“Why does not the Rector get them away?”
“Get them away? Well, he has, over and over again, but they always come back. The townspeople call them The Bad Shilling and The Boomerang on that account. The Rector’s a good old fellow, only obstinate and weak, and with too big an idea of his sacred prerogative, which the folks down there won’t stand. Here, get well, Mag, and come down and help me rout the enemy.”
“I wish I could,” sighed Magnus. “Only wants will, my lad. If you are using my billiard-table and horses it will keep those fellows off, but mind they don’t rook you.”
“I thought you told me that Frank had made a lot of money at the gold fields?”
“So he gives it out, but I don’t believe it. If he had he wouldn’t be borrowing of me and getting Perry-Morton to do bills for him.”
“It seems strange.”
“Strange! yes. I believe it’s all gammon. Hang that fellow, I don’t like him at all. Of course this is all in confidence, Mag.” Magnus looked up at him with a smile. “My people tell me that he is always going over to Lewby, close by my place. It’s one of the farms that came to me. Nice jolly farmer fellow there. Bluff chap, John Berry, with a pretty little wife fifteen years younger; and it seems there was something on between the lady and Master Frank before he went to the antipodes.”
“That’s bad,” said Magnus, frowning.
“Damn bad,” said Artingale; “but I try to make it smooth by thinking he is interceding for his brother.”
“Interceding for his brother? What do you mean?”