CHAPTER XL 



WINTER AT HAZELBARN.* 



IHpHjlHERE are certain long-standing town friends of mine 

 iSifll who affect or really feel concern at what they term 

 my exile at Hazelbarn. They can understand that 

 life in quiet country quarters is tolerable enough in the 

 bright summer time, and they say so. Two poets amongst 

 them talk of the birds, flowers, dews, and showers ; one 

 notorious lotus-eater babbles of a wide-spreading elm, under 

 which he has sipped cooling drinks and smoked many pipes 

 of peace ; others, who are gourmands, are not dead to the 

 charms of duck and green peas, of strawberries newly 

 gathered, and cream fresh skimmed. It is the winter that 

 chills the marrow of their comprehension. 



Perhaps it is because I am not an out-and-out country 

 gentleman, a veritable squire, who must perforce learn that 

 property has its duties, etc., etc., that I am thus pitied. 

 There is something in that I fancy. 



The man who, like Smythe Smythe, Esq., on the hill 



* A statement by Farley Fenwick, Esq., formerly of Gray's Inn 

 Square. 



