"I don't think it's strictly entailed on him, sir, but of course he'll have it," was Jetty's answer. "Indeed, it is no secret that the major has made a will and left it to him. Mrs. Atkinson bequeathed it entirely to the major: she didn't entail it."
"Who was Mrs. Atkinson?" asked the Tiger.
"Why, the possessor of the estate before him," cried Jetty, in accents full of surprise. To him, familiar for many years with Eagles' Nest and its people, it sounded strange to hear any one asking who Mrs. Atkinson was. "She was an old lady, sir, sister to the major, and it all belonged to her. He only came into it last year when she died."
"Had she no sons?"
"No, sir; not any. I never heard that she did have any. Her husband was a banker in London; he bought this place a good many years ago. After his death Mrs. Atkinson entirely lived in it."
"Then—it is sure to come to the major's eldest son?"
"As sure as sure can be," affirmed Jetty, replenishing his pipe at his lodger's invitation. "The major would not be likely to will it away to anybody else."
"I saw two young men in the pew to-day: one quite young, scarcely out of his teens, I should say; the other some years older. Which of them was the son?"
"Oh, the youngest. The other is a nephew; Mr. Frank Raynor. He is very good-looking, he is: such a pleasant face, with nice blue eyes and bright hair. Not but what Mr. Charles is good-looking, too, in a different way."
"Mr. Charles looks to me like an insolent young puppy," freely commented the Tiger. "And has a haughty air with it: as though he were king of the country and all the rest of us were his subjects." The probability was that Charles had honoured the staring Tiger with all the haughty and insolent looks he could call up throughout the service.