But the Earl of Huntingdon was a very different
character from Robin Hood the forester. There was no more conscientious
magistrate in all the county than his lordship: he was never known to
miss church or quarter-sessions; he was the strictest game-proprietor
in all the Riding, and sent scores of poachers to Botany Bay. "A man who
has a stake in the country, my good Sir Wilfrid," Lord Huntingdon said,
with rather a patronizing air (his lordship had grown immensely fat
since the King had taken him into grace, and required a horse as strong
as an elephant to mount him)--"a man with a stake in the country
ought to stay IN the country. Property has its duties as well as its
privileges, and a person of my rank is bound to live on the land from
which he gets his living."
"'Amen!" sang out the Reverend ---- Tuck, his lordship's domestic
chaplain, who had also grown as sleek as the Abbot of Jorvaulx, who was
as prim as a lady in his dress, wore bergamot in his handkerchief, and
had his poll shaved and his beard curled every day. And so sanctified
was his Reverence grown, that he thought it was a shame to kill the
pretty deer, (though he ate of them still hugely, both in pasties and
with French beans and currant-jelly,) and being shown a quarter-staff
upon a certain occasion, handled it curiously, and asked "what that ugly
great stick was?"
Lady Huntingdon, late Maid Marian, had still some of her old fun and
spirits, and poor Ivanhoe begged and prayed that she would come and
stay at Rotherwood occasionally, and egayer the general dulness of that
castle.
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