The squire greatly coveted the freehold of Queen Anne’s Farm.  He had made offers to purchase it till he was tired, and had gained for himself the credit of being at the bottom of numerous hypothetical cabals to injure and oust the farmer from his possession.  But if Naboth came with his vineyard in his hand, not even Wrexby’s rector (his quarrel with whom haunted every turn in his life) could quote Scripture against him for taking it at a proper valuation.

The squire had employed his leisure time during service in church to discover a text that might be used against him in the event of the farmer’s reduction to a state of distress, and his, the squire’s, making the most of it.  On the contrary, according to his heathenish reading of some of the patriarchal doings, there was more to be said in his favour than not, if he increased his territorial property:  nor could he, throughout the Old Testament, hit on one sentence that looked like a personal foe to his projects, likely to fit into the mouth of the rector of Wrexby.

“Well, farmer,” he said, with cheerful familiarity, “winter crops looking well?  There’s a good show of green in the fields from my windows, as good as that land of yours will allow in heavy seasons.”

To this the farmer replied, “I’ve not heart or will to be round about, squire.  If you’ll listen to me—­here, or where you give command.”

“Has it anything to do with pen and paper, Fleming?  In that case you’d better be in my study,” said the squire.

“I don’t know that it have.  I don’t know that it have.”  The farmer sought Robert’s face.

“Best where there’s no chance of interruption,” Robert counselled, and lifted his hat to the squire.

“Eh?  Well, you see I’m busy.”  The latter affected a particular indifference, that in such cases, when well acted (as lords of money can do—­squires equally with usurers), may be valued at hundreds of pounds in the pocket.  “Can’t you put it off?  Come again to-morrow.”

“To-morrow’s a day too late,” said the farmer, gravely.  Whereto replying, “Oh! well, come along in, then,” the squire led the way.

“You’re two to one, if it’s a transaction,” he said, nodding to Robert to close the library door.  “Take seats.  Now then, what is it?  And if I make a face, just oblige me by thinking nothing about it, for my gout’s beginning to settle in the leg again, and shoots like an electric telegraph from purgatory.”

He wheezed and lowered himself into his arm-chair; but the farmer and Robert remained standing, and the farmer spoke:—­

“My words are going to be few, squire.  I’ve got a fact to bring to your knowledge, and a question to ask.”

Surprise, exaggerated on his face by a pain he had anticipated, made the squire glare hideously.

“Confound it, that’s what they say to a prisoner in the box.  Here’s a murder committed:—­Are you the guilty person?  Fact and question!  Well, out with ’em, both together.”