"Why, you said this was not Little Hollingsby."
"No more it is. There is no place o' that name, as I've told you once already."
"You needn't be so short-tempered when I ask you a civil question!" retorted the groom indignantly. "What do you call this house, then?"
"It isn't what I call it, but the house is Hollingsby Hall, as everybody hereabouts knows, or ought to, by this time." The groom gave a prolonged whistle.
"Well, I never. Anybody would have thought that big place of the earl's was the Hall, not this—"
"I'd have you to know, young man," interrupted Mountain, in high indignation at the contemptuous stress laid on the last word, "I'd have you to know that Hollingsby Hall has been this place, and called nothing else for ages before that place of the earl's, which is as ugly as it is big, was thought of. Ay, or an earl to live in it, for the title and Hollingsby are new alike, though the village is old enough."
"Well, how was I to know? I have only been at the captain's place for a month or so, and I can't remember ages back, if you can!" retorted the groom.
"Who said I could? but let me tell you it's matter of history about the Hall, and the Mountfords, who used to have a bigger house than the earl's, but they pulled it down and built this, as better suited to their means. Not like some people as shall be nameless, that waste and spend all before them, and soon won't have a pigsty to call their own."
Mountain spoke severely, but looked triumphant, as if he had "about settled this puppy of a groom from Monk's How."
But the puppy in question was getting impatient, and not knowing to what lengths the speaker might go, he ventured to interrupt Mountain's tirade.