he, "why not 'a told him before?"

The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that caused
Richard to compress his mouth and glance high.

Farmer Blaize was positive 'twas a lie.

"Hum! Ye still hold to't you fired the rick?" he asked.

"The blame is mine!" quoth Richard, with the loftiness of a patriot of
old Rome.

"Na, na!" the straightforward Briton put him aside. "Ye did't, or ye
didn't do't. Did ye do't, or no?"

Thrust in a corner, Richard said, "I did it."

Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was answered in an instant
by little Lucy, who received orders to fetch in a dependent at Belthorpe
going by the name of the Bantam, and made her exit as she had entered,
with her eyes on the young stranger.

"Now," said the farmer, "these be my principles. I'm a plain man, Mr.
Feverel. Above board with me, and you'll find me handsome. Try to
circumvent me, and I'm a ugly customer. I'll show you I've no animosity.
Your father pays--you apologize. That's enough for me! Let Tom Bakewell
fight't out with the Law, and I'll look on. The Law wasn't on the spot, I
suppose? so the Law ain't much witness. But I am. Leastwise the Bantam
is. I tell you, young gentleman, the Bantam saw't! It's no moral use
whatever your denyin' that ev'dence. And where's the good, sir, I ask?
What comes of 't? Whether it be you, or whether it be Tom Bakewell--ain't
all one? If I holds back, ain't it sim'lar? It's the trewth I want! And
here't comes," added the farmer, as Miss Lucy ushered in the Bantam, who
presented a curious figure for that rare divinity to enliven.

CHAPTER IX

In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a
tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with
diverse anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel forces,
from opposing ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed the Bantam, on
account of some forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, moved and looked
elephantine. It sufficed that Giles was well fed to assure that Giles was
faithful--if uncorrupted. The farm which supplied to him ungrudging
provender had all his vast capacity for work in willing exercise: the
farmer who held the farm his instinct reverenced as the fountain source
of beef and bacon, to say nothing of beer, which was plentiful at
Belthorpe, and good. This Farmer Blaize well knew, and he reckoned
consequently that here was an animal always to be relied on--a sort o