’I will inquire into it myself at a cooler moment; and if I find that such trespass or damage has been committed, of course I shall expect that you will see it put a stop to.  Come, father!  I am going to see old Silas—­perhaps you don’t know that he is very ill.’  So he endeavoured to wile the squire away to prevent further words.  He was not entirely successful.

Mr. Preston was enraged by Roger’s calm and dignified manner, and threw after them this parting shaft, in the shape of a loud soliloquy,—­

’Position, indeed!  What are we to think of the position of a man who begins works like these without counting the cost, and comes to a stand-still, and has to turn off his labourers just at the beginning of winter, leaving—­’

They were too far off to hear the rest.  The squire was on the point of turning back before this, but Roger took hold of the reins of the old mare, and led her over some of the boggy ground, as if to guide her into sure footing, but, in reality, because he was determined to prevent the renewal of the quarrel.  It was well that the cob knew him, and was, indeed, old enough to prefer quietness to dancing; for Mr. Hamley plucked hard at the reins, and at last broke out with an oath,—­ ’Damn it, Roger!  I’m not a child; I won’t be treated as such.  Leave go, I say!’

Roger let go; they were not on firm ground, and he did not wish any watchers to think that he was exercising any constraint over his father; and this quiet obedience to his impatient commands did more to soothe the squire than anything else could have effected just then.

’I know I turned them off—­what could I do?  I’d no more money for their weekly wages; it’s a loss to me, as you know.  He doesn’t know, no one knows, but I think your mother would, how it cut me to turn ’em off just before winter set in.  I lay awake many a night thinking of it, and I gave them what I had—­I did, indeed.  I hadn’t got money to pay ’em, but I had three barren cows fattened, and gave every scrap of meat to the men, and I let ’em go into the woods and gather what was fallen, and I winked at their breaking off old branches, and now to have it cast up against me by that cur—­that servant.  But I’ll go on with the works, by—­, I will, if only to spite him.  I’ll show him who I am.  My position, indeed!  A Hamley of Hamley takes a higher position than his master.  I’ll go on with the works, see if I don’t!  I’m paying between one and two hundred a year interest on Government money.  I’ll raise some more if I go to the Jews; Osborne has shown me the way, and Osborne shall pay for it—­he shall.  I’ll not put up with insults.  You shouldn’t have stopped me, Roger!  I wish to heaven I’d horsewhipped the fellow!

He was lashing himself again into an impotent rage, painful to a son to witness; but just then the little grandchild of old Silas, who had held the squire’s horse during his visit to the sick man, came running up, breathless,—­