He had gone away,
he had squandered money, he had returned, he was at Mount Dunstan again,
living the life of an objectionable recluse--objectionable, because the
owner of a place like Mount Dunstan should be a power and an influence
in the county, should be counted upon as a dispenser of hospitalities,
as a supporter of charities, as a dignitary of weight. He was none of
these--living no one knew how, slouching about with his gun, riding or
walking sullenly over the roads and marshland.
Just one man knew him intimately, and this one had been from his
fifteenth year the sole friend of his life. He had come, then--the
Reverend Lewis Penzance--a poor and unhealthy scholar, to be vicar of
the parish of Dunstan. Only a poor and book-absorbed man would have
accepted the position. What this man wanted was no more than quiet, pure
country air to fill frail lungs, a roof over his head, and a place to
pore over books and manuscripts. He was a born monk and celibate--in
by-gone centuries he would have lived peacefully in some monastery,
spending his years in the reading and writing of black letter and the
illuminating of missals. At the vicarage he could lead an existence
which was almost the same thing.
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