“When my father was gone, then you came back to Up-Hill?”

“No:  I did not come back until you were in your fourth year.  Then my mother died, and I brought you home.  At the first moment you went straight to your grandfather’s heart; and that night, as you lay asleep upon his knee, I told him the truth, as I tell it to you this night.  And he said to me, ’Ducie, things have settled a bit lately.  The squire has got over his trouble about Launcie; and young William is the acknowledged heir, and the welcome heir.  He is going to marry Alice Morecombe at the long last, but it will make a big difference if Launcelot’s son steps in where nobody wants him.  Now, then,’ he said, ’I will tell thee a far better way.  We will give this dear lad my own name, none better in old Cumbria; and we will save gold, and we will make gold, to put it to the very front in the new times that are coming.  And he will keep my name on the face of the earth, and so please the great company of his kin behind him.  And it will be far better for him to be the top-sheaf of the Latriggs, than to force his way into Seat-Sandal, where there is neither love nor welcome for him.’

“And I thought the same thing, Stephen; and after that, our one care was to make you happy, and to do well to you.  That you were a born Sandal, was a great joy to him, for he loved your father and your grandfather; and, when Harry came, he loved him also, and he liked well to see you two on the fells together.  Often he called me to come and look at you going off with your rods or guns; and often he said, ’Both fine lads, Ducie, but our Steve is the finer.’”

“Oh, mother, I cannot take Harry’s place!  I love Harry, and I did not know how much until this hour”—­

“Stop a bit, Stephen.  When Harry grew up, and went into the army, your grandfather wasn’t so satisfied with what he had done.  ’Here’s a fine property going to sharpers and tailors and Italian singing-women,’ he used to say; and he felt baddish about it.  And yet he loved Squire William, as he had loved his father, and Mistress Alice and Harry and Sophia and Charlotte; why, he thought of them like his own flesh and blood.  And he could not bear to undo his kindness.  And he could not bear to tell Squire William the truth, for he knew well that he would undo it.  So one day he sent for Lawyer Moser; and the two of them together found out a plan that seemed fair, for both Sandal and Latrigg.

“You were to remain Stephen Latrigg, unless it was to ward off wrong or ruin in Sandal-Side.  But if ever the day came when Sandal needed Latrigg, you were to claim your right, and stand up for Sandal.  Such a state of things as Harry brought about, my father never dreamed of.  He would not have been able to think of a man selling away his right to a place like Seat-Sandal; and among all the villains he ever knew, or heard tell of, he couldn’t have picked out one to lead him to such a villain as Julius Sandal.  So, you see, he left no special directions for such a case, and I was a bit feared to move in too big a hurry; and, maybe, I was a bit of a coward about setting every tongue in Sandal-Side talking about me and my bygone days.