The Man Who Laughs | Page 9

its park, its fish-ponds, its pheasantries, its sheepfolds, its lawns,
its grounds planted with rows of trees, its groves, its walks, its
shrubberies, its flower-beds and borders, formed in square and
lozenge-shape, and resembling great carpets; its racecourses, and the
majestic sweep for carriages to turn in at the entrance of the
house--belongs to Robert, Earl Lindsey, hereditary lord of the forest of
Waltham.
"Up Park, in Sussex, a square house, with two symmetrical belfried
pavilions on each side of the great courtyard, belongs to the Right
Honourable Forde, Baron Grey of Werke, Viscount Glendale and Earl

of Tankerville.
"Newnham Paddox, in Warwickshire, which has two quadrangular
fish-ponds and a gabled archway with a large window of four panes,
belongs to the Earl of Denbigh, who is also Count von Rheinfelden, in
Germany.
"Wytham Abbey, in Berkshire, with its French garden in which there
are four curiously trimmed arbours, and its great embattled towers,
supported by two bastions, belongs to Montague, Earl of Abingdon,
who also owns Rycote, of which he is Baron, and the principal door of
which bears the device Virtus ariete fortior.
"William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, has six dwelling-places, of
which Chatsworth (two storied, and of the finest order of Grecian
architecture) is one.
"The Viscount of Kinalmeaky, who is Earl of Cork, in Ireland, is owner
of Burlington House, Piccadilly, with its extensive gardens, reaching to
the fields outside London; he is also owner of Chiswick, where there
are nine magnificent lodges; he also owns Londesborough, which is a
new house by the side of an old palace.
"The Duke of Beaufort owns Chelsea, which contains two Gothic
buildings, and a Florentine one; he has also Badminton, in
Gloucestershire, a residence from which a number of avenues branch
out like rays from a star. The most noble and puissant Prince Henry,
Duke of Beaufort, is also Marquis and Earl of Worcester, Earl of
Glamorgan, Viscount Grosmont, and Baron Herbert of Chepstow,
Ragland, and Gower, Baron Beaufort of Caldecott Castle, and Baron de
Bottetourt.
"John Holies, Duke of Newcastle, and Marquis of Clare, owns
Bolsover, with its majestic square keeps; his also is Haughton, in
Nottinghamshire, where a round pyramid, made to imitate the Tower of
Babel, stands in the centre of a basin of water.
"William, Earl of Craven, Viscount Uffington, and Baron Craven of

Hamstead Marshall, owns Combe Abbey in Warwickshire, where is to
be seen the finest water-jet in England; and in Berkshire two baronies,
Hamstead Marshall, on the façade of which are five Gothic lanterns
sunk in the wall, and Ashdown Park, which is a country seat situate at
the point of intersection of cross-roads in a forest.
"Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville,
Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, derives his title from the castle of
Clancharlie, built in 912 by Edward the Elder, as a defence against the
Danes. Besides Hunkerville House, in London, which is a palace, he
has Corleone Lodge at Windsor, which is another, and eight
castlewards, one at Burton-on-Trent, with a royalty on the carriage of
plaster of Paris; then Grumdaith Humble, Moricambe, Trewardraith,
Hell-Kerters (where there is a miraculous well), Phillinmore, with its
turf bogs, Reculver, near the ancient city Vagniac, Vinecaunton, on the
Moel-eulle Mountain; besides nineteen boroughs and villages with
reeves, and the whole of Penneth chase, all of which bring his lordship
£40,000 a year.
"The 172 peers enjoying their dignities under James II. possess among
them altogether a revenue of £1,272,000 sterling a year, which is the
eleventh part of the revenue of England."
In the margin, opposite the last name (that of Linnæus, Lord
Clancharlie), there was a note in the handwriting of Ursus: _Rebel; in
exile; houses, lands, and chattels sequestrated. It is well_.

IV.
Ursus admired Homo. One admires one's like. It is a law. To be always
raging inwardly and grumbling outwardly was the normal condition of
Ursus. He was the malcontent of creation. By nature he was a man ever
in opposition. He took the world unkindly; he gave his satisfecit to no
one and to nothing. The bee did not atone, by its honey-making, for its
sting; a full-blown rose did not absolve the sun for yellow fever and
black vomit. It is probable that in secret Ursus criticized Providence a

good deal. "Evidently," he would say, "the devil works by a spring, and
the wrong that God does is having let go the trigger." He approved of
none but princes, and he had his own peculiar way of expressing his
approbation. One day, when James II. made a gift to the Virgin in a
Catholic chapel in Ireland of a massive gold lamp, Ursus, passing that
way with Homo, who was more indifferent to such things, broke out in
admiration before the crowd, and exclaimed, "It