the habit of showing to the perfidious eyes of his friend. Randal saw
that the squire had two characteristics, which are very common amongst
proprietors, and which might be invoked as antagonists to his warm
fatherly love. First, the squire was as fond of his estate as if it were
a living thing, and part of his own flesh and blood; and in his lectures
to Frank upon the sin of extravagance, the squire always let out this
foible,--"What was to become of the estate if it fell into the hands of a
spendthrift? No man should make ducks and drakes of Hazeldean; let Frank
beware of that," etc. Secondly, the squire was not only fond of his
lands, but he was jealous of them,--that jealousy which even the
tenderest fathers sometimes entertain towards their natural heirs.
He could not bear the notion that Frank should count on his death; and he
seldom closed an admonitory letter without repeating the information that
Hazeldean was not entailed; that it was his to do with as he pleased
through life and in death. Indirect menace of this nature rather wounded
and galled than intimidated Frank; for the young man was extremely
generous and high-spirited by nature, and was always more disposed to
some indiscretion after such warnings to his self-interest, as if to show
that those were the last kinds of appeal likely to influence him. By the
help of such insights into the character of father and son, Randal
thought he saw gleams of daylight illumining his own chance to the lands
of Hazeldean. Meanwhile, it appeared to him obvious that, come what
might of it, his own interests could not lose, and might most probably
gain, by whatever could alienate the squire from his natural heir.
Accordingly, though with consummate tact, he instigated Frank towards the
very excesses most calculated to irritate the squire, all the while
appearing rather to give the counter advice, and never sharing in any of
the follies to which he conducted his thoughtless friend. In this he
worked chiefly through others, introducing Frank to every acquaintance
most dangerous to youth, either from the wit that laughs at prudence, or