t my demand, to-morrow or the next day, obtain an interview with
my wife.'

The squire coughed out an emphatic 'Never!' and fortified it with an oath
as he repeated it upon a fuller breath.

'Sir, I will condescend to entreat you to grant this permission,' said
Mr. Richmond, urgently.

'No, never: I won't!' rejoined the squire, red in the face from a fit of
angry coughing. 'I won't; but stop, put down that boy; listen to me, you
Richmond! I'll tell you what I'll do. I 'll--if you swear on a Bible,
like a cadger before a bench of magistrates, you'll never show your face
within a circuit o' ten miles hereabouts, and won't trouble the boy if
you meet him, or my daughter or me, or any one of us-hark ye, I'll do
this: let go the boy, and I'll give ye five hundred--I'll give ye a
cheque on my banker for a thousand pounds; and, hark me out, you do this,
you swear, as I said, on the servants' Bible, in the presence of my
butler and me, "Strike you dead as Ananias and t' other one if you don't
keep to it," do that now, here, on the spot, and I'll engage to see you
paid fifty pounds a year into the bargain. Stop! and I'll pay your debts
under two or three hundred. For God's sake, let go the boy! You shall
have fifty guineas on account this minute. Let go the boy! And your
son--there, I call him your son--your son, Harry Richmond, shall inherit
from me; he shall have Riversley and the best part of my property, if not
every bit of it. Is it a bargain? Will you swear? Don't, and the boy's a
beggar, he's a stranger here as much as you. Take him, and by the Lord,
you ruin him. There now, never mind, stay, down with him. He's got a cold
already; ought to be in his bed; let the boy down!'

'You offer me money,' Mr. Richmond answered.

'That is one of the indignities belonging to a connection with a man like
you. You would have me sell my son. To see my afflicted wife I would
forfeit my heart's yearnings for my son; your money, sir, I toss to the
winds; and I am under the necessity of informing you that I despise and
loathe you. I shrink from the thought of exposing my son to your besotted
selfish example. The boy is mine; I have him, and he shall traverse the
wilderness with me. By heaven! his destiny is brilliant. He shall be
hailed for what he is, the rightful claimant of a place among the
proudest in the land; and mark me, Mr. Beltham, obstinate sensual old man
that you are! I take the boy, and I consecrate my life to the duty of