"
"There's not much to tell," he answered, taking a chair; "and I'm not
the man to tell it properly. My wife is a better hand at it, but"--
here he looked at me doubtfully--"it always makes her cry."
"Then I'd rather hear it from you. How did Tremenhuel come into the
hands of the Parkyns?--that's the present owner's name, is it not?"
The landlord nodded. "The answer to that is part of the story.
Old Parkyn, great-great-grandfather to the one that lives there now,
took Tremenhuel on lease from the last Cardinnock--Squire Philip
Cardinnock, as he was called. Squire Philip came into the property when
he was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forced
to let the old place. He was wild, they say--thundering wild; a
drinking, dicing, cock-fighting, horse-racing young man; poured out his
money like water through a sieve. That was bad enough: but when it came
to carrying off a young lady and putting a sword through her father and
running the country, I put it to you it's worse."
"Did he disappear?"
"That's part of the story, too. When matters got desperate and he was
forced to let Tremenhuel, he took what money he could raise and cleared
out of the neighbourhood for a time; went off to Tregarrick when the
militia was embodied, he being an officer; and there he cast his
affections upon old Sir Felix Williams's daughter.
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