to him as a fact, that he could
be happy in preparing no other home for his son than this old family
house of his, with all its acres, woods, and homesteads. The acres,
woods, and homesteads gave to him no delight, feeling as he did every
hour of his life that they were not his own for purposes of a real
usufruct. Then by degrees he had heard of his nephew's follies, and
the idea had come upon him that he might buy his nephew out. Ralph,
his own Ralph, had told him that the idea was cruel; but he could not
see the cruelty. "What a bad man loses a good man will get," he said;
"and surely it must be better for all those who are to live by the
property that a good man should be the master of it." He would not
interfere, nor would he have any power of interfering, till others
would interfere were he to keep aloof. The doings would be the doings
of that spendthrift heir, and none of his. When Ralph would tell him
that he was cruel, he would turn away in wrath; but hiding his wrath,
because he loved his son. But now everything was set right, and his
son had had the doing of it.

He was nearly mad with joy throughout that day as he thought of the
great thing which he had accomplished. He was alone in the house, for
his son was still in London, and during the last few months guests
had been unfrequent at the Priory. But he did not wish to have
anybody with him now. He went out, roaming through the park, and
realising to himself the fact that now, at length, the very trees
were his own. He gazed at one farmhouse after another, not seeking
the tenants, hardly speaking to them if he met them, but with his
brain full of plans of what should be done. He saw Gregory for a
moment, but only nodded at him smiling, and passed on. He was not in
a humour just at present to tell his happiness to any one. He walked
all round Darvell's premises, the desolate, half-ruined house of
Brumbys, telling himself that very shortly it should be desolate and
half-ruined no longer. Then he crossed into the lane, and stood with
his eyes fixed upon Brownriggs,--Walker's farm, the pearl of all the
farms in those parts, the land with which he thought he could have
parted so easily when the question before him was that of becoming in
truth the owner of any portion of the estate. But now, every acre was
ten times dearer to him than it had been then. He would never part
with Brownriggs. He would even save Ingram's farm, in Twining, if
it might possibly be save