CHAPTER SEVENTH.
_Bardolph._--The sheriff, with a monstrous watch, is at the door.
Henry IV.

_First Part._ I found out with some difficulty the apartment which was destined for my accommodation; and having secured myself the necessary good-will and attention from my uncle's domestics, by using the means they were most capable of comprehending, I secluded myself there for the remainder of the evening, conjecturing, from the fair way in which I had left my new relatives, as well as from the distant noise which continued to echo from the stone-hall (as their banqueting-room was called), that they were not likely to be fitting company for a sober man.
"What could my father mean by sending me to be an inmate in this strange family ?" was my first and most natural reflection.

My uncle, it was plain, received me as one who was to make some stay with him, and his rude hospitality rendered him as indifferent as King Hal to the number of those who fed at his cost.

But it was plain my presence or absence would be of as little importance in his eyes as that of one of his blue-coated serving-men.

My cousins were mere cubs, in whose company I might, if I liked it, unlearn whatever decent manners, or elegant accomplishments, I had acquired, but where I could attain no information beyond what regarded worming dogs, rowelling horses, and following foxes.