' News! news! news! brave cavaliers be merry ;— Cheer up your souls, with Bacchus's bowls Of claret, white, and sherry.' Oh! every body thought it great news then, but, somehow or other, things haven't turned up all trumps, as we expected." He then proceeded to give a detail of the various grievances he had suffered, stating the scandalous dilapidation of Brambletye House, and the legal difficulties he still experienced in regaining full possession of his estate. Having dwelt at some length upon these particulars, and received from Jocelyn in return a full account of all his adventures in Paris, the baronet prepared, though not without considerable embarrassment, to break to his son the intelligence of his marriage. Assuming, accordingly, after two or three preparatory hems, the swaggering yet sheepish look of a man who is resolved to face down his own exposure, he exclaimed-" Jocelyn, my boy, or rather my spruce blade, for you look more like my lord's man-at-arms than the lady's page you were when you quitted Brambletye;-no more bird-bolts will you shoot now at the rooks in the Friar's copse; no more foot-ball at Christmas; no more galloping round the moat, with a spit at your poney's side, to run a tilt at a turnip upon a broomstick; bat, ball, and quoit, will all come amiss to the hand that has couched a lance, and carried off a Mounseer's helmet before the King of France: the pranks of Bottom the weaver, Simpleton the smith, John Swabber, and Maid Marian, will no longer amuse you, when the morris dancers come to beat up our quarters; I am getting almost too old, God help me! for joining your sports, either with dog or net, hawk or hunter, fishing-rod or fowlingpiece; I knew you would find Brambletye plaguy dull, devilish lonesome, and so-" 66 My dear Sir" interrupted Jocelyn, wondering whither this introduction was to lead, "I beg you will discard every such idea from your mind; nothing will delight me more than to explore all my old haunts, and revisit the nooks and glens of Ashdown forest, where I have so often gone a nutting when a boy." "Od's life, Jocelyn, don't tell me; I know better, you would have been dull, horribly dull, cursedly dull, moped to death; and so I have hit upon a little expedient which I am sure you will admit-Oh! Jocelyn, my boy, there is no solace, no consolation, nothing after all, like a woman's love." Our hero (for so we shall venture henceforth to call him), who imagined that his father had been providing a wife for him, and who reverted with all the fervour of a first impression to the two black eyes which had so suddenly smitten. him at the carousal, was by no means disposed to second these matrimonial arrangements, and therefore replied "All this is undoubtedly true, but surely, Sir, I am as yet too young to think of marrying." 66 "If you are, I am not," said the baronet, and, therefore, just to make the house a little bit tidy, as well as more lively and comfortable for you, I have provided another Lady Compton to manage matters, and keep the household in order." "Married!" exclaimed our hero, in utter astonishment-66 you never mentioned it in any of your letters." "Didn't I? why then I suppose I must have forgotten it; and that's odd enough too, for I'm sure I've thought of nothing else since it happened." "Most cordially do I give you joy, Sir," exclaimed Jocelyn, affectionately pressing his father's hand. "Why that's hearty, my brave boy," cried Sir John, returning the squeeze with a force that made the fingers crackle in his grasp. "Joy! od's bobs, we 'll have nothing but joy, and you shall begin by wishing it me in a hoghan-moghan glass of claret : Come, a brimmer, my bullies, drink whole ones or nothing, Now healths are not voted down. 'Tis sack that can heat us, we care not for cloathing, A gallon's as warm as a gown.' Zooks, I'm glad you're come again, for I was beginning to lose all my old snatches. They're nothing unless we have some one to match 'em with a rousing chorus." He slapped Jocelyn heartily on the shoulder, as he concluded his speech, and immediately after began to troll at the top of his voice, "The merry Good-fellow," one of his favourite ballads, repeatedly declaring that he was as happy as a king; but our hero began to suspect the felicity that re |