The squire shook his head. "I don't like my half-brother's politics."
"I shall be quite independent of them," cried Randal, loftily; "that independence is the condition for which I stipulate."
"Glad to hear it; and if you do come into parliament, I hope you'll not turn your back on the land?"
"Turn my back on the land!" cried Randal, with devout horror. "Oh, sir,
I am not so unnatural!"
"That's the right way to put it," quoth the credulous squire; "it is unnatural! It is turning one's back on one's own mother. The land is a mother—"
"To those who live by her, certainly,—a mother," said Randal, gravely.
"And though, indeed, my father starves by her rather than lives, and Rood
Hall is not like Hazeldean, still—I—"
"Hold your tongue," interrupted the squire; "I want to talk to you. Your grandmother was a Hazeldean."
"Her picture is in the drawing-room at Rood. People think me very like her."
"Indeed!" said the squire. "The Hazeldeans are generally inclined to be stout and rosy, which you are certainly not. But no fault of yours. We are all as Heaven made us. However, to the point. I am going to alter my will,"—(said with a choking gulp). "This is the rough draft for the lawyers to work upon."
"Pray, pray, sir, do not speak to me on such a subject. I cannot bear to contemplate even the possibility of—of—"