"Your particular friend, Master Frank? Pretty friends!"--and the squire buttoned up the pocket, to which he had transferred his note book, with a determined air.
"But I'm his friend, too," said Randal, kindly; "and I preach to him properly, I can tell you." Then, as if delicately anxious to change the subject, he began to ask questions upon crops, and the experiment of bone manure. He spoke earnestly, and with _gusto_, yet with the deference of one listening to a great practical authority. Randal had spent the afternoon in cramming the subject from agricultural journals and Parliamentary reports; and, like all practiced readers, had really learned in a few hours more than many a man, unaccustomed to study, could gain from books in a year. The Squire was surprised and pleased at the young scholar's information and taste for such subjects.
"But, to be sure," quoth he, with an angry look at poor Frank, "you have good Hazeldean blood in you, and know a bean from a turnip."
"Why, sir," said Randal, ingenuously, "I am training myself for public life; and what is a public man worth if he do not study the agriculture of his country?"
"Right--what is he worth? Put that question, with my compliments, to my half-brother. What stuff he did talk, the other night, on the malt-tax, to be sure!"
"Mr. Egerton has had so many other things to think of, that we must excuse his want of information upon one topic, however important. With his strong sense, he must acquire that information, sooner or later; for he is fond of power; and, sir, knowledge is power!"
"Very true; very fine saying," quoth the poor Squire, unsuspiciously, as Randal's eye rested upon Mr. Hazeldean's open face, and then glanced toward Frank, who looked sad and bored.
"Yes," repeated Randal, "knowledge is power;" and he shook his head wisely, as he passed the bottle to his host.
Still, when the Squire, who meant to return to the Hall next morning, took leave of Frank, his heart warmed to his son: and still more for Frank's dejected looks. It was not Randal's policy to push estrangement too far at first, and in his own presence.
"Speak to poor Frank--kindly now, sir--do," whispered he, observing the Squire's watery eyes, as he moved to the window.