CHAPTER I.--TREATS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.

Harry Coverdale stood six feet one in or out of his stockings, rode something over eleven stone, was unusually good, or, as young ladies term it, interesting-looking, numbered six-and-twenty years last grass, and lived at Coverdale Park when he was at home, with five thousand a-year to pay for his housekeeping, of which he spent about two. At the happy moment in which we have the pleasure of introducing him to our readers, he was _not_ at home, at least not literally, though figuratively he appeared to be making himself so very decidedly.

He had arrived in London that morning, and had dined at his club, and strolled down to the Temple afterwards, where, finding that his friend, Arthur Hazlehurst, was expected to return every minute, he had taken possession of his vacant chambers, lighted a cigar, laid hands on a number of _The Sporting Magazine_, and flinging himself at full-length on the sofa (sofas do occasionally appear in the chambers of the briefless) looked, and was, especially comfortable. He was not, however, allowed to enjoy his position long in peace; for scarcely had he established himself, when a man’s footstep was heard running hastily up the interminable staircase, while a quick eager voice, addressing the small boy who did duty for clerk, exclaimed--

“Eh! a gentleman whom you don’t know lying on my sofa and smoking my last cigar! that’s coming to the point and no mistake; cool though--I wonder who the deuce it can be--not a client, of course.--Ah! Harry, my dear old boy, this is an unexpected pleasure; why I’m as glad to see you as if you were a client almost. I thought you were in the Red Sea, man, dredging for defunct Egyptians, or chipping old blocks with Layard, or some such slow thing; when did you return?”

Arthur Hazlehurst, the originator of the foregoing speech, was an old college chum of Coverdale’s, who, when his friend had taken his degree (a highly respectable one) and started on an enlarged edition of the grand tour, had gone to read with a special pleader. Having by a special slice of luck contrived to acquire a knowledge of the law from that process, instead of the more usual result of learning how to spend five hundred per annum out of an allowance of two, and possessing, moreover, an acute intellect, and a fair portion of industry, Arthur Hazlehurst was looked upon as a rising young man. In appearance he was, for a fair man, rather handsome than otherwise, but if his talent for rising could have been exercised bodily, as well as professionally, it would have been as well for him, for his friend had the advantage of him in stature by some three inches; his manner and way of speaking were quick and eager, and he had altogether a wide-awake look about him, as though he regarded society at large as perpetually in a witness-box, and was always prepared to cross-examine and be down upon it.

“I returned to England some three weeks since,” replied Coverdale, abstracting the cigar from his mouth, and lazily flipping off the ashes from the lighted end with his finger; “but I went quietly down to the Park, and have been plodding over accounts with the agent ever since. Shocking bad tobacco they make you put up with here; you shall try the glorious stuff I’ve brought back from Constantinople--your Turk is the boy to smoke. So you’ve become learned in the law, I hear, since I went abroad.”

“Eh! Yes, I believe I’ve picked up a thing or two,” returned Hazlehurst modestly; “I’ve found out the great secret of life; the next move is to make the knowledge pay, and that’s not so easy.”

“I didn’t know there was a great secret to find out,” observed Coverdale, stroking his curly black whiskers, “the rule of life seems easy enough to me--make up your mind what you want to do, and then quietly do it--that’s my recipe.”

“A very good one for you, my dear fellow, you’ve only to put your hand in your pocket, and, as your money rattles, difficulties disappear; but we’re not all born to £5000 a-year, worse luck; fathers have flinty hearts, and even the amenities of the nineteenth century have failed to macadamise them--‘I’ve given you an expensive education, sir, and I expect to see you turn it to account.’ That’s about the style of blessing we inherit now-a-day; however, my secret of life is this: everything has a culminating point, and the dodge is to hit upon it yourself, and bring others to it, with the least delay possible; in these four words--come to the point, is embodied the whole philosophy of existence.”

“Well, yes, I dare say there is something in it,” returned Coverdale, meditatively, “it never exactly struck me before, but there’s a beautiful simplicity about it that I rather admire--a little too railroadish, perhaps, unless a man’s in an awful hurry; you lose the bright sunny peeps and the jolly old road-side alehouses of life, by rushing so straight to your object.”

“Sunny nonsenses,” was the uncourteous rejoinder--“none of your old slow-coaching days for me; life’s not long enough for dreaming--Parr’s life pills are a swindle, and Methusaleh died without leaving his recipe behind him;--so come to the point say I.”

“Though I won’t promise to adopt your philosophy for a permanency, I’ll act upon it for once, at all events,” replied Coverdale, smiling (and a nice, genial, pleasant smile it was too, showing a white, even row of teeth, and lighting up a pair of large, dark, intelligent eyes, and making the “smiler” look particularly handsome). “So to come to the point, I’m here to enlist you in my service for what the women call a ‘day’s shopping’ to-morrow: I’ve no clothes to my back, no horses to ride, no dog-cart to knock about in--in fact, none of the necessaries of life;--then, having benefited by your advice and experience, I mean to carry you off to Coverdale for a crack at the rabbits; thank goodness! they’ve got the game up and the poachers down, since I’ve been abroad: that was the only thing I made a row about when I came into the property. Why, there are no preserves like the Coverdale woods in the county, and yet my poor uncle never had a pheasant on his table. Things are rather different now, my boy, and my only real sorrow at the present moment is, that there are two whole months to be got rid of before the first of September: well! what do you say to my proposal?”

“Done, along with you,” replied Hazlehurst; “but on one condition only, viz., that when we’ve polished off the rabbits, you’ll come with me to the Grange, and make acquaintance with those members of the worthy family of Hazlehurst, whose virtues are as yet unknown to you.”

“You’re very kind; but you’ve a lot of sisters, or she-cousins, or some creatures of that dangerous nature, haven’t you? Of course I mean no disparagement to the ladies of _your_ family in particular; but ’pon my word, my dear fellow, I cannot stand women: in Turkey they shut ’em up, you know, so that I’m not accustomed to them; I’ve given up flirting and dangling, and all the rest of it, long ago; it’s very well for green boys, but at my time of life a man has something better to think about,” and, as he spoke, Coverdale flung the end of his cigar into the empty fireplace, pitched _The Sporting Magazine_ unceremoniously on the table, and, looking at his watch, continued, “It’s eight o’clock; I took a couple of stalls for the ‘Prophète’ this morning, on the chance of catching you; so jump into a pair of black trousers and let us be off.”

“Not a bad move,” replied his companion, “I’ll adorn and be with you in----”

“_Einem augenblick_,” suggested the grand tourist, philologically.

“If that’s German for the twinkling of a bed-post, yes!” was the rejoinder, and in less than ten minutes the friends descended the staircase arm-in-arm, Hazlehurst leaving strict directions with the small clerk to inform any one who might ask for him, that he was summoned to attend a very important consultation.

The next day was devoted to the purchase of Coverdale’s necessaries of life. Owing to Hazlehurst’s perseverance in bringing all the tradesmen to the point, a vast deal of business was transacted, and before nightfall Harry was the fortunate possessor of a spicy dog-cart, a blood mare to run in it, who _could_ trot fourteen miles an hour, and really did perform ten miles in that space of time, equally to her own satisfaction and to that of her new master--two showy saddle-horses, the best being up to fifteen stone with any hounds--a double-barrelled gun, by a famous maker--a brace of thorough-bred pointers--and a whole host of the minor “necessaries” animate and inanimate, all of which, put together, made a considerable hole in a thousand pounds; but, as Harry sapiently observed, “a man could not live in the country without them, so where was the use of bothering.”

On the following morning, the two young men and all the purchases, horses included, started by the Midland Counties Railway, and dinner-time found them safely deposited at Coverdale Park, a fine old place, which, with its picturesque mansion, beautiful view, and goodly extent of wood and water, field and fell, was as desirable a property as any English gentleman need wish to possess. After dinner the gamekeeper was summoned: he was a sturdy, good-looking fellow, who had filled the post of under-keeper in the time of Admiral Coverdale (Harry’s deceased uncle, an old bachelor, to whose invincible hatred of matrimony his nephew was indebted for his present position). Harry, before he went abroad, had discovered the head-keeper to be in league with a gang of poachers, receiving a per centage on all the game they sold; he had accordingly dismissed him, and elected his subordinate to fill the vacant situation--an experiment which had proved eminently successful.

“Take a glass of wine, Markum; this is my friend, Mr. Hazlehurst. We mean to have a slap at the rabbits to-morrow; so be here at eight o’clock, and then we shall get a good long day: any more poachers since we caught those last fellows?” And, as Coverdale spoke, he filled a large claret-glass to the brim with splendid old port, and handed it to the keeper, who, received it bashfully, and then, scraping with his foot and ducking his head twice with an expression of countenance as of a sheep about to butt, replied, “Your ’ealth, Mr. Coverdale, sir--your ’ealth, gents both,” tossed it off at a draught--“there aint been no reglur poarchin a-goin on, sir,” he continued, setting down his glass as if it burned his fingers, and then jibbing away from the table as though he had shyed at it; “but that ’are young Styles has been a shooting rabids on Wild Acre farm, and seems to say as he considers he’s a right so to do.”

“Styles? who is he?” inquired Harry, quickly.

“Well, he’s the son of old Farmer Styles, and he used to shoot just when and where he liked in the Admiral’s time, and that’s how he fancies he’s got a sort of right, do ye see, Mr ’Enry--that is, Mr. Coverdale, sir.”

“Rabbits are not game, so you can’t touch him on the score of poaching, Harry; but, to come to the point, if he’s on your land without your permission, he’s trespassing, and that’s where you can be down upon him,” interrupted Hazlehurst, sententiously.

“Then I shall have the law o’ my side in pitching into him, I suppose, sir?” inquired Markum eagerly.

“Ho, no, my good fellow; I don’t wish to quarrel with any of my tenantry, about here,” exclaimed Coverdale hastily, “they’ll be breaking pheasants’ eggs, and playing up all sorts of mischief,--no: we must have nothing of that kind--I’ll speak to the young man myself; there’s a _quiet_ way of doing these things, as I must teach you all. Good night; remember eight o’clock tomorrow:” and Markum, looking sheepish and rebuked, quitted the room, to tell the tale in the kitchen with the following reflection appended, “And if that ’are young Styles happens to be as cheeky to master as he is to other folks, it strikes me the quiet dodge won’t pay.”