The reason of it none knew, or how his estate had come to be impoverished, as beyond doubt it was.  Here again he showed himself unlike the rest of men, in that he let the stress of poverty fall first upon himself, next upon his household, last of all upon his tenants and other dependants.  After my mother’s death he cut down his own charges (the cellar only excepted) to the last penny, shut himself off in a couple of rooms, slept in a camp bed, wore an old velveteen coat in winter and in summer a fisherman’s smock, ate frugally, and would have drunk beer or even water had not his stomach abhorred them both.  Of wine he drank in moderation—­that is to say, for him, since his temperance would have sent nine men out of ten under the table—­and of the best.  He had indeed a large and obstinate dignity in his drinking.  It betrayed, even as his carriage betrayed beneath his old coat, a king in exile.

Yet while he pinched himself with these economies, he drew no strings—­or drew them tenderly—­upon the expenses and charities of a good landlord.  The fences rotted around his own park and pleasure-grounds, but his tenants’ fences, walls, roofs stood in more than moderate repair, nor (although my uncle Gervase groaned over the accounts) would an abatement of rent be denied, the appeal having been weighed and found to be reasonable.  The rain—­which falls alike upon the just and the unjust—­beat through his own roof, but never through the labourer’s thatch; and Mrs. Nance, the cook, who hated beggars, might not without art and secrecy dismiss a single beggar unfed.  His religion he told to no man, but believed the practice of worship to be good for all men, and regularly encouraged it by attending church on Sundays and festivals.  He and the vicar ruled our parish together in amity, as fellow-Christians and rival anglers.

Now, all these apparent contrarieties in my father flowed in fact from a very rare simplicity, and this simplicity again had its origin in his lineage, which was something more than royal.

On the Cornish shore of the Tamar River, which divides Cornwall from Devon, and a little above Saltash, stands the country church of Landulph, so close by the water that the high tides wash by its graveyard wall.  Within the church you will find a mural tablet of brass thus inscribed—­

“Here lyeth the body of Theodoro Paleologvs of Pesaro in Italye, descended from ye Imperyall lyne of ye last Christian Emperors of Greece being the sonne of Camilio ye sonne of Prosper the sonne of Theodoro the sonne of John ye sonne of Thomas second brother to Constantine Paleologvs, the 8th of that name and last of yt lyne yt raygned in Constantinople vntill svbdewed by the Tvrks who married with Mary ye davghter of William Balls of Hadlye in Svffolke gent & had issve 5 children Theodoro John Ferdinando Maria & Dorothy & dep’ted this life at Clyfton ye 21th of Ianvary 1636”

Above these words the tablet bears an eagle engraved