Chapter I: Sir Owen ap Owen on his Death-Bed takes leave of Mr. De Lancaster

There was an apartment in one of the turrets of Kray Castle, which commanded a fine view of the park and country, bounded by the sea: here it was that young De Lancaster commenced a course of application to his studies under the instruction of his excellent preceptor, to which he devoted himself with so determined a passion for improvement, that it was not long before he had made a progress in the learned languages, that would have qualified him to pass muster with most young scholars of his standing.

Nature had endowed him with a strong and retentive memory, and parts rather solid than brilliant: he had great industry, a ready apprehension and a mind turned to enquiry. Few temptations were now sufficiently alluring to detach him from his books; so grateful to him were the lectures of his instructor, and so delectable the acquisition of knowledge, that he sought no pleasures, and seemed to regret all avocations. His volatility of spirit had now in a great degree subsided; he became cautious in the company of his seniors, and more disposed to listen than to talk. The neighbours did not think him mended by his studies, and the servants, who had been the companions of his puerile sports, pronounced that he was spoilt.

An unatoned insult still rankled at his heart, and he shunned the sight of David Owen, not because he feared him, but because he doubted his own self-command upon the meeting. That arrogant young man had now taken a decided character; was a loud talker and a bold assertor, and, being under no restraint, gave himself all the latitude, which the actual possession of what he was only presumptive heir to, could have emboldened him to assume.

As for Sir Owen, he was now in the last stage of a decline, never stirred from his chamber, and was considered by all about him as a man, who had not many days to live. In this extremity he dispatched a messenger to Kray Castle to request an interview with his old friend De Lancaster, who immediately put himself in order to obey the summons. As soon as his arrival was announced, Sir Owen dismissed his attendants, and received his worthy visitor alone in his chamber. After the customary enquiries had passed, the baronet delivered himself as follows--

I have asked this favour of you, my good friend and neighbour, because I perceive myself going out of the world, and, having great esteem and respect for you, I would willingly bid you farewell before I am gone. I have thought very little about death till it has come upon me as it were at once; all I know of the matter is that we must all die, and so, you see, I must take my turn, as others have done before, and every one must do after me. If it had been my good fortune to have made myself acceptable to your amiable daughter, I might have lived to enjoy, as you do now, a healthy old age; but when a man has neither wife nor family nor friend at hand to jog his memory upon occasion, he will be apt to forget himself at times, and by going too fast come the sooner to his journey’s end. That has been my case, friend De Lancaster, and how could it be otherwise. I have none of those resources that you have; if my house was full of books, they would be of no use to me; I should not read one of them; I never had a turn that way. Time was I took delight in hunting my own hounds; that, you know, is a rational and gentlemanlike amusement, but when I could no longer follow it up, you must think, I was fain to fall upon other means for making away with my time: every man must do that; and what is so natural as to fly to the pleasure of the table, when we can no longer enjoy the sports of the field? So long as I could do both, and take them in their turns, all things went well with me. If a country gentleman like me takes a cup too much over night, he rides it off the next morning, and there’s an end of it; but when he is reduced to the helpless situation, in which you now see me, what is to be done? Life becomes a burden, and the sooner we are quit of it, the better.

In truth, my good friend, said De Lancaster, I cannot wonder, if a life, that furnishes no intellectual enjoyments, becomes burdensome: and since it must be resigned when the disposer of our fate sees fit, it is happy for us, when called upon to quit this world, if we find upon reflection that the pleasures of it are not worthy of our regret.

I have had no pleasure in it, replied the dying man, since these people came out of Spain to molest me. Had your daughter heard reason, when I first proposed to her, I might have had a son and heir of my own, British born, and, had that been the case, this mongrel of my brother’s fathering, half Jew and half Spaniard, might have been a pedlar, and hawked buckles and buttons about the country to his dying day, for what I had cared: But that is over, and, except the few personals I have willed away to huntsman and other of my friends, together with a keep-sake to your daughter, and my favourite horse Glendowr to my godson, all the real property I am possessed of must go to David by entail, and a despicable David he will be, take my word for it.--

He would have said more, and struggled hard for speech, but his efforts had already exhausted him, and he sunk back in his chair. Robert de Lancaster rung the bell; the attendants came upon the summons: The good man cast a pitying look for the last time upon his dying friend and departed.