'
'Well, then,' said Jawleyford, with a hearty yawn, 'I suppose we may as
well go to bed.'
So saying, he took his candle and retired.
CHAPTER XIX
THE WET DAY
When the dirty slip-shod housemaid came in the morning with her
blacksmith's-looking tool-box to light Mr. Sponge's fire, a riotous
winter's day was in the full swing of its gloomy, deluging power. The wind
howled, and roared, and whistled, and shrieked, playing a sort of aeolian
harp amongst the towers, pinnacles, and irregular castleisations of the
house; while the old casements rattled and shook, as though some one were
trying to knock them in.
'Hang the day!' muttered Sponge from beneath the bedclothes. 'What the
deuce is a man to do with himself on such a day as this, in the country?'
thinking how much better he would be flattening his nose against the
coffee-room window of the Bantam, or strolling through the horse-dealers'
stables in Piccadilly or Oxford Street.
Presently the over-night chair before the fire, with the picture of
Jawleyford in the Bumperkin yeomanry, as seen through the parted curtains
of the spacious bed, recalled his over-night speculations, and he began to
think that perhaps he was just as well where he was.
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