122 A BOOK ABOUT THE GAEDEN. 



His demeanour -was calculated to give us the idea that 

 \ve had no claim, strictly speaking, to existence in 

 any form, but that he tolerated us. He sent for us, 

 kept us waiting for hours, and then either dismissed 

 us without an interview, or gave us his orders as 

 though he gave out oakum to convicts. In my 

 subordinate capacity I was only honoured with two 

 brief conversations, during which he was pleased to 

 address me, for he never remembered names, as " Mr. 

 Cutts " and " Eowbottom," appellations which be- 

 longed respectively to the stud-groom and to an 

 under-keeper, but which were as unlike Olclacre as, I 

 daresay, he wished them to be. 



We servants were not the only ones who shivered 

 in his icy presence, and winked and capered with 

 exuberant joy as soon as we were fairly out of it. 

 Living at that time in one of the lodges, I frequently 

 witnessed the arrival and departure of certain county 

 families, who were annually distinguished by an 

 invitation to the castle. To open the gate for these 

 favoured guests, and to look upon their expression of 

 complete despair, was like being hall-porter at a 

 dentist's. They might have been blue-bottles, who 

 had just set foot within the meshes of a spider's net, 

 or rabbits, helplessly mesmerized by a weasel, and 

 drawing nearer to their doom. One footman, I re- 

 member, was wont to weep in the rumble, and to 

 assume for my edification such an aspect of pretended 

 woe, pointing the while with his thumb to the uncon- 

 scious tenantry of the chariot below, that at last I 

 dared not go out to meet him, and he was compelled 

 to dismount, and clear the way for himself. 



