Then John would be allured to go to his uncle Babington's house, where there was a pony on which he could hunt, and fishing-rods, and a lake with a boat, and three fine bouncing girl-cousins, who made much of him, and called him Jack; so that he soon preferred his uncle Babington's house, and would spend much of his holidays at Babington House.
Mr.Caldigate was a country squire with a moderate income, living in a moderate house called Folking, in the parish of Utterden, about ten miles from Cambridge.

Here he owned nearly the entire parish, and some portion of Netherden, which lay next to it, having the reputation of an income of L3,000 a-year.

It probably amounted to about two-thirds of that.

Early in life he had been a very poor man, owing to the improvidence of his father; but he had soon quarrelled with his father,--as he had with almost everyone else,--and had for some ten years earned his own bread in the metropolis among the magazines and newspapers.

Then, when his father died, the property was his own, with such encumbrances as the old squire had been able to impose upon it.
Daniel Caldigate had married when he was a poor man, but did not go to Folking to live till the estate was clear, at which time he was forty years old.