Afloat in the Forest

CHAPTER ONE.

THE BROTHERS AT HOME.

Twenty years ago, not twenty miles from the Land's End, there lived a
Cornish gentleman named Trevannion. Just twenty years ago he died,
leaving to lament him a brace of noble boys, whose mother all three had
mourned, with like profound sorrow, but a short while before.

"Squire" Trevannion, as he was called, died in his own house, where his
ancestors for hundreds of years before him had dispensed hospitality.
None of them, however, had entertained so profusely as he; or rather
improvidently, it might be said, since in less than three months after
his death the old family mansion, with the broad acres appertaining to
it, passed into the hands of an alien, leaving his two sons, Ralph and
Richard, landless, houseless, and almost powerless. One thousand pounds
apiece was all that remained to them out of the wreck of the patrimonial
estates. It was whispered that even this much was not in reality
theirs, but had been given to them by the _very respectable_ solicitor
who had managed their father's affairs, and had furthermore _managed_ to
succeed him in the ownership of a property worth a rental of three
thousand a year.

Any one knowing the conditions under which the young Trevannions
received their two thousand pounds must have believed it to be a gift,
since it was handed over to them by the family solicitor with the
private understanding that they were to use it in pushing their fortunes
elsewhere,--anywhere except in Cornwall!