"And now it is time you should know a little about the family of
which you come. I don't doubt there have been some in it who would
count me a foolish man for bringing you up as I have done, but
those of them who are up there don't. They see that the business of
life is not to get as much as you can, but to do justly, and love
mercy, and walk humbly with your God--with your mother's God, my
son. They may say I have made a poor thing of it, but I shall not
hang my head before the public of that country, because I've let
the land slip from me that I couldn't keep any more than this weary
old carcase that's now crumbling away from about me. Some would
tell me I ought to shudder at the thought of leaving you to such
poverty, but I am too anxious about yourself, my boy, to think much
about the hardships that may be waiting you. I should be far more
afraid about you if I were leaving you rich. I have seen rich
people do things I never knew a poor gentleman do. I don't mean to
say anything against the rich--there's good and bad of all sorts;
but I just can't be so very sorry that I am leaving you to poverty,
though, if I might have had my way, it wouldn't have been so bad.
But he knows best who loves best. I have struggled hard to keep the
old place for you; but there's hardly an acre outside the garden
and close but was mortgaged before I came into the property. I've
been all my life trying to pay off, but have made little progress.
The house is free, however, and the garden; and don't you part with
the old place, my boy, except you see you OUGHT. But rather than
anything not out and out honest, anything the least doubtful, sell
every stone. Let all go, if you should have to beg your way home to
us. Come clean, my son, as my Marion bore you."

Here Cosmo interrupted his father to ask what MORTGAGED meant. This