excuse. "Had seen thee sooner, lad," he
exclaimed, after a rough shake of the hand, and a hearty welcome to
Osbaldistone Hall, "but had to see the hounds kennelled first. Thou art
welcome to the Hall, lad--here is thy cousin Percie, thy cousin Thornie,
and thy cousin John--your cousin Dick, your cousin Wilfred, and--stay,
where's Rashleigh?--ay, here's Rashleigh--take thy long body aside
Thornie, and let's see thy brother a bit--your cousin Rashleigh. So, thy
father has thought on the old Hall, and old Sir Hildebrand at
last--better late than never--Thou art welcome, lad, and there's enough.
Where's my little Die?--ay, here she comes--this is my niece Die, my
wife's brother's daughter--the prettiest girl in our dales, be the other
who she may--and so now let's to the sirloin."--

To gain some idea of the person who held this language, you must suppose,
my dear Tresham, a man aged about sixty, in a hunting suit which had once
been richly laced, but whose splendour had been tarnished by many a
November and December storm. Sir Hildebrand, notwithstanding the
abruptness of his present manner, had, at one period of his life, known
courts and camps; had held a commission in the army which encamped on
Hounslow Heath previous to the Revolution--and, recommended perhaps by
his religion, had been knighted about the same period by the unfortunate
and ill-advised James II. But the Knight's dreams of further preferment,
if he ever entertained any, had died away at the crisis which drove his
patron from the throne, and since that period he had spent a sequestered
life upon his native domains. Notwithstanding his rusticity, however, Sir
Hildebrand retained much of the exterior of a gentleman, and appeared
among his sons as the remains of a Corinthian pillar, defaced and
overgrown with moss and lichen, might have looked, if contrasted with the
rough unhewn masses of upright stones in Stonhenge, or any other
Druidical temple. The sons were, indeed, heavy unadorned blocks as the
eye would desire to look upon. Tall, stout, and comely, all and each of
the five eldest seemed to want alike the Promethean fire of intellect,
and the exterior grace and manner, which, in the polished world,
sometimes supply mental deficiency. Their most valuable moral quality
seemed to be the good-humour and content which was expressed in their
heavy features, and their only pretence to accomplishment was their
dexterity in field sports, for which alone they live