hat
they might remain there; and no doubt he knew that without repeated
entails they would not have remained there. But still he had hated the
thing, and as years rolled on he came to think that the entail now
existing would do an especial evil.

His son on leaving school spent almost the whole four months between
that time and the beginning of his first term at Cambridge with the
Babingtons. This period included the month of September, and afforded
therefore much partridge shooting,--than which nothing was meaner in the
opinion of the Squire of Folking. When a short visit was made to
Folking, the father was sarcastic and disagreeable; and then, for the
first time, John Caldigate showed himself to be possessed of a power of
reply which was peculiarly disagreeable to the old man. This had the
effect of cutting down the intended allowance of L250 to L220 per annum,
for which sum the father had been told that his son could live like a
gentleman at the University. This parsimony so disgusted uncle
Babington, who lived on the other side of the county, within the borders
of Suffolk, that he insisted on giving his nephew a hunter, and an
undertaking to bear the expense of the animal as long as John should
remain at the University. No arrangement could have been more foolish.
And that last visit made by John to Babington House for the two days
previous to his Cambridge career was in itself most indiscreet. The
angry father would not take upon himself to forbid it, but was worked up
by it to perilous jealousy. He did not scruple to declare aloud that old
Humphrey Babington was a thick-headed fool; nor did Humphrey Babington,
who, with his ten or twelve thousand a-year, was considerably involved,
scruple to say that he hated such cheese-paring ways. John Caldigate
felt more distaste to the cheese-paring ways than he did to his uncle's
want of literature.

Such was the beginning of the rupture which took place before the time
had come for John to take his degree. When that time came he had a
couple of hunters at Cambridge, played in the Cambridge eleven, and
rowed in one of the Trinity boats. He also owed something over L800 to
the regular tradesmen of the University, and a good deal more to other
creditors who were not 'regular.' During the whole of this time his
visits to Folking had been short and few. The old squire had become more
and more angry, and not the less so because he was sensible of a
non-performance of duty on hi