"Perhaps I did," said the Squire. "I don't remember. Ah, if poor old Humphrey Meadshire had been alive, a lot of this wouldn't be happening."
Lord Meadshire, a kinsman of the Squire's, had been Lord Lieutenant of the county, and the leading light in it, for very many years. But he had died, a very old man, two years before, and the grandson who had succeeded him was "no good to anybody."
"Don't let him overawe you," was Dick's final advice, significant enough, as addressed to the Squire, of what had been wrought in him.
There was no attempt made to overawe him, unless by the ceremony that hedges round a great Secretary of State in his inner sanctuary, when the Squire presented himself at the time appointed.
Lord Cheviot rose from his seat and came forward to meet him. "It is good of you, Mr. Clinton," he said, shaking hands, "to come to me here. If you had been in London I should have called on you."
He was a tall, severe-looking man who seldom smiled, and did not smile now. He was so much in the public eye, and had for years played a part of such dignity, that it was impossible for the Squire, bucolic as he was, not to be somewhat impressed, now that he was in his presence.
But his greeting had removed any feeling that had been aroused by Dick's criticism of his letter, and he put the Squire still more at his ease by saying as he took his seat again, "I had the pleasure of meeting you some years ago at Lord Meadshire's. I think he was a relation of yours."
"Yes," said the Squire. "Poor old man, we miss him a great deal in my part of the world."
Lord Cheviot bowed his head. He had finished with the subject of Lord Meadshire.
"As you know, Mr. Clinton," he said, "I was guardian to my nephew during his minority. He was brought up as a member of my own family; I stand as a father to him, more than is the case with most guardians. That will excuse me to you, I hope, for interfering in a matter with which, otherwise, I should have had no concern."