(for his father had capriciously fixed his majority at twenty-three,)
only now coming of age; but whether he would reside at Bandvale, or
continue in the neighbourhood of Leicester, where his guardian lived, or
what he would do, nobody could tell. The estate, we were told, in spite
of the economical management of four or five attorneys, and a couple of
stewards, was more involved than when old Frank died; and many a time
have I sighed, as I ambled past the lodges, and saw grass growing over
the drive, contrasting these appearances with the jolly days I had known
in the hall, "when the beards wagged all--shall we ever see the like
again?" But change passes over all; and Bandvale was not the only place
or the only thing that felt its influence. We were all very different
from what we were; we had a railway within half an hour's drive; we had
a Methodist chapel in the village; we had a clergyman who preached in
his surplice, and would have had a hurl off a lame donkey if he had
ventured into the saddle; the hounds were given up; you were asked to
dinner at half-past seven, and got home again by ten; rather a changed
state of affairs since old Frank kept the ball alive, and Parson Holt
rode his grey nag over bank and fence, and we had two packs within ten
miles, and no Methodists in the village, and no railroad in the county,
and every thing was exactly as it ought to be; and we dined at five, and
got home--when it pleased Heaven. Sometimes I turned down the avenue,
and took a melancholy look at the old Hall. It is a great square house;
flanked with two turrets, with fine old stone windows, and a stone porch
in the middle. The Bandvale river runs through the park about three
hundred yards from the front door, and is crossed by two bridges in the
direction of the lodges, east and west; and beyond it rises the upland,
all dotted over with clumps of elm--and at the highest part of the park
is the church; a great black figure, kneeling on one knee, used to bear
up the sun-dial in the centre of the sweep--his leg had given way from
the weight of years and the huge globe he supported, and the poor old