"My death? Ha, ha! Nonsense. My own son calculated on the date of it by the insurance-tables. Ha, ha, ha! A very fashionable son, eh! Ha, ha!"
"Poor Frank! do not let him suffer for a momentary forgetfulness of right feeling. When he comes to be married to that foreign lady, and be a father himself, he—"
"Father himself!" burst forth the squire. "Father to a swarm of sallow-
faced Popish tadpoles! No foreign frogs shall hop about my grave in
Hazeldean churchyard. No, no. But you need not look so reproachful,—
I 'm not going to disinherit Frank."
"Of course not," said Randal, with a bitter curve in the lip that rebelled against the joyous smile which he sought to impose on it.
"No; I shall leave him the life-interest in the greater part of the property; but if he marry a foreigner, her children will not succeed,— you will stand after him in that case. But—now don't interrupt me—but Frank looks as if he would live longer than you, so small thanks to me for my good intentions, you may say. I mean to do more for you than a mere barren place in the entail. What do you say to marrying?"
"Just as you please," said Randal, meekly.
"Good. There's Miss Sticktorights disengaged,—great heiress. Her lands run onto Rood. At one time I thought of her for that graceless puppy of mine. But I can manage more easily to make up the match for you. There's a mortgage on the property; old Sticktorights would be very glad to pay it off. I 'll pay it out of the Hazeldean estate, and give up the Right of Way into the bargain. You understand?
"So come down as soon as you can, and court the young lady yourself."
Randal expressed his thanks with much grateful eloquence; and he then delicately insinuated, that if the squire ever did mean to bestow upon him any pecuniary favours (always without injury to Frank), it would gratify him more to win back some portions of the old estate of Rood, than to have all the acres of the Sticktorights, however free from any other incumbrance than the amiable heiress.
The squire listened to Randal with benignant attention. This wish the country gentleman could well understand and sympathize with. He promised to inquire into the matter, and to see what could be done with old Thornhill.