ow it happened that the fellow was never
killed I know not; but I suppose hanging is the way in which HIS neck
will be broke. He never met with any accident, to speak of, in our
hunting-matches: but you were pretty sure to find him at dinner in his
place at the bottom of the table making the punch, whence he would be
carried off fuddled to bed before the night was over. Many a time have
Bryan and I painted his face black on those occasions. We put him into
a haunted room, and frightened his soul out of his body with ghosts; we
let loose cargoes of rats upon his bed; we cried fire, and filled his
boots with water; we cut the legs of his preaching-chair, and filled his
sermon-book with snuff. Poor Lavender bore it all with patience; and
at our parties, or when we came to London, was amply repaid by being
allowed to sit with the gentlefolks, and to fancy himself in the society
of men of fashion. It was good to hear the contempt with which he talked
about our rector. 'He has a son, sir, who is a servitor: and a servitor
at a small college,' he would say. 'How COULD you, my dear sir, think of
giving the reversion of Hackton to such a low-bred creature?'

I should now speak of my other son, at least my Lady Lyndon's: I mean
the Viscount Bullingdon. I kept him in Ireland for some years, under the
guardianship of my mother, whom I had installed at Castle Lyndon; and
great, I promise you, was her state in that occupation, and prodigious
the good soul's splendour and haughty bearing. With all her oddities,
the Castle Lyndon estate was the best managed of all our possessions;
the rents were excellently paid, the charges of getting them in smaller
than they would have been under the management of any steward. It was
astonishing what small expenses the good widow incurred; although she
kept up the dignity of the TWO families, as she would say. She had a set
of domestics to attend upon the young lord; she never went out herself
but in an old gilt coach and six; the house was kept clean and tight;
the furniture and gardens in the best repair; and, in our occasional
visits to Ireland, we never found any house we visited in such good
condition as our own. There were a score of ready serving-lasses,
and half as many trim men about the castle; and everything in as fine
condition as the best housekeeper could make it. All this she did with
scarcely any charges to us: for she fed sheep and cattle in the parks,
and made a handsome profit of t