The common people were notoriously attached to him.  Whether this was due to his natural kindliness, his real strength of intellect, and charm of manner, or whether it was on account of the uprightness with which he judged between them, or whether it was owing to all these things combined, certain it is that there was not a man on the estate that would not have died for him.  Certain it is, too, that he was beloved by the people of the entire district, and more especially by the shepherds of the hills, who were freer and less under the control of the patrician caste.  Instead of carrying disputes to the town, to be adjudged by the Prince’s authority, many were privately brought to him.

This, by degrees becoming known, excited the jealousy and anger of the Prince, an anger cunningly inflamed by the notary Francis, and by other nobles.  But they hesitated to execute anything against him lest the people should rise, and it was doubtful, indeed, if the very retainers of the nobles would attack the Old House, if ordered.  Thus the Baron’s weakness was his defence.  The Prince, to do him justice, soon forgot the matter, and laughed at his own folly, that he should be jealous of a man who was no more than an agriculturist.

The rest were not so appeased; they desired the Baron’s destruction if only from hatred of his popularity, and they lost no opportunity of casting discredit upon him, or of endeavouring to alienate the affections of the people by representing him as a magician, a thing clearly proved by his machines and engines, which must have been designed by some supernatural assistance.  But the chief, as the most immediate and pressing danger, was the debt to Francis the notary, which might at any moment be brought before the Court.

Thus it was that the three sons found themselves without money or position, with nothing but a bare patent of nobility.  The third and youngest alone had made any progress, if such it could be called.  By dint of his own persistent efforts, and by enduring insults and rebuffs with indifference, he had at last obtained an appointment in that section of the Treasury which received the dues upon merchandise, and regulated the imposts.  He was but a messenger at every man’s call; his pay was not sufficient to obtain his food, still it was an advance, and he was in a government office.  He could but just exist in the town, sleeping in a garret, where he stored the provisions he took in with him every Monday morning from the Old House.  He came home on the Saturday and returned to his work on the Monday.  Even his patience was almost worn out.

The whole place was thus falling to decay, while at the same time it seemed to be flowing with milk and honey, for under the Baron’s personal attention the estate, though so carelessly guarded, had become a very garden.  The cattle had increased, and were of the best kind, the horses were celebrated and sought for, the sheep valued, the crops the wonder of the province.  Yet there was no money; the product went to the notary.  This extraordinary fertility was the cause of the covetous longing of the Court favourites to divide the spoil.