Excerpt from The Spendthrift: A Tale Heir to twenty thousand a year at twenty-one. This was the case with Gage de Monthermer. An enviable fellow. Let us see how he came by his fine property. Warwick de Monthermer - Gage's sire - had a fine old family mansion in Suffolk - Monthermer Castle - noted for its beautiful situation, and the picturesque ruins in the immediate vicinity; a large park, well stocked with deer, and boasting some of the most magnificent timber in England - oaks, coeval with the Druids, towering? elms, and wide-spreading beeches; a gallery of choice pictures, including portraits of his once-ennobled race, the first of whom, Radulphus de Monthermer, married Joane Plantagenct, daughter of King Edward I., and the last (the last of these haughty barons, we mean) lost his head and his honours in 1471; a house in perfect repair; fertile lands; farms well tenanted and well cultivated; property well managed; cellars well stocked with wine; a famous pack of hounds; a numerous stud of horses: everything, in short, that a country gentleman could desire. Warwick de Monthermer lived altogether at Monthermer Castle, where he exercised unbounded hospitality. The house was always full of company. He was fond of hunting, shooting, fishing, and all manly sports; and equally fond of good cheer, so that the robust exercises he constantly indulged in were indispensably necessary to the preservation of his health. Warwick was a widower of long standing. Wedded to the Hon. Henrietta Gage, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Lord Hcngrave, he had the misfortune to lose her in the second year of their union. She left him an only son. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.