He really had a large sum of money, and this short-sighted policy (as he termed it) of the landlords only made him the more eager to convince them how mistaken they were to refuse anything to a man who could put capital into the soil.

He resolved to be his own landlord, and ordered his agents to find him a small estate and to purchase it outright.

There was not much difficulty in finding an estate, and Cecil bought it.

But he was even then annoyed and disgusted with the formalities, the investigation of title, the completion of deeds, and astounded at the length of a lawyer's bill.
Being at last established in possession Cecil set to work, and at the same time set every agricultural tongue wagging within a radius of twenty miles.

He grubbed up all the hedges, and threw the whole of his arable land into one vast field, and had it levelled with the theodolite.