pension was also to be settled upon poor
dying Kitty. Harry was left to take his
own choice upon the matter, and answered
by tearing his uncle's gracious letter into
fragments, throwing his arms around his
mother's neck, and covering her with kisses.

There was another tie that bound him to
Watersleap. Never did I see so beautiful a
pair as they, nor one so well fitted for each
other in mind and character. Mary had been
brought up very differently from the generation
that preceded her; she had never gone to
market with her father, with her petticoat stiff
with contraband articles; the smuggling trade,
in consequence of wiser legislation, was almost
extinct at Scarcliff. Brandy had long become
dear and scarce, and she had not been
accustomed to see drunkenness on every side of
her, and at her own home. Old Jacob, indeed,
was so thoroughly seasoned to strong liquor,
that he could scarcely have got intoxicated
by any quantity, and most of his contem-
poraries were in the grave; his man-of-war
expressions still remained, but they were
understood as such—a foam and fury very
reprehensible, but signifying nothing—by
the new race rising up around him. She
had been tolerably educated under my
mother's care at the Parsonage House, and
the beautiful girl had a disposition
harmonising with her looks, as the scent is
appropriate to the flower. Harry and she were
not plighted, for they were both very young;
and poor Kitty's death, which occurred about
this time, put the matter still farther off;
but it was understood that they would be
married one day. His love for her was of a
far other sort than that with which Richard
Hindon had wooed his mother twenty years
before; he was continually vexing himself
with thoughts of what he should turn to in
order to make a living sufficient for her and
himself. A home they already had at
Watersleap, which the old man would not
hear of the two orphans quitting, but they
had no money. The best fisherman in
Scarcliff had little to fear from actual want,
but it was for her comforts that he was
troubled; not by any dislike or doubt of
supporting her by his labours. Bread, eggs,
poultry and meat, with us have to travel
a distance of twenty miles before they can
reach a regular market, and are therefore
cheaper in our village than any Londoner
with a large family ever dreamed of in his
wildest dreams. It has always been
surprising to me that such out-of-the-way nooks
and corners of old England as this of ours
are not sought out by people of very small
fixed incomes, in preference to filthy lodgings
in obscure streets, where nothing, even with
the help of a scanty salary in a lawyer's or
merchant's office obtained by the hardest
drudgery, can possibly be saved at the year's
end. Harry Hindon, with nothing a-year,
was more to be envied, it seems to me, than
any quilldriver with an income of a hundred
pounds. It may be, however, that I am
wrong, and that this life of ease and liberty
which we all live at Scarcliff, has spoilt for
real civilised work even the parson himself.
Still, as I said, Harry, for his love's sake, was
looking somewhat higher, and had even
decided upon taking by the year a little farm
(which his grandfather could still assist him
to do), when a circumstance occurred which
scattered all his plans, and set the whole
population in a fever of excitement and
wonder.

A small, wizen-faced lawyer, very much
unaccustomed to horse exercise, came riding over
the moorland from far away, to the cottage by
the stream; he was in deep black, and much
dejection, but his countenance puckered
up into a smile at the sight of the young
Hindon:

"Allow me," said he, "to congratulate you,
Sir Harry, upon your succession to the family
title and estates! To sympathise with you
(he dropped his voice), upon the demise of
your late uncle, Sir Marmaduke; it is a
providential circumstance, so exceedingly thick-
necked and short in the breath as he was,
that he had an insuperable objection to signing
any testamentary document whatsoever;
the hall and the whole property in the Wolds,
four thousand pounds a-year in land (the
little man seemed to be eating turtle fat, so
slowly and unctuously, he dwelt upon this
part of his address), thirty thousand pounds in
the Funds, and the patronage of two excellent
livings (one just vacant), are yours: your
attendance is immediately required to prevent
any sort of opposition; and," concluded the
little man after a pause, "to be present at the
obsequies of the late lamented baronet."

He was certainly in a great hurry, for he
refused even to take a chair while he refreshed
himself, and mounting a descendant of the old
galloping grey, with a distressing reluctance,