Geoffrey and the two daughters were taken ill next; the boy recovered, the sisters died; the only member of the family who escaped altogether was John, owing perhaps to some physical peculiarity in his constitution, which enabled him to withstand the infection. Not far from the castle, down the stream, stood Luckland Mill; a father, mother, six children, and an aged grandam, all lived there; but death came, and all died. The water splashed and foamed down the mill-course, the merry wheel ran on, while there were eight corpses in that house which none dared to bury. But the difficulty was solved,--the mill having ground out its corn, ran on, and as there was no one to stop it, caught fire at last from friction of the machinery, and was burnt to the ground, so the dead were “cremated” not buried. We said _eight_ bodies, for one child, the eldest daughter, named Madge, escaped the fate of her family, being on a visit to some distant relations, when the plague broke out.[41] At length the pestilence abated, and the sorrow-stricken survivors, but a third of the former population, might estimate their losses, and gaze upon the vacant chairs in their dwellings, wishing often, in the desolation of their hearts, that they had been taken too. A distant relation became guardian to the two boys at the castle; both of whom were sent to Glastonbury for their education, where John was always in trouble, and Geoffrey in favour. Richard Whiting was then one of the younger brethren, and one of the tutors of the boys, and it befel more than once that John fell under his just correction, and tasted the rod, an infliction he never forgave. It is needless to say that Geoffrey was a general favourite. They left school in due time, and arrived at manhood. Geoffrey made one campaign in the French wars, which had a singular result: he was taken captive, and captivated the daughter of his captor; so that on the conclusion of peace, she returned with him to England as Lady Redfyrne. John remained at home to attend to the estate in his brother’s absence--he did not care for the military life, being too idle; and he was fast sinking into the bachelor brother, who keeps the accounts, looks after the hounds, and makes himself useful in a hundred odd ways, but who feels his own position less comfortable as time moves on and a young family arises, not his own, superseding him. But all the time, his darker disposition was only suppressed; it was his intention to be lord of the manor, if by any means (and he was not scrupulous as to what means) he might grasp his brother’s inheritance; a younger brother’s portion he despised or gambled away. “Sui profusus, alieni appietens,”[42] as Sallust wrote of Catiline.