"I will pay everything; you shall then go down to Scarrowby, and the house shall be prepared for you."
It wasn't supposed, George thought, that he was absolutely to live in solitary confinement at Scarrowby. He might have a friend or two, and then the station was very near.
"You are fond of shooting, and you will have plenty of it there. We will get you made a magistrate for the county, and there is much to do in looking after the property." Sir Harry became almost good-humoured in his tone as he described the kind of life which he intended that the blackamoor should live. "We will come to you for a month each year, and then you can come to us for a while."
"When shall it begin?" asked Cousin George, as soon as the Baronet paused. This was a question difficult to be answered. In fact, the arrangement must be commenced at once. Sir Harry knew very well that, having so far yielded, he must take his cousin back with him to Humblethwaite. He must keep his cousin now in his possession till all those debts should be paid, and till the house at Scarrowby should be prepared; and he must trust to his daughter's prudence and high sense of right not to treat her lover with too tender an acknowledgment of her love till he should have been made to pass through the fire of reform.
"You had better get ready and come back to Humblethwaite with me now," said Sir Harry.
Within five minutes after that there was bustling about the passages and hall of the Crown Hotel. Everybody in the house, from the august landlord down to the humble stableboy, knew that there had been a reconciliation between Sir Harry and his cousin, and that the cousin was to be made welcome to all the good the gods could give. While Cousin George was packing his things, Sir Harry called for the bill and paid it,—without looking at it, because he would not examine how the blackamoor had lived while he was still a blackamoor.
"I wonder whether he observed the brandy," thought Cousin George to himself.