Lone was henceforth the pride of engineers, the model of architects, the subject of artists, the theme of poets, the Mecca of pilgrims, the eighth wonder of the world.
Lone was opened for the first time a few weeks after its completion, on the occasion of the coming of age of the duke's eldest son and heir, the young Marquis of Arondelle, which fell upon the first of June.
A grand festival was held at Lone, and a great crowd assembled to do honor to the anniversary. A noble and gentle company filled the halls and chambers of the castle, and nearly all the Clan Scott assembled on the grounds.
The festival was a grand triumph.
Among the thousands present were certain artists and reporters of the press, and so it followed that the next issue of the London News contained full-page pictures of Castle Lone and Inch Lone, with their terraces, parterres, arches, arbors and groves; Loch Lone, with its elegant piers, bridges and boats; and the surrounding mountains, with their caves, grottoes, falls and fountains.
Yes, the birthday festival was a perfect triumph, and the fame of Lone went forth to the uttermost ends of the earth. The English Colonists at Australia, Cape of Good Hope, and New Zealand, read all about it in copies of the London News, sent out to them by thoughtful London friends. We remember the day, some years since, when we, sitting by our cottage fire, read all about it in an illustrated paper, and pondered over the happy fate of those who could live in paradise while still on earth. Five years later, we would not have changed places with the Duke of Hereward.
But this is a digression.
The duke was in his earthly heaven; but was the duke happy, or even content?
Ah! no. He was overwhelmed with debt. Even Lone was mortgaged as deeply as it could be—that is, as to the extent of the duke's own life interests in the estate. Beyond that he could not burden the estate, which was entailed upon his heirs male. Besides his financial embarrassments, the duke was afflicted with another evil—he was consumed with a fever too common with prince and with peasant, as well as with peer—the fever of a land hunger.
The prince desires to add province to province; the peer to add manor to manor; the peasant to own a little home of his own, and then to add acre to acre.