He had been tutor to Somebody's son at some place not specified.

He had tried his hand at comic journalism in London and at cattle-driving in Texas, and had been half-way to glory as a captain of irregulars in the Soudanese war.

No, nobody was more surprised than himself when that mystic old man left him Thorneytoft.

He thought he had chucked civilization for good.

For good?
But--after his exciting life--wouldn't he find civilization a little--dull?
(Miss Batchelor had a way of pointing her sentences as if she were speaking in parables.) Not in the country, there was hardly enough of it there, and he had never tried being a country gentleman before; he rather wanted to see what it was like.