Young Cradock was a proud man—man from that day forth, I shall call him “lad” no longer—ay, a prouder man, pile upon pile, than the father who once had spoiled him. But his pride was of the right sort—self–respect, not self–esteem. So he did not appeal, by word or look, to the sympathy lurking, and no doubt working, in the pith of his fatherʼs heart, but answered calmly and coldly, though his soul was hot with sorrow— “Sir, I believe it is so”. His eyes were on his fatherʼs. He longed to look him down, and felt the power to do it; but dropped them as should a good son. Although the white–haired man was glad at the promotion of his favourite, his heart was yearning towards the child more worthy to succeed him. But his notions of filial duty—which himself had been called upon to practise chiefly in memory, having seen very little of his father, and having lost him early—were of the stern, cold order now, the buckle and buckram style; though much relaxed at intervals in Master Claytonʼs favour. Finding no compunction, no humility in his sonʼs look, for a mistake which was wholly of others, and receiving no expression of grief at the loss of heirship, Sir Cradock hardened back again into his proper dignity, and resumed his air of inquiry. “I wish John Rosedew were here”, he thought, and then it repented him of the wish, for he knew how stubborn the parson was, and how he would have Craddy the foremost. Rufus Hutton, all this time, was in the agony of holding his tongue. He tried to think of his Rosa, and so to abstract himself airily from the present scene. He had ridden over to see her yesterday, and now dwelt upon their doings. Rosa was to come to–morrow, and he would go to fetch his wife in a carriage that would amaze her. Then he met Cradock Nowellʼs eyes, and wondered what he was thinking of. “Now, Sir Cradock Nowell, this wonʼt do at all. How long are we to play fast and loose with a finer fellow than either of us”? Oh, that hot–headed Rufus, what mischief he did then! “Although I have not the honour, sir, of being in the commission of peace for this little county, I have taken magisterial duty in a district rather larger than Ireland thrown into Great Britain. And I can grow, per acre, thrice the amount of corn that any of your farmers can”. His colour deepened with self–assertion, like the central quills of a dahlia. “We must have you to teach us, Dr. Hutton. It is a thing to be thought about. But at present you are kindly interested in—in giving your evidence”. Even then, if Dr. Hutton, with all his practised acumen, had mixed one grain of the knowledge of men, he might have done what he liked with Sir Cradock, and re–established the dynasty; unless, indeed, young Cradock were bent upon going through with everything. But the only mode Rufus Hutton knew of meeting the world was antagonism.