My uncle rarely spoke; he pointed
for whatever he wanted, and the servant perfectly understood him.
Indeed, his man John, or Iron John, as he was called in the
neighborhood, was a counterpart of his master.
He was a tall, bony old
fellow, with a dry wig that seemed made of cow's tail, and a face as
tough as though it had been made of bull's hide. He was generally clad
in a long, patched livery coat, taken out of the wardrobe of the house;
and which bagged loosely about him, having evidently belonged to some
corpulent predecessor, in the more plenteous days of the mansion. From
long habits of taciturnity, the hinges of his jaws seemed to have grown
absolutely rusty, and it cost him as much effort to set them ajar, and
to let out a tolerable sentence, as it would have done to set open the
iron gates of a park, and let out the family carriage that was dropping
to pieces in the coach-house.
I cannot say, however, but that I was for some time amused with my
uncle's peculiarities. Even the very desolateness of the establishment
had something in it that hit my fancy. When the weather was fine I used
to amuse myself, in a solitary way, by rambling about the park, and
coursing like a colt across its lawns. The hares and pheasants seemed
to stare with surprise, to see a human being walking these forbidden
grounds by day-light.
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