"Undoubtedly," replied Mr. Radford, with the most perfect calmness.
"Well then, sir," exclaimed the baronet, irritated beyond all endurance--"I have to tell you, that you have committed a gross, insolent, and unjustifiable act; and I have to insist that she be brought back here this very night."
"Nay, my dear friend--nay," replied Mr. Radford, in a half jeering tone. "These are harsh words that you use; but you must hear me first, before I pay any attention to them."
"I want to hear nothing, sir," cried Sir Robert Croyland, his anger still carrying him forward. "But if you do not send her back to her own home, I will get horses over from Tenterden, and bring her myself.--Her slavery has not yet commenced, Mr. Radford."
"I shall not be able to bring her over," answered Mr. Radford, still maintaining the same provoking coolness; "because, in case of her return, I should be obliged to use my horses myself, to lay certain important facts, which we both know of, before a brother magistrate."
He paused, and Sir Robert Croyland winced. But still indignation was uppermost for the time; and rapidly as lightning the thoughts of resistance passed through his mind. "This man's conduct is too bad," he said to himself. "After such a daring act as this, with his character blackened by so many stains, and so clear a case of revenge, the magistrates will surely hardly listen to him." But as he continued to reflect, timidity--the habitual timidity of many years--began to mingle with and dilute his resolution; and Mr. Radford, who knew him to the very heart, after having suffered him to reflect just long enough to shake his firmness, went on in a somewhat different tone, saying, "Come, Sir Robert! don't be unreasonable; and before you quarrel irretrievably with an old friend, listen quietly to what he has got to say."
"Well, sir, well," said Sir Robert Croyland, casting himself into a chair--"what is it you have got to say?"
"Why, simply this, my dear friend," answered Mr. Radford, "that you are not aware of all the circumstances, and therefore cannot judge yet whether I have acted right or wrong. You and I have decided, I think, that there can no longer be any delay in the arrangement of our affairs. I put it plainly to you yesterday, that it was to be now or never; and you agreed that it should be now. You brought me your daughter's consent in the afternoon; and so far the matter was settled. I don't want to injure you; and if you are injured, it is your own fault--"
"But I gave no consent," said Sir Robert Croyland, "that she should be taken to your house. The circumstances--the circumstances, Mr. Radford!"
"Presently, presently," replied his companion. "I take it for granted, that, when you have pledged yourself to a thing, you are anxious to accomplish it. Now I tell you, there was no sure way of accomplishing this, but that which I have taken. Do you know who is the commander of this dragoon regiment which is down here?--No. But I do. Do you know who is the man, who, like a sub-officer of the Customs, attacked our friends yesterday morning, took some fifty of them prisoners, robbed me of some seventy thousand pounds, and is now hunting after my son, as if he were a fox?--No. But I do; and I will tell you who he is.--One Harry Leyton, whom you may have heard of--now, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Leyton, Knight of the Bath, forsooth!"