‘Mr Jawleyford’s not likely to find his way to Boulogne, I suppose?’ observed Mr Sponge.

‘Not he!’ exclaimed Watson, ‘not he! -- safe bird -- very.’

‘He’s rich, I suppose?’ continued Sponge, with an air of indifference.

‘Why, I should say he was; though others say he’s not,’ replied Watson, cropping the old pony with the dog-whip, as it nearly fell on its nose. ‘He can’t fail to be rich, with all his property; though they’re desperate hands for gaddin’ about; always off to some waterin’ place or another, lookin’ for husbands, I suppose. I wonder,’ he continued, ‘that gentlemen can’t settle at home, and amuse themselves with coursin’ and shootin’.’ Mr Watson, like many servants, thinking that the bulk of a gentleman’s income should be spent in promoting the particular sport over which they preside.

With this and similar discourse, they beguiled the short distance between the station and the Court -- a distance, however, that looked considerably greater after the flying rapidity of the rail. But for these occasional returns to terra firma, people would begin to fancy themselves birds. After rounding a large but gently swelling hill, over the summit of which the road, after the fashion of old roads, led, our traveller suddenly looked down upon the wide vale of Sniperdown, with Jawleyford Court glittering with a bright open aspect, on a fine, gradual elevation, above the broad, smoothly-gliding river. A clear atmosphere, indicative either of rain or frost, disclosed a vast tract of wild, flat, ill-cultivated-looking country to the south, little interrupted by woods or signs of population; the whole losing itself, as it were, in an indistinct gray outline, commingling with the fleecy white clouds in the distance.

‘Here we be,’ observed Watson, with a nod towards where a tarnished red-and-gold flag floated, or rather flapped lazily in the winter’s breeze, above an irregular mass of towers, turrets, and odd-shaped chimneys.

Jawleyford Court was a fine old mansion, partaking more of the character of a castle than a Court, with its keep and towers, battlements, heavily grated mullioned windows, and machicolated gallery. It stood, sombre and gray, in the midst of gigantic but now leafless sycamores -- trees that had to thank themselves for being sycamores; for, had they been oaks, or other marketable wood, they would have been made into bonnets or shawls long before now. The building itself was irregular, presenting different sorts of architecture, from pure Gothic down to some even perfectly modern buildings; still, viewed as a whole, it was massive and imposing: and as Mr Sponge looked down upon it, he thought far more of Jawleyford and Co. than he did as the mere occupants of a modest, white-stuccoed, green-verandahed house, at Laverick Wells. Nor did his admiration diminish as he advanced, and, crossing by a battlemented bridge over the moat, he viewed the massive character of the buildings rising grandly from their rocky foundation. An imposing, solemn-toned old clock began striking four, as the horsemen rode under the Gothic portico whose notes re-echoed and reverberated, and at last lost themselves among the towers and pinnacles of the building. Sponge, for a moment, was awe-stricken at the magnificence of the scene, feeling that it was what he would call ‘a good many cuts above him;’ but he soon recovered his wonted impudence.

‘He would have me,’ thought he, recalling the pressing nature of the Jawleyford invitation.

‘If you’ll hold my nag,’ said Watson, throwing himself off the shaggy white, ‘I’ll ring the bell,’ added he, running up a wide flight of steps to the hall-door. A riotous peal announced the arrival.