One small extravagance he attempted: he tried to buy from old Sir Evelyn the farm on which his fathers had lived and died for generations.
The old gentleman, who would sooner have parted from his soul than from an acre of his inheritance, refused to sell.
"I suppose the boy'll cut up rough now," grumbled the old baronet, who was fond of Jim.
"Oh, no, he won't, grandfather," replied his grandson. "He's awfully decent."
"We shall see," mumbled the old man; but he had shortly to admit that Billy was right.
Jim Silver, thwarted in his desire to acquire his grandfather's farm, rented a little hunting-box near by instead. There he kept his weight-carriers, and there during the hunting season he spent his week-ends and occasional holidays.
Since the days when he walked his grand-dad's farm as a child, his ambitions had changed in degree but not in kind. Then he had proposed to devote his life to breeding shire-horses. Now he meant, when once he had mastered his job, to devote his leisure to owning and breeding 'chasers.
Some time elapsed after his father's death before he let himself go in this respect. His sensitive conscience and high sense of duty gave him an uneasy mind in the matter. His father had disapproved of horses, or rather had been afraid of the Turf and its consequences.
It was a while before the son could assuage his qualms and feel himself free to go forward in the prosecution of his desire.
His old house-master, still his father-confessor in spiritual distresses, finally dispelled the young man's doubts and launched him on his destined way.