The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton)Brampton, Henry Hawkins, Baron
History
The Reminiscences of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton)
Brampton, Henry Hawkins, Baron
Brampton, Henry Hawkins, Baron, 1817-1907; Judges -- Great Britain -- Biography
Sir Henry, or, as I prefer to call him, my lord, treated me with the
sweetest kindness, and I went with him wherever it was possible
for him to take me. At first my youthful waywardness and love of
freedom--for that is inherent in our race--compelled him to restrain
me by a string, which I sometimes pulled with such violence that my
lord had to run; and on seeing us so amusing ourselves one morning,
old Lord Grimthorpe, I think they called him, who was always full of
good-natured chaff, cried out,--
"Halloa, Hawkins! What, has Jack made you his prisoner? Ha! ha! Hold
him, Jack; don't let him get away!"
Well, this went on for several weeks, what I think you call chaff, and
at last I was allowed to go without the string. It happened that on
the very first morning when I was thus given my liberty, whom should
we meet but this same old Lord Grimthorpe.
"Halloa!" he cries again--"halloa, Hawkins! Does your keeper let you
go without being attached to a string?"
"No, no," says my lord--"no, no; Jack's attached to _me_ now."
Thereupon dear old Grimthorpe, who loved a joke, laughed till his
elbows rested on his knees as he stooped down.
"Well," said he, "that's good, Hawkins, very good indeed."
On one occasion one of those country yokels who always met us at
Assize towns, and got as close up to our javelin-men as they could, so
that we could not only see them but indulge our other senses at the
same time, seeing us get out of our carriage, said to another yokel,
"I say, Bill, blarmed if the old bloke ain't brought his dawg
again--that there fox terrier--to go a-rattin'."
I did not know what "rattin'" meant at that time, and did not learn
it till we got to Warwick. I thought it was rude to call my lord a
"bloke," especially in his red robes; but did not quite know what
"bloke" meant, for I had seen so little of mankind.
One morning before we opened the Commission at Warwick--I may as well
come to it at once--my lord and I went for a walk along the road that
leads over the bridge by Warwick Castle towards Leamington. There is a
turning to a village which belonged to the old days, but does not
seem now to belong to anything, and looks something like a rural
watering-place, quiet and unexciting. We turned down this quiet road,
and came alongside a beautiful little garden covered with flowers of
all kinds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account