took him to the hunt to sell him for me the other day, and after he’d made a bargain for a hundred and twenty with Bryce, he went after the hounds, and took some fool’s leap or other that did for the horse at once. If it hadn’t been for that, I should have paid you a hundred pounds this morning.”

The Squire had laid down his knife and fork, and was staring at his son in amazement, not being sufficiently quick of brain to form a probable guess as to what could have caused so strange an inversion of the paternal and filial relations as this proposition of his son to pay him a hundred pounds.

“The truth is, sir—I’m very sorry—I was quite to blame,” said Godfrey. “Fowler did pay that hundred pounds. He paid it to me when I was over there one day last month. And Dunsey bothered me for the money, and I let him have it, because I hoped I should be able to pay it you before this.”

The Squire was purple with anger before his son had done speaking, and found utterance difficult. “You let Dunsey have it, sir? And how long have you been so thick with Dunsey that you must collogue with him to embezzle my money? Are you turning out a scamp? I tell you I won’t have it. I’ll turn the whole pack of you out of the house together, and marry again. I’d have you to remember, sir, my property’s got no entail on it; since my grandfather’s time the Casses can do as they like with their land. Remember that, sir. Let Dunsey have the money! Why should you let Dunsey have the money? There’s some lie at the bottom of it.”

“There’s no lie, sir,” said Godfrey. “I wouldn’t have spent the money myself; but Dunsey bothered me, and I was a fool, and let him have it. But I meant to pay it, whether he did or not. That’s the whole story. I never meant to embezzle money, and I’m not the man to do it. You never knew me do a dishonest trick, sir.”

“Where’s Dunsey, then? What do you stand talking there for? Go and fetch Dunsey, as I tell you, and let him give account of what he wanted the money for and what he’s done with it. He shall repent it. I’ll turn him out. I said I would, and I’ll do it. He shan’t brave me. Go and fetch him.”

“Dunsey isn’t come back, sir.”

“What! did he break his own neck, then?” said the Squire, with some disgust at the idea that in that case he could not fulfil his threat.

“No, he wasn’t hurt, I believe, for the horse was found dead, and Dunsey must have walked off. I dare say we shall see him again by-and-by. I don’t know where he is.”

“And what must you be letting him have my money for? Answer me that,” said the Squire, attacking Godfrey again, since Dunsey was not within reach.

“Well, sir, I don’t know,” said Godfrey hesitatingly. That was a feeble evasion; but Godfrey was not fond of lying, and not being sufficiently aware that no sort of duplicity can long flourish without the help of vocal falsehoods, he was quite unprepared with invented motives.

“You don’t know? I tell you what it is, sir. You’ve been up to some trick, and you’ve been bribing him not to tell,” said the Squire, with a sudden acutenes which startled Godfrey, who felt his heart beat violently at the nearness of his father’s guess. The sudden alarm pushed him on to take the next step; a very slight impulse suffices for that on a downward road.

“Why, sir,” he said, trying to speak with careless ease, “it was a little affair between me and Dunsey; it’s no matter to anybody else. It’s hardly worth while to pry into young men’s fooleries; it wouldn’t have made any difference to you, sir, if I’d not had the bad luck to lose Wildfire. I should have paid you the money.”

“Fooleries! Pshaw! it’s time you’d done with fooleries. And I’d have you know, sir, you must ha’ done with ’em,” said the Squire, frowning and casting an angry glance at his son. “Your goings-on are not