The Squire laid his hand on his son's shoulder with a momentary pressure as he turned aside to attend to his guests, but Ralph lopped crestfallen and discomfited. It was one thing to blurt out a disagreeable confession on the impulse of a moment, and another and very different one to discuss it in cold blood in the privacy of a study. In the middle of the night, too! Ralph shivered at the thought. Why on earth couldn't the Governor be sensible, and wait till next morning? The money would be paid--that was the main point--all the rest could wait. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. AT THE ORCHARD. Ralph Percival spent a long hour alone with his father in the chill dawn of that New Year's morn, and during its passing heard more stern home- truths than he had ever before listened to from those indulgent lips. The Squire had not insisted on any arduous work on his son's part: in his heart he shared Ralph's theory that a man whose life is to be spent looking after his own land has no need of much scholarly lore. He must be straight and manly, intelligent enough to understand and move with the movements of the day, but not so intelligent as to grow discontented with a circle of admirable, but somewhat humdrum, neighbours. He must be possessed of courteous and agreeable manners, able on occasion to take the chair at a meeting, possibly even on a Bench, with credit to himself and his family. A 'Varsity education was obviously the best means of developing such qualities, but who was going to bother his head as to the question of honours or no honours? There was no reason why the boy should slave as if he had his living to make by sheer brain effort. The Squire was prepared to show the utmost leniency towards Ralph's scholastic efforts, but that he should have persistently broken the rules, ignored warnings, incurred gambling debts, and, crowning indignity of all, that he should have been sent down, even for the last week of the term--that stabbed the honest old countryman to his heart.