“Mr Mackhai,” he said sharply, as he presented a slip of paper, “in the Queen’s name I take possession here—suit of Mr Andrew Blande, Lincoln’s Inn, London.”
“What!” cried Max, whose jaw dropped as he grasped the state of affairs. “It is a lie! my father would not do such a thing.”
“Your cursed father, sir, would do anything that is mean and base—even to sending you down here to be a spy upon us, till he could tie the last knot in the miserable net he has thrown around me.”
“Oh, Max!” cried Kenneth, as his face flushed, and then turned pale.
“Be a man, my boy,” said his father sternly. “Recollect that you are a Mackhai. Let this legal robber take all; let him and his son enjoy their prize. Ken, my boy, my folly has made a beggar of you. I have lost all now, but one thing. I am still a gentleman of a good old race. He cannot rob me of that. Come.”
He walked proudly through the archway into the house with his son, and the rest followed, leaving Max Blande standing alone in the old courtyard, staring wildly before him, till he started as if stung. For all at once a jackdaw on the inner part of one of the towers uttered what sounded to him a mocking, jeering—
Tah!