'I won't; but stop, put down that boy; listen to me, you Richmond! I'll tell you what I'll do.

I 'll--if you swear on a Bible, like a cadger before a bench of magistrates, you'll never show your face within a circuit o' ten miles hereabouts, and won't trouble the boy if you meet him, or my daughter or me, or any one of us-hark ye, I'll do this: let go the boy, and I'll give ye five hundred--I'll give ye a cheque on my banker for a thousand pounds; and, hark me out, you do this, you swear, as I said, on the servants' Bible, in the presence of my butler and me, "Strike you dead as Ananias and t' other one if you don't keep to it," do that now, here, on the spot, and I'll engage to see you paid fifty pounds a year into the bargain.

Stop! and I'll pay your debts under two or three hundred.

For God's sake, let go the boy! You shall have fifty guineas on account this minute.

Let go the boy! And your son--there, I call him your son--your son, Harry Richmond, shall inherit from me; he shall have Riversley and the best part of my property, if not every bit of it.