Very often, when he was at home, Chap would go out on the porch, and with a long spy-glass carefully scan the river-shore in the vicinity of the wreck.
Phil’s mind was too full of other things to allow him to give much thought to the sunken ship, although he would have been delighted to have a pile of golden guineas just at this time. He had thought at first that it would be a capital thing to be, for a time, the master of Hyson Hall, but now he was heartily sick of it, and wished most earnestly that his uncle would come home and relieve him of his anxieties and responsibilities.
Sometimes he began to think his uncle had not done right in going off in this peculiar way, and leaving his money affairs in such a bad condition. But Phil quickly put such ideas from his mind. He had always known his uncle as an honorable man, and if he left but little money behind him, it was because he had forgotten the large claim which Mr. Welford said he had paid out of the funds in his hands.
But money affairs were not the only things which troubled Phil. Day by day Emile Touron made himself more disagreeable. He pried into everything that was going on, even spending a good deal of time with Joel, endeavoring to find out from him everything he could in regard to the probable value of the little wheat crop, which was nearly ready to be harvested. But Joel had taken a dislike to the youth, and gave him very little satisfaction, vexing him besides by his noncommittal answers.
“What will be planted in zat field,” asked Emile of Phil, one afternoon, “when ze wheat is gone?”
“We shan’t plant anything,” said Phil; “we’ll let it come up in grass.”
“No more grass is wanted,” said Emile.
At first Phil was inclined to make no answer to this remark, but as the French boy continued to talk on the subject, Phil told him that it was intended, in the fall, to plough up the pasture-field by the river and to put that in wheat for the next season.
“Plough up zat beautiful plain!” cried Emile. “It zall never be done.”
“What have you got to say about it?” cried Phil, turning angrily upon him. “You talk too much about things on this place!”