In this, however, his lordship proved to be mistaken. No sooner was the interest settled than notice was served requiring the repayment of the principal at the extremely short date mentioned in the deed.
Like most of his countrymen, Lord Ardmorne had a passion for acquiring land. A townland for sale, an estate in the market, these things affected him as the news that a rare picture is to be brought to the hammer affects a collector, and Woodbrook was a property he would have felt by no means loth to add to those he already possessed.
But the knowledge of this desire tied his tongue. In the General’s extremity he could not advise him to let the encumbered acres be purchased by some one willing and able to give enough for them to clear off the mortgage and leave a margin beside.
Had he stepped in at this point and counselled the General to do that which really seemed the only rational way of solving the difficulty, he would not have cared to meet the man for whose return he had written.
“I fancy it will have to come to that in the end,” he said to his solicitor in reply to a remark from that gentleman, that the sooner Woodbrook passed into other hands the better it would be for every one, the General included, “but we must leave it for the son to decide.”
“I do not exactly see how the decision is to be left for so long a time,” remarked the lawyer. “There can be no question it is all a planned affair, and how any man’s adviser could permit such a deed to be signed baffles my comprehension.”
“Well, you must remember when a state of mortgage becomes chronic,” said the marquis, “people are apt to overlook symptoms that would strike a person to whom the disease is new. Besides which there was no choice as I imagine in the matter. An old mortgage had to be paid off, and under such circumstances it is not always easy for a man to dictate his own terms.”
To which words of wisdom, coming from a nobleman, the lawyer listened with deference and attention as in duty bound; but he held naturally to his own opinion nevertheless.
Here, then, the Rileys had arrived at a point where two roads met, and written on the finger-post in letters plain enough to those who could read were the words—To Ruin.
Where the other road led was not so clearly indicated. It puzzled Lord Ardmorne himself, though both long and clear-headed, to imagine what the end of it all would be. He could turn them out of the direct route to beggary, and he meant to do so, but whether the second path might not merely prove a round-about-way to the same end he was not prepared to assert.