There were three brothers, all in farms, and all well to do; the other two were married, and Harry was finely plagued about being a bachelor.

But the placid life at the old place--he had succeeded to his father--somehow seemed to content him.

He had visitors at Christmas, he read his books of winter evenings and after dinner; in autumn he strolled round with his double-barrel and knocked over a hare or so, and so slumbered away the days.

But he never neglected the farming-everything was done almost exactly as it had been done by his father.
Old Harry Hodson was in his time one of the characters of that country side.

He was the true founder of the Hodson family.