TYLNEY HALL. CHAPTER I. "I know not love, quoth he, nor will I know it Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it." VENUS AND ADONIS. "Up, up, my friend, and quit your books, Or surely you'll grow double." WORDSWORTH. "The jars of brothers Are like a small stone thrown into a river, The breach scarce heard, but view the beaten current, And you shall see a thousand angry rings Rise in his face, still swelling and still growing." ROLLO, DUKE OF NORMANDY. In spite of his admiration of Mrs. Hamilton's sentiment concerning love, and her precept against matchmaking, the Baronet could not resist VOL. II. B the temptation offered by Ringwood's return to push forward his matrimonial scheme. His manoeuvres in pursuance of this object resembled the attempt to take a fox in a trap. He baited with Grace Rivers, and laid many a trail up to her, by means of visits and messages, and commissions to Hawksley, in which Ringwood found himself engaged much oftener than he liked. There is a proverb, however, which says "you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink;" and even so you may bring young persons into company with each other, but you cannot force them to fall in love. Many a message the young man had to deliver at Mr. Justice Rivers's, but, unlike messengers in general, he never stayed on his errands; he never went there superlatively well dressed, or came back with an abstracted or pensive air, nor did he show any particular emotion, when the name of the "first favourite" was proposed as a toast. Above all, he showed no jealousy whatever of the great attention that was paid to her by Raby and St. Kitts; on the contrary, he occasionally undertook the delivery of the elegant extracts which his brother had culled for her, amongst the old poets. "Confound the fellow," said the father internally, "it beats pig-driving! the more I want to put him in the right road, the more he won't go!" Sir Mark was a good deal disconcerted by this perversity in his son, and at last began to suspect that something equivalent to "pit full" must be written over the door of his heart. Under this impression he one day tried an experiment that produced a gleam of hope; but it turned out only a flash in the pan, or, as we should now say, a bad cap. He was riding side by side with Ringwood, and by way of getting at the truth by surprise, he abruptly put the question whether the latter had seen any girl at Oxford to compare with Grace Rivers? Nobody-not one," answered speaking with the back of his head towards his father. "How easily I could have her!" B 2 "Have whom?" said Sir Mark, pricking up his ears. "Puss there," said Ringwood, putting his thumb on full cock, and taking aim along his fore-finger, at a hare that was running into cover. The promised weekly visits of the young lady at the Hall produced no better result; she only grew more fond of poetry, and Raby became more fond of copying it, to the usual exclusion of Nimrod, ramrod, and fishing-rod. This congeniality of tastes did not escape the notice of the Baronet, and, with some jealousy as to its probable effect, he endeavoured more strenuously than ever to drive Raby into the field, and Ringwood into the library; but without any other effect than of reviving the old bickerings between the brothers, each attributing to the other the persecution he endured. By dint of importunity Ringwood was induced to copy out something for Miss Rivers, and he wrote out a portion of Somerville's Chase; Raby by the same entreaty was persuaded to join in a day's coursing, and it is |