, as it might be, in undisturbed enjoyment
of all the local homage. Sir Wycherly had once been a member of
Parliament, and only once. In his youth, he had been a fox-hunter; and a
small property in Yorkshire had long been in the family, as a sort of
foothold on such enjoyments; but having broken a leg, in one of his
leaps, he had taken refuge against _ennui_, by sitting a single session
in the House of Commons, as the member of a borough that lay adjacent to
his hunting-box. This session sufficed for his whole life; the good
baronet having taken the matter so literally, as to make it a point to
be present at all the sittings; a sort of tax on his time, which, as it
came wholly unaccompanied by profit, was very likely soon to tire out
the patience of an old fox-hunter. After resigning his seat, he retired
altogether to Wychecombe, where he passed the last fifty years,
extolling England, and most especially that part of it in which his own
estates lay; in abusing the French, with occasional inuendoes against
Spain and Holland; and in eating and drinking. He had never travelled;
for, though Englishmen of his station often did visit the continent, a
century ago, they oftener did not. It was the courtly and the noble, who
then chiefly took this means of improving their minds and manners; a
class, to which a baronet by no means necessarily belonged. To conclude,
Sir Wycherly was now eighty-four; hale, hearty, and a bachelor. He had
been born the oldest of five brothers; the cadets taking refuse, as
usual, in the inns of court, the church, the army, and the navy; and
precisely in the order named. The lawyer had actually risen to be a
judge, by the style and appellation of Baron Wychecombe; had three
illegitimate children by his housekeeper, and died, leaving to the
eldest thereof, all his professional earnings, after buying commissions
for the two younger in the army. The divine broke his neck, while yet a
curate, in a fox-hunt; dying unmarried, and so far as is generally
known, childless. This was Sir Wycherly's favourite brother; who, he was
accustomed to say, "lost his life, in setting an example of field-sports
to his parishioners." The soldier was fairly killed in battle, before he
was twenty; and the name of the sailor suddenly disappeared from the
list of His Majesty's lieutenants, about half a century before the time
when our tale opens, by shipwreck. Between the sailor and the head of
the family, however, there had been