CHAPTER I.
It is a matchless morning in rural England. On a fair hill we see a
majestic pile, the ivied walls and towers of Cholmondeley Castle, huge
relic and witness of the baronial grandeurs of the Middle Ages. This is
one of the seats of the Earl of Rossmore, K. G. G. C. B. K. C. M. G.,
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., who possesses twenty-two thousand acres
of English land, owns a parish in London with two thousand houses on
its lease-roll, and struggles comfortably along on an income of two
hundred thousand pounds a year. The father and founder of this proud
old line was William the Conqueror his very self; the mother of it was
not inventoried in history by name, she being merely a random episode
and inconsequential, like the tanner’s daughter of Falaise.In a breakfast room of the castle on this breezy fine morning there are
two persons and the cooling remains of a deserted meal. One of these
persons is the old lord, tall, erect, square-shouldered, white-haired,
stern-browed, a man who shows character in every feature, attitude, and
movement, and carries his seventy years as easily as most men carry
fifty. The other person is his only son and heir, a dreamy-eyed young
fellow, who looks about twenty-six but is nearer thirty. Candor,
kindliness, honesty, sincerity, simplicity, modesty—it is easy to see
that these are cardinal traits of his character; and so when you have
clothed him in the formidable components of his name, you somehow seem
to be contemplating a lamb in armor: his name and style being the
Honourable Kirkcudbright Llanover Marjoribanks Sellers
Viscount-Berkeley, of Cholmondeley Castle, Warwickshire. (Pronounced
K’koobry Thlanover Marshbanks Sellers Vycount Barkly, of Chumly Castle,
Warrikshr.) He is standing by a great window, in an attitude suggestive
of respectful attention to what his father is saying and equally
respectful dissent from the positions and arguments offered. The father
walks the floor as he talks, and his talk shows that his temper is away
up toward summer heat.“Soft-spirited as you are, Berkeley, I am quite aware that when you
have once made up your mind to do a thing which your ideas of honor and
justice require you to do, argument and reason are (for the time
being,) wasted upon you—yes, and ridicule; persuasion, supplication,
and command as well. To my mind—”“Father, if you will look at it without prejudice, without passion, you
must concede that I am not doing a rash thing, a thoughtless, wilful
thing, with nothing substantial behind it to justify it. _I_ did not
create the American claimant to the earldom of Rossmore; I did not hunt
for him, did not find him, did not obtrude him upon your notice. He
found himself, he 

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