My father having by his marriage freed the estate
from a heavy mortgage, and paid his sisters their portions, thought
himself discharged from all obligation to further thought, and entitled
to spend the rest of his life in rural pleasures. He therefore spared
nothing that might contribute to the completion of his felicity; he
procured the best guns and horses that the kingdom could supply, paid
large salaries to his groom and huntsman, and became the envy of the
country for the discipline of his hounds. But, above all his other
attainments, he was eminent for a breed of pointers and setting-dogs,
which by long and vigilant cultivation he had so much improved, that not
a partridge or heathcock could rest in security, and game of whatever
species that dared to light upon his manor, was beaten down by his shot,
or covered with his nets.
My elder brother was very early initiated in the chace, and, at an age
when other boys are _creeping like snails unwillingly to school_, he
could wind the horn, beat the bushes, bound over hedges, and swim
rivers. When the huntsman one day broke his leg, he supplied his place
with equal abilities, and came home with the scut in his hat, amidst the
acclamations of the whole village.
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