By this time my castle-yard was filled with a crowd of “great-coated suitors,” who were all _come to see--could they see my lordship? _or _waiting just to say two words to my honour._ In various lounging attitudes, leaning against the walls, or pacing backwards and forwards before the window, to catch my eye, they, with a patience passing the patience of courtiers, waited, hour after hour, the live-long day, for their turn, or their chance, of an audience. I had promised myself the pleasure of viewing my castle this day, and of taking a ride through my grounds; but that was totally out of the question. I was no longer a man with a will of my own, or with time at my own disposal. _“Long may you live to reign over us!”_ was the signal that I was now to live, like a prince, only for the service of my subjects. How these subjects of mine had contrived to go on for so many years in my absence, I was at a loss to conceive; for, the moment I was present, it seemed evident that they could not exist without me. One had a wife and six _childer,_ and not a spot in the wide world to live in, if my honour did not let him live under me, in any bit of a skirt of the estate that would feed a cow. Another had a brother in jail, who could not be _got out without me._ Another had three lives dropped in a _lase_ for ever; another wanted a renewal; another a farm; another a house; and one _expected_ my lard would make his son an exciseman; and another that I would make him a policeman; and another was _racked,_ if I did not settle the _mearing_ between him and Corny Corkran; and half a hundred had given in _proposials_ to the agent for lands that would be out next May; and half a hundred more came with legends of traditionary _promises from the old lord, my lordship’s father that was_: and for hours I was forced to listen to long stories _out of the face_, in which there was such a perplexing and provoking mixture of truth and fiction, involved in language so figurative, and tones so new to my English ears, that, with my utmost patience and strained attention, I could comprehend but a very small portion of what was said to me.