It is a highly respectable thing to be a landowner; the freeholder has many advantages, but getting rid of the property, particularly in the present day, is as a rule both difficult and expensive. Mr. Capt was like the proprietor of an Irish estate; far from being able to dispose of it at a reasonable figure, he was unable to obtain even an offer for his secret, and it was a valuable secret; but then, though a white elephant is a valuable animal, it is not an investment that most people would care to hold, and Mr. Capt's property now seemed indeed but a white elephant. Had it not been for his holy fear of his master he might have attempted to make terms with Mrs. Haggard, but his terror of Lord Pit Town's heir was extreme and had become a second nature to him.
The love of home is specially developed among the honest and economical inhabitants of Switzerland; like the Scotchmen they quit their dear native land young, in the hope of making their fortunes; but unlike the Scots they inevitably return to the Fatherland with the results of a life of industry, and this was the dream of Mr. Capt's life. Like a wise man, finding he could not get a cash purchaser, he determined, though very much against his own inclination, to make a bargain with young Lucius Haggard at the earliest opportunity; but he knew that if he trusted to the honour of Lucy Warrender's son he would be leaning upon a broken reed, and he walked back to the discharge of his duties at the Castle in a state of considerable depression.
CHAPTER IV.
PALLIDA MORS.
It was the second of September. Reginald Haggard's usual invitations had been accepted by a select party of his intimates. They had had a great slaughter in the well-stocked Walls End preserves on the day before. General Pepper, Lord Spunyarn, Colonel Spurbox, the host and the two young men sat down to breakfast, and Georgie Haggard presided at the meal, looking to Spunyarn's mind handsomer than ever in the deep mourning which she still wore for her cousin Lucy. But Mrs. Haggard was not the only lady who graced the breakfast-table at the Castle, for Mrs. Dodd had arrived to pay a long-promised visit the day before, of course accompanied by her husband. As some men never travel without a hat box, so Mrs. Dodd never left King's Warren without the Rev. John.
"I am so glad to have met you once more, Lord Spunyarn," said the vicar's wife; "isolated as I am at King's Warren, it is so seldom my privilege to meet any man having a purpose in life, and the men with a purpose, you know, are after all the only men worth knowing." Here she gave a benignant and comprehensive glance round the table, and every one felt that he at least was not worth Mrs. Dodd's notice, which was exactly the sensation the vicar's wife intended to produce.
"Awfully good of you, dear Mrs. Dodd, I'm sure, but I'm afraid I can hardly claim the credit of being a man with a purpose. I went to the East End first, you know, merely from curiosity and because the people were excessively amusing, but nowadays 'slumming' is the fashion and a great many smart people I know do as I do, merely for a new sensation."