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.