"How dare I?" responded the young man, excitedly, and with his handsome face aglow. "Because there was naught to fear; and if there were, I should not have feared it."
"Tut, tut! so bold a game could never have entered into your young head. Your mother must have set you on to do it—come, Sir, the truth, the truth."
"She did not set me on, father," insisted the other, earnestly. "I came here of my own will. I have been dwelling within a stone's-throw of your house these six months, in hopes to see you face to face. She told me not to come—I swear she did."
"So much the better for her," ejaculated the Squire, grimly. "If I thought that she had any hand in this, not another shilling of my money should she ever touch. It was agreed between us," he continued, passionately—"and I, for my part, am a man who keeps his word—that she and hers should never meddle more with me and mine; and now she has broken faith."
"Nay, Sir, but she has not," returned the young man, firmly. "I tell you it was against her will that I came hither."
"The devil it was!" exclaimed the Squire, suddenly bursting into a wild laugh. "If you get your way with her, when she says 'no,' you must be a rare one. You are my son for certain, however, or you would never dare to stand here. It was a rash step, young Sir, and might have ended in the horse-pond. I had half a mind to set my bull-dog at you. Since you are here, however, you can stay. But let us understand one another. I am your father, in a sense, as I am father, for aught I know, to half the parish; but as to being lawfully so, the law has happened to have decided otherwise. I know what you would say about 'the rights of it;' but that's beside the question; the law, I say, for once, is on my side, and I stand by it. Egad, I have good reason to do so; and if your mother had been your wife, as she was mine, you would be with me so far. Now, look you," and here again the speaker's manner changed with his shifting mood, "if ever again you venture to address me as your father, or to boast of me as such, I will have you turned out neck and crop; but as Mr. Richard Yorke, my guest, you will be welcome at Crompton, so long as we two suit each other; only beware, young Sir, that you tell me no lies. I shall soon get rid of you on these terms," continued the Squire, with a chuckle; "for to speak truth must be as difficult to you, considering the stock you come of, as dancing on the tight-rope. Your mother, indeed, was a first-rate rope-dancer in that way, and I rarely caught her tripping; but you—"
"Sir," interrupted the young man, passionately, "is this your hospitality?"
"True, lad, true," answered the Squire, good-humoredly; "I had intended to have forgotten Madam Yorke's existence. Well, Sir, what are you?—what do you do, I mean, for a livelihood—beside 'night-watching?'"
"I am a landscape-painter, Sir."
"Umph!" grunted Carew, contemptuously; "you don't get fat on that pasture, I reckon. Have you never done any thing else?"