"My instructions were to give reasonable time, and not to proceed with the arrest if there was any possibility of the money being forthcoming, or a part of it, not less than two hundred and fifty--cash." "Can you wait till this evening?" pleaded the rector, hopelessly, "while I see what can be done. You've taken me at a disadvantage. My son is not here now. He won't be back till after midday." "If there is any likelihood of your being able to do anything by evening, of course--" "He'll wait. He must wait," cried Mrs. Swinton, taking up her muff. "I'll have to see father about it." "You must wait till this evening, my man." "All right, then. Until six o'clock?" "Yes." "Very well, six o'clock," the man agreed, and withdrew. "I can't bear to think of your going to your father again, Mary," sighed the rector, bitterly. "Dick has been a shocking muddler in his affairs--as bad as his father, without his father's excuse. God knows, I've been too busy with parish affairs to attend properly to my own, whereas he--" "He is young, John," pleaded the indulgent mother, "and ought to be in receipt of a handsome allowance from his grandfather. He has only been spending what really should be his." "Sophistry, my darling, sophistry!" "At any rate, I'm going up to my father to get money from him, by hook or by crook. We must have it, or we are irretrievably ruined." CHAPTER VI A KINSHIP SOMETHING LESS THAN KIND "Pull the blinds higher and raise my pillows, do you hear, woman? I want to see what that lazy scamp of a husband of yours is about--loafing for a certainty, if he thinks no one can see him." Herresford addressed his housekeeper, the wife of Ripon, the head-gardener. Mrs. Ripon bit her lip as she tugged at the blind cords savagely, and gave her master a defiant look, which he was quick to see. It apparently amused him, for he smiled grimly. "Oh, yes, yes, I know what you want to say," he snarled: "that I grind you all down, and treat you as slaves. That, my good woman, is where you make a mistake. Yet, you are slaves--slaves, do you hear? And I intend to see that you don't rob me, for to waste the time that I pay for is to rob me." "Well, sir, if we don't suit you, we can go." "My good woman, you'd have gone long ago, if it hadn't suited my convenience to retain you. Ripon is a good gardener; you are a good housekeeper. You both know the value of money. We happen to suit each other. Your husband has more sense than you. He does the work of two men, and he's paid for it. If the positions were reversed, he would be quite as hard a master as I; that's why I like him. He gets quite as much out of those under his control as I get out of him--only he doesn't pay 'em double."