THE YOUNG MASTER OF
HYSON HALL
CHAPTER I.
OLD BRUDEN.
I may as well say at once that Old Bruden was the name of a double-barrelled shot-gun. It had originally belonged to a man by the name of Bruden, and by him had been traded for a cow to one of his neighbors.
From this person it had come, by purchase, into the possession of old Mr. Berkeley, of Hyson Hall, of whom I shall speak presently.
This double-barrelled shot-gun—which was now called by the name of its original owner—was not, at the time our story begins, a very valuable piece of property.
The hammer of the left-hand barrel had a hitch in it, so that it could not always be depended upon to come down when the trigger was pulled. There was also a tradition that a piece of this left-hand barrel had been blown out by Mr. Bruden, who, by accident, had put a double load into it, and that a new piece had been welded in; but, as no mark of such gunsmithery could be found on the barrel, this story was generally disregarded, especially by the younger persons who occasionally used the weapon.
Hyson Hall, the residence of Godfrey Berkeley, the present owner of the gun, was a large, square house, standing about a quarter of a mile back from the Delaware River in Pennsylvania.
It had been built by Godfrey’s father, who was engaged, for the greater part of his life, in the Chinese tea-trade. When he retired from business he bought an estate of two hundred acres, on which he erected the great house, which he called Hyson Hall.