Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/68

Rh suspense about your mysterious purpose in these towns, at least tell me what has committed Mr. Dunneston to them."

"What? Oh, didn't I tell you? He's qualifying for his income!"

"Qualifying for his income—by going about the cathedral towns?"

"Exactly." Preston smiled again as he recollected. "You see, so far as old John Bull has volunteered already, it seems that the founder of the family—whom he tells me he resembles, by the way—was some able old baronial marauder before the War of the Roses, or sometime 'way back when people still used to repent of the way they got their money. At any rate, this old chap, after robbing on foot and horseback till he had gathered an estate to entail, repented just before he died and made a penitential round of every cathedral then standing in England to gain forgiveness for making the money.

"Now, I couldn't quite make out from Dunneston whether his worthy ancestor 50