The Master of Greylands: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

This last event, however, after exciting due comment and wonder, was lost sight of in the other evil: for the first nearly concerned the interests of Stilborough, and the latter did not concern them at all. Their ruin, their ruin! That was the all-absorbing topic in the minds of the bewildered citizens.

In inquiry into the death of Peter Castlemaine ended in a decision that he had died from heart disease. This was arrived at chiefly by the testimony and the urgent representation of Thomas Hill. One of the medical men was supposed to hold a contrary opinion; and the dreadful doubt, previously spoken of, would always lie on Miss Castlemaine's mind; but the other was the accepted view. He was buried in the neighbouring churchyard, St. Mark's: Parson Marston, who had so often and so recently sat at his dinner-table, performing the service.

Gradually the first excitement diminished. Brains and tempers calmed down. For, added to that natural depression that succeeds to undue emotion, there arose a report that things would be well, after all, and everybody paid to the full.

In fact, it was so. The money that had been so long waited for--the speculation that had at last turned up trumps--was pouring in its returns. And there arose another source of means to be added to it.

One morning the great Nyndyll Mine Company, that had been looked upon as being as good as dead, took a turn for the better; received, so to say, a new lease of life. A fresh vein of surprising richness and unbounded extent, had been struck: the smallest shareholder might immediately reckon that his fortune was an accomplished fact: and those lucky enough to be largely interested might cease speculation for ever, and pass the time in building themselves castles and palaces--with more solid foundations than the air will furnish--to live in. The shares went up in the market like rockets: everyone was securing them as eagerly as we should pick up diamonds if we got the chance. In a very short time, the shares held by the house of Mr. Peter Castlemaine might have been resold for fifteen times the original amount paid for them.

"Is this true, Hill?" asked Mr. Castlemaine, who had come bounding over on horseback from Greylands' Rest at the first rumour of the news, and found the old clerk at his post as usual, before the private desk that had been his master's. "Can it be true?" repeated Mr. Castlemaine.

He was changed since his brother's death. That death, or something else, had told upon him strangely. He and Peter had been fond of each other. James had been proud of his brother's position in the country; his influence and good name. The shock had come upon him unexpectedly, as upon every one else: and, in a manner, affected him far more. Then, his interests were largely bound up with those of his brother; and though if he had lost all he had lent him he would still be a rich man, yet the thought was not to be indulged with indifference or contemplated pleasantly. But to do him justice, these considerations sank into insignificance, before the solemn fact of his brother's death, and the mystery and uncertainty enshrouding it.

"Is it true, Hill?" he reiterated before the clerk had time to speak. "Or is it all as a miserable delusion of Satan."

"It is true enough, sir," answered Thomas Hill. "The shares have gone suddenly up like nothing I ever knew. Alas, that it should be so!"

"Alas!" echoed Mr. Castlemaine. "What mean you, Hill? has trouble turned your brain?"