Yesterday, this estate had belonged to Sir Simon Ballard. To-day, Sir Simon was its sole remaining occupant. But the rebels had hanged him by the neck, and he was dead.
Falstaff groaned piteously.
“Rouse, man, rouse!” said the Fleming. “Surely this is not your castle?”
“It’s—it’s—” sobbed Jack, spasmodically; “it’s one of them!!!”
Then, falling upon his knees before the corpse of his old enemy, he clasped his hands, and exclaimed, piteously,
“My poor uncle! my poor uncle George! And is this the reward for your devotion to my interests?”
The two merchants led him away compassionately.
For several roods they passed through the crops and woodlands of the ill-fated Ballard. The rebels had spared nothing.
“You see, gentlemen,” said Falstaff, appealing to the devastation on either hand, “to what they have reduced me.”
There could be no harm in Jack’s assuming right of property in the defunct Ballard’s possessions. In the first place, those possessions were no longer particularly worth having. In the second, it were unreasonable to suppose that their late proprietor could possibly have any further use for them.