"He's a reptile," said old Canham in his anger. "Eh me!" he added, sitting down with difficulty in his armchair, and extending the crutch before him, "what a mercy it would have been if Mr. Joe had lived! Chattaway would never have been stuck up in authority then. Better the Squire had left Trevlyn Hold to Miss Diana." "They say he would not leave it to a woman." "That's true, Master Rupert. And of his children there were but his daughters left. The two sons had gone. Rupert the heir first: he died on the high seas; and Mr. Joe next." "Mark, why did Rupert the heir go to sea?" Old Canham shook his head. "Ah, it was a bad business, Master Rupert, and it's as well not to talk of it." "But _why_ did he go?" persisted Rupert. "It was a bad business, I say. He, the heir, had fallen into wild ways, got to like bad company, and that. He went out one night with some poachers--just for the fun of it. It wasn't on these lands. He meant no harm, but he was young and random, and he went out and put a gauze over his face as they did,--just, I say, for the fun of it. Master Rupert, that night they killed a gamekeeper." A shiver passed through Rupert's frame. "_He_ killed him?--my uncle, Rupert Trevlyn?" "No, it wasn't he that killed him--as was proved a long while afterwards. But you see at the time it wasn't known exactly who had done it: they were all in league together, all in a mess, as may be said. Any way, the young heir, whether in fear or shame, went off in secret, and before many months had gone over, the bells were tolling for him. He had died far away." "But people never could have believed that a Trevlyn killed a man?" said Rupert, indignantly. Old Canham paused. "You have heard of the Trevlyn temper, Master Rupert?" "Who hasn't?" returned Rupert. "They say I have a touch of it." "Well, those that believed it laid it to that temper, you see. They thought the heir had been overtook by a fit of passion, and might have done the mischief in it. In those fits of passion a man is mad." "Is he?" abstractedly remarked Rupert, falling into a reverie. He had never before heard this episode in the history of the uncle whose name he bore--Rupert Trevlyn. CHAPTER XIV NO BREAKFAST Old Canham stood at the door of his lodge, gazing after one who was winding through the avenue, in the direction of Trevlyn Hold, one whom old Canham delighted to patronise and make much of in his humble way; whom he encouraged in all sorts of vain and delusive notions--Rupert Trevlyn. Could Mr. Chattaway have divined the treason talked against him nearly every time Rupert dropped into the lodge, he might have tried hard to turn old Canham out of it. Harmless treason, however; consisting of rebellious words only. There was neither plotting nor hatching; old Canham and Rupert never glanced at that; both were perfectly aware that Chattaway held his place by a tenure which could not be disturbed.