“Quite right.  I wish you was strong enough to punish him; but if you was, he’d come whining to you and pray you not to.  Men like him only make war on women and the weak.”

Abel listened.

“I’ll punish him if he lives long enough,” he said.  “That’s what I’m after.  I’ll bide my time.”

“And for him to dare to get up and ask the people to send him to Parliament.  But they won’t.  He’s too well known in these parts for that.  Who’s he that he should be lifted up to represent honest, God-fearing men?”

“If there was anything to stop him getting in, I’d do it,” declared Abel.

“’Tis for us, with weight of years and experience, to keep him out.  All sensible people will vote against him, and the more that know the truth of him the fewer will support him.  And Republican though I am, I’d rather vote for the Tory than him.  And as for you, if you stood up at his meetings when the time comes, while they were all cheering the wretch, and cried out that you was his son—­that would be sure to lose him a good few God-fearing votes.  You think of it; you might hinder him and even work him a mint of harm that way.”

The old man left Abel to consider his advice and the angler sat watching his float for another hour.  But his thoughts were on what he had heard; and he felt no more interest in his sport.

Presently he wound up his line and went home.  He was attracted by Levi’s suggestion and guessed that he might create great feeling against his father in that way.  Himself, he did not shrink from the ordeal in imagination; indeed his inherent vanity rather courted it.  But when he told his mother what he might do, she urged him to attempt no such thing.  Indeed she criticised him sharply for such a foolish thought.

“You’ll lose all sympathy from the people,” she said, “and be flung out; and none will care twopence for you.  When you tried to burn the place down and he forgave you, that made a feeling for him, and since then ’tis well known by those that matter, that he’s done all he could for you under the circumstances.”

“That’s what he hasn’t.”

“That’s what he would if you’d let him.  So it’s silly to think you’ve got any more grievances, and if you get up and make a row at one of his meetings, you’ll only be chucked into the street.  You’re nobody now, through your own fault, and you’ve made people sorry for your father instead of sorry for you, because you’re such a pig-headed fool about him and won’t see sense.”

The boy flushed and glared at his mother, who seldom spoke in this vein.

“If you wasn’t my mother, I’d hit you down for that,” he said, clenching his fists.  “What do you know about things to talk to me like that?  Who are you to take his side and cringe to him?  If you can’t judge him, there’s plenty that can, and it’s you who are pig-headed, not me, because you don’t see I’m fighting your battle for you.  It may seem too late to fight for you; but it’s never too late to hate a wicked beast, and if I can help to keep him from getting what he wants I will, and I don’t care how I do it, either.”