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