astir and resound with holiday cries. Sir Austin Feverel, a thorough
good Tory, was no game-preserver, and could be popular whenever he chose,
which Sir Males Papworth, on the other side of the river, a fast-handed
Whig and terror to poachers, never could be. Half the village of
Lobourne was seen trooping through the avenues of the park. Fiddlers and
gipsies clamoured at the gates for admission: white smocks, and slate,
surmounted by hats of serious brim, and now and then a scarlet cloak,
smacking of the old country, dotted the grassy sweeps to the levels.

And all the time the star of these festivities was receding further and
further, and eclipsing himself with his reluctant serf Ripton, who kept
asking what they were to do and where they were going, and how late it
was in the day, and suggesting that the lads of Lobourne would be calling
out for them, and Sir Austin requiring their presence, without getting
any attention paid to his misery or remonstrances. For Richard had been
requested by his father to submit to medical examination like a boor
enlisting for a soldier, and he was in great wrath.

He was flying as though he would have flown from the shameful thought of
what had been asked of him. By-and-by he communicated his sentiments to
Ripton, who said they were those of a girl: an offensive remark,
remembering which, Richard, after they had borrowed a couple of guns at
the bailiff's farm, and Ripton had fired badly, called his friend a fool.

Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonderfully like one,
Ripton lifted his head and retorted defiantly, "I'm not!"

This angry contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed Richard, who was
still smarting at the loss of the birds, owing to Ripton's bad shot, and
was really the injured party. He, therefore bestowed the abusive epithet