Six months ago there had seemed to him to be something ridiculous in the idea of a permanent connection between the names of Caldigate and Folking.

It was absurd that, with so wild and beautiful a world around him, he should be called upon to live in a washy fen because his father and grandfather had been unfortunate enough to do so.
And then, at that time, all sympathy with bricks and mortar, any affection for special trees or well-known home-haunts, was absurd in his eyes.

And as his father had been harsh to him, and did not like him, would it not be better that they should be far apart?
It was thus that he had reasoned.

But now all that was changed.

An unwonted tenderness had come upon his spirit.