The American Senator | Page 6

also with debts and money troubles, not
only had his son John, and his grandson John, gone before him, but
Reginald and his wife were both lying in Bragton Churchyard.
The elder branch of the family, John the great-grandson, and his little
sisters, were at once taken away from Bragton by the honourable
grandmother. John, who was then about seven years old, was of course
the young squire, and was the owner of the property. The dowager,
therefore, did not undertake an altogether unprofitable burden. Lady
Ushant was left at the house, and with Lady Ushant, or rather
immediately subject to her care, young Reginald Morton, who was then
nineteen years of age, and who was about to go to Oxford. But there

immediately sprang up family lawsuits, instigated by the honourable
lady on behalf of her grandchildren, of which Reginald Morton was the
object. The old man had left certain outlying properties to his grandson
Reginald, of which Hoppet Hall was a part. For eight or ten years the
lawsuit was continued, and much money was expended. Reginald was
at last successful, and became the undoubted owner of Hoppet Hall; but
in the meantime he went to Germany for his education, instead of to
Oxford, and remained abroad even after the matter was decided,--
living, no one but Lady Ushant knew where, or after what fashion.
When the old squire died the children were taken away, and Bragton
was nearly deserted. The young heir was brought up with every caution,
and, under the auspices of his grandmother and her family, behaved
himself very unlike the old Mortons. He was educated at Eton, after
leaving which he was at once examined for Foreign Office employment,
and commenced his career with great eclat. He had been made to
understand clearly that it would be better that he should not enter in
upon his squirearchy early in life. The estate when he came of age had
already had some years to recover itself, and as he went from capital to
capital, he was quite content to draw from it an income which enabled
him to shine with peculiar brilliance among his brethren. He had visited
Bragton once since the old squire's death, and had found the place very
dull and uninviting. He had no ambition whatever to be master of the
U.R.U.; but did look forward to a time when he might be Minister
Plenipotentiary at some foreign court.
For many years after the old man's death, Lady Ushant, who was then a
widow, was allowed to live at Bragton. She was herself childless, and
being now robbed of her great-nephews and nieces, took a little girl to
live with her, named Mary Masters. It was a very desolate house in
those days, but the old lady was careful as to the education of the child,
and did her best to make the home happy for her. Some two or three
years before the commencement of this story there arose a difference
between the manager of the property and Lady Ushant, and she was
made to understand, after some half-courteous manner, that Bragton
house and park would do better without her. There would be no longer
any cows kept, and painters must come into the house, and there were

difficulties about fuel. She was not turned out exactly; but she went and
established herself in lonely lodgings at Cheltenham. Then Mary
Masters, who had lived for more than a dozen years at Bragton, went
back to her father's house in Dillsborough.
Any reader with an aptitude for family pedigrees will now understand
that Reginald, Master of Hoppet Hall, was first cousin to the father of
the Foreign Office paragon, and that he is therefore the paragon's first
cousin once removed. The relationship is not very distant, but the two
men, one of whom was a dozen years older than the other, had not seen
each other for more than twenty years,--at a time when one of them was
a big boy, and the other a very little one; and during the greater part of
that time a lawsuit had been carried on between them in a very rigorous
manner. It had done much to injure both, and had created such a feeling
of hostility that no intercourse of any kind now existed between them.
It does not much concern us to know how far back should be dated the
beginning of the connection between the Morton family and that of Mr.
Masters, the attorney; but it is certain that the first attorney of that name
in Dillsborough became learned in the law through the patronage of
some former Morton. The father of the present Gregory Masters, and
the grandfather, had been thoroughly trusted and employed by old
Reginald Morton, and the former of the