very great house, and might make a very good thing of it, if they
could but give satisfaction.

And Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have done and
behaved his best, even without being knocked down. For, of all
places upon earth, Harthover Place (which he had never seen) was
the most wonderful, and, of all men on earth, Sir John (whom he had
seen, having been sent to gaol by him twice) was the most awful.

Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for the rich North
country; with a house so large that in the frame-breaking riots,
which Tom could just remember, the Duke of Wellington, and ten
thousand soldiers to match, were easily housed therein; at least,
so Tom believed; with a park full of deer, which Tom believed to be
monsters who were in the habit of eating children; with miles of
game-preserves, in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached at
times, on which occasions Tom saw pheasants, and wondered what they
tasted like; with a noble salmon-river, in which Mr. Grimes and his
friends would have liked to poach; but then they must have got into
cold water, and that they did not like at all. In short, Harthover
was a grand place, and Sir John a grand old man, whom even Mr.
Grimes respected; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to prison
when he deserved it, as he did once or twice a week; not only did
he own all the land about for miles; not only was he a jolly,
honest, sensible squire, as ever kept a pack of hounds, who would
do what he thought right by his neighbours, as well as get what he
thought right for himself; but, what was more, he weighed full
fifteen stone, was nobody knew how many inches round the chest, and
could have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which very
few folk round there could do, and which, my dear little boy, would