he came to you just for help to find his daughter, with whom your rascal of a son was last seen, and you swear he’s come to rob you of money.  Don’t you know yourself a fattened cur, squire though you be, and called gentleman?  England’s a good place, but you make England a hell to men of spirit.  Sit in your chair, and don’t ever you, or any of you cross my path; and speak a word to your servants before we’re out of the house, and I stand in the hall and give ’em your son’s history, and make Wrexby stink in your nostril, till you’re glad enough to fly out of it.  Now, Mr. Fleming, there’s no more to be done here; the game lies elsewhere.”

Robert took the farmer by the arm, and was marching out of the enemy’s territory in good order, when the squire, who had presented many changeing aspects of astonishment and rage, arrested them with a call.  He began to say that he spoke to Mr. Fleming, and not to the young ruffian of a bully whom the farmer had brought there:  and then asked in a very reasonable manner what he could do—­what measures he could adopt to aid the farmer in finding his child.  Robert hung modestly in the background while the farmer laboured on with a few sentences to explain the case, and finally the squire said, that his foot permitting (it was an almost pathetic reference to the weakness of flesh), he would go down to Fairly on the day following and have a personal interview with his son, and set things right, as far as it lay in his power, though he was by no means answerable for a young man’s follies.

He was a little frightened by the farmer’s having said that Dahlia, according to her own declaration was married, and therefore himself the more anxious to see Mr. Algernon, and hear the truth from his estimable offspring, whom he again stigmatized as a curse terrible to him as his gouty foot, but nevertheless just as little to be left to his own devices.  The farmer bowed to these observations; as also when the squire counselled him, for his own sake, not to talk of his misfortune all over the parish.

“I’m not a likely man for that, squire; but there’s no telling where gossips get their crumbs.  It’s about.  It’s about.”

“About my son?” cried the squire.

“My daughter!”

“Oh, well, good-day,” the squire resumed more cheerfully.  “I’ll go down to Fairly, and you can’t ask more than that.”

When the farmer was out of the house and out of hearing, he rebuked Robert for the inconsiderate rashness of his behaviour, and pointed out how he, the farmer, by being patient and peaceful, had attained to the object of his visit.  Robert laughed without defending himself.

“I shouldn’t ha’ known ye,” the farmer repeated frequently; “I shouldn’t ha’ known ye, Robert.”

“No, I’m a trifle changed, may be,” Robert agreed.  “I’m going to claim a holiday of you.  I’ve told Rhoda that if Dahlia’s to be found, I’ll find her, and I can’t do it by sticking here.  Give me three weeks.  The land’s asleep.  Old Gammon can hardly turn a furrow the wrong way.  There’s nothing to do, which is his busiest occupation, when he’s not interrupted at it.”