Explore "Proper Pride, Volume II" by B. M. Croker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Monkswood was the original family place of the Fairfaxes. It was from Monkswood that a Fairfax sallied forth, booted and spurred, to ride with Prince Rupert; and owing to having espoused that side, many a fair acre was shorn away from him and his descendants. Nothing, in fact, was left to the next generation but the house and demesne.
A succession of lucky speculations and prudent marriages had restocked the Fairfax purse, and Sir Reginald's grand-father, instead of gambling and squandering at Arthur's, Crockford's, Boodle's, or White's, as was the fashion in his day -- being, on the contrary, of a thrifty turn of mind -- purchased Looton, which a card-playing owner had brought to the hammer, and it became the family seat. Still all Fairfaxes were at least _buried_ at Monkswood, and during the season it was generally visited for woodcock-shooting, for which its thick woods were famous.