re the battle of Bosworth, over the chimney-piece."

I could not help joining my uncle's grim, low laugh at this
characteristic pleasantry; and after I had complimented him on so
judicious a mode of proving his point, I asked him how he could possibly
have contrived to fit up the ruin so well, especially as he had scarcely
visited it since his purchase.

"Why," said he, "some years ago that poor fellow you now see as my
servant, and who is gardener, bailiff, seneschal, butler, and anything
else you can put him to, was sent out of the army on the invalid list.
So I placed him here; and as he is a capital carpenter, and has had a
very fair education, I told him what I wanted, and put by a small sum
every year for repairs and furnishing. It is astonishing how little
it cost me; for Bolt, poor fellow (that is his name), caught the right
spirit of the thing, and most of the furniture (which you see is ancient
and suitable) he picked up at different cottages and farm-houses in
the neighborhood. As it is, however, we have plenty more rooms here and
there,--only, of late," continued my uncle, slightly changing color,
"I had no money to spare. But come," he resumed with an evident effort,
"come and see my barrack; it is on the other side of the hall, and made
out of what no doubt were the butteries."

We reached the yard, and found the fly-coach had just crawled to the
door. My father's head was buried deep in the vehicle; he was gathering
up his packages and sending out, oracle-like, various muttered
objurgations and anathemas upon Mrs. Primmins and her vacuum, which Mrs.
Primmins, standing by and making a lap with her apron to receive the
packages and anathemas simultaneously, bore with the mildness of an
angel, lifting up her eyes to heaven and murmuring something about "poor
old bones,"--though as for Mrs. Primmins's bones, they had been myths
these twenty years, and you might as soon have found a Plesiosaurus in
the fat lands of Romney Marsh as a bone amidst those layers of flesh in
which my poor father thought he had so carefully cottoned up his Cardan.

Leaving these parties to adjust matters between them, we stepped under
the low doorway and entered Roland's room. Oh! certainly Bolt had caught
the spirit of the thing; certainly he had penetrated down to the pathos
that lay within the deeps of Roland's character. Buffon says, "The style
is the man;" there, the room was the man. That nameless, inexpressible,
soldier--li