“My neighbours ’ll soon be none at all,” he said.  “Let ’em talk.  I’m not abusing you, Mr. Blancove.  I’m a broken man:  but I want my poor lost girl, and, by God, responsible for your son or not, you must help me to find her.  She may be married, as she says.  She mayn’t be.  But I must find her.”

The squire hastily seized a scrap of paper on the table and wrote on it.

“There!” he handed the paper to the farmer; “that’s my son’s address, ‘Boyne’s Bank, City, London.’  Go to him there, and you’ll find him perched on a stool, and a good drubbing won’t hurt him.  You’ve my hearty permission, I can assure you:  you may say so.  ‘Boyne’s Bank.’  Anybody will show you the place.  He’s a rascally clerk in the office, and precious useful, I dare swear.  Thrash him, if you think fit.”

“Ay,” said the farmer, “Boyne’s Bank.  I’ve been there already.  He’s absent from work, on a visit down into Hampshire, one of the young gentlemen informed me; Fairly Park was the name of the place:  but I came to you, Mr. Blancove; for you’re his father.”

“Well now, my good Fleming, I hope you think I’m properly punished for that fact.”  The squire stood up with horrid contortions.

Robert stepped in advance of the farmer.

“Pardon me, sir,” he said, though the squire met his voice with a prodigious frown; “this would be an ugly business to talk about, as you observe.  It would hurt Mr. Fleming in these parts of the country, and he would leave it, if he thought fit; but you can’t separate your name from your son’s—­begging you to excuse the liberty I take in mentioning it—­ not in public:  and your son has the misfortune to be well known in one or two places where he was quartered when in the cavalry.  That matter of the jeweller—­”

“Hulloa,” the squire exclaimed, in a perturbation.

“Why, sir, I know all about it, because I was a trooper in the regiment your son, Mr. Algernon Blancove, quitted:  and his name, if I may take leave to remark so, won’t bear printing.  How far he’s guilty before Mr. Fleming we can’t tell as yet; but if Mr. Fleming holds him guilty of an offence, your son ’ll bear the consequences, and what’s done will be done thoroughly.  Proper counsel will be taken, as needn’t be said.  Mr. Fleming applied to you first, partly for your sake as well as his own.  He can find friends, both to advise and to aid him.”

“You mean, sir,” thundered the squire, “that he can find enemies of mine, like that infernal fellow who goes by the title of Reverend, down below there.  That’ll do, that will do; there’s some extortion at the bottom of this.  You’re putting on a screw.”

“We’re putting on a screw, sir,” said Robert, coolly.

“Not a penny will you get by it.”

Robert flushed with heat of blood.