But it suddenly and sharply struck him how very few other associations he possessed with these places spread below him in the declining August sunshine.  He had not owned Flood more than fifteen years—­enough however to lose it in!  And he had succeeded a father who had been the beloved head of the county, a just and liberal landlord, a man of scrupulous kindness and honour, for whom everybody had a friendly word.  His ruined son on the moorside thought with wonder and envy of his father’s popular arts, which yet were no arts.  For himself he confessed,—­aware as he was, this afternoon, of the presence in his mind of a new and strange insight with regard to his own life and past, as though he were writing his own obituary—­that the people living in these farms and villages had meant little more to him than the troublesome conditions on which he enjoyed the pleasures of the Flood estates, the great income he drew from them, and the sport for which they were famous.  He had his friends among the farmers of course, though they were few.  There were men who had cringed to him, and whom he had rewarded.  And Laura had given away plentifully in the villages.  But his chief agent he knew had been a hard man and a careless one; and he had always loathed the trouble of looking after him.  Again and again he had been appealed to, as against his agent; and he had not even answered the letters.  He had occasionally done some public duties; he had allowed himself to be placed on the County Council, but had hardly ever attended meetings; he had taken the chair and made a speech occasionally, when it would have cost him more effort to refuse than to accept; and those portions of the estate which adjoined the castle were in fairly good repair.  But on the remoter farms, and especially since his financial resources had begun to fail, he knew very well that there were cottages and farm-houses in a scandalous state, on which not a farthing had been spent for years.

No, it could not be said he had played a successful part as a landowner.  He had meant no harm to anybody.  He had been simply idle and preoccupied; and that in a business where, under modern conditions, idleness is immoral.  He was quite conscious that there were good men, frugal men, kind and God-fearing men, landlords like himself, though on a much smaller scale, in that tract of country under his feet, who felt bitterly towards him, who judged him severely, who would be thankful to see the last of him, and to know that the land had passed into other and better hands.  Fifty-two years of life lived in that northern Vale of Eden; and what was there to show for them?—­in honest work done, in peace of conscience, in friends?  Now that the pictures were sold, there would be just enough to pay everybody, with a very little over.  There was some comfort in that.  He would have ruined nobody but himself and Duggy.  Poor Laura would be quite comfortable on her own money, and would give him house-room no doubt—­till the end.