a greater appearance than the family
means would allow.

Besides the three maids in the kitchen, there were a man and a boy
without doors, two or three lean cows, a flock of sheep which were half
starved on the moor, a great dog, and sundry pigs and fowls living at
large about the tower; and, to crown our description, it must be added,
that all the domestic arrangements which were beyond the sphere of Mrs.
Margaret were as ill managed as those within her sphere were capitally
well conducted; however, as Mr. Dymock said to her one day when she
ventured to expostulate with him on this subject, "Only have a little
patience, my good aunt, when I have completed what I am now about, for
instance my plough, you will see how I will arrange every thing. I
cannot suffer these petty attentions and petty reforms to occupy me just
now; what I intend to do will be done in a large way; I mean not only to
repair but to restore the castle, to throw the whole of my lands to the
north into a sheep-walk, to plant the higher points, and to convert the
south lands into arable. But my first object is the plough, and that
must be attended to, before everything else; the wood-work is all
complete, but a little alteration must be made in the coulter, and after
all, I apprehend I must do it myself, as old Shanty is as stupid as his
own hammer."

Mrs. Margaret hinted that every man had not the ingenuity of her
nephew; adding, however, that old Shanty was as worthy and God-fearing a
man as any on the moor.

"I do not deny it," replied Mr. Dymock, "but what has worth and
God-fearing to do with my plough. I have been trying in vain to make him
understand what I want done, and am come to the resolution of going
myself, taking off my coat, and working with him; I should make a better
blacksmith in a week, than he has in forty years."

Mrs. Margaret lifted up her hands and eyes, and then fetching a deep
sigh, "That I should have lived to hear that," she exclaimed; "the last
representative of the house of Dymock proposing to work at a
blacksmith's forge!"

"And why not? Mrs. Margaret," replied the nephew, "does a gentleman
lower himself when he works merely for recreation, and not for sordid
pelf; you have heard of Peter the Great?"

"Bless me, nephew," replied the spinster, bridling, "where do you think
my ears have been all my life, if I never heard of Peter the Great!"

"You know then, that he worked with his own hands at a blacksmith's
forge