You might as
well stay for another week," Mountjoy had said to him. But Merton had
felt that he could not remain at Tretton without some especial duty, and
he too went his way.

The funeral had been very strange. Augustus had refused to come and
stand at his father's grave. "Considering all things, I had rather
decline," he had written to Mountjoy. Other guests--none were invited,
except the tenants. They came in a body, for the squire had been noted
among them as a liberal landlord.

But a crowd of tenants does not in any way make up that look of family
sorrow which is expected at the funeral of such a man as Mr.
Scarborough. Mountjoy was there, and stood through the ceremony
speechless, and almost sullen. He went down to the church behind the
body with Merton, and then walked away from the ground without having
uttered a syllable. But during the ceremony he had seen that which
caused him to be sullen. Mr. Samuel Hart had been there, and Mr.
Tyrrwhit. And there was a man whom he called to his mind as connected
with the names of Evans & Crooke, and Mr. Spicer, and Mr. Richard
Juniper. He knew them all as they stood there round the grave, not in
decorous funeral array, but as strangers who had strayed into the
cemetery. He could not but feel, as he looked at them and they at him,
that they had come to look after their interest,--their heavy interest on
the money which had been fraudulently repaid to them. He knew that they
had parted with their bonds. But he knew also that almost all that was
now his would have been theirs, had they not been cheated into believing
that he, Mountjoy Scarborough, was not, and never would be, Scarborough
of Tretton Park. They said nothing as they stood there, and did not in
any way interrupt the ceremony; but they looked at Mountjoy as they
were standing, and their looks disconcerted him terribly.

He had declared that he would walk back to the house which was not above
two miles distant from the graveyard, and therefore, when the funeral
was over, there was no carriage to take him. But he knew that the men
would dog his steps as he walked. He had only just got within the
precincts of the park when he saw them all. But Mr. Tyrrwhit was by
himself, and came up to him. "What are you going to do, Captain
Scarborough," he said, "as to our claims?"

"You have no claims of which I am aware," he said roughly.

"Oh yes, Captain Scarborough; we have claims, certainly. You've come up
to the fro