He
furnished our house with all the elegance of
fashionable expense, and was careful to conceal his
bounties, lest the poverty of his family should be
suspected.
At length it happened that, by misconduct like
our own, a large estate, which had been purchased
from us, was again exposed to the best bidder. My
uncle, delighted with an opportunity of reinstating
the family in their possessions, came down with
treasures scarcely to be imagined in a place where
commerce has not made large sums familiar, and at
once drove all the competitors away, expedited the
writings, and took possession. He now considered
himself as superior to trade, disposed of his stock,
and as soon as he had settled his economy, began
to shew his rural sovereignty, by breaking the
hedges of his tenants in hunting, and seizing the
guns or nets of those whose fortunes did not qualify
them for sportsmen. He soon afterwards solicited
the office of sheriff, from which all his neighbours
were glad to be reprieved, but which he regarded
as a resumption of ancestral claims, and a kind of
restoration to blood after the attainder of a trade.
My uncle, whose mind was so filled with this
change of his condition, that he found no want of
domestick entertainment, declared himself too old
to marry, and resolved to let the newly-purchased
estate fall into the regular channel of inheritance.
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