"But we won't mind my health now. It is true, I fear, that you
have quarrelled with your uncle."
"It is quite true that he has quarrelled with me."
"I am afraid that that is more important. He means, if he can, to cut
you out of the entail."
"He does not mean that I shall have the property if he can prevent it."
"I don't think very much of entails myself," said the squire. "If a man
has a property he should be able to leave it as he pleases; or--or else
he doesn't have it."
"That is what the law intends, I suppose," said Harry.
"Just so; but the law is such an old woman that she never knows how to
express herself to any purpose. I haven't allowed the law to bind me. I
dare say you know the story."
"About your two sons,--and the property? I think all the world knows the
story."
"I suppose it has been talked about a little," said the squire, with a
chuckle. "My object has been to prevent the law from handing over my
property to the fraudulent claims which my son's creditors were enabled
to make, and I have succeeded fairly well. On that head I have nothing
to regret. Now your uncle is going to take other means."
"Yes; he is going to take means which, are, at any rate, lawful."
"But which will be tedious, and may not, perhaps, succeed.
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