, convincing sort of way. Do you think any of them took it
in the same friendly spirit? Not one! It's my belief they had got their
speeches ready for the reception, with the flags and the flowers, and
that they're secretly angry with me for stopping their open mouths just
as they were ready to begin. Anyway, whenever we came to the matter of
the speechifying (whether they touched it first or I), down I fell in
their estimation the first of those three steps I told you of just
now. Don't suppose I made no efforts to get up again! I made desperate
efforts. I found they were all anxious to know what sort of life I had
led before I came in for the Thorpe Ambrose property, and I did my best
to satisfy them. And what came of that, do you think? Hang me, if I
didn't disappoint them for the second time! When they found out that I
had actually never been to Eton or Harrow, or Oxford or Cambridge, they
were quite dumb with astonishment. I fancy they thought me a sort of
outlaw. At any rate, they all froze up again; and down I fell the second
step in their estimation. Never mind! I wasn't to be beaten; I had
promised you to do my best, and I did it. I tried cheerful small-talk
about the neighborhood next. The women said nothing in particular; the
men, to my unutterable astonishment, all began to condole with me. I
shouldn't be able to find a pack of hounds, they said, within twenty
miles of my house; and they thought it only right to prepare me for the
disgracefully careless manner in which the Thorpe Ambrose covers had
been preserved. I let them go on condoling with me, and then what do you
think I did? I put my foot in it again. 'Oh, don't take that to heart!'
I said; 'I don't care two straws about hunting or shooting, either. When
I meet with a bird in my walk, I can't for the life of me feel eager
to kill it; I rather like to see the bird flying about and enjoying
itself.' You should have seen their faces! They had thought me a sort of
outlaw before; now they evidently thought me mad. Dead silence fell upon
them all; and down I tumbled the third step in the general estimation.
It was just the same at the next house, and the next and the next. The
devil possessed us all, I think. It _would_ come out, now in one way,
and now in another, that I couldn't make speeches--that I had been
brought up without a university education--and that I could enjoy a ride
on horseback without galloping after a wretched stinking fox or a poor
distra