of Farmer Caresfoot, which was its most respectable tenement, he
begged him to show him the Abbey house and the lands attached. It was
a dark November afternoon, and by the time the farmer and his wearied
guest had crossed the soaked lands and reached the great grey house,
the damps and shadows of the night had begun to curtain it and to
render its appearance, forsaken as it was, inexpressibly dreary and
lonesome.

"Damp here, my friend, is it not?" said Sir Charles with a shudder,
looking towards the lake, into which the rain was splashing.

"You are right, it be."

"And lonely too, now that the old monks have gone."

"Ay, but they do say that the house be mostly full of the spirits of
the dead," and the yeoman sank his voice to an awed whisper.

Sir Charles crossed himself and muttered, "I can well believe it," and
then, addressing his companion--

"You do not know of any man who would buy an abbey with all its rights
and franchises, do you, friend?"

"Not rightly, sir; the land be so poor it hath no heart in it; it doth
scarce repay the tillage, and what the house is you may see. The curse
of the monks is on it. But still, sir, if you have a mind to be rid of
the place, I have a little laid by and a natural love for the land,
having been bred on it, and taken the colour of my mind and my stubby
growth therefrom, and I will give you--" and this astutest of all the
Caresfoots whispered a very small sum into Sir Charles' ear.

"Your price is very small, good friend, it doth almost vanish into
nothing; and methinks the land that reared you cannot be so unkind as
you would have me think. The monks did not love bad land, but yet, if
thou hast it in the gold, I will take it; it will pay off a debt or
two, and I care not for the burden of the land."

And so Farmer Caresfoot became the lawful owner of Bratham Abbey with
its two advowsons, its royal franchises of treasure-trove and deodand,
and more than a thousand acres of the best land in Marlshire.

The same astuteness that had enabled this wise progenitor to acquire
the estate enabled his descendants to stick tightly to it, and though,
like other families, they had at times met with reverses, they never
lost their grip of the Abbey property. During the course of the first
half of the nineteenth century the land increased largely in value,
and its acreage was considerably added to by the father of the present
owner, a man of frugal mind, but with the family mania