“I’ve been thinking if we—­that is, I—­do owe that money to old Trebeck, it is high time I should pay it.  I was ill, and had lost my head at the time; but it turned out luckily, and it ought to be paid.  I don’t like the idea of a bond turning up, and a lot of interest.”

“The old fellow meant it for a present.  He is richer than you are; he wished to give the family a lift.  He has destroyed the bond, I believe, and in no case will he take payment.”

“No fellow has a right to force his money on another,” answered Sir Bale.  “I never asked him.  Besides, as you know, I was not really myself, and the whole thing seems to me quite different from what you say it was; and, so far as my brain is concerned, it was all a phantasmagoria; but, you say, it was he.”

“Every man is accountable for what he intends and for what he thinks he does,” said Feltram cynically.

“Well, I’m accountable for dealing with that wicked old dicer I thought I saw—­isn’t that it?  But I must pay old Trebeck all the same, since the money was his.  Can you manage a meeting?”

“Look down here.  Old Trebeck has just landed; he will sleep to-night at the George and Dragon, to meet his cattle in the morning at Golden Friars fair.  You can speak to him yourself.”

So saying Feltram glided away, leaving Sir Bale the task of opening the matter to the wealthy farmer of Cloostedd Fells.

A broad night of steps leads down from the courtyard to the level of the jetty at the lake:  and Sir Bale descended, and accosted the venerable farmer, who was bluff, honest, and as frank as a man can be who speaks a patois which hardly a living man but himself can understand.

Sir Bale asked him to come to the Hall and take luncheon; but Trebeck was in haste.  Cattle had arrived which he wanted to look at, and a pony awaited him on the road, hard by, to Golden Friars; and the old fellow must mount and away.

Then Sir Bale, laying his hand upon his arm in a manner that was at once lofty and affectionate, told in his ears the subject on which he wished to be understood.

The old farmer looked hard at him, and shook his head and laughed in a way that would have been insupportable in a house, and told him, “I hev narra bond o’ thoine, mon.”

“I know how that is; so does Philip Feltram.”

“Well?”

“Well, I must replace the money.”

The old man laughed again, and in his outlandish dialect told him to wait till he asked him.  Sir Bale pressed it, but the old fellow put it off with outlandish banter; and as the Baronet grew testy, the farmer only waxed more and more hilarious, and at last, mounting his shaggy pony, rode off, still laughing, at a canter to Golden Friars; and when he reached Golden Friars, and got into the hall of the George and Dragon, he asked Richard Turnbull with a chuckle if he ever knew a man refuse an offer of money, or a man want to pay