We have thus endeavoured to answer the question, ‘What is a Peer?’ and we trust that the foregoing statements have assisted any reader who may have previously entertained confused notions concerning the subject dealt with.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CHAPTER III.—WHAT IS TO BE.
The master of Willowmere, Dick Crawshay, was recognised throughout the county as a perfect specimen of the good old style of yeoman farmer. He was proud of the distinction, and proud of upholding all the traditions of his rapidly diminishing class. It was not so much owing to eccentricity or vanity, as to simple faith in what he believed to be due to his position, that his dress invariably combined the characteristics of the past and the present. His top-boots and breeches were like those worn by his father; his long waistcoat was after the pattern of his grandfather’s; whilst his short coat and billycock hat belonged in some degree to his own day.
Rough and ready, outspoken in friendship or enmity, quick-tempered, but never bearing malice, his whole creed was that a man should mean what he says and say what he means. He was huge in person, height and breadth, and many people had good reason to know that he was equally huge in kindliness of heart.
Legends of his feats of strength in wrestling, boxing, horse-training and riding, were often recounted by the old men of the district as worthy examples of skill and prowess for their grandchildren to emulate, or to amuse their cronies in the taproom of the Cherry Tree.
‘Ah, when I thinks on that day of the Hunt Cup Steeplechase, thirty year ago!’ old Jerry Mogridge used to mumble over his jug of foaming ale. ‘The young Maister—he were the young Maister Dick in them days—entered his ’oss against some o’ the best blood out o’ Yorkshire, not to mention what our own county turned out, and we had some rare uns. We don’t have no such riding nor no such ’osses, I do believe, nowadays.’
Then Jerry would pause to reflect over departed glories, press down the ashes of his long clay-pipe carefully with his third finger and draw a long breath.