"Ho! there! Do you belong to the house? Run in, summon Anthony Crymes. Tell him his father wants him--immediately." CHAPTER XXIX. CAUTIONS. Urith entered the hall again, and told Fox that his father was without, and wanted him. "My father!" exclaimed young Crymes. "Oh! he is home from the Session of Parliament, where they and the King have been engaged in offering each other humble pie, for which neither party has a taste. What does he want with me?" "I did not inquire," answered Urith, haughtily. Mr. Crymes had not known her in the road, when he called out to her to send his son to him. Fox was annoyed to have to leave the dance, but he could not disobey his father, so he took his hat and coat, and went forth. Mr. Crymes was waiting for him, in the coach. "I heard you were here, on my way. Stirring times, my boy, when we must be up and doing." "So am I, father; you took me off from a saraband." "Fie on it! I don't mean dancing. Come into the coach, and sit with me. I have much to say." "Am I to desert my partners?" "In faith! I reckon the maids will be content to find another better favoured than thee, Tonie." Fox reluctantly entered the carriage, but not till he had made another effort to be excused. "Julian is here, is she to be left without an escort?" "Julian has her attendants, and will be rejoiced to be free from your company, as when together ye mostly spar." When the coach was in movement, Mr. Crymes said, "I have come back into the country, for, indeed, it is time that they who love the Constitution of their country and their religion should be preparing for that struggle which is imminent." "I thought, father," said Fox, "you were sent up to Westminster to fight the battle there. It is news to me that warfare is to be carried on by Cut and Run. I suppose you were in risk of being sent to the Tower?" The old man was offended. "It will oblige me if you reserve your sarcasms for others than your own father. I come home, and you sneer at me." "Not at all; you mistake. I wondered how the Constitution was to be preserved here, when the great place of doctoring and drenching the patient, of bleeding and cupping, is at Westminster, and you were sent thither to tender your advice as to how that same Constitution was to be dealt with." "The battle is not to be fought there," said Mr. Crymes, "nor with tongues. The field of conflict will be elsewhere, and the weapons keener and harder than words." "The field of conflict is, I trust, not to be here," remarked Fox; "your sagacity, father, has assuredly taken you to the furthest possible distance from it. As soon as these weapons stronger than tongues are brandished, I shall betake me to Lundy or the Scilly Isles." "You are a coward, I believe," said Mr. Crymes, in a tone of annoyance. "I expect to find in you--or, rather, but for my experience of you, I might have reckoned on finding in my son--a nobler temper than that of a runaway."