He had scarcely concluded when his son entered the kitchen, alternately singing and whistling the Foxhunter’s jig in a manner that betokened exuberant if not boisterous spirits.  He was dressed in top boots, a green riding-coat, yellow waistcoat, and drab cassimere small clothes—­quite in jockey trim, in fact.

Hycy rather resembled his father in the lineaments of his face, and was, consequently, considered handsome.  He was about the middle size, and remarkably well proportioned.  In fact, it would be exceedingly difficult to find a young fellow of manlier bearing or more striking personal attractions.  His features were regular, and his complexion fresh and youthful looking, and altogether there was in his countenance and whole appearance a cheerful, easy, generous, unreflecting dash of character that not only made him a favorite on first acquaintance, but won confidence by an openness of manner that completely disarmed suspicion.  It might have been observed, however, that his laugh, like his mother’s, never, or at least seldom, came directly from the heart, and that there was a hard expression about his otherwise well-formed mouth, such as rarely indicated generosity of feeling, or any acquaintance with the kinder impulses of our nature.  He was his mother’s pet and favorite, and her principal wish was that he should be looked upon and addressed as a gentleman, and for that purpose she encouraged him to associate with those only whose rank and position in life rendered any assumption of equality on his part equally arrogant and obtrusive.  In his own family his bearing towards his parents was, in point of fact, the reverse of what it ought to have been.  He not only treated his father with something bordering on contempt, but joined his mother in all that ignorant pride which kept her perpetually bewailing the fate by which she was doomed to become his wife.  Nor did she herself come off better at his hands.  Whilst he flattered her vanity, and turned her foibles to his own advantage, under the guise of a very dutiful affection, his deportment towards her was marked by an ironical respect, which was the more indefensible and unmanly because she could not see through it.  The poor woman had taken up the opinion, that difficult and unintelligible language was one test of a gentleman; and her son by the use of such language, let no opportunity pass of confirming her in this opinion, and establishing his own claims to the character.

“Where did you ride to this mornin’ Misther Hycy?”

“Down to take a look at Tom Burton’s mare, Crazy Jane, ma’am:—­

     “’Away, my boys, to horse away,
     The Chase admits of no delay—­’”

“Tom Burton!” re-echoed the father with a groan; “an so you’re in Tom Burton’s hands!  A swindlin’, horse-dalin’ scoundrel that would chate St. Pether.  Hycy, my man, if you go to look for wool to Tom you’ll come home shorn.”

     “’Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule
     Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown bowl,
     That there’s wrath and despair—­”