Indeed he had done terrible evil; for his son Charles was now dead,--had perished by his own hand,--and the state of things which had brought about this woful event had been chiefly due to the father's neglect.
Belton Castle is a pretty country seat, standing in a small but beautifully wooded park, close under the Quantock hills in Somersetshire; and the little town of Belton clusters round the park gates.

Few Englishmen know the scenery of England well, and the prettinesses of Somersetshire are among those which are the least known.

But the Quantock hills are very lovely, with their rich valleys lying close among them, and their outlying moorlands running off towards Dulverton and the borders of Devonshire,--moorlands which are not flat, like Salisbury Plain, but are broken into ravines and deep watercourses and rugged dells hither and thither; where old oaks are standing, in which life seems to have, dwindled down to the last spark; but the last spark is still there, and the old oaks give forth their scanty leaves from year to year.
In among the hills, somewhat off the high road from Minehead to Taunton, and about five miles from the sea, stands the little town, or village, of Belton, and the modern house of Mr.Amedroz, which is called Belton Castle.

The village,--for it is in truth no more, though it still maintains a charter for a market, and there still exists on Tuesdays some pretence of an open sale of grain and butcher's meat in the square before the church-gate,--contains about two thousand persons.

That and the whole parish of Belton did once,--and that not long ago,--belong to the Amedroz family.