Mr. Bolton lived in a large red-brick house, in the village of Chesterton, near to Cambridge, which, with a large garden, was surrounded by an old, high, dark-coloured brick-wall.  He rarely saw any company; and there were probably not many of the more recently imported inhabitants of the town who had ever been inside the elaborate iron gates by which the place was to be approached.  He had been a banker all his life, and was still reported to be the senior partner in Bolton’s bank.  But the management of the concern had, in truth, been given up to his two elder sons.  His third son was a barrister in London, and a fourth was settled in Cambridge as a solicitor.  These men were all married, and were doing well in the world, living in houses better than their father’s, and spending a great deal more money.  Mr. Bolton had the name of being a hard man, because, having begun life in small circumstances, he had never learned to chuck his shillings about easily; but he had, in a most liberal manner, made over the bulk of his fortune to his sons; and though he himself could rarely be got to sit at their tables, he took delight in hearing that they lived bounteously with their friends.  He had been twice married, and there now lived with him his second wife and a daughter, Hester,—­a girl about sixteen years of age at the period of John Caldigate’s visit to Puritan Grange, as Mr. Bolton’s house was called.  At this time Puritan Grange was not badly named; for Mrs. Bolton was a lady of stern life, and Hester Bolton was brought up with more of seclusion and religious observances than are now common in our houses.

Mr. Bolton was probably ten years older than the Squire of Folking; but circumstances had, in early life, made them fast friends.  The old Squire had owed a large sum of money to the bank, and Mr. Bolton had then been attracted by the manner in which the son had set himself to work, so that he might not be a burden on the estate.  They had been fast friends for a quarter of a century, and now the arrangement of terms between the present Squire and his son had been left to Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Bolton had, no doubt, received a very unfavourable account of the young man.  Men, such as was Mr. Bolton, who make their money by lending it out at recognised rates of interest,—­and who are generally very keen in looking after their principal,—­have no mercy whatsoever for the Davises of creation, and very little for their customers.  To have had dealings with a Davis is condemnation in their eyes.  Mr. Bolton would not, therefore, have opened his gates to this spendthrift had not his feelings for the father been very strong.  He had thought much upon the matter, and had tried hard to dissuade the Squire.  He, the banker, was not particularly attached to the theory of primogeniture.  He had divided his wealth equally between his own sons.  But he had a strong idea as to property and its rights.  The young man’s claim to Folking after his father’s