Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/112

 a man behind him that'll have to be reckoned with—that London chap that's come here now and then. They say he's found all the money that's been wanted for this boring. And of course he'll want it back first go-off."

"Still, young Philip will be a wealthy man, I reckon! The land was his when all's said and done."

The man who had done most of the talking picked up his glass and drank off its remaining contents.

"Aye, well!" he observed as he set the glass down with an emphatic gesture. "That's as may be! There's some of us about here that could say a word or two about that, you know. In his possession, right! And in possession of his father before him, right! And possession as the saying goes is nine points of the law. But most folks of these parts knows well enough that old Gilson Mortover, grandfather of this Philip never made a will—at least, no will was ever discovered—and they know, too, that he had an elder son, Matthew, who went away and never came back. Now suppose Matthew turned up—he'd be an oldish man, yet not so old as all that—or that a son of his turned up? What then?"

The other man shook his head.

"Awk'ard situation that would be, I reckon!"