The young man showed no joy, no emotion.  He stood immovable, like a statue of a man, and when he opened his lips it was like a statue speaking with its marble mouth.

“No!  Susan.  No! old man.  I am honest, though I’m poor—­and proud, though you have seen me put to shame near my own homestead more than once to-day.  To borrow without a chance of paying is next door to stealing; and I should never pay you.  My eyes are opened in spite of my heart.  I can’t farm ‘The Grove’ with no grass, and wheat at forty shillings.  I’ve tried all I know, and I can’t do it.  Will there is dying to try, and he shall try, and may Heaven speed his plow better than it has poor George’s.”

“I am not thinking of the farm now, George,” said William.  “I’m thinking of when we were boys, and used to play marbles—­together—­upon the tombstones.”  And he faltered a little.

“Mr. Levi! seems you have a kindness for me.  Show it to my brother when I’m away, if you will be so good.”

“Hum?” said Isaac doubtfully.  “I care not to see your stout young heart give way, as it will.  Ah, me!  I can pity the wanderer from home.  I will speak a word with you, and then I will go home.”

He drew George aside, and made him a secret communication.

Merton called Susan to him, and made her promise to be prudent, then he shook hands with George and went away.

Now Meadows, from the direction of Isaac’s glance, and a certain half-surprised half-contemptuous look that stole over George’s face, suspected that his enemy, whose sagacity he could no longer doubt, was warning George against him.

This made him feel very uneasy where he was, and this respectable man dreaded some exposure of his secret.  So he said hastily, “I’ll go along with you, farmer,” and in a moment was by Merton’s side, as that worthy stopped to open the gate that led out of George’s premises.  His feelings were anything but pleasant when George called to him: 

“No, sir! stop.  You are as good a witness as I could choose of what I have to say.  Step this way, if you please, sir.”

Meadows returned, clinched his teeth, and prepared for the worst, but inwardly he cursed his uneasy folly in staying here, instead of riding home the moment George had said “Yes!” to Australia.

George now looked upon the ground a moment; and there was something in his manner that arrested the attention of all.

Meadows turned hot and cold.

“I am going—­to speak—­to my brother, Mr. Meadows!” said he, syllable by syllable to Meadows in a way brimful of meaning.

“To me, George?” said William, a little uneasy.

“To you!—­Fall back a bit.” (Some rustics were encroaching upon the circle.)

“Fall back, if you please; this is a family matter.”

Isaac Levi, instead of going quite away, seated himself on a bench outside the palings.

It was now William’s turn to flutter; he said, however, to himself, “It is about the farm; it must be about the farm.”