Phil then explained, at full, his provocations. Mr. Welford listened sternly.
“I don’t know what you have been doing,” he said, “to make her act in that way. I have always heard of her as a very faithful servant, not only to your uncle, but to your grandfather.”
A thought passed through Mr. Welford’s mind, but as he looked at Phil’s clear eye and honest countenance he refrained from expressing it. Three hundred dollars to pay a servant seemed an absurdity, but what else could the boy want with the money?
“There is no use talking any more about it,” said Mr. Welford. “I can furnish you with no such sum as that. I have now in my hands very little money belonging to your uncle. By his directions, I paid, a few days ago, a large sum on his account, and I certainly expected to have seen him before this time in regard to that and other matters. As it is, I not only have not three hundred dollars belonging to him, but his balance here is very small, scarcely enough, I imagine, to keep you and Hyson Hall going for a couple of weeks longer. I have no doubt, however, that your uncle will be back before that time expires. I advise you now to go home, and get along with the housekeeper as well as you can. If you are pleasant to her, perhaps she will be pleasant to you. And don’t try to do any great deeds in your uncle’s absence. I see you are not afraid to bring your horse round to the front this time,” he said, with a grim smile, as Phil opened the door.
If Mr. Welford had been a boy, there would have been a fight, then and there; but he was an elderly, respectable gentleman, and Phil answered him not a word. He merely bowed, mounted his horse and rode away, the most rueful boy in all that county.
The next day was Sunday, and Phil and Chap walked over to the Webster farm, and went to church with the family. The boys returned there to dinner, but Phil insisted that Chap should go home with him in the afternoon and continue his visit, for he declared that Hyson Hall was too doleful a place for him to live in alone.
Helen, Chap’s sister, somewhat younger, and a great deal better looking than he, privately told her brother that she thought that Phil must find the management of affairs at Hyson Hall a dreadful worry, for she never saw him look so blue and moping.
“You’re right, my girl,” said Chap. “The domestic horizon over there is pretty cloudy, and there’s what the papers would call a crisis impending; but I’m Phil’s prime minister, and it’s my opinion that the government party will be found firmly established when the crisis is over.”
“Now, Chap,” said Helen, taking her brother by the hand, “don’t you go and lead Phil into any wild tantrums.”
“Tantrums!” exclaimed Chap, impatiently. “I’d like to know why people always think about tantrums and such things when they talk to me. I’ve got nothing to do with tantrums. Why, Helen, I’m helping Phil to carry out one of the most important pieces of work that anybody ever undertook in this part of the country.”