7,000 pounds a year.  Certain lands not lying either in Bragton or Mallingham were sold, and that difficulty was surmounted, not without a considerable diminution of income.  In process of time the grandson, who was a second John Morton, grew up and married, and became the father of a third John Morton, the young man who afterwards became owner of the property and Secretary of Legation at Washington.  But the old squire outlived his son and his grandson, and when he died had three or four great-grand-children playing about the lawns of Bragton Park.  The peer’s daughter had lived, and had for many years drawn a dower from the Bragton property, and had been altogether a very heavy incumbrance.

But the great trial of the old man’s life, as also the great romance, had arisen from the career of his second son, Reginald.  Of all his children, Reginald had been the dearest to him.  He went to Oxford, and had there spent much money; not as young men now spend money, but still to an extent that had been grievous to the old squire.  But everything was always paid for Reginald.  It was necessary, of course, that he should have a profession, and he took a commission in the army.  As a young man he went to Canada.  This was in 1829, when all the world was at peace, and his only achievement in Canada was to marry a young woman who is reported to have been pretty and good, but who had no advantages either of fortune or birth.  She was, indeed, the daughter of a bankrupt innkeeper in Montreal.  Soon after this he sold out and brought his wife home to Bragton.  It was at this period of the squire’s life that the romance spoken of occurred.  John Morton, the brother with the aristocratic wife, was ten or twelve years older than Reginald, and at this time lived chiefly at Bragton when he was not in town.  He was, perhaps, justified in regarding Bragton as almost belonging to him, knowing as he did that it must belong to him after his father’s lifetime, and to his son after him.  His anger against his brother was hot, and that of his wife still hotter.  He himself had squandered thousands, but then he was the heir.  Reginald, who was only a younger brother, had sold his commission.  And then he had done so much more than this!  He had married a woman who was not a lady!  John was clearly of opinion that at any rate the wife should not be admitted into Bragton House.  The old squire in those days was not a happy man; he had never been very strong-minded, but now he was strong enough to declare that his house-door should not be shut against a son of his,—­or a son’s wife, as long as she was honest.  Hereupon the Honourable Mrs. Morton took her departure, and was never seen at Bragton again in the old squire’s time.  Reginald Morton came to the house, and soon afterwards another little Reginald was born at Bragton Park.  This happened as long ago as 1835, twenty years before the death of the old squire.