“By Jove! I didn’t know you were such a radical!” returned the baronet, laughing.

“Men like you, sir, make what you call radicals. If the landlords had used what was given to them to good ends, there would be no radicals—or not many—in the country! But when you call it yours and do nothing for it, I am radical enough to think no wrong would be done if you were deprived of it!”

“What! Are you taking to the preaching stump at your age?”

“No, sir. I have a trade I like better, and have no call to involve myself in your affairs, however ill you may have used your land. But there are those that think they have a right to take the land from landlords like you, and I would no more leave my work to prevent them than I would to help them.”

“Well, well! I didn’t come to talk politics, I came to ask a favour of you.”

“What I can do for you, sir, I shall be glad to do.”

“It is merely this—that you will for the present say nothing about my son having turned up.”

“I could have laid my hand on him any moment these past twenty years, and I can tell you where to find the parish book with his baptism in it. That I’ve not spoken proves I can hold my tongue. But I will give no pledge. When the time comes, I will speak.”

“Are you aware I could have you severely punished for concealing the thing?”

“Do your best! I’ll take my chance. But I would advise you not to allow the issue to come into court. Words might be spoken that would hurt. I know nothing myself, but there is one that could and would speak. Better let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Oh, hang it! I don’t want to wake them! Most old stories are best forgotten. But what do you think? Will the boy—what’s his name?”

“My father’s, sir—Richard.”

“Will Richard, then, as you have taken upon yourself to call him—”

“His mother gave him the name.”

“What I want to know is, will he go and spread the thing, or leave it to me to tell when I please?”

“Did you tell him to hold his tongue?”

“No. He didn’t give me time.”

“That’s a pity! He would have done whatever you asked him.”

“Would he?”

“He would—so long as it was a right thing.”

“And who would be the judge of that?”

“Why the man who had to do it or not do it, of course! But if he didn’t tell me, he’s not likely to go blazing it abroad!”

“You said he would go to his mother first. His mother is nowhere.”

“So some might say. But not I!”

“Never mind that. Who is it he calls his mother?”

“The woman that brought him up—and a good mother she’s been to him!”

“But who is she? You haven’t told me who she is!” cried the baronet, beginning to grow impatient, and impatience and anger were never far apart with him.