The money-spinner had provoked the calling of names, the flying forth of fury, the rush of blood to the head of Hillary Nanspian, and a fit. It was leading to a good deal more, it was about to involve others beside the principals. But the money-spinner was really only the red speck at the meeting-point of rivalries, and brooding discontents and growing grievances. Nanspian had long chafed at the superiority assumed by Langford, had been angry at his own ill-success, and envious of the prosperity of his brother-in-law. And Langford had fretted over the thriftlessness of Nanspian, and the prospect of his own gains being dissipated by his nephew. Hillary was a boastful and violent man. Taverner was suspicious and morose. But Nanspian was good-natured at bottom; his anger, if boisterous, soon blew away. Langford’s temper was bitter; he was not malevolent, but he harboured his wrongs, and made a sort of duty of revenging them. The love of saving had become so much a part of Taverner’s soul, that it caused him real agony of mind to think that all he had laid by might be wasted by young Hillary, who, brought up in his father’s improvident ways, was sure to turn out a like wastrel. Moreover, he did not like young Larry. He bore him that curious aversion which old men sometimes manifest for the young. Taverner had been an ungainly youth, without ease of manner or social warmth. He had never made himself friends of either sex; always solitary, he had been driven in on himself. Now that he was in the decline of life he resented the presence in others of those qualities he had never himself possessed. The buoyant spirits, the self-confidence, the good humour, the pleasant looks, the swinging walk of young Larry were all annoyances to Langford, who would have taken a liking to the lad had he been shy and uncouth. Formerly, scarcely a day had passed without the brothers-in-law meeting. Sometimes they encountered accidentally on Broadbury, or in the lanes, at other times they met by appointment at the Look-out Stone. They discussed together the weather, the crops, the cattle, the markets. Hillary was a shrewd man, and had seen more of the world than Taverner, who had, however, read more books than the other. Langford had respect for the worldly experience of his brother-in-law, and Nanspian venerated the book learning in the other. The Chimsworthy brother could see various ways in which money might be made, and had even made suggestions by which he of Langford had reaped a pecuniary profit, but he was too lazy a man to undertake new ventures himself, too lazy even to properly cultivate in the old way the land on which he lived.