Suddenly, to Randal’s great surprise, the squire’s whole face brightened up.
“I see, I see!” he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. “I have it, I have it! ‘T is an affair of money! I can buy her off. If she took money from him—the mercenary, painted baggage I—why, then, she’ll take it from me. I don’t care what if costs—half my fortune—all! I’d be content never to see Hazeldean Hall again, if I could save my son, my own son, from disgrace and misery; for miserable he will be, when he knows he has broken my heart and his mother’s. And for a creature like that! My boy, a thousand hearty thanks to you. Where does the wench live? I’ll go to her at once.” And as he spoke, the squire actually pulled out his pocketbook, and began turning over and counting the bank-notes in it.
Randal at first tried to combat this bold resolution on the part of the squire; but Mr. Hazeldean had seized on it with all the obstinacy of his straightforward English mind. He cut Randal’s persuasive eloquence off in the midst.
“Don’t waste your breath! I’ve settled it; and if you don’t tell me where she lives, ‘t is easily found out, I suppose.”
Randal mused a moment. “After all,” thought he, “why not? He will be sure so to speak as to enlist her pride against himself, and to irritate Frank to the utmost. Let him go.”
Accordingly he gave the information required; and, insisting with great earnestness on the squire’s promise not to mention to Madame di Negra his knowledge of Frank’s pecuniary aid (for that would betray Randal as the informant); and satisfying himself as he best might with the squire’s prompt assurance, “that he knew how to settle matters, without saying why or wherefore, as long as he opened his purse wide enough,” he accompanied Mr. Hazeldean back into the streets, and there left him,—fixing an hour in the evening for an interview at Limmer’s, and hinting that it would be best to have that interview without the presence of the parson.
“Excellent good man,” said Randal, “but not with sufficient knowledge of the world for affairs of this kind, which you understand so well.”
“I should think so,” quoth the squire, who had quite recovered his good-humour. “And the parson is as soft as buttermilk. We must be firm here,—firm, sir.” And the squire struck the end of his stick on the pavement, nodded to Randal, and went on to May Fair as sturdily and as confidently as if to purchase a prize cow at a cattle-show.