He carried on the fight for a good many years, becoming more and more involved, until his creditors took possession of the estate, sold off the stock, let the farms, and succeeded in finding a tenant for the furnished house.  He went to a cottage in the village and there passed his remaining years.  To the world he appeared unmoved by his reverses.  The change from mansion and park to a small thatched cottage, with a labourer’s wife for attendant, made no change in the man, nor did he resign his seat on the Bench of Magistrates or any other unpaid office he held.  To the last he was what he had always been, formal and ceremonious, more gracious to those beneath him than to equals; strict in the performance of his duties, living with extreme frugality and giving freely to those in want, and very regular in his attendance at church, where he would sit facing the tombs and memorials of his ancestors, among the people but not of them—­a man alone and apart, respected by all but loved by none.

Finally he died and was buried with the others, and one more memorial with the old name, which he bore last was placed on the wall.  That was the story as it was told me, and as it was all about a man who was without charm and had no love interest it did not greatly interest me, and I soon dismissed it from my thoughts.  Then one day coming through a grove in the park and finding myself standing before the ancient, empty, desolate house—­for on the squire’s death everything had been sold and taken away—­I remembered that the caretaker had begged me to let him show me over the place.  I had not felt inclined to gratify him, as I had found him a young man of a too active mind whose only desire was to capture some person to talk to and unfold his original ideas and schemes, but now having come to the house I thought I would suffer him, and soon found him at work in the vast old walled garden.  He joyfully threw down his spade and let me in and then up to the top floor, determined that I should see everything.  By the time we got down to the ground floor I was pretty tired of empty rooms, oak panelled, and passages and oak staircases, and of talk, and impatient to get away.  But no, I had not seen the housekeeper’s room—­I must see that!—­and so into another great vacant room I was dragged, and to keep me as long as possible in that last room he began unlocking and flinging open all the old oak cupboards and presses.  Glancing round at the long array of empty shelves, I noticed a small brown-paper parcel, thick with dust, in a corner, and as it was the only movable thing I had seen in that vacant house I asked him what the parcel contained.  Books, he replied—­they had been left as of no value when the house was cleared of furniture.  As I wished to see the books he undid the parcel; it contained forty copies of a small quarto-shaped book of sonnets, with the late squire’s name as author on the title page.  I read a sonnet, and told him I should like to read them all.