Things there went much against
him; the farm was ruinous, and I remember that we all regarded the
Lord Northwick of those days as a cormorant who was eating us up.
My father's clients deserted him. He purchased various dark gloomy
chambers in and about Chancery Lane, and his purchases always went
wrong. Then, as a final crushing blow, and old uncle, whose heir he
was to have been, married and had a family! The house in London was
let; and also the house he built at Harrow, from which he descended
to a farmhouse on the land, which I have endeavoured to make known
to some readers under the name of Orley Farm. This place, just as it
was when we lived there, is to be seen in the frontispiece to the
first edition of that novel, having the good fortune to be delineated
by no less a pencil than that of John Millais.
My two elder brothers had been sent as day-boarders to Harrow
School from the bigger house, and may probably have been received
among the aristocratic crowd,--not on equal terms, because a
day-boarder at Harrow in those days was never so received,--but at
any rate as other day-boarders. I do not suppose that they were well
treated, but I doubt whether they were subjected to the ignominy
which I endured. I was only seven, and I think that boys at seven
are now spared among their more considerate seniors.
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