ion, while his sovereign lady domineered at home as usual,
visited with pomp in the neighbourhood, and employed her chief care in
the education of her darling son Gam, who was now in the fifteenth year
of his age, and so remarkable for his perverse disposition, that, in
spite of his mother's influence and authority, he was not only hated,
but also despised, both at home and abroad. She had put him under the
tuition of the curate, who lived in the family, and was obliged to
attend him in all his exercises and excursions. This governor was a
low-bred fellow, who had neither experience nor ingenuity, but possessed
a large fund of adulation and servile complaisance, by which he had
gained the good graces of Mrs. Pickle, and presided over all her
deliberations in the same manner as his superior managed those of Mrs.
Trunnion.

He had one day rode out to take the air with his pupil, who, as I have
already observed, was odious to the poor people, for having killed
their dogs and broken their inclosures, and, on account of his hump,
distinguished by the title of My Lord, when in a narrow lane they
chanced to meet Peregrine on horseback. The young squire no sooner
perceived his elder brother, for whom he had been instructed to
entertain the most inveterate grudge, than he resolved to insult him en
passant, and actually rode against him from gallop. Our hero, guessing
his aim, fixed himself in his stirrups, and by a dexterous management
of the reins avoided the shock in such a manner as that their legs only
should encounter; by which means my lord was tilted out of his saddle,
and in a twinkling laid sprawling in the dirt. The governor, enraged at
the disgrace of his charge, advanced with great insolence and fury, and
struck at Peregrine with his whip. Nothing could be more agreeable
to our young gentleman than this assault, which furnished him with
an opportunity of chastising an officious wretch, whose petulance and
malice he had longed to punish. He therefore, spurring up his horse
towards his antagonist, overthrew him in the middle of a hedge. Before
he had time to recollect himself from the confusion of the fall, Pickle
alighted in a trice, and exercised his horsewhip with such agility about
the curate's face and ears, that he was fain to prostrate himself before
his enraged conqueror, and implore his forbearance in the most abject
terms. While Peregrine was thus employed, his brother Gam had made shift
to rise and attack hi