“No; I think you had better write him a note about it.”
The two young men looked at each other, and though Cheriton turned his eyes quickly away, he knew well enough that Fleming understood the whole matter.
“As you please, sir,” he said; “I wouldn’t wish for you to be annoyed, Mr Cherry, and so I’ll keep out of the squire’s way. But Westmoreland men are not black slaves, which no doubt the squire is accustomed to, and accounts for his conduct. It’s plain, sir, to any one that can read the newspapers, that there’s no liberty in foreign parts, where they’re all slaves and papists. Education, sir, teaches us that. And folks do remark that the squire doesn’t keep his church as others do; and I have heard that he means to establish a Popish chapel like the one at Ravenscroft.”
“Then you have heard the greatest piece of nonsense that ever was invented. Education might cure you of such notions,” said Cherry. “You must do as you think best for Chris. I am very sorry.”
The last words were involuntary, and Cherry hurried away before he was betrayed into any further discussion.
Some hours later, as it was growing dusk, he was lying on the window-seat in the library, thinking of how he could plead old Fisher’s cause without giving offence, and coming slowly to the conclusion that his presence there was doing far more harm than good, that he was risking peace with Alvar, and had better give up the straggle, when Alvar himself came into the room, and came up to him.
“Are you not well?” he said, rather constrainedly.
“Only very tired.”
“What have you been doing?” said Alvar, sitting down on the end of the broad-cushioned seat, and looking at him.
The words certainly gave an opening; but Cheriton, famous all his life for the most audacious coaxing, could not summon a smile or a joke.