There may have been some truth in this, for the old gentleman was perpetually pestering me with petitions, and I know for a certainty, from his own charities, was often without a shilling in his pocket; but I suspect the good dinners at Hackton had a considerable share in causing his regrets at the dissolution of our intimacy:  and I know that his wife was quite sorry to forego the acquaintance of Bryan’s gouvernante, Mademoiselle Louison, who had all the newest French fashions at her fingers’ ends, and who never went to the rectory but you would see the girls of the family turn out in new sacks or mantles the Sunday after.

I used to punish the old rebel by snoring very loud in my pew on Sundays during sermon-time; and I got a governor presently for Bryan, and a chaplain of my own, when he became of age sufficient to be separated from the women’s society and guardianship.  His English nurse I married to my head gardener, with a handsome portion; his French gouvernante I bestowed upon my faithful German Fritz, not forgetting the dowry in the latter instance; and they set up a French dining-house in Soho, and I believe at the time I write they are richer in the world’s goods than their generous and free-handed master.

For Bryan I now got a young gentleman from Oxford, the Rev. Edmund Lavender, who was commissioned to teach him Latin, when the boy was in the humour, and to ground him in history, grammar, and the other qualifications of a gentleman.  Lavender was a precious addition to our society at Hackton.  He was the means of making a deal of fun there.  He was the butt of all our jokes, and bore them with the most admirable and martyrlike patience.  He was one of that sort of men who would rather be kicked by a great man than not be noticed by him; and I have often put his wig into the fire in the face of the company, when he would laugh at the joke as well as any man there.  It was a delight to put him on a high-mettled horse, and send him after the hounds,—­pale, sweating, calling on us, for Heaven’s sake, to stop, and holding on for dear life by the mane and the crupper.  How it happened that the fellow was never killed I know not; but I suppose hanging is the way in which his neck will be broke.  He never met with any accident, to speak of, in our hunting-matches:  but you were pretty sure to find him at dinner in his place at the bottom of the table making the punch, whence he would be carried off fuddled to bed before the night was over.  Many a time have Bryan and I painted his face black on those occasions.  We put him into a haunted room, and frightened his soul out of his body with ghosts; we let loose cargoes of rats upon his bed; we cried fire, and filled his boots with water; we cut the legs of his preaching-chair, and filled his sermon-book with snuff.  Poor Lavender bore it all with patience; and at our parties, or when we came to London, was amply repaid by being allowed to sit with the gentlefolks, and to fancy himself in the society of men of fashion.  It was good to hear the contempt with which he talked about our rector.  ’He has a son, sir, who is a servitor:  and a servitor at a small college,’ he would say.  ’How could you, my dear sir, think of giving the reversion of Hackton to such a low-bred creature?’