Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
We shall expect to see you without delay, here or at
Hendon, as may best suit; but pray remember that things
stand just as they was. Touching other matters, as needn't
be named here, orders will be attended to as usual if
given separate.
Yours very truly and obedient,
THOMAS NEEFIT.
This letter duly reached the young Squire, and did not add to his
happiness at the Moonbeam. That he should ever renew his offer to
Polly Neefit was, he well knew, out of the question; but he could
see before him an infinity of trouble should the breeches-maker be
foolish enough to press him to do so. He had acted "on the square."
In compliance with the bargain undoubtedly made by him, he had twice
proposed to Polly, and had Polly accepted his offer on either of
these occasions, there would,--he now acknowledged to himself,--have
been very great difficulty in escaping from the difficulty. Polly
had thought fit to refuse him, and of course he was free. But,
nevertheless, there might be trouble in store for him. He had hardly
begun to ask himself in what way this trouble might next show itself,
when Neefit was at the Moonbeam. Three days after the receipt of
his letter, when he rode into the Moonbeam yard on his return from
hunting, there was Mr. Neefit waiting to receive him.
He certainly had not answered Mr. Neefit's letter, having told
himself that he might best do so by a personal visit in Conduit
Street; but now that Neefit was there, the personal intercourse did
not seem to him to be so easy. He greeted the breeches-maker very
warmly, while Pepper, Cox, and Mr. Horsball, with sundry grooms and
helpers, stood by and admired. Something of Mr. Neefit's money, and
of Polly's charms as connected with the young Squire, had already
reached the Moonbeam by the tongue of Rumour; and now Mr. Neefit had
been waiting for the last four hours in the little parlour within
the Moonbeam bar. He had eaten his mutton chop, and drunk three or
four glasses of gin and water, but had said nothing of his mission.
Mrs. Horsball, however, had already whispered her suspicions to her
husband's sister, a young lady of forty, who dispensed rum, gin, and
brandy, with very long ringlets and very small glasses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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