142 MR. SPONGE'S SPORTING TOUR. 



permitted, he came to the resolution that the second proposition 

 depended a good deal upon the first ; " for," said ho to himself, 

 " if I marry, my lady, perhaps, may make mo live ; and therefore," 

 said he, "perhaps I'd better remain single." At all events, he 

 came to the determination not to marry in a hurry ; and until he 

 did, ho felt there was no occasion for him to inconvenience him- 

 self by living. So he had the house put away in brown Holland, 

 the carpets rolled up, the pictures covered, the statues shrouded 

 in muslin, the cabinets of curiosities locked, the plate secured, the 

 china closeted, and everything arranged with the greatest care 

 against the time, which he put before him in the distance like a 

 target, when he should marry and begin to live. 



At first he gave two or three great dinners a-year, about the 

 height of the fruit season, and when it was getting too ripe for 

 carriage to London by the old coaches — when a grand airing of the 

 state-rooms used to take place, and ladies from all parts of the 

 county used to sit shivering with their bare shoulders, all anxious 

 for the honours of the head of the table. His lordship always 

 held out that he was a marrying man ; but even if he hadn't they 

 would have come all the same, an unmarried man being always 

 clearly on the cards : and though he was stumpy, and clumsy, and 

 uo-ly, with as little to say for himself as could well be conceived, 

 they all agreed that he was a most engaging, attractive man — 

 quite a pattern of a man. Even on horseback, and in his hunting 

 clothes, in which he looked far the best, he was only a coarse, 

 square, bull-headed looking man, with hard, dry, round, matter- 

 of-fact features, that never look young, and yet somehow never 

 get old. Indeed, barring the change from brown to grey of his 

 short stubby whiskers, which he trained with great care into a 

 curve almost on to his cheek-bone, he looked very little older at tho 

 period of which we are writing than he did a dozen years before, 

 when he was Lord Hardup. These dozen years, however, had 

 brought him down in his doings. 



The dinners had gradually dwindled away altogether, and he 

 had had all the large tablecloths and napkins rough dried and 

 locked away against he got married ; an event that he seemed 

 more anxious to provide for the more unlikely it became. He had 

 also abdicated the main body of the mansion, and taken up his 

 quarters in what used to be the steward's room ; into which he 

 could creep quietly by a side door opening from the outer 

 entrance, and so save frequent exposure to the cold and damp of 

 the large cathedral-like hall beyond. Through the steward's 

 room, wis what used to be the muniment room, which he con- 

 verted into a bed-room for himself ; and a little further along the 

 passage was another small chamber, made out of what used to be 

 the plate-room, whereof Jack, or whoever was in office, had tho 



