And then he started the horse on again, reflecting on the unpleasant nature of the business before him. Personally he both liked and respected the old Squire, and he certainly pitied him, though he would no more have dreamed of allowing his liking and pity to interfere with the prosecution of his schemes, than an ardent sportsman would dream of not shooting pheasants because he had happened to take a friendly interest in their nurture. He had also a certain gentlemanlike distaste to being the bearer of crushing bad news, for Mr. Quest disliked scenes, possibly because he had such an intimate personal acquaintance with them. Whilst he was still wondering how he might best deal with the matter, he passed over the moat and through the ancient gateway which he admired so fervently, and found himself in front of the hall door. Here he pulled up, looking about for somebody to take his horse, when suddenly the Squire himself emerged upon him with a rush.
“Hullo, Quest, is that you?” he shouted, as though his visitor had been fifty yards off instead of five. “I have been looking out for you. Here, William! William!” (crescendo), “William!” (fortissimo), “where on earth is the boy? I expect that idle fellow, George, has been sending him on some of his errands instead of attending to them himself. Whenever he is wanted to take a horse he is nowhere to be found, and then it is 'Please, sir, Mr. George,’ that’s what he calls him, ‘Please, sir, Mr. George sent me up to the Moat Farm or somewhere to see how many eggs the hens laid last week,’ or something of the sort. That’s a very nice horse you have got there, by the way, very nice indeed.”
“It is not my horse, Mr. de la Molle,” said the lawyer, with a faint smile, “it is Mr. Edward Cossey’s.”
“Oh! it’s Mr. Edward Cossey’s, is it?” answered the old gentleman with a sudden change of voice. “Ah, Mr. Edward Cossey’s? Well, it’s a very good horse anyhow, and I suppose that Mr. Cossey can afford to buy good horses.”
Just then a faint cry of “Coming, sir, coming,” was heard, and a long hobble-de-hoy kind of youth, whose business it was to look after the not extensive Castle stables, emerged in a great heat from round the corner of the house.
“Now, where on earth have you been?” began the Squire, in a stentorian tone.
“If you please, sir, Mr. George——”
“There, what did I tell you?” broke in the Squire. “Have I not told you time after time that you are to mind your own business, and leave ‘Mr. George’ to mind his? Now take that horse round to the stables, and see that it is properly fed.
“Come, Quest, come in. We have a quarter of an hour before luncheon, and can get our business over,” and he led the way through the passage into the tapestried and panelled vestibule, where he took his stand before the empty fireplace.
Mr. Quest followed him, stopping, ostensibly to admire a particularly fine suit of armour which hung upon the wall, but really to gain another moment for reflection.
“A beautiful suit of the early Stuart period, Mr. de la Molle,” he said; “I never saw a better.”
“Yes, yes, that belonged to old Sir James, the one whom the Roundheads shot.”
“What! the Sir James who hid the treasure?”
“Yes. I was telling that story to our new neighbour, Colonel Quaritch, last night—a very nice fellow, by the way; you should go and call upon him.”
“I wonder what he did with it,” said Mr. Quest.
“Ah, so do I, and so will many another, I dare say. I wish that I could find it, I’m sure. It’s wanted badly enough now-a-days. But that reminds me, Quest. You will have gathered my difficulty from my note and what George told you. You see this man Janter—thanks to that confounded fellow, Major Boston, and his action about those College Lands—has thrown up the Moat Farm, and George tells me that there is not another tenant to be had for love or money. In fact, you know what it is, one can’t get tenants now-a-days, they simply are not to be had. Well, under these circumstances, there is, of course, only one thing to be done that I know of, and that is to take the farm in hand and farm it myself. It is quite impossible to let the place fall out of cultivation—and that is what would happen otherwise, for if I were to lay it down in grass it would cost a considerable sum, and be seven or eight years before I got any return.”
The Squire paused and Mr. Quest said nothing.
“Well,” he went on, “that being so, the next thing to do is to obtain the necessary cash to pay Janter his valuation and stock the place—about four thousand would do it, or perhaps,” he added, with an access of generous confidence, “we had better say five. There are about fifty acres of those low-lying meadows which want to be thoroughly bush drained—bushes are quite as good as pipes for that stiff land, if they put in the right sort of stuff, and it don’t cost half so much—but still it can’t be done for nothing, and then there is a new wagon shed wanted, and some odds and ends; yes, we had better say five thousand.”
Still Mr. Quest made no answer, so once more the Squire went on.
“Well, you see, under these circumstances—not being able to lay hands upon the necessary capital from my private resources, of course I have made up my mind to apply to Cossey and Son for the loan. Indeed, considering how long and intimate has been the connection between their house and the de la Molle family, I think it right and proper to do so; indeed, I should consider it very wrong of me if I neglected to give them the opportunity of the investment”—here a faint smile flickered for an instant on Mr. Quest’s face and then went out—“of course they will, as a matter of business, require security, and very properly so, but as this estate is unentailed, there will fortunately be very little difficulty about that. You can draw up the necessary deeds, and I think that under the circumstances the right thing to do would be to charge the Moat Farm specifically with the amount. Things are bad enough, no doubt, but I can hardly suppose it possible under any conceivable circumstances that the farm would not be good for five thousand pounds. However, they might perhaps prefer to have a general clause as well, and if it is so, although I consider it quite unnecessary, I shall raise no objection to that course.”
Then at last Mr. Quest broke his somewhat ominous silence.
“I am very sorry to say, Mr. de la Molle,” he said gently, “that I can hold out no prospect of Cossey and Son being induced, under any circumstances, to advance another pound upon the security of the Honham Castle estates. Their opinion of the value of landed property as security has received so severe a shock, that they are not at all comfortable as to the safety of the amount already invested.”
Mr. de la Molle started when he heard this most unexpected bit of news, for which he was totally unprepared. He had always found it possible to borrow money, and it had never occurred to him that a time might perhaps come in this country, when the land, which he held in almost superstitious veneration, would be so valueless a form of property that lenders would refuse it as security.
“Why,” he said, recovering himself, “the total encumbrances on the property do not amount to more than twenty-five thousand pounds, and when I succeeded to my father, forty years ago, it was valued at fifty, and the Castle and premises have been thoroughly repaired since then at a cost of five thousand, and most of the farm buildings too.”
“Very possibly, de la Molle, but to be honest, I very much doubt if Honham Castle and the lands round it would now fetch twenty-five thousand pounds on a forced sale. Competition and Radical agitation have brought estates down more than people realise, and land in Australia and New Zealand is now worth almost as much per acre as cultivated lands in England. Perhaps as a residential property and on account of its historical interest it might fetch more, but I doubt it. In short, Mr. de la Molle, so anxious are Cossey and Son in the matter, that I regret to have to tell you that so