The baronet flung himself back in his chair with a chuckle.
“You little expected that,” said he. “But there’s a reservation I’ll own to. They strung him up after he was dead.”
He went into a fit of laughter over the other’s astonished expression.
“I see you are unacquainted with the tale,” he said. “’Tis a tattered old boggart of the past that the neighbourhood has years-long ceased to throw stones at. But, you’ll pardon me, Tuke. What the devil induced you to invest in those ragged acres yonder?”
“I didn’t. I succeeded to them.”
“Direct?”
“Certainly.”
He had hesitated in answering. The little man gazed at him inquisitively.
“You are—you are not in mourning,” he said.
“For my father? Scarcely. He died in ’80. A widow even may be excused for doffing black in twenty years.”