“The number at the dinner-table of Gordon Castle was seldom less than thirty; but the company was continually varied by departures and arrivals. No sensation was made by either one or the other. A travelling-carriage dashed up to the door, was disburdened of its load, and drove round to the stables, and the question was seldom asked, ‘Who is arrived?’ You are sure to see at dinner--and an addition of half a dozen to the party, made no perceptible difference in any thing. Leave-takings were managed in the same quiet way. Adieus were made to the duke and duchess, and to no one else, except he happened to encounter the parting guest upon the staircase, or were more than a common acquaintance. In short, in every way the _gêne_ of life seemed weeded out, and if unhappiness or _ennui_ found its way into the castle, it was introduced in the sufferer’s own bosom. For me, I gave myself up to enjoyment with an _abandon_ I could not resist. With kindness and courtesy in every look, the luxuries and comforts of a regal establishment at my freest disposal; solitude when I pleased, company when I pleased,--the whole visible horizon fenced in for the enjoyment of a household, of which I was a temporary portion, and no enemy except time and the gout, I felt as if I had been spirited into some castle of felicity, and had not come by the royal mail-coach at all.” This is one of the most perfect and graphic descriptions of English aristocratical life in the country, which was ever written. It is, indeed, on the highest and broadest scale, and is not to be equalled by every country gentleman; but in kind and in degree, the same character and spirit extend to all such life, and I have therefore taken the liberty of transcribing Mr. Willis’s sketch as completely as my limits would admit. Nothing, were a volume written on the subject, could bring it more palpably and correctly before the mind of the reader; and I think that if there be a perfection in human life, it is to be found, so far as all the goods of providence and the easy elegances of society can make it so, in the rural life of the English nobility and gentry. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. THE ROUTINE OF COUNTRY SPORTS.