The company have now almost all taken their departure.  I have determined to do the same to-morrow morning; and I hope my reader may not think that I have already lingered too long at the Hall.  I have been tempted to do so, however, because I thought I had lit upon one of the retired places where there are yet some traces to be met with of old English character.  A little while hence, and all these will probably have passed away.  Ready-Money Jack will sleep with his fathers:  the good squire, and all his peculiarities, will be buried in the neighbouring church.  The old Hall will be modernised into a fashionable country-seat, or, peradventure, a manufactory.  The park will be cut up into petty farms and kitchen-gardens.  A daily coach will run through the village; it will become, like all other commonplace villages, thronged with coachmen, post-boys, tipplers, and politicians; and Christmas, May-day, and all the other hearty merry-makings of the “good old times” will be forgotten.

[Illustration:  Master Simon’s Finale]