he sent for Arthur next day. He bade him close the door. "I want to speak to you," he said; then he paused a moment while Arthur waited, his color rising. "It's about yourself. When you came to me I did not expect much from the experiment. I thought that you would soon tire of it, being what you are. But you have stood to it, and you have shown a considerable aptitude for the business. And I have made up my mind to take you in-on conditions, of course."
Arthur's eyes sparkled. He had not hoped that the offer would be made so soon, and, much moved, he tried to express his thanks. "You may be sure that I shall do my best, sir," he said.
"I believe you will, lad. I believe you will. Indeed, I am thinking of myself as well as of you. I had not intended to make the offer so soon-you are young and could wait. But you will have to bring in a certain sum, and capital can be used at present to great advantage."
Arthur looked grave. "I am afraid, sir-"
"Oh, I'll make it easy," Ovington said. "This is my offer. You will put in five thousand pounds, and will receive for three years twelve per cent upon this in lieu of your present salary of one hundred and fifty-the hundred you are to be paid as Secretary to the Company is beside the matter. At the end of three years, if we are both satisfied, you will take an eighth share-otherwise you will draw out your money. On my death, if you remain in the bank, your share will be increased to a third on your bringing in another five thousand. You know enough about the accounts to know-"
"That it's a most generous offer," Arthur exclaimed, his face aglow. And with the frankness and enthusiasm, the sparkling eye and ready word that won him so many friends, he expressed his thanks.
"Well, lad," the other answered pleasantly, "I like you. Still, you had better take a short time to consider the matter."
"I want no time," Arthur declared. "My only difficulty is about the money. My mother's six thousand is charged on Garth, you see."
This was a fact well known to Ovington, and one which he had taken into his reckoning. Perhaps, but for it, he had not been making the offer at this moment. But he concealed his satisfaction and a smile, and "Isn't there a provision for calling it up?" he said.
"Yes, there is-at three months. But I am afraid that my mother-"
"Surely she would not object under the circumstances. The increased income might be divided between you so that it would be to her profit as well as to your advantage to make the change. Three months, eh? Well, suppose we say the money to be paid and the articles of partnership to be signed four months from now?"
Difficulties never loomed very large in this young man's eyes. "Very good, sir," he said. "Upon my honor, I don't know how to thank you."
"It won't be all on your side," the banker answered good-humoredly. "Your name's worth something, and you are keen. I wish to heaven you could infect Clement with a tithe of your keenness."
"I'll try, sir," Arthur replied. At that moment he felt that he could move mountains.
"Well, that's settled, then. Send Rodd to me, will you, and do you see if I have left my pocket-book in the house. Betty may know where it is."
Arthur went through the bank, stepping on air. He gave Rodd his message, and in a twinkling he was in the house. As he crossed the hall his heart beat high. Lord, how he would work! What feats of banking he would perform! How great would he make Ovington's, so that not only Aldshire but Lombard Street should ring with its fame! What wealth would he not pile up, what power would he not build upon it, and how he would crow, in the days to come, over the dull-witted clod-hopping Squires from whom he sprang, and who had not the brains to see that the world was changing about them and their reign approaching its end!
For at this moment he felt that he had it in him to work miracles. The greatest things seemed easy. The fortunes of Ovington's lay in the future, the cycle half turned-to what a point might they not carry them! During the last twelve months he had seen money earned with an ease which made all things appear possible; and alert, eager, sanguine, with an inborn talent for business, he felt that he had but to rise with the flowing tide to reach any position which wealth could offer in the coming age-that age which enterprise and industry, the loan, the mill, the furnace were to make their own. The age of gold!
He burst into song. He stopped. "Betty!" he cried.
"Who is that rude boy?" the girl retorted, appearing on the stairs above him.
He bowed with ceremony, his hand on his heart, his eyes dancing. "You see before you the Industrious Apprentice!" he said. "He has received the commendation of his master. It remains only that he should lay his success at the feet of-his master's daughter!"
She blushed, despite herself. "How silly you are!" she cried. But when he set his foot on the lowest stair as if to join her, she fled nimbly up and escaped. On the landing above she stood. "Congratulations, sir," she said, looking over the balusters. "But a little less forwardness and a little more modesty, if you please! It was not in your articles that you should call me Betty."
"They are cancelled! They are gone!" he retorted. "Come down, Betty! Come down and I will tell you such things!"
But she only made a mocking face at him and vanished. A moment later her voice broke forth somewhere in the upper part of the house. She, too, was singing.
CHAPTER VI
Between the village and Garth the fields sank gently, to rise again to the clump of beeches which masked the house. On the farther side the ground fell more sharply into the narrow valley over which the Squire's window looked, and which separated the knoll whereon Garth stood from the cliffs. Beyond the brook that babbled down this valley and turned the mill rose, first, a meadow or two, and then the Thirty Acre covert, a tangle of birches and mountain-ashes which climbed to the foot of the rock-wall. Over this green trough, which up-stream and down merged in the broad vale, an air of peace, of remoteness and seclusion brooded, making it the delight of those who, morning and evening, looked down on it from the house.
Viewed from the other side, from the cliffs, the scene made a different impression. Not the intervening valley but the house held the eye. It was not large, but the knoll on which it stood was scarped on that side, and the walls of weathered brick rose straight from the rock, fortress-like and imposing, displaying all their mass. The gables and the stacks of fluted chimneys dated only from Dutch William, but tradition had it that a strong place, Castell Coch, had once stood on the same site; and fragments of pointed windows and Gothic work, built into the walls, bore out the story.
The road leaving the village made a right-angled turn round Garth and then, ascending, ran through the upper part of the Thirty Acres, skirting the foot of the rocks. Along the lower edge of the covert, between wood and water, there ran also a field-path, a right-of-way much execrated by the Squire. It led by a sinuous course to the Acherley property, and, alas, for good resolutions, along it on the afternoon of the very day which saw the elder Ovington at Garth came Clement Ovington, sauntering as usual.
He carried a gun, but he carried it as he might have carried a stick, for he had long passed the bounds within which he had a right to shoot; and at all times, his shooting was as much an excuse for a walk among the objects he loved as anything else. He had left his horse at the Griffin Arms in the village, and he might have made his way thither more quickly by the road. But at the cost of an extra mile he had preferred to walk back by the brook, observing as he went things new and old; the dipper curtseying on its stone, the water-vole perched to perform its toilet on the leaf of a brook-plant, the first green shoots of the wheat piercing through the soil, an old laborer who was not sorry to unbend his back, and whose memory held the facts and figures of fifty-year-old harvests. The day was mild, the sun shone, Clement was happy. Why, oh, why were there
