family hall.

But on the wedding day, in the midst of the feasting, a pilgrim came
to the gate asking hospitality and alms. He was bidden to sit down
and share the feast, but scarcely was the banquet ended when the
pilgrim revealed himself as the long lost elder brother. The
disconcerted bridegroom acknowledged him at once, but the latter
generously resigned the greater part of the estates to his brother,
and, sooner than mar the prospects of the newly married couple, he
lived a life of obscurity upon one small manor. There seems, however,
to be a very small basis of fact for this story. The Corbets of
Shropshire--one branch of whom are owners of Moreton Corbet--are among
the very oldest of the many old Shropshire families. They trace their
descent back to Corbet the Norman, whose sons, Robert and Roger,
appear in Domesday Book as holding large estates under Roger, Earl of
Shrewsbury. The grandsons of Roger Corbet were Thomas Corbet of
Wattlesborough, and Robert Corbet. Thomas, who was evidently the elder
of the two, it seems went beyond seas, leaving his lands in the
custody of his brother Robert. Both brothers left descendants, but the
elder branch of the family never attained to such rank and prosperity
as the younger one." Hence, perhaps, the origin of the legend; but
Moreton Corbet did not come into the possession of the family till
long after this date.[15]

Whatever truth there may be in this old tradition, there is every
reason to believe that some of the worst tragedies recorded in family
history have been due to jealousy; and an extraordinary instance of
such unnatural feeling was that displayed by the second wife of Sir
Robert Scott, of Thirlestane, one of the most distinguished cadets of
the great House of Buccleuch. Distracted with mortification that her