164 RANGE OF APPRENTICESHIP. 



prize, that a mere acquaintance should suddenly " pop in," and 

 enjoy, what, in the fairest equity, ought to have been the undis- 

 puted right of the family, while the most distant member there- 

 of remained. 



In this opinion my old friend acquiesced, for he had had a very 

 narrow escape from an accident not dissimilar, as in due co'irse will 

 appear. We therefore joined in the contempt of that system of 

 "catch what you can, and hold fast what you catch," without pre- 

 viously calling in the aid of conscience ; as well as in the strange 

 perverseness of age, that sometimes suffers right to succumb to 

 whim, and allow a stranger to shake his or her tantalizing sides 

 at the fair claim ov feeling clamour of disappointed consanguinity. 



But so it is, and so it must fall, if" what is to be is to be,'' as 

 grandames have it; although it is doubtful whether — themselves 

 sufferers — they would allow the philosophy of "whatever is 

 is right." But enough of this division of my subject. A. final 

 end may be put to one old original^ to make room for another in 

 the person of 



Mr. Crumplehorn. 



My friend was of a good family, brought up after the old yeo- 

 manry fashion, and well imbued in old yeomanry pride, that of not 

 only being well off, but well-conditioned, and having as much 

 game as would enable Aiw to meet any other he without fear, though, 

 as not to be expected, at all times with success. He liked a rig, 

 but was not always satisfied with his likings, as victory did not 

 invariably bind the laurel with ease on his brow. He was a pet 

 too with his mother, and a favourite with some of the prettiest 

 girls in the parish; and to hear himself^ talked of by these he 

 would finish a day's labour, of itself enough to make a town- 

 built creature seek a holiday to feel his pains, and another to re- 

 move them — and then brush for an evening's sport, as it was 

 termed, which would subject him to as much exertion as two of 

 his days of toil, and more punishment than would follow from 

 three hundred and sixty-five, unless per accident. But it was 

 sport, and being voluntarily joined in, passed off as a matter of 

 course. 



" I was a man," he would say, "of all work." I showed the 

 toe, handled the stick, and have beaten and been beaten in both; 

 but with the fist I was never conquered. So much the worse,'* 

 he continued ; " when we are fools we cannot see ourselves, or 

 will not, which is as bad. Every one would say, * Tim is game,' 

 and many, my own family not excepted, would make a reckon- 



