"It's rather like having a pistol at one's head! Hanged if it isn't!" he muttered. "But it reads all right, it reads—the goods! Historical Mansion, seven hundred and fifty acres, fit for a nobleman, with part of a village, sounds right—sounds right—" he muttered. He nodded his head. "But this hurry—why it's a confounded nuisance, that's what it is. How can I go? I've got—let me see—har hum—" He muttered to himself and frowned heavily.
He had much important business to see to, that day, a meeting of Directors at twelve, another at two, and there were things to be arranged and discussed that Sir Josiah knew would require his clear brain and intellect. How could, he go journeying down to some remote part of Sussex to view this ancient mansion with its historical associations, desirable as it might be?
Sir Josiah looked up from the letter and glanced across the breakfast table at his son.
Allan was reading. It would have been noteworthy had Allan not been reading. The lad was always reading. His book was propped up against a teacup and he seemed to have forgotten his breakfast.
A good looking, big and broad shouldered young fellow this, with clean cut features and massive jaw and a broad high forehead! Muscle and sinew were there, but there was intelligence and brain power in that noble forehead of his.
Fully six feet stood he in his socks, massive of build, with straight, honest blue eyes and waving hair that was neither dark nor fair. A face that might in its strength seem a little hard, a little fierce, even a little forbidding, but that the mouth atoned for all.
No man with a mouth like this could be other than very human, very tender and kindly, very generous, the mouth of a man who could give much, suffer much and love greatly.
But Sir Josiah saw nothing of all this, he only saw Allan, his son, reading another of those confounded books, for which Sir Josiah had no feeling, except of the deepest disgust.
"Allan!"
"Father?" The young man looked up. "I'm sorry!" he said. "Did you speak to me before?"