d
his reception of the dealings of Providence toward him.

"My neighbours 'll soon be none at all," he said. "Let 'em talk. I'm not
abusing you, Mr. Blancove. I'm a broken man: but I want my poor lost
girl, and, by God, responsible for your son or not, you must help me to
find her. She may be married, as she says. She mayn't be. But I must find
her."

The squire hastily seized a scrap of paper on the table and wrote on it.

"There!" he handed the paper to the farmer; "that's my son's address,
'Boyne's Bank, City, London.' Go to him there, and you'll find him
perched on a stool, and a good drubbing won't hurt him. You've my hearty
permission, I can assure you: you may say so. 'Boyne's Bank.' Anybody
will show you the place. He's a rascally clerk in the office, and
precious useful, I dare swear. Thrash him, if you think fit."

"Ay," said the farmer, "Boyne's Bank. I've been there already. He's
absent from work, on a visit down into Hampshire, one of the young
gentlemen informed me; Fairly Park was the name of the place: but I came
to you, Mr. Blancove; for you're his father."

"Well now, my good Fleming, I hope you think I'm properly punished for
that fact." The squire stood up with horrid contortions.

Robert stepped in advance of the farmer.

"Pardon me, sir," he said, though the squire met his voice with a
prodigious frown; "this would be an ugly business to talk about, as you
observe. It would hurt Mr. Fleming in these parts of the country, and he
would leave it, if he thought fit; but you can't separate your name from
your son's--begging you to excuse the liberty I take in mentioning
it--not in public: and your son has the misfortune to be well known in
one or two places where he was quartered when in the cavalry. That matter
of the jeweller--"

"Hulloa," the squire exclaimed, in a perturbation.

"Why, sir, I know all about it, because I was a trooper in the regiment
your son, Mr. Algernon Blancove, quitted: and his name, if I may take
leave to remark so, won't bear printing. How far he's guilty before Mr.
Fleming we can't tell as yet; but if Mr. Fleming holds him guilty of an
offence, your son 'll bear the consequences, and what's done will be done
thoroughly. Proper counsel will be taken, as needn't be said. Mr. Fleming
applied to you first, partly for your sake as well as his own. He can
find friends, both to advise and to aid him."

"You mean, sir," thundered the squire, "that he can find enemies of mi