The Baronet in Corduroy (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII Lady Macartney's Call I Thought?when we had reached our home again? that there could be but one decision regarding our stay in London?to end it instantly, and seek once more the quiet of Bartholomew-on-the-Moor. We had come to town straight from the manor-house, where all was still and peaceful, and before we had been many days in the capital it was as if we had been plunged into the wildest part of some fierce hurricane. Who could love the life of the city after having dwelt in Bartholomew-on-the-Moor? I looked out on the muddy streets, and heard the wrangling of bawling porters and chairmen and the cries of them that called their wares. The streets were filled with punchinellos and jugglers, who made a crowd through which the bullies and sharpers elbowed it and bandied words with the gentlest. They would have done it with Ellenor had she been there. I read Mr. Oliver Goldsmith's book the other day, and in it he talks about the people who, remote from the polite, still retained the primeval simplicity of manners, and, being frugal by habit, scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They wrought with cheerfulness on days of labor, but observed festivals as intervals of idleness and pleasure. They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true-love knots on Valentine morning, ate pancakes at Shrovetide, showed their wit on the 1st of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas Eve. I look upon Mr. Goldsmith, young though he be, as a very sensible man, and, as I shall soon see him, shall tell him what an old woman ?for I am such now?thinks. What he says reflects the character of our people at Bartholomew, and the contrast as we found it in London town was unendurable to me. Apart from the experiences of that one long day I have told of here, I wished that we...