template the corduroys of gaping Tom, and cry to Richard, in the very
tone of Adrian's ironic voice, "Behold your benefactor!"

Austin sat by the boy, unaware of the sublimer tumult he had stirred.
Little of it was perceptible in Richard's countenance. The lines of his
mouth were slightly drawn; his eyes hard set into the distance. He
remained thus many minutes. Finally he jumped to his legs, saying, "I'll
go at once to old Blaize and tell him."

Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out of Daphne's Bower,
in the direction of Lobourne.

CHAPTER VIII

Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel as
that young gentleman expected him to be. The farmer, seated in his
easy-chair in the little low-roofed parlour of an old-fashioned
farm-house, with a long clay pipe on the table at his elbow, and a
veteran pointer at his feet, had already given audience to three
distinguished members of the Feverel blood, who had come separately,
according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one object. In the
morning it was Sir Austin himself. Shortly after his departure, arrived
Austin Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about Lobourne as
the Captain, popular wherever he was known. Farmer Blaize reclined in
considerable elation. He had brought these great people to a pretty low
pitch. He had welcomed them hospitably, as a British yeoman should; but
not budged a foot in his demands: not to the baronet: not to the Captain:
not to good young Mr. Wentworth. For Farmer Blaize was a solid
Englishman; and, on hearing from the baronet a frank confession of the
hold he had on the family, he determined to tighten his hold, and only
relax it in exchange for tangible advantages--compensation to his pocket,
his wounded person, and his still more wounded sentiments: the total
indemnity being, in round figures, three hundred pounds, and a spoken
apology from the prime offender, young Mister Richard. Even then there
was a reservation. Provided, the farmer said, nobody had been tampering
with any of his witnesses. In that ease Farmer Blaize declared the money
might go, and he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had sworn he would.
And it goes hard, too, with an accomplice, by law, added the farmer,
knocking the ashes leisurely out of his pipe. He had no wish to bring any
disgrace anywhere; he respected the inmates of Raynham Abbey, as in duty
bound; he should be sorry to see them in trouble. Only