‘I like it of all things.  I am quite interested about the farm.’

’You’d get very sick of it if you were here in the winter.  The truth is that if you farm well, you must farm ugly.  The picturesque nooks and corners have all to be turned inside out, and the hedgerows must be abolished, because we want the sunshine.  Now, down at Belton, just above the house, we won’t mind farming well, but will stick to the picturesque.’

The new house was immediately commenced at Belton, and was made to proceed with all imaginable alacrity.  It was supposed at one time at least Belton himself said that he so supposed that the building would be ready for occupation at the end of the first summer; but this was not found to be possible.  ‘We must put it off till May, after all,’ said Belton, as he was walking round the unfinished building with Colonel Askerton.  ’It’s an awful bore, but there’s no getting people really to pull out in this country.’

’I think they’ve pulled out pretty well.  Of course you couldn’t have gone into a damp house for the winter.’

’Other people can get a house built within twelve months.  Look what they do in London.’

’And other people with their wives and children die in consequence of colds and sore throats and other evils of that nature.  I wouldn’t go into a new house, I know, till I was quite sure it was dry.’

As Will at this time was hardly ten months married, he was not as yet justified in thinking about his own wife and children; but he had already found it expedient to make arrangements for the autumn, which would prevent that annual visit to Plaistow which Clara had contemplated, and which he had regarded with his characteristic prudence as being subject to possible impediments.  He was to be absent himself for the first week in September, but was to return immediately after that.  This he did; and before the end of that month he was justified in talking of his wife and family.  ’I suppose it wouldn’t have done to have been moving now under all the circumstances,’ he said to his friend, Mrs Askerton, as he still grumbled about the unfinished house.

‘I don’t think it would have done at all, under all the circumstances,’ said Mrs Askerton.

But in the following spring or early summer they did get into the new house and a very nice house it was, as will, I think, be believed by those who have known Mr William Belton.  And when they were well settled, at which time little Will Belton was some seven or eight mouths old little Will, for whom great bonfires had been lit, as though his birth in those parts was a matter not to be regarded lightly; for was he not the first Belton of Belton who had been born there for more than a century? when that time came visitors appeared at the new Belton Castle, visitors of importance, who were entitled to, and who received, great consideration.  These were no less than Captain Aylmer, Member for Perivale, and his newly-married bride, Lady Emily Aylmer,