The funeral had been very strange.  Augustus had refused to come and stand at his father’s grave.  “Considering all things, I had rather decline,” he had written to Mountjoy.  Other guests—­none were invited, except the tenants.  They came in a body, for the squire had been noted among them as a liberal landlord.

But a crowd of tenants does not in any way make up that look of family sorrow which is expected at the funeral of such a man as Mr. Scarborough.  Mountjoy was there, and stood through the ceremony speechless, and almost sullen.  He went down to the church behind the body with Merton, and then walked away from the ground without having uttered a syllable.  But during the ceremony he had seen that which caused him to be sullen.  Mr. Samuel Hart had been there, and Mr. Tyrrwhit.  And there was a man whom he called to his mind as connected with the names of Evans & Crooke, and Mr. Spicer, and Mr. Richard Juniper.  He knew them all as they stood there round the grave, not in decorous funeral array, but as strangers who had strayed into the cemetery.  He could not but feel, as he looked at them and they at him, that they had come to look after their interest,—­their heavy interest on the money which had been fraudulently repaid to them.  He knew that they had parted with their bonds.  But he knew also that almost all that was now his would have been theirs, had they not been cheated into believing that he, Mountjoy Scarborough, was not, and never would be, Scarborough of Tretton Park.  They said nothing as they stood there, and did not in any way interrupt the ceremony; but they looked at Mountjoy as they were standing, and their looks disconcerted him terribly.

He had declared that he would walk back to the house which was not above two miles distant from the graveyard, and therefore, when the funeral was over, there was no carriage to take him.  But he knew that the men would dog his steps as he walked.  He had only just got within the precincts of the park when he saw them all.  But Mr. Tyrrwhit was by himself, and came up to him.  “What are you going to do, Captain Scarborough,” he said, “as to our claims?”

“You have no claims of which I am aware,” he said roughly.

“Oh yes, Captain Scarborough; we have claims, certainly.  You’ve come up to the front lately with a deal of luck; I don’t begrudge it, for one; but I have claims,—­I and those other gentlemen; we have claims.  You’ll have to admit that.”

“Send in the documents.  Mr. Barry is acting as my lawyer; he is Mr. Grey’s partner, and is now taking the leading share in the business.”

“I know Mr. Barry well; a very sharp gentleman is Mr. Barry.”

“I cannot enter into conversation with yourself at such a time as this.”

“We are sorry to trouble you; but then our interests are so pressing.  What do you mean to do, Captain Scarborough?  That’s the question.”