n inconclusive and shadowy
horizon. Of course, he thought about his instruments; these were never
absent from his heart. His instinct flew back to them as an oasis, as an
island of rest in the wilderness of this father's thorny and depressing
conversation. The instruments were disappointing, it is true, at
present; but, at any rate, they did not dwell gloomily upon impending
ruin or suggest that it was his duty to get married. They remained
silent, distressingly silent indeed.

Well, as the question of marriage had been started, he might as well
face it out; that is, argue it in his mind, reduce it to its principles,
follow it to its issues in a reasonable and scientific manner. What were
the facts? His family, which, by tradition, was reported to be Danish
in its origin, had owned this property for several hundred years, though
how they came to own it remained a matter of dispute. Some said the
Abbey and its lands were granted to a man of the name of Monk by Henry
VIII., of course for a consideration. Others held, and evidence existed
in favour of this view, that on the dissolution of the monastery the
abbot of the day, a shrewd man of easy principles, managed to possess
himself of the Chapter House and further extensive hereditaments, of
course with the connivance of the Commissioners, and, providing himself
with a wife, to exchange a spiritual for a temporal dignity. At least
this remained certain, that from the time of Elizabeth onwards Morris's
forefathers had been settled in the old Abbey house at Monksland; that
the first of them about whom they really knew anything was named Monk,
and that Monk was still the family name.

Now they were all dead and gone, and their history, which was
undistinguished, does not matter. To come to the present day. His father
succeeded to a diminished and encumbered estate; indeed, had it not been
for the fortune of his mother, a Miss Porson and one of a middle class
and business, but rather wealthy family, the property must have been
sold years before. That fortune, however, had long ago been absorbed--or
so he gathered--for his father, a brilliant and fashionable army
officer, was not the man to stint himself or to nurse a crippled
property. Indeed, it was wonderful to Morris how, without any particular
change in their style of living, which, if unpretentious, was not cheap,
in these bad times they had managed to keep afloat at all.

Unworldly as Morris might be, he could easily