“Aha!” said the squire, very grimly—and he thrust back into his pocket-book some extra bank-notes which his fingers had itched to add to those he had already counted out. “The country is terribly dull, is it? Money goes there not upon follies and vices, but upon employing honest labourers, and increasing the wealth of the nation. It does not please you to spend money in that way: it is a pity you should ever be plagued with such duties.”
“My dear father—”
“Hold your tongue, you puppy. Oh, I dare say, if you were in my shoes, you would cut down the oaks, and mortgage the property; sell it, for what I know,—all go on a cast of the dice! Aha, sir—very well, very well—the country is horribly dull, is it? Pray stay in town.”
“My dear Mr. Hazeldean,” said Randal, blandly, and as if with the wish to turn off into a joke what threatened to be serious, “you must not interpret a hasty expression so literally. Why, you would make Frank as bad as Lord A——-, who wrote word to his steward to cut down more timber; and when the steward replied, ‘There are only three sign-posts left on the whole estate,’ wrote back, ‘They’ve done growing at all events,—down with them!’ You ought to know Lord A——-, sir; so witty; and—Frank’s particular friend.”
“Your particular friend, Master Frank? Pretty friends!” and the squire buttoned up the pocket to which he had transferred his note-book, with a determined air.
“But I’m his friend, too,” said Randal, kindly; “and I preach to him properly, I can tell you.” Then, as if delicately anxious to change the subject, he began to ask questions upon crops and the experiment of bone manure. He spoke earnestly, and with gusto, yet with the deference of one listening to a great practical authority. Randal had spent the afternoon in cramming the subject from agricultural journals and parliamentary reports; and like all practised readers, had really learned in a few hours more than many a man, unaccustomed to study, could gain from books in a year. The squire was surprised and pleased at the young scholar’s information and taste for such subjects.
“But, to be sure,” quoth he, with an angry look at poor Frank, “you have good Hazeldean blood in you, and know a bean from a turnip.”
“Why, sir,” said Randal, ingenuously, “I am training myself for public life; and what is a public man worth if he do not study the agriculture of his country?”
“Right—what is he worth? Put that question, with my compliments, to my half-brother. What stuff he did talk, the other night, on the malt-tax, to be sure!”
“Mr. Egerton has had so many other things to think of, that we must excuse his want of information upon one topic, however important. With his strong sense he must acquire that information, sooner or later; for he is fond of power; and, sir, knowledge is power!”