Of the private life of this banker-millionaire, the least said the better. He was a patron of Art, he was many things besides. As a man of the world, that is to say, a man capable of fighting the world, he was all but flawless.
He had one weak point, his temper. He rarely lost his temper, but when he did, he quite lost control of himself and a demon, carefully hidden at all other times, arose and spoke and acted.
A terrible and familiar spirit.
When under its influence the man was appalling.
CHAPTER V
STANDING on Gamblesby Fell you can see Throstle Hall away to the right, its gables and the smoke of its chimneys above the tall elm trees, and the great sweep of park surrounding it.
Gazing straight before one the eye travels over pasture-land and corn-field, farm and village, to the far dim valley of the Eden beyond, and far beyond, the hills of Cumberland stand like the ramparts of a world dominated by the Saddle Back.
Carlisle to the right, twenty miles away, shows a tracery of smoke against the sky.
The pasture-land and the corn-fields come right up to the fell foot, where they cease suddenly, as though a line had been drawn between civilization and desolation.