John came to the funeral with a long face and a crape-covered hat, looking more like a mute than anything else.
He sipped his wine while the epitomized will was read; but a wicked light flashed from his eyes, and he ground out an oath at its conclusion.
All the information anyone received was that though sums varying from five hundred pounds to a thousand were left as little legacies to distant relations and to John, as well as douceurs to the servants, the whole of the estates were willed in a way that could not be divulged for many a long year.
John seized his hat, tore from it the crape, and dashed it on the floor. The crape on his arm followed suit. He trampled on both and strode away slamming the door behind him.
Years had flown away.
Tom and his wife had emigrated to the banks of the Amazon. They settled but a short time at or near one of its mouths, and then Tom, who had no lack of enterprise, determined to journey far, far into the interior, where the land was not so level, where mountains nodded to the moon, and giant forests stretched illimitably to the southward and west.
At first Tom and his men, with faithful Bill as overseer, were mere squatters, but squatters by the banks of the queen of waters, and in a far more lovely place than dreams of elfinland. Labour was very cheap here, and the Indians soon learned from the white men how to work.
Tom St. Clair had imported carpenters and artificers of many sorts from the old country, to say nothing of steam plant and machinery, and that great resounding steel buzz-saw.
Now, although not really extravagant, he had an eye for the beautiful, and determined to build himself a house and home that, although not costing a deal, would be in reality a miniature Burnley Hall. And what a truly joyous time Peggy and her cousin, or adopted brother, had of it while the house was gradually being built by the busy hands of the trained Indians and their white brethren!
Not they alone, but also a boy called Dick Temple, whose uncle was Tom St. Clair's nearest neighbour, That is, he lived a trifle over seven miles higher up the river. Dick was about the same age and build as Roland.