a wooden porch at the
door, glass casements in the windows, and a little garden behind, well
stored with greens, roots, and salads. In a word, the poor's rate was
reduced to a mere trifle; and one would have thought the golden age
was revived in Yorkshire. But, as I told you before, the old knight
could not bear to see his only son so wholly attached to these lowly
pleasures, while he industriously shunned all opportunities of appearing
in that superior sphere to which he was designed by nature and by
fortune. He imputed his conduct to meanness of spirit, and advised with
my father touching the properest expedient to wean his affections from
such low-born pursuits. My father counselled him to send the young
gentleman up to London, to be entered as a student in the Temple, and
recommended him to the superintendence of some person who knew the town,
and might engage him insensibly in such amusements and connexions, as
would soon lift his ideas above the humble objects on which they had been
hitherto employed.

"This advice appeared so salutary, that it was followed without the least
hesitation. The young squire himself was perfectly well satisfied with
the proposal; and in a few days he set out for the great city. But there
was not a dry eye in the parish at his departure, although he prevailed
upon his father to pay in his absence all the pensions he had granted to
those who could not live on the fruit of their own industry. In what
manner he spent his time in London, it is none of my business to inquire;
thof I know pretty well what kind of lives are led by gemmen of your Inns
of Court.--I myself once belonged to Serjeants' Inn, and was perhaps as
good a wit and a critic as any Templar of them all. Nay, as for that
matter, thof I despise vanity, I can aver with a safe conscience, that I
had once the honour to belong to the society called the Town. We were
all of us attorney's clerks, gemmen, and had our meetings at an ale-house
in Butcher Row, where we regulated the diversions of the theatre.

"But to return from this digression. Sir Everhard Greaves did not seem
to be very well pleased with the conduct of his son at London. He got
notice of some irregularities and scrapes into which he had fallen; and
the squire seldom wrote to his father, except to draw upon him for money;
which he did so fast, that in eighteen months the old gentleman lost all
patience.

"At this period Squire Darnel chanced to die, leav