He came a step closer, and as he did so I noticed that his face had assumed a look of indescribable cunning, that was evidently intended to be of an ingratiating nature. He spoke in little jerks, pressing his fingers together between each sentence.
"Gold-mining! Ah! And pearling! Well, well! And you have been fortunate in your ventures?"
"Very!" I replied, having by this time determined on my line of action. "I daresay my cheque for ten thousand pounds would not be dishonoured."
"Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand pounds! Dear me, dear me!"
He shuffled up and down the dingy room, all the time looking at me out of the corners of his eyes, as if to make sure that I was telling him the truth.
"Come, come, uncle," I said, resolving to bring him to his bearings without further waste of time. "This is not a very genial welcome!"
"Well, well, you mustn't expect too much, my boy! You see for yourself the position I'm in. The old place is shut up, going to rack and ruin. Poverty is staring me in the face; I am cheated by everybody. Robbed right and left, not knowing which way to turn. But I'll not be put upon. They may call me what they please, but they can't get blood out of a stone. Can they! Answer me that, now!"
This speech showed me everything as plain as a pikestaff. I mean, of course, the reason of the deserted and neglected house, and his extraordinary reception of myself. I rose to my feet.
"Well, uncle—for my uncle you certainly are, whatever you may say to the contrary—I must be going. I'm sorry to find you like this, and from what you tell me I couldn't think of worrying you with my society! I want to see the old church and have a talk with the parson, and then I shall go off never to trouble you again."
He immediately became almost fulsome in his effort to detain me. "No, no! You mustn't go like that. It's not hospitable. Besides, you mustn't talk with parson. He's a bad lot, is parson—a hard man with a cruel tongue. Says terrible things about me, does parson. But I'll be even with him yet. Don't speak to him, laddie, for the honour of the family. Now ye'll stay and take lunch with me?—potluck, of course—I'm too poor to give ye much of a meal; and in the meantime I'll show ye the house and estate."