“Our good veteran was equally popular amongst the gentry of the neighbourhood. His own hospitality was irresistible, and his frankness and simplicity, mixed with a sort of petulant vivacity, combined to make him a most welcome relief to the dullness of a country dinner party. He enjoyed society extremely, and even had a spare bed erected for company, moved thereto by an accident which befell the fat rector of Kinton, who, having unfortunately consented to sleep at Hannonby one wet night, had alarmed the whole house, and nearly broken his own neck by a fall from his hammock.... His reading was none of the most extensive: _Robinson Crusoe_, the _Naval Chronicle_, Southey’s admirable _Life of Nelson_ and Smollett’s novels formed the greater part of his library, and for other books he cared little. “For the rest he was a most kind and excellent person, although a little testy and not a little absolute, and a capital disciplinarian, although addicted to the reverse sins of making other people tipsy whilst he kept himself sober, and of sending forth oaths in volleys whilst he suffered none other to swear. He had besides a few prejudices incident to his condition—loved his country to the point of hating all the rest of the world, especially the French, and regarded his own profession with a pride which made him intolerant of every other. To the army he had an intense and growing hatred, much augmented since victory upon victory had deprived him of the comfortable feeling of scorn. The battle of Waterloo fairly posed him. ‘To be sure to have drubbed the French was a fine thing—a very fine thing—no denying that! but why not have fought out the quarrel by sea?’” [Illustration] CHAPTER XXXII THE MAY-HOUSES Miss Mitford delighted in all the simple pleasures of country life, and entered into them with the enthusiasm of youth. On a certain morning in spring-time she and her father set out in their pony-chaise to attend the “Maying” at Bramley. “Never was a day more congenial to a happy purpose,” she writes. “It was a day made for country weddings and dances on the green—a day of dazzling light, of ardent sunshine falling on hedgerows and meadows fresh with spring showers.... We passed through the well-known and beautiful scenery of W——[14] Park and the pretty village of M——[15] with a feeling of new admiration, as if we had never before felt their charms.... On we passed gaily and happily as far as we knew our way, perhaps a little further, for the place of our destination was new to both of us, when we had the luck, good or bad, to meet with a director in the person of the butcher of M——. He soon gave us the customary and unintelligible directions as to lanes and turnings, first to the right, then to the left, etc.... [Footnote 14: Wokefield Park.] [Footnote 15: Mortimer.]