On Entering The
Dining-Room I Found A Number Of Odd, Vulgar-Looking, Rustic Gentlemen
Seated Round A Table, On Which Were Bottles, Decanters, Tankards,
Pipes, And Tobacco.
Several dogs were lying about the room, or sitting
and watching their masters, and one was gnawing a bone under a
side-table.
The master of the feast sat at the head of the board. He was greatly
altered. He had grown thick-set and rather gummy, with a fiery, foxy
head of hair. There was a singular mixture of foolishness, arrogance,
and conceit in his countenance. He was dressed in a vulgarly fine
style, with leather breeches, a red waistcoat, and green coat, and was
evidently, like his guests, a little flushed with drinking. The whole
company stared at me with a whimsical muggy look, like men whose senses
were a little obfuscated by beer rather than wine.
My cousin, (God forgive me! the appellation sticks in my throat,) my
cousin invited me with awkward civility, or, as he intended it,
condescension, to sit to the table and drink. We talked, as usual,
about the weather, the crops, politics, and hard times. My cousin was a
loud politician, and evidently accustomed to talk without contradiction
at his own table. He was amazingly loyal, and talked of standing by the
throne to the last guinea, "as every gentleman of fortune should do."
The village exciseman, who was half asleep, could just ejaculate, "very
true," to every thing he said.
The conversation turned upon cattle; he boasted of his breed, his mode
of managing it, and of the general management of his estate.
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