Chapter 2

SCARGATE HALL

Nearly twenty-four years had passed since Philip Yordas was carried to
his last (as well as his first) repose, and Scargate Hall had enjoyed
some rest from the turbulence of owners. For as soon as Duncan (Philip's
son, whose marriage had maddened his father) was clearly apprised by the
late squire's lawyer of his disinheritance, he collected his own little
money and his wife's, and set sail for India. His mother, a Scotchwoman
of good birth but evil fortunes, had left him something; and his
bride (the daughter of his father's greatest foe) was not altogether
empty-handed. His sisters were forbidden by the will to help him with
a single penny; and Philippa, the elder, declaring and believing that
Duncan had killed her father, strictly obeyed the injunction. But Eliza,
being of a softer kind, and herself then in love with Captain Carnaby,
would gladly have aided her only brother, but for his stern refusal. In
such a case, a more gentle nature than ever endowed a Yordas might
have grown hardened and bitter; and Duncan, being of true Yordas fibre
(thickened and toughened with slower Scotch sap), was not of the sort to
be ousted lightly and grow at the feet of his supplanters.

Therefore he cast himself on the winds, in search of fairer soil, and
was not heard of in his native land; and Scargate Hall and estates were
held by the sisters in joint tenancy, with remainder to the first son
born of whichever it might be of them. And this was so worded through
the hurry of their father to get some one established in the place of
his own son.

But from paltry passions, turn away a little while to the things which
excite, but are not excited by them.

Scargate Hall stands, high and old, in the wildest and most rugged part
of the wild and rough North Riding. Many are the tales about it, in the
few and humble cots, scattered in the modest distance, mainly to look up
at it. In spring and summer, of the years that have any, the height and
the air are not only fine, but even fair and pleasant. So do the shadows
and the sunshine wander, elbowing into one another on the moor, and
so does the glance of smiling foliage soothe the austerity of crag and
scaur. At such time, also, the restless torrent (whose fury has driven
content away through many a short day and long night) is not in such
desperate hurry to bury its troubles in the breast of Tees, but spreads
them in language that sparkles to the sun, or even makes leisure to
turn into corners of deep brown-study about the people on its
banks--especially, perhaps, the miller.

But never had this impetuous water more reason to stop and reflect upon
people of greater importance, who called it their own, than now when it
was at the lowest of