Peter eagerly accepted. Next day he met Marbury at York, leaving the train to avoid a tedious slow journey of forty miles.
Lord Haversham's principal seat was at Highbury Towers, a lonely house on the edge of a moor. The nearest town was ten miles away.
It was a fortress of civilisation planted in a wilderness. In a bad winter, with snow lying deep, it was sometimes cut off for days from the world outside.
"There's something impudent about the place," said Marbury, as the car rushed over the moors. "It flies in the face of Nature. The Towers is the most comfortable home in England, and it is in a desert."
"A very beautiful desert," said Peter. He was feasting on the superb line of a moor-end, red with the heather.
"You must see it in the winter. I went through last election with my uncle. It was December, and we did well if we managed to keep half our appointments."
"Tell me about your uncle."
"He's dying, Peter." Marbury conveyed this as a simple fact. He did not intend an effect.
"You mean that he's very ill," suggested Peter.
"I mean that he's dying. The doctors give him six months or a year in Egypt. Here they allow him till the autumn."