"Randal," said the Squire, who looked pale and worn, but who scorned to confess the weakness with which he still grieved and yearned for his rebellious son: "Randal, you have nothing now to do in London; can you come and stay with me, and take to farming? I remember that you showed a good deal of sound knowledge about thin sowing."
"My dear sir, I will come to you as soon as the general election is over."
"What the deuce have you got to do with the general election?"
"Mr. Egerton has some wish that I should enter Parliament; indeed, negotiations for that purpose are now on foot."
The Squire shook his head. "I don't like my half-brother's politics."
"I shall be quite independent of them," cried Randal, loftily; "that independence is the condition for which I stipulate."
"Glad to hear it; and if you do come into Parliament, I hope you'll not turn your back on the land?"
"Turn my back on the land!" cried Randal, with devout horror. "Oh, sir, I am not so unnatural!"
"That's the right way to put it," quoth the credulous Squire; "it is unnatural! It is turning one's back on one's own mother! The land is a mother—"
"To those who live by her, certainly—a mother," said Randal, gravely. "And though, indeed, my father starves by her rather than lives, and Rood Hall is not like Hazeldean, still—I—"