seat of the Macraes, a clan in relatively modern times,
say 1745, rather wild, impoverished, and dirty; but Mr. Macrae, the great
Canadian millionaire, had bought the old place, with many thousands of
acres 'where victual never grew.'

Though a landlord in the Highlands he was beloved, for he was the friend
of crofters, as rent was no object to him, and he did not particularly
care for sport. He accepted the argument, dear to the Celt, that salmon
are ground game, and free to all, while the natives were allowed to use
ancient flint-locked fusils on his black cocks. Mr. Macrae was a
thoroughly generous man, and a tall, clean-shaved, graceful personage.
His public gifts were large. He had just given 500,000_l_. to Oxford to
endow chairs and students of Psychical Research, while the rest of the
million was bestowed on Cambridge, to supply teaching in Elementary
Logic. His way of life was comfortable, but simple, except where the
comforts of science and modern improvements were concerned. There were
lifts, or elevators, now in the castle of Skrae, though Blake always went
by the old black corkscrew staircases, holding on by the guiding rope,
after the poetical manner of our ancestors.

On a knowe which commanded the castle, in a manner that would have pained
Sir Dugald Dalgetty, Mr. Macrae had erected, not a 'sconce,' but an
observatory, with a telescope that 'licked the Lick thing,' as he said.
Indeed it was his foible 'to see the Americans and go one better,' and he
spoke without tolerance of the late boss American millionaire, the
celebrated J. P. van Huytens, recently deceased.

Duke Humphrey greater wealth computes,
And sticks, they say, at nothing,

sings the poet. Mr. Macrae computed greater wealth than Mr. van Huytens,
though avoiding ostentation; he did not

Wear a pair of golden boots,
And silver underclothing.

The late J. P. van Huytens he regarded with moral scorn. This rival
millionaire had made his wealth by the process (apparently peaceful and
horticultural) of 'watering stocks,' and by the seemingly misplaced
generosity of overcapitalising enterprises, and 'grabbing side shows.'
The nature of these and other financial misdemeanours Merton did not
understand. But he learned from Mr. Macrae that thereby J. P. van
Huytens had scooped in the widow, the orphan, the clergyman, and the
colonel. The two men had met in the most exclusive circles of American
society; with the young van Hu