"Dal it all! Sons and daughters indeed! A bitter, bitter pleasure!"
At this exclamation, a turn in the road brought him in sight of two horsemen. "_Whew!_ I am having a night of it!" he muttered. For he recognised immediately the portly figure of the great Duke of Richmoor, and he did not doubt that the slighter man at his side was his son, Lord Exham. The recognition was mutual; and on the Duke's side very satisfactory. He quickened his horse's speed, and cried out as he neared the Squire,--
"Well met, Atheling! You are the very man I wished to see! Do you remember Exham?"
There was a little complimentary speaking, and then the Duke said earnestly: "Squire, if there is one thing above another that at this time the landed interest ought to do, it is to stand together. The country is going to the devil; it is on the verge of revolution. We must have a majority in the next Parliament; and we want you for the borough of Asketh. Exham has come back from Italy purposely to take Gaythorne. What do you say?"
It was the great ambition of the Squire to go to Parliament, and the little dispute he had just had with the stranger on the green had whetted this desire to a point which made the Duke's question a very interesting one to him; but he was too shrewd to make this satisfaction apparent. "There are younger men, Duke," he answered slowly; "and they who go to the next Parliament will have a trying time of it. I hear queer tales, too, of Parliament men; and the House keeps late hours; and late hours never did suit my constitution."
"Come, Atheling, that is poor talk at a crisis like this. There will be a meeting at the Castle on Friday--a very important meeting--and I shall expect you to take the chair. We are in for such a fight as England has not had since the days of Oliver Cromwell; and it would not be like John Atheling to keep out of it."
"It wouldn't. If there is anything worth fighting for, John Atheling will be thereabouts, I'll warrant him."
"Then we may depend upon you--Friday, and two in the afternoon, is the day and the hour. You will not fail us?"
"Duke, you may depend upon me." And so the men parted; the Squire, in the unexpected proposal just made him, hardly comprehending the messages of friendly courtesy which Lord Exham charged him to deliver to Mrs. and Miss Atheling.
