Mr. Barron indeed had everything that could be expected of him to say on the subject of the district and its population. He descanted on the beauty of the three or four famous parks, which in the eighteenth century had been carved out of the wild heath lands; he showed an intimate knowledge of the persons who owned the parks, and of their families, "though I myself am only a newcomer here, being by rights a Devonshire man"; he talked of the local superstitions with indulgence, and a proper sense of the picturesque; and of the colliers who believed the superstitions he spoke in a tone of general good humour, tempered by regret that "agitators" should so often lead them into folly. The architecture of the district came in, of course, for proper notice. There were certain fine old houses near that Mrs. Flaxman ought to visit; everything of course would be open to her and her husband.
"Oh, tell me," said Mrs. Flaxman, suddenly interrupting him, "how far is Sandford Abbey from here?"
Her visitor paused a moment before replying.
"Sandford Abbey is about five miles from you--across the park. The two estates meet. Do you know--Sir Philip Meryon?"
"We know something of him--at least Hugh does. His mother was a very old friend of Hugh's family."
"Is he such a scamp?" said Mrs. Flaxman, raising her fine eyes, with a laugh in them. "You make me quite anxious to see him!"
"I doubt whether your husband will wish to bring him here. He gathers some strange company at the Abbey. He is there now for the fishing."
Manvers inquired who this gentleman might be; and Mrs. Flaxman gave him a lightly touched account. A young man of wealth and family, it seemed, but spoilt from his earliest days, and left fatherless at nineteen, with only an adoring but quite ineffectual mother to take account of. Some notorious love affairs at home and abroad; a wild practical joke or two, played on prominent people, and largely advertised in the newspapers; an audacious novel, and a censored play--he had achieved all these things by the age of thirty, and was now almost penniless, and still unmarried.
"Hugh says that the Abbey is falling into ruin--and that the young man has about a hundred a year left out of his fortune. On this he keeps apparently an army of servants and a couple of hunters! The strange thing is--Hugh discovered it when he went to call on the Rector the other day--that this preposterous young man is a first cousin of Mr. Meynell's. His mother, Lady Meryon, and the Rector's mother were sisters. The Rector, however, seems to have dropped him long ago."
