Nash did not answer him at all. Nave’s clerk sent a semi-insolent letter, saying Mr. Caromel should be communicated with when occasion offered. The Squire wrote in a rage to his lawyer at Worcester, bidding him enforce the repayment.
“You two lads can take the letter to the post,” said he.
But we had not got many yards from home when we heard the Squire coming after us. We all walked into Church Dykely together; and close to the post-office, which was at Dame Chad’s shop, we met Duffham. Of course the Squire, who could not keep anything in had he been bribed to do it, told Duffham what steps he was about to take.
“Going to enforce payment,” nodded Duffham. “The man deserves no quarter. But he is ill.”
“Serve him right. What’s the matter with him?”
“Nervous fever. Has fretted or frightened himself into it. Report says that he is very ill indeed.”
“Don’t you attend him?”
“Not I. I did not please madam at the time the boy was born—would not give in to some of her whims and fancies. They have called in that new doctor who has settled in the next parish, young Bluck.”
“Why, he is no better than an apothecary’s boy, that young Bluck! Caromel can’t be very ill, if they have him.”
“So ill, that, as I have just heard, he is in great danger—likely to die,” replied Duffham, tapping his cane against the ledge of Dame Chad’s window. “Bluck’s young, but he is clever.”