Young Elsmere’s behavior to him, however, at a time when all the rest of the Churton world was beginning to hold him cheap and let him see it, had touched the old man’s heart, and he was the Rector’s slave in this Mile End business. Edward Meyrick would come whirling in and out of the hamlet once a day. Robert was seldom sorry to see the back of him. His attainments, of course, were useful, but his cocksureness was irritating, and his manner to his father, abominable. The father, on the other hand, came over in the shabby pony-cart he had driven for the last forty years, and having himself no press of business, would spend hours with the Rector over the cases, giving them an infinity of patient watching, and amusing Robert by the cautious hostility he would allow himself every now and then toward his souls newfangled devices. At first Meyrick showed himself fidgety as to the Squire. Had he been seen, been heard from? He received Robert’s sharp negatives with long sighs, but Robert clearly saw that, like the rest of the world, he was too much afraid of Mr. Wendover to go and beard him. Some months before, as it happened, Elsmere had told him the story of his encounter with the Squire, and had been a good deal moved and surprised by the old man’s concern. One day, about three weeks from the beginning of the outbreak, when the state of things in the hamlet was beginning decidedly to mend, Meyrick arrived for his morning round, much preoccupied. He hurried his work a little, and after it was done asked Robert to walk up the road with him. ‘I have seen the Squire, sir,’ he said, turning on his companion with a certain excitement. Robert flushed. ‘Have you?’ he replied with his hands behind him, and a world of expression in his sarcastic voice. ‘You misjudge him! You misjudge him, Mr. Elsmere!’ the old man said tremulously. ‘I told you he could know of this business--and he didn’t! He has been in town part of the time, and down here, how is he to know anything? He sees nobody. That man Henslowe, sir, must be a real _bad_ fellow.’ ‘Don’t abuse the man,’ said Robert, looking up. ‘It’s not worth while, when you can say your mind of the master.’ Old Meyrick sighed. ‘Well,’ said Robert, after a moment, his lip drawn and quivering, ‘you told him the story, I suppose? Seven deaths, is it, by now? Well, what sort of impression did these unfortunate accidents’--and he smiled--‘produce?’ ‘He talked of sending money,’ said Meyrick doubtfully; he said he would have Henslowe up and inquire. He seemed put about and annoyed. Oh, Mr. Elsmere, you think too hardly of the Squire, that you do!’