Such was my uncle's house, which I used to visit now and then during
The holydays. I was, as I have before said, the old man's favorite;
that is to say, he did not hate me so much as he did the rest of the
world. I had been apprised of his character, and cautioned to cultivate
his good-will; but I was too young and careless to be a courtier; and
indeed have never been sufficiently studious of my interests to let
them govern my feelings. However, we seemed to jog on very well
together; and as my visits cost him almost nothing, they did not seem
to be very unwelcome. I brought with me my gun and fishing-rod, and
half supplied the table from the park and the fishponds.
Our meals were solitary and unsocial. My uncle rarely spoke; he pointed
for whatever he wanted, and the servant perfectly understood him.
Indeed, his man John, or Iron John, as he was called in the
neighborhood, was a counterpart of his master. He was a tall, bony old
fellow, with a dry wig that seemed made of cow's tail, and a face as
tough as though it had been made of bull's hide. He was generally clad
in a long, patched livery coat, taken out of the wardrobe of the house;
and which bagged loosely about him, having evidently belonged to some
corpulent predecessor, in the more plenteous days of the mansion. From
long habits of taciturnity, the hinges of his jaws seemed to have grown
absolutely rusty, and it cost him as much effort to set them ajar, and
to let out a tolerable sentence, as it would have done to set open the
iron gates of a park, and let out the family carriage that was dropping
to pieces in the coach-house.
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