, to which the fairer sportsmen had driven them.
These birds and the surplus hares he always sold in the market-town,
and put the money into a box. The rabbits he ate, and also squirrels,
and, above all, young hedgehogs: a gypsy taught him how to cook them,
viz., by inclosing them in clay, and baking them in wood embers; then
the bristles adhere to the burned clay, and the meat is juicy. He was
his own gardener, and vegetables cost him next to nothing.
So he went on through all the winter months, and by the spring his
health and strength were restored. Then he turned woodman, cut down
every stick of timber in a little wood near his house, and sold it; and
then set to work to grub up the roots for fires, and cleared it for
tillage. The sum he received for the wood was much more than he
expected, and this he made a note of.
He had a strong body, that could work hard all day, a big hate, and a
mania for the possession of land. And so he led a truly Spartan life,
and everybody in the village said he was mad.
While he led this hard life Sir Charles and Lady Bassett were the
gayest of the gay. She was the beauty and the bride. Visits and
invitations poured in from every part of the country. Sir Charles,
flattered by the homage paid to his beloved, made himself younger and
less fastidious to indulge her; and the happy pair often drove twelve
miles to dinner, and twenty to dine and sleep--an excellent custom in
that country, one of whose favorite toasts is worth recording: "MAY YOU
DINE WHERE YOU PLEASE, AND SLEEP WHERE YOU DINE.
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