treatment.  As for the estate, he was not at all sure whether it would not be better for the community at large, and for the Caldigate family in particular, that it should be cut up and sold in small parcels.  There was a long correspondence between him and his brother, which was ended by his declaring that he did not wish to see any of the family just at present at Folking.  He was low in spirits, and would prefer to be alone.

He was very low in spirits and completely alone.  All those who knew anything about him,—­and they were very few, the tenants, perhaps, and servants, and old Mr. Bolton,—­were of opinion that he had torn his son out from all place in his heart, had so thoroughly disinherited the sinner, not only from his house and acres, but from his love, that they did not believe him capable of suffering from regret.  But even they knew very little of the man.  As he wandered about alone among the dikes, as he sat alone among his books, even as he pored over the volumes which were always in his hand, he was ever mourning and moaning over his desolation.  His wife and daughters had been taken from him by the hand of God;—­but how had it come to pass that he had also lost his son, that son who was all that was left to him?  When he had first heard of those dealings with Davis, while John was amusing himself with the frivolities of Babington, he had been full of wrath, and had declared to himself that the young man must be expelled, if not from all affection, yet from all esteem.  And he had gone on to tell himself that it would be unprofitable for him to live with a son whom he did not esteem.  Then it had come to pass that, arguing it out in his own mind, rationally, as he had thought, but still under the impulse of hot anger, he had determined that it was better that they should part, even though the parting should be for ever.  But now he had almost forgotten Davis,—­had turned the matter over in his mind till he had taught himself to think that the disruption had been altogether his son’s work, and in no degree his own.  His son had not loved him.  He had not been able to inspire his son with love.  He was solitary and wretched because he had been harsh and unforgiving.  That was his own judgment as to himself.  But he never said a word of his feelings to any human being.

John had promised to write.  The promise had not been very enthusiastically given; but still, as the months went by it was constantly remembered.  The young man, after leaving Cambridgeshire, had remained some weeks at the Shands’ house before he had started;—­and from thence he had not written.  The request had been that he should write from Australia, and the correspondence between him and his father had always been so slight, that it had not occurred to him to write from Pollington.  But Mr. Caldigate had,—­not expected, but hoped that a letter might come at the last moment.  He knew to a day, to an hour, when the vessel would sail from Plymouth.  There might have been a letter from Plymouth, but no letter came.  And then the months went by slowly.  The son did not write from Melbourne, nor from Nobble,—­nor from Ahalala till gold had been found.  So it came to pass that nearly eight months had passed, and that the father had told himself again and again that his son had torn himself altogether away from all remembrance of his home, before the letter came.