ered, "Still, grandfather, mother's
MacBryde money has paid off a good many Raincy--encumbrances, don't you
call them here?--mortgages is the name for them in England! And more
than that, don't go back and worry mother about these old cow-pastures.
You know you are really very fond of her. As for me, I may not be a real
Raincy, for I was born to do something in life, not to idle through it.
You won't let me go into the navy, and fight as a man ought. If I go
into the army, we shall have mother in a permanent fit. So I must just
stop on and lend a hand where I can, till I am old enough to turn out
that thief of an estate agent of yours and do something to help
you--really, I mean!"

"Remember you are a Raincy by name, whatever you may be by nature," said
the old man. Suddenly the boy stood up straight and firm before him,
with a dourness on his face which was clearly not akin to the swoop and
dash of his vulturine grandfather.

"If you don't let me do as I like here--do something real which will
show that I have not been to school and the university for nothing, I
shall go straight to the ship-building yard and get my uncle, mother's
brother David, to take me on as an apprentice! We still own enough of
the business to make him ready to do that."

Like one who hears and rebukes blasphemy, the old man made a gesture of
despair with his hands, as though abandoning his grandson to his own
evil courses, and then turned on his heel and walked slowly away towards
the Castle.

* * * * *

With a sigh of relief the young man stretched himself luxuriously out on
the broad triple plank of the stile, and drew from his pocket a brass
spy-glass which he had been itching to make use of for the past ten
minutes. He also had his reasons for being interested in the Ferris
properties which lay beneath him, every field and dyke and hedgerow,
every curve of coast and curvet of breaking wave as clear and near as if
he could have touched them merely by reaching out his finger. But Louis
Raincy nourished no historical wraths nor feudal jealousies.

"I am sorry the old fellow is savage with me," he muttered as he looked
about to make sure that his grandfather was not turning round to forgive
him. "I'm sure I don't mean to make him angry. I promise mother every
day. But why he wants to be for ever trotting out a grievance four
hundred years old--hang me if I see. Anyway, Dame Comfort will soon put
him all righ