Two Years Ago, Volume I | Page 7

Ducie's and Sir Edward Knightley's stock; bought a bull-calf of him the other day myself for a cool hundred, old fool that I am. Never mind, spreads the breed. And here are mills--four pair of new stones. Old Whit don't know herself again. But I dare say they look small enough to you, sir, after your American water-power."
"What of that? It is just as honourable in you to make the most of a small river, as in us to make the most of a large one."
"You speak like a book, sir. By the by, if you think of taking home a calf or two, to improve your New England breed--there are a good many gone across the sea in the last few years--I think we could find you three or four beauties, not so very dear, considering the blood."
"Thanks; but I really am no farmer."
"Well--no offence, I hope: but I am like your Yankees in one thing, you see;--always have an eye to a bit of business. If I didn't, I shouldn't be here now."
"How very tasteful!--our own American shrubs! what a pity that they are not in flower! What is this," asked Stangrave,--"one of your noblemen's parks?"
And they began to run through the cutting in Minchampstead Park, where the owner has concealed the banks of the rail for nearly half a mile, in a thicket of azaleas, rhododendrons, and clambering roses.
"All!--isn't it pretty? His lordship let us have the land for a song; only bargained that we should keep low, not to spoil his view; and so we did; and he's planted our cutting for us. I call that a present to the county, and a very pretty one too! Ah, give me these new brooms that sweep clean!"
"Your old brooms, like Lord Vieuxbois, were new brooms once, and swept well enough five hundred years ago," said Stangrave, who had that filial reverence for English antiquity which sits so gracefully upon many highly educated and far-sighted Americans.
"Worn to the stumps, now, too many of them, sir; and want new-hething, as our broom-squires would say; and I doubt whether most of them are worth the cost of a fresh bind. Not that I can say that of the young lord. He's foremost in all that's good, if he had but money; and when he hasn't, he gives brains. Gave a lecture, in our institute at Whitford, last winter, on the four great Poets. Shot over my head a little, and other people's too: but my Mary--my daughter, sir, thought it beautiful; and there's nothing that she don't know."
"It is very hopeful, to see your aristocracy joining in the general movement, and bringing their taste and knowledge to bear on the lower classes."
"Yes, sir! We're going all right now, in the old country. Only have to steer straight, and not put on too much steam. But give me the new-comers, after all. They may be close men of business;--how else could one live? But when it comes to giving, I'll back them against the old ones for generosity, or taste either. They've their proper pride, when they get hold of the land; and they like to show it, and quite right they. You must see my little place too. It's not in such bad order, though I say it, and am but a country banker: but I'll back my flowers against half the squires round--my Mary's, that is--and my fruit too.--See, there! There's my lord's new schools, and his model cottages, with more comforts in them, saving the size, than my father's house had; and there's his barrack, as he calls it, for the unmarried men--reading-room, and dining-room, in common; and a library of books, and a sleeping-room for each."
"It seems strange to complain of prosperity," said Stangrave; "but I sometimes regret that in America there is so little room for the very highest virtues; all are so well off, that one never needs to give; and what a man does here for others, they do for themselves."
"So much the better for them. There are other ways of being generous besides putting your hand in your pocket, sir! By Jove! there'll be room enough (if you'll excuse me) for an American to do fine things, as long as those poor negro slaves--"
"I know it; I know it," said Stangrave, in the tone of a man who had already made up his mind on a painful subject, and wished to hear no more of it. "You will excuse me; but I am come here to learn what I can of England. Of my own country I know enough, I trust, to do my duty in it when I return."
Mark was silent, seeing that he had touched a tender place; and pointed out one object of interest after another, as they ran through