the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of horses' hoofs. Then
may be seen Sir Leicester--invalided, bent, and almost blind, but of worthy
presence yet--riding with a stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein.
When they come to a certain spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's
accustomed horse stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is
still for a few moments before they ride away.

War rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain intervals, and
now hotly, and now coolly; flickering like an unsteady fire. The truth is said to
be, that when Sir Leicester came down to Lincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn
showed a manifest desire to abandon his right of way, and do whatever Sir Lei-
cester would: which Sir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness
or misfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently aggrieved by
that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of committing a flagrani
trespass to restore his neighbour to himself. Similarly Mr. Boythorn continue
to post tremendous placards on the disputed thoroughfare, and (with his bird upon
his head) to hold forth vehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his
own home; similarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church, by testifying
a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is whispered that when he is
most ferocious towards his old foe, he is really most considerate; and that Sir
Leicester, in the dignity of being implacable, little supposes how much he is
humoured. As little does he think how near together he and his antagonist have
suffered, in the fortunes of two sisters; and his antagonist, who knows it now, is not
the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the satisfaction of both.

In one of the lodges of the park; that lodge within sight of the house where,
once upon a time, when the waters were out down in Lincolnshire, my Lady used
to see the Keeper's child; the stalwart man, the trooper formerly, is housed.
Some relics of his old calling hang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen
recreation of a little lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A
busy little man he always is, in the polishing at harness house doors, of stirrup.
irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way of a stable-yard that
will take a polish: leading a life of friction. A shaggy little damaged man,
withal, not unlike an old dog of some mongrel breed, who has been considerably
knocked about. He answers to the name of Phil.

A goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of hearing now)
going to church on the arm of her son, and to observe--which few do, for the
house is scant of company in these times--the relations of both towards Sir Lei-
cester, and his towards them. They have visitors in the high summer weather,
when a grey cloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods,
are seen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found gam-
bolling, in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and when the smoke
of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening air, from the trooper's door.
Then is a file heard trolling within the lodge, on the inspiring topic of the British
Grenadiers; and, as the evening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say,
while two men pace together up and down, "But I never own to it before the old
girl. Discipline must be maintained."

The greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no longer; yet
Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long drawing-room for all that, and
reposes in his old place before my Lady's picture. Closed in by night with broad
screens, and illumined only in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems
gradually contracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more, in
truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the damp door in the
mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so obdurate, will have opened and
relieved him.

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