Such a one
as Mr. Spooner of Spoon Hall finds that his off day is occupied from
breakfast to dinner with grooms, keepers, old women with turkeys'
heads, and gentlemen in velveteens with information about wires and
unknown earths, His letters fall naturally to the Sunday afternoon,
and are hardly written before sleep overpowers him. Many a large
fortune has been made with less of true devotion to the work than is
given to hunting by so genuine a sportsman as Mr. Spooner.
Our friend had some inkling of this himself, and felt that many of
the less important affairs of his life were neglected because he
was so true to the one great object of his existence. He had wisely
endeavoured to prevent wrack and ruin among the affairs of Spoon
Hall,--and had thoroughly succeeded by joining his cousin Ned with
himself in the administration of his estate,--but there were things
which Ned with all his zeal and all his cleverness could not do for
him. He was conscious that had he been as remiss in the matter of
hunting, as that hard-riding but otherwise idle young scamp, Gerard
Maule, he might have succeeded much better than he had hitherto done
with Adelaide Palliser.
Pages:
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868