"I don't know why you should, father. He is well educated, and has been brought up, as you know, quite respectably."
"Educated beyond his station. It's a mistake, and will lead to trouble in the long-run. But what did he say to you?"
"I met him as he was walking into St. Goram, and he told me how they had taken a little cottage, and were going to move into it next day—that was yesterday. Then, of course, all the story came out, how the vicar's son was the last 'life' on their little farm, and how, when he died, the farm became the ground landlord's."
"And what did he say about the ground landlord?" he questioned.
"I don't remember his words very well, but he seemed most bitter, because he had let the farm over their heads, without giving them a chance of being tenants."
"Well?"
"I told him I thought it was a very cruel thing to do. Law is not everything. David Penlogan had put all his savings into the farm, had reclaimed the fields from the wilderness, and built the house with his own money, and the lord of the manor had done nothing, and never spent a penny-piece on it, and yet, because the chances of life had gone against David, he comes in and takes possession—demands, like Shylock, his pound of flesh, and actually turns the poor man out of house and home! I told Ralph Penlogan that it was wicked—at least, if I did not tell him, I felt it—and, I am sure, father, you must feel the same."
Sir John laughed a short, hard laugh.
"What is the use of the law, Dorothy," he said, "unless it is kept? It is no use getting sentimental because somebody is hanged."
"But surely, father, our duty to our neighbour is not to get all we can out of him?"