"Who holds the mortgages?"
"Sir Bevil Portharvan. I have nothing to say against him. He has been very patient. A man of business would have foreclosed long ago, though he would have got little by it, for the mines are worked out, the Towers is a ruin, and the land will grow next to nothing but thistles and burdock. 'Twas to be."
"But he can't take the Towers from you. Do you not hold fast to that?"
"I did till a year ago, but there's a small bond on that now—a paltry hundred pounds; I could raise no more on it and the cliff. Sir Bevil does not hold that, however; 'tis my own lawyer."
The parson sawed the air with his hand, a trick of his when perplexed.
"Well, old friend," he said, "I am sorry for you, from the bottom of my heart. If I had the money, I would gladly lend it you, but 'passing rich on forty pound a year,' you know——"
"I know well. 'Tis not for that I come to you. Give me your advice. What can I do? I must leave the Towers; what can I do for a livelihood? Like the man in the Book, 'I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.' What a miserable fool I was to throw up the sea when I came into the property! And yet I don't know. Look at Mildmay; a year or two younger, 'tis true, but still a lieutenant, and thought fit for nothing better than to chase luggers and circumvent the trade. I've no interest with the Admiralty; they've enough to do to provide for the seamen invalided from the wars. What can an old fool past fifty do to earn his salt? Years ago I had my dreams of paying off the burdens and reviving the Trevanion fortunes; but they have long since vanished into thin air; the task needed a better head than mine. And what little chance I might have had was doomed by the misdeeds of that scoundrel cousin of mine——"
"I heard that he reappeared the other day. I hoped it was not true."
"'Twas true. He had the boldness, the effrontery, to come to me with his 'let bygones be bygones,' and sneering at my Christianity. You know the facts, Carlyon. You know how, but that I impoverished myself, he would to this day be in the hulks or slaving in the plantations. I was too tender, I was indeed. I ought to have let the law take its course, and put my pride in my pocket. 'Twas a weakness, I own it; and now 'tis time to take my payment."
"No, my good friend, you did right to keep your name unstained. But I wonder, indeed I do, that John Trevanion has dared to show his face here again."