“Yes, I tell you! I have come all the way from Hertfordshire for no other purpose!”
Moffat stared at him in great misgiving. “I beg pardon, but—but is your Grace feeling quite well?” he asked, concerned.
The Duke began to laugh. “No, no, I haven’t run mad, I assure you! I can’t explain it all now, but I have most urgent need of the man! Where does he live? You said he was one of my tenants.”
“Not exactly, I didn’t, your Grace. He’s a freeholder, but he rents the Five-acre field from your Grace. It was on account of that I was wishful to speak to your Grace.”
“Where’s the Five-acre field?”
“If you will allow me,” said Moffat, spreading open a map upon the table, “I will show your Grace. Now, it’s right here that Mudgley’s farm lies, hard by Willsbridge.”
“But I don’t own any land west of the river, do I?” objected the Duke, looking at the map.
“Well, that’s just it, your Grace. It isn’t part of the estate and never has been. It came into the family when your Grace’s grandfather acquired it. They do say that he won it at play, but I don’t know how that may be. There was a tidy bit of it when I was a boy, but your Grace’s father, he never set much store by it, and it was cut up, Sir John Marple buying the house, and the demesne, and the rest going piecemeal, all but a few fields and such, of which the Five-acre is one.” He paused, and glanced deprecatingly at the Duke. “If it had been part of Cheyney, I ask your Grace to believe I wouldn’t have thought of such a thing, let alone have mentioned it]”
“But what is it that you want?” asked the Duke.
“It’s young Jasper Mudgley as wants it, your Grace!” said Moffat desperately. “Maybe I shouldn’t be speaking to you of it, seeing that Mr. Scriven won’t hear of letting it go, nor his lordship either, by what Mr. Scriven writes to me, the both of them setting their faces against selling any of your Grace’s land, as is right and proper. But young Mudgley’s father and me was boys together, and I’ve always kept an eye over Jasper, as you might say, since his father was taken. He’s a good lad, your Grace, and the way he’s worked his farm up is wonderful, and things not always easy for him. But he’s by way of being a warm man now, and he’d beright glad to buy the Five-acre off of your Grace, if you’d be willing to sell it. I told him my lord wouldn’t hear of it, but it seemed to me as I might venture just to mention the matter to you.”