overgrown with greensward, with a few patches of juniper and box on
the vallum, and a solitary ancient beech surmounting the place of
the praetorium, presented nearly the same depths, heights, slopes,
and forms, which the Roman soldiers had originally given them.
From this cartel Mr. Crotchet christened his villa. With his
rustic neighbours he was, of course, immediately and necessarily a
squire: Squire Crotchet of the Castle; and he seemed to himself to
settle down as naturally into an English country gentleman, as if
his parentage had been as innocent of both Scotland and Jerusalem,
as his education was of Rome and Athens.

But as, though you expel nature with a pitch-fork, she will yet
always come back; he could not become, like a true-born English
squire, part and parcel of the barley-giving earth; he could not
find in game-bagging, poacher-shooting, trespasser-pounding,
footpath-stopping, common-enclosing, rack-renting, and all the
other liberal pursuits and pastimes which make a country gentleman
an ornament to the world and a blessing to the poor: he could not
find in these valuable and amiable occupations, and in a
corresponding range of ideas, nearly commensurate with that of the
great King Nebuchadnezzar when he was turned out to grass; he could
not find in this great variety of useful action, and vast field of
comprehensive thought, modes of filling up his time that accorded
with his Caledonian instinct. The inborn love of disputation,
which the excitements and engagements of a life of business had
smothered, burst forth through the calmer surface of a rural life.
He grew as fain as Captain Jamy, "to hear some argument betwixt ony
tway," and being very hospitable in his establishment, and liberal
in his invitations, a numerous detachment from the advanced guard
of the "march of intellect," often marched down to Crotchet Castle.