"In a word, Lord Fylingdale is getting through Molly's property."
"Worse than that; he is throwing it away. Sir, I wake in the night with dreams of terror. I think I see a man plunging his hands into a sack of gold and throwing it about with both hands. I have been ordered to foreclose mortgages, to sell houses, to sell farms, to sell everything. When I cannot find a purchaser there come letters from my lord's attorneys, Bisse and Son—the young man was here himself with peremptory orders to find a purchaser—any purchaser. Money must be had."
"Well, there will be, I suppose, an end some time or other."
"The end will come before we look for it. Because, Mr. Pentecrosse, while the profusion goes on the estate grows less, and it becomes more difficult every day to answer their demands."
"What is left?"
"I hear that Miss Molly's jewels were carried away by the young man. I hope he was honest, and kept none for himself. I know that the captain had a large sum of money in his strong room waiting for a mortgage; that went away with the young man. Since then I have sent up all the money as it came in. I have foreclosed the mortgages. Some of the mortgagors could not pay, and are now bankrupt. The captain would never press his people so long as they paid the interest. I have been able to sell some of the farms; but you know this country, Mr. Pentecrosse; there is not much money among the gentry of these parts; they have been sold at a sacrifice; I have others in the market; there are houses, also, but no one will buy them. Well, all will soon be gone. Then there will remain but one asset out of all the magnificent property of the work of three generations. Miss Molly's grandfather, and her father, and herself by means of the captain—only one asset."
"What is that?"
"And soon that will go, too," he replied with a hollow groan. "Sir, it is the noble fleet and the great business which belongs to the fleet. If the ships are sold——"
Suddenly I remembered my lord's question on board The Lady of Lynn. "Can," he asked, "a ship be sold like an estate of land?"
"They will be sold," I said, confidently. "You may look to have them sold as soon as the other assets are expended. The last thing to be sold will be the fleet of ships, and the business which belongs to the ships."