Notwithstanding these doughty brawls, however, there is
nothing that nettles old Christy sooner than to question the merits of
the horse; which he upholds as tenaciously as a faithful husband will
vindicate the virtues of the termagant spouse, that gives him a
curtain lecture every night of his life.
The young men call old Christy their "professor of equitation;" and in
accounting for the appellation, they let me into some particulars of
the Squire's mode of bringing up his children. There is an odd mixture
of eccentricity and good sense in all the opinions of my worthy host.
His mind is like modern Gothic, where plain brick-work is set off with
pointed arches and quaint tracery. Though the main ground-work of his
opinions is correct, yet he has a thousand little notions, picked up
from old books, which stand out whimsically on the surface of his
mind.
Thus, in educating his boys, he chose Peachem, Markam, and such like
old English writers, for his manuals. At an early age he took the lads
out of their mother's hands, who was disposed, as mothers are apt to
be, to make fine, orderly children of them, that should keep out of
sun and rain and never soil their hands, nor tear their clothes.
In place of this, the Squire turned them loose to run free and wild
about the park, without heeding wind or weather.
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