"So I went with him, and he showed me how working men live and labour in such towns as Leeds and Manchester; and I am not going to say less than it is a sin and a shame to keep human beings alive on such terms. I do not believe any Reform Bill is going to help them; but they ought to be helped; and they must be helped; or else government is nothing but blunderment, and legislating nothing but folly. And I said as much to Richmoor, and he asked me if my son had been lecturing me; and I told him I had been using my own eyes, and my own ears, and my own conscience."
"He said, 'Squire, I do not like your associating with Philip Brotherton. The man has radical ideas, though he does not profess them.' And I said, 'I like Philip Brotherton, and I shall associate with him whenever I can make it convenient to do so; and as for his ideas, if they are radical, then Christianity is radical; and as for professing them, Philip Brotherton does better than that, he lives them;' and I went on to say that I thought it would be a right and righteous thing if both landlords and loomlords would do the same."
"My word, John! Thou didst speak up! I'll warrant Richmoor was angry enough."
The Squire laughed a little as he answered, "Well, Maude, he got as red in the face as a turkey-cock, and he asked me if I was really going to be Philip Brotherton's fool. And I answered, 'No, I am like you, Duke, I do my own business in that line.' And he said, '_Squire Atheling!_' and turned on his heel and walked one way; and I said, '_Duke Richmoor!_' and turned on my heel and walked the other way. Now then, Maude, dost thou think he orders my opinions for me?"
And Mrs. Atheling smiled understandingly in her lord's face, and cut him a double portion from the best part of the haunch of venison she was carving.
A few days after this event Annabel called one morning at the Athelings. She expected Cecil North to be there, and he was not there; she waited for him to come, and he did not come; she tried in many devious ways to get Kate to express an opinion about his absence, and Kate seemed entirely unconscious of it. It provoked her into an ill-natured anger; and, casting about in her mind for something disagreeable to say, she remembered her resolve to find out how the sapphire ring came to be in Lord Exham's possession. Even if "the straight way had not been the best way," she was by nature inclined to direct inquiries; and she had just proven in her mental manoeuvring about Cecil North that indirect methods were not satisfactory. So she said bluntly:--