One specially intimate friend of his,—a man whom he really loved,—hung back with the object of congratulating him. "Ralph," said George Morris, of Watheby Grove, a place about four miles from the Priory, "I must tell you how glad I am of all this."
"All right, old fellow."
"Come; you might show out a little to me. Isn't it grand? We shall always have you among us now. Don't tell me that you are indifferent."
"I think enough about it, God knows, George. But it seems to me that the less said about it the better. My father has behaved nobly to me, and of course I like to feel that I've got a place in the world marked out for me. But—"
"But what?"
"You understand it all, George. There shouldn't be rejoicing in a family because the heir has lost his inheritance."
"I can't look at it in that line."
"I can't look at it in any other," said Ralph. "Mind you, I'm not saying that it isn't all right. What has happened to him has come of his own doings. I only mean that we ought to be quiet about it. My father's spirits are so high, that he can hardly control them."
"By George, I don't wonder at it," said George Morris.
There were three little bits of gorse about half-a-mile from Barford Wood, as to which it seemed that expectation did not run high, but from the last of which an old fox broke before the hounds were in it. It was so sudden a thing that the pack was on the scent and away before half-a-dozen men had seen what had happened. Our Squire had been riding with Cox, the huntsman, who had ventured to say how happy he was that the young squire was to be the Squire some day. "So am I, Cox; so am I," said the Squire. "And I hope he'll be a friend to you for many a year."