I say so much at commencing in order that I may have an opportunity of explaining that this book of mine will not be devoted⁴ in any special way to rural delights. The name might lead to the idea that new precepts⁵ were to be given, in the pleasant guise⁶ of a novel, as to cream-cheeses, pigs with small bones, wheat sown in drills, or artificial manure⁷. No such aspirations⁸ are mine. I make no attempts in that line, and declare at once that agriculturists will gain nothing from my present performance. Orley Farm, my readers, will be our scene during a portion of our present sojourn⁹ together, but the name has been chosen as having been intimately connected with certain legal questions which made a considerable stir in our courts of law.

 

It was twenty years before the date at which this story will be supposed to commence that the name of Orley Farm first became known to the wearers of the long robe. At that time had died an old gentleman, Sir Joseph Mason, who left behind him a landed estate in Yorkshire of considerable extent and value. This he bequeathed, in a proper way, to his eldest¹⁰ son, the Joseph Mason, Esq., of our date. Sir Joseph had been a London merchant; had made his own money, having commenced the world, no doubt, with half a crown; had become, in turn, alderman, mayor, and

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