ancestors' work than of disturbing their graves. For now the house
looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown and
grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did
not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it for some spick
and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it had been
all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are. From which you may collect (if
you have wit enough) that Sir John was a very sound-headed,
sound-hearted squire, and just the man to keep the country side in
order, and show good sport with his hounds.

But Tom and his master did not go in through the great iron gates, as if
they had been Dukes or Bishops, but round the back way, and a very long
way round it was; and into a little back-door, where the ash-boy let
them in, yawning horribly; and then in a passage the housekeeper met
them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that Tom mistook her for
My Lady herself, and she gave Grimes solemn orders about "You will take
care of this, and take care of that," as if he was going up the
chimneys, and not Tom. And Grimes listened, and said every now and then,
under his voice, "You'll mind that, you little beggar?" and Tom did
mind, all at least that he could. And then the housekeeper turned them
into a grand room, all covered up in sheets of brown paper, and bade
them begin, in a lofty and tremendous voice; and so after a whimper or
two, and a kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and up the
chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room to watch the furniture; to
whom Mr. Grimes paid many playful and chivalrous compliments, but met
with very slight encouragement in return.

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that he
got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the town flues
to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find--if you would
only get up them and look, which perhaps you would not like to do--in
old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been altered
again and again, till they ran one into another, anastomosing (as
Professor Owen would say) considerably. So Tom fairly lost his way in
them; not that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness,
for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at
last, coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down the
wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a ro