The old squire’s face grew tender as he told this legend of the forgotten dead, and Philip’s young imagination summoned up the strange old-world scene of the crowd of rustics gathered in the snow and frost round this very tree.

“Philip,” said his father, suddenly, “you will hold the yeoman’s Staff one day; be like it of an oaken English heart, and you will defy wind and weather as it has done, and as your forbears have done.  Come, we must go on.”

“By the way, Philip,” he continued, after a while, “you will remember what I said to you this morning—­I hope that you will remember it, though I spoke in anger—­never try to deceive me again, or you will regret it.  And now I have something to say to you.  I wish you to go to college and receive an education that will fit you to hold the position you must in the course of Nature one day fill in the county.  The Oxford term begins in a few days, and you have for some years been entered at Magdalen College.  I do not expect you to be a scholar, but I do expect you to brush off your rough ways and your local ideas, and to learn to become such a person both in your conduct and your mind as a gentleman of your station should be.”

“Is George to go to college too?”

“No; I have spoken to him on the subject, and he does not wish it.  He says very wisely that, with his small prospects, he would rather spend the time in learning how to earn his living.  So he is going to be articled to the Roxham lawyers, Foster and Son, or rather Foster and Bellamy, for young Bellamy, who is a lawyer by profession, came here this morning, not to speak about you, but on a message from the firm to say that he is now a junior partner, and that they will be very happy to take George as an articled clerk.  He is a hard-working, shrewd young man, and it will be a great advantage to George to have his advice and example before him.”

Philip assented, and went on in silence, reflecting on the curious change in his immediate prospects that this walk had brought to light.  He was much rejoiced at the prospect of losing sight of George for a while, and was sufficiently intelligent to appreciate the advantages, social and mental, that the University would offer him; but it struck him that there were two things which he did not like about the scheme.  The first of these was, that whilst he was pursuing his academical studies, George would practically be left on the spot—­for Roxham was only six miles off—­to put in motion any schemes he might have devised; and Philip was sure that he had devised schemes.  And the second, that Oxford was a long way from Maria Lee.  However, he kept his objections to himself.  In due course they reached the buildings they had set out to examine, and the old squire, having settled what was to be done, and what was to be left undone, with characteristic promptitude and shrewdness, they turned homewards.