‘It has been the Wendover scourge from the beginning, so I hear. Everyone about here of course explains this man’s eccentricities by the family history. But I don’t know,’ said Robert, his lip hardening, ‘it may be extremely convenient sometimes to have a tradition of the kind. A man who knew how to work it might very well enjoy all the advantages of sanity and the privileges of insanity at the same time. The poor old doctor I was telling you of--old Meyrick--who has known the Squire since his boyhood, and has a dog-like attachment to him, is always hinting at mysterious excuses. Whenever I let out to him, as I do sometimes, as to the state of the property, he talks of “inherited melancholy,” “rash judgments,” and so forth. I like the good old soul, but I don’t believe much of it. A man who is sane enough to make a great name for himself in letters is sane enough to provide his estate with a decent agent.’ ‘It doesn’t follow,’ said Langham, who was, however, so deep in a collection of Spanish romances and chronicles, that the Squire’s mental history did not seem to make much impression upon him. ‘Most men of letters are mad, and I should be inclined,’ he added, with a sudden and fretful emphasis, ‘to argue much worse things for the sanity of your Squire, Elsmere, from the fact that this room is undoubtedly allowed to get damp sometimes, than from any of those absurd parochial tests of yours.’ And he held up a couple of priceless books, of which the Spanish sheepskin bindings showed traces here and there of moisture. ‘It is no use, I know, expecting you to preserve a moral sense when you get among books,’ said Robert with a shrug. ‘I will reserve my remarks on that subject. But you must really tear yourself away from this room, Langham, if you want to see the rest of the Squire’s quarters. Here you have what we may call the ornamental, sensational part of the library, that part of it which would make a stir at Sotheby’s; the working parts are all to come.’ Langham reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged away. Robert held back the hangings over the doorway leading into the rest of the wing, and, passing through, they found themselves in a continuation of the library totally different in character from the magnificent room they had just left. The walls were no longer latticed and carved; they were closely packed, in the most business-like way, with books which represented the Squire’s own collection, and were in fact a chart of his own intellectual history. ‘This is how I interpret this room,’ said Robert, looking round it. ‘Here are the books he collected at Oxford in the Tractarian movement and afterward. Look here,’ and he pulled out a volume of St. Basil. Langham looked, and saw on the title-page a note in faded characters: ‘_Given to me by Newman at Oxford, in 1845._’ ‘Ah, of course, he was one of them in ‘45; he must have left them very soon after,’ said Langham reflectively.