Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman in the Guards.  Of the other uncles of young Richard, Cuthbert, the sailor, perished in a spirited boat expedition against a slaving negro chief up the Niger.  Some of the gallant lieutenant’s trophies of war decorated the little boy’s play-shed at Raynham, and he bequeathed his sword to Richard, whose hero he was.  The diplomatist and beau, Vivian, ended his flutterings from flower to flower by making an improper marriage, as is the fate of many a beau, and was struck out of the list of visitors.  Algernon generally occupied the baronet’s disused town-house, a wretched being, dividing his time between horse and card exercise:  possessed, it was said, of the absurd notion that a man who has lost his balance by losing his leg may regain it by sticking to the bottle.  At least, whenever he and his brother Hippias got together, they never failed to try whether one leg, or two, stood the bottle best.  Much of a puritan as Sir Austin was in his habits, he was too good a host, and too thorough a gentleman, to impose them upon his guests.  The brothers, and other relatives, might do as they would while they did not disgrace the name, and then it was final:  they must depart to behold his countenance no more.

Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent to his misfortune, as he had perhaps dimly fancied it before, that his career lay in his legs, and was now irrevocably cut short.  He taught the boy boxing, and shooting, and the arts of fence, and superintended the direction of his animal vigour with a melancholy vivacity.  The remaining energies of Algernon’s mind were devoted to animadversions on swift bowling.  He preached it over the county, struggling through laborious literary compositions, addressed to sporting newspapers, on the Decline of Cricket.  It was Algernon who witnessed and chronicled young Richard’s first fight, which was with young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three years the boy’s senior.

Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the family.  It was his ill luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach; and, as one is not altogether fit for the battle of life who is engaged in a perpetual contention with his dinner, Hippias forsook his prospects at the Bar, and, in the embraces of dyspepsia, compiled his ponderous work on the Fairy Mythology of Europe.  He had little to do with the Hope of Raynham beyond what he endured from his juvenile tricks.

A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who had money to bequeath to the heir, occupied with Hippias the background of the house and shared her candles with him.  These two were seldom seen till the dinner hour, for which they were all day preparing, and probably all night remembering, for the Eighteenth Century was an admirable trencherman, and cast age aside while there was a dish on the table.