‘No,’ he told himself, ‘the strength will be all on my side. The law does not encourage claimants of this stamp. If it did, no man’s estate would be secure, no real property would be worth ten years purchase.’
He had taken a high tone with Maurice Clissold; had affected to regard the whole matter as an absurdity, but now, face to face with the facts that had been put before him, he felt that the question was serious, and that he could not be too prompt in action.
He looked at a railway time-table, and found that he would have just time enough to catch the next up train from Seacomb, a slowish train, not reaching London till late in the evening.
‘I will go up to town and see Pergament,’ he said to himself, as he touched the bell.
‘Tell them to bring round the dog-cart at once. I shall want Hunter.’
‘Any particular horse, sir?’
‘Yes, Wallace.’
Wallace was the fastest horse in the stable—always excepting the Squire’s favourite, Tarpan, which had never been degraded by harness.
While the dog-cart was being got ready, Churchill wrote to his wife,
‘My Dearest,