Tancred | Page 9

to bring your cousin here, Valentine; we would assist the
development of his unsophisticated intelligence.'
'If I go down, I will propose it to him.'
'Why if?' said Mr. Cassilis; 'sort of thing I should like to see once
uncommonly: oxen roasted alive, old armour, and the girls of the
village all running about as if they were behind the scenes.'
'Is that the way you did it at your majority, George?' said Lord
Fitz-Heron.

'Egad! I kept my arrival at years of discretion at Brighton. I believe it
was the last fun there ever was at the Pavilion. The poor dear king, God
bless him! proposed my health, and made the devil's own speech; we
all began to pipe. He was Regent then. Your father was there, Valentine;
ask him if he remembers it. That was a scene! I won't say how it ended;
but the best joke is, I got a letter from my governor a few days after,
with an account of what they had all been doing at Brandingham, and
rowing me for not coming down, and I found out I had kept my coming
of age the wrong day.'
'Did you tell them?'
'Not a word: I was afraid we might have had to go through it over
again.'
'I suppose old Bellamont is the devil's own screw,' said Lord Milford.
'Rich governors, who have never been hard up, always are.'
'No: I believe he is a very good sort of fellow,' said Lord Valentine; 'at
least my people always say so. I do not know much about him, for they
never go anywhere.'
'They have got Leander down at Montacute,'said Mr. Cassilis. 'Had not
such a thing as a cook in the whole county. They say Lord Eskdale
arranged the cuisine for them; so you will feed well, Valentine.'
'That is something: and one can eat before Easter; but when the balls
begin----'
'Oh! as for that, you will have dancing enough at Montacute; it is
expected on these occasions: Sir Roger de Coverley, tenants' daughters,
and all that sort of thing. Deuced funny, but I must say, if I am to have
a lark, I like Vauxhall.'
'I never met the Bellamonts,' said Lord Milford, musingly. 'Are there
any daughters?'
'None.'

'That is a bore. A single daughter, even if there be a son, may be made
something of; because, in nine cases out of ten, there is a round sum in
the settlements for the younger children, and she takes it all.'
'That is the case of Lady Blanche Bickerstaffe,' said Lord Fitz-Heron.
'She will have a hundred thousand pounds.'
'You don't mean that!' said Lord Valentine; 'and she is a very nice girl,
too.'
'You are quite wrong about the hundred thousand, Fitz,' said Lord
Milford; 'for I made it my business to inquire most particularly into the
affair: it is only fifty.'
'In these cases, the best rule is only to believe half,' said Mr. Ormsby.
'Then you have only got twenty thousand a-year, Ormsby,' said Lord
Milford, laughing, 'because the world gives you forty.'
'Well, we must do the best we can in these hard times,' said Mr.
Ormsby, with an air of mock resignation. 'With your Dukes of
Bellamont and all these grandees on the stage, we little men shall be
scarcely able to hold up our heads.'
'Come, Ormsby,' said Lord Milford; 'tell us the amount of your income
tax.'
'They say Sir Robert quite blushed when he saw the figure at which you
were sacked, and declared it was downright spoliation.'
'You young men are always talking about money,' said Mr. Ormsby,
shaking his head; 'you should think of higher things.'
'I wonder what young Montacute will be thinking of this time next
year,' said Lord Fitz-Heron.
'There will be plenty of people thinking of him,' said Mr. Cassilis.
'Egad! you gentlemen must stir yourselves, if you mean to be turned off.
You will have rivals.'

'He will be no rival to me,' said Lord Milford; 'for I am an avowed
fortune-hunter, and that you say he does not care for, at least, at
present.'
'And I marry only for love,' said Lord Valentine, laughing; 'and so we
shall not clash.'
'Ay, ay; but if he will not go to the heiresses, the heiresses will go to
him,' said Mr. Ormsby. 'I have seen a good deal of these things, and I
generally observe the eldest son of a duke takes a fortune out of the
market. Why, there is Beaumanoir, he is like Valentine; I suppose he
intends to marry for love, as he is always in that way; but the heiresses
never leave him alone, and in the long run you cannot withstand it; it is
like a bribe; a man is indignant at the bare thought,