Do you know that his people have
been servants in the Ashleigh family for some hundreds of years?"
Quest was clearly interested. "Say, I'd like to hear about that!" he
exclaimed. "You know, I'm rather great on heredity, Professor. What class
did he come from then? Were his people just domestic servants always?"
The Professor's face was for a moment troubled. He moved to his desk,
rummaged about for a time, and finally produced an ancient volume.
"This really belongs to my brother, Lord Ashleigh," he explained. "He
brought it over with him to show me some entries concerning which I was
interested. It contains a history of the Hamblin estate since the days of
Cromwell, and here in the back, you see, is a list of our farmers,
bailiffs and domestic servants. There was a Craig who was a tenant of the
first Lord Ashleigh and fought with him in the Cromwellian Wars as a
trooper and since those days, so far as I can see, there has never been a
time when there hasn't been a Craig in the service of our family. A fine
race they seem to have been, until--"
"Until when?" Quest demanded.
The look of trouble had once more clouded the Professor's face. He
shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"Until Craig's father," he admitted. "I am afraid I must admit that we
come upon a bad piece of family history here. Silas Craig entered the
service of my father in 1858, as under game-keeper. Here we come upon the
first black mark against the name. He appears to have lived reputably for
some years, and then, after a quarrel with a neighbour about some trivial
matter, he deliberately murdered him, a crime for which he was tried and
executed in 1867.
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