“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 for the collection of all sorts of plate strongly developed.  But it was Philip’s father, “Devil Caresfoot,” who had, during his fifty years’ tenure of the property, raised the family to its present opulent condition, firstly, by a strict attention to business and the large accumulations resulting from his practice of always living upon half his income, and secondly, by his marriage late in middle life with Miss Bland, the heiress of the neighbouring Isleworth estates, that stretched over some two thousand acres of land.

This lady, who was Philip’s mother, did not live long to enjoy her wealth and station.  Her husband never spoke a rough word to her, and yet it is no exaggeration to say that she died of fear of him.  The marriage had been one of convenience, not of affection; indeed poor Anna Bland had secretly admired the curate at Isleworth, and hated Mr. Caresfoot and his glittering eye.  But she married him for all that, to feel that till she died that glance was always playing round her like a rapier in the hands of a skilled fencer.  And very soon she did die, Mr. Caresfoot receiving her last words and wishes with