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