Trevethlan: Volume 1

than his master; it is not impossible that all the expenses of Trevethlan did not fall upon its lord.

Yet the establishment had gradually declined to the lowest point. An old porter, named Jeffrey, who occupied the entrance lodge to the inner court, and cultivated a small kitchen garden, was the only male domestic: his wife, and two or three maid-servants performed all the other offices of the castle. People often wondered that Mr. Griffith did not leave such a falling house. But Mr. Griffith was not a rat. He had lived there more than half a century, and was prepared to continue as long again.

Nor let it be supposed that this devotion was entirely due to the place. Proud and reserved as had been its recent master, he was far from being wholly unamiable; even his children, to whom he behaved with uniform harshness, regarded him with as much affection as awe; and his dependents, whom he treated with almost as constant kindness, served him with real attachment. Well did Griffith recollect the day,