"Ask Mamma"; or, The Richest Commoner In EnglandSurtees, Robert Smith
General
"Ask Mamma"; or, The Richest Commoner In England
Surtees, Robert Smith
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Fox hunting -- Fiction
Billy had now got his eyes well fixed upon the horse, which the
Major seeing held his peace, for he was a capital seller, and had
the great gift of knowing when he had said enough. He was not the
man to try and bore a person into buying, or spoil his market by
telling a youngster that the horse would go in harness, or by not
asking enough. So with Solomon still to and froing with his
little legs, the horse still lively and gay, the hounds still
frisking and playing, the party proceeded through the
fertility-diminishing country, until the small fields with live
fences gradually gave way to larger, drabber enclosures with
stone walls, and Broadstruther hill with its heath-burnt summit
and quarry broken side at length announces their approach to the
moors. The moors! Who does not feel his heart expand and his
spirit glow as he comes upon the vast ocean-like space of
moorland country? Leaving the strife, the cares, the contentions
of a narrow, elbow-jostling world for the grand enjoyment of pure
unrestricted freedom! The green streak of fertile soil, how sweet
it looks, lit up by the fitful gleam of a cloud-obscured sun, the
distant sky-touching cairn, how tempting to reach through the
many intricacies of mountain ground—so easy to look at, so
difficult to travel. The ink rises gaily in our pen at the
thought, and pressing on, we cross the rough, picturesque, stone
bridge over the translucent stream, so unlike the polished,
chiseled structures of town art, where nothing is thought good
that is not expensive; and now, shaking off the last enclosure,
we reach the sandy road below the watcher’s hill-ensconced hut,
and so wind round into the panorama of the hills within.
“Ah! there we are!” exclaimed the Major, now pointing out the
myrtle-green gentlemen with their white cords, moving their
steeds to and fro upon the bright sward below the grey rocks of
Cushetlaw hill.
“There we are,” repeated he, eyeing them, trying to make out who
they were, so as to season his greetings accordingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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