is a curmudgeon! Thirty pounds a year? Well, I'm d-d! And all because I won't starve as a parson!"
But his mother rose in arms at that. "Starve as a parson!" she cried. "Why, I think you are as bad, one as the other. I'm sure your father never starved!"
"No, I know, mother. He was passing rich on four hundred pounds a year. But that is not going to do for me."
"Well, I don't know what you want!"
"My dear mother, I've told you before what I want." Arthur was fast regaining the good temper that he seldom lost. "If I were a bishop's son and could look to be a bishop, or if I were an archdeacon's son with the prospect of a fat prebend and a rectory or two with it, I'd take Orders. But with no prospect except the Garthmyle living, and with tithes falling-"
"But haven't I told you over and over again that you have only to make-up to-but there, I haven't told you that Jos was with him, and I will say this for her, that she looked as ashamed for him as I am sure I was! I declare I was sorry for the girl and she not daring to put in a word-such an old bear as he is to her!"
"Poor Jos!" Arthur said. "She has not a very bright life of it. But this does not interest Clement, and we're keeping him."
The young man had indeed made more than one attempt to take leave, but every time he had moved Mrs. Bourdillon had either ignored him, or by a stately gesture had claimed his silence. He rose now.
"I dare say you know my cousin?" Arthur said.
"I've seen her," Clement answered; and his mind went back to the only occasion on which he had remarked Miss Griffin. It had been at the last Race Ball at Aldersbury that he had noticed her-a gentle, sweet-faced girl, plainly and even dowdily dressed, and so closely guarded by her proud old dragon of a father that, warned by the fate of others and aware that his name was not likely to find favor with the Squire, he had shrunk from seeking an introduction. But he had noticed that she sat out more than she danced; sat, indeed, in a kind of isolation, fenced in by the old man, and regarded with glances of half-scornful pity by girls more smartly dressed. He had had time to watch her, for he also, though for different reasons, had been a little without the pale, and he had found her face attractive. He had imagined how differently she would look were she suitably dressed. "Yes," he continued, recalling it, "she was at the last Race Ball, I think."
"And a mighty poor time she had of it," Arthur answered, half carelessly, half contemptuously. "Poor Jos! She hasn't at any time much of a life with my beauty of an uncle. Twopence to get and a penny to spend!"
Mrs. Bourdillon protested. "I do wish you would not talk of your cousin like that," she said. "You know that she's your uncle's heiress, and if you only-"
Arthur cut her short. "There! There! You don't remember, mother, that Clement has seven miles to ride before his supper. Let him go now! He'll be late enough."
That was the end, and the two young men went out together. When Arthur returned, the tea had been removed and his mother was seated at her tambour work. He took his stand before the fire. "Confounded old screw!" he fumed. "Thirty pounds a year? And he's three thousand, if he's a penny! And more likely four!"
"Well, it may be yours some day," with a sniff. "I'm sure Jos is ready enough."
"She'll have to do as he tells her."
"But Garth must be hers."
"And still she'll have to do as he tells her. Don't you know yet, mother, that Jos has no more will than a mouse? But never mind, we can afford his thirty pounds. Ovington is giving me a hundred and fifty, and I'm to have another hundred as secretary to this new Company-that's news for you. With your two hundred and fifty we shall be able to pay his rent and still be better off than before. I shall buy a nag-Packham has one to sell-and move to better rooms in town."
"But you'll still be in that dreadful bank," Mrs. Bourdillon sighed. "Really, Arthur, with so much money it seems a pity you should lower yourself to it."
He had some admirable qualities besides the gaiety, the alertness, the good looks that charmed all comers; ay, and besides the rather uncommon head for figures and for business which came, perhaps, of his Huguenot ancestry, and had commended him to the banker. Of these qualities patience with his mother was one. So, instead of snubbing her, "Why dreadful?" he asked good-humoredly. "Because all our county fogies look down on it? Because having nothing but land, and drawing all their importance from land, they're jealous of the money that is shouldering them out and threatening their pride of place? Listen to me, mother. There is a change coming! Whether they see it or not, and I think they do see it, there is a change coming, and stiff as they hold themselves, they will have to give way to it. Three thousand a year? Four thousand? Why, if Ovington lives another ten years what do you think that he will be worth? Not three thousand a year, but ten, fifteen, twenty thousand!"
"Arthur!"
"It is true, mother. Ay, twenty, it is possible! And do you think that when he can buy up half a dozen of these thickheaded Squires who can just add two to two and make four-that he'll not count? Do you think that they'll be able to put him on one side? No! And they know it. They see that the big manufacturers and the big ironmasters and the big bankers who are putting together hundreds of thousands are going to push in among them and can't be kept out! And therefore trade, as they call it, stinks in their nostrils!"
"Oh, Arthur, how horrid!" Mrs. Bourdillon protested, "you are growing as coarse as your uncle. And I'm sure we don't want a lot of vulgar purse-proud-"
"Purse-proud? And what is the Squire? Land-proud! But," growing more calm, "never mind that. You will take a different view when I tell you something that I heard to-day. Ovington let drop a word about a partnership."
"La, Arthur, but-"
"A partnership! Nothing definite, nothing to bind, and not yet, but in the future. It was but a hint. But think of it, mother! It is what I have been aiming at all along, but I didn't expect to hear of it yet. Not one or two hundred a year, but say, five hundred to begin with, and three, four, five thousand by and by! Five thousand!" His eyes sparkled and he threw back the hair from his forehead with a characteristic gesture. "Five thousand a year! Think of that and don't talk to me of Orders. Take Orders! Be a beggarly parson while I have that in my power, and in my power while I am still young! For trust me, with Ovington at the helm and the tide at flood we shall move. We shall move, mother! The money is there, lying there, lying everywhere to be picked up. And we shall pick it up."
"You take my breath away!" his mother protested, her faded, delicate face unusually flushed. "Five thousand a year! Gracious me! Why, it is more than your uncle has!" She raised her mittened hands in protest. "Oh, it is impossible!" The vision overcame her.
But "It is perfectly possible," he repeated. "Clement is of no use. He is for ever wanting to be out of doors-a farmer spoiled. Rodd's a mere mechanic. Ovington cannot do it all, and he sees it. He must have someone he can trust. And then it is not only that I suit him. I am what he is not-a gentleman."
"If you could have it without going to the bank!" Mrs. Bourdillon said. And she sighed, golden as was the vision. But before they parted his eloquence had almost persuaded her. She had heard such things, had listened to such hopes, had been dazzled by such sums that she was well-nigh reconciled even to that which the old Squire dubbed "the trade of usury."
CHAPTER III
Meanwhile Clement Ovington jogged homeward through the darkness, his thoughts divided between the discussion at which he had made an unwilling third, and the objects about him which were never without interest for this young man. He had an ear, and a very sharp one, for the piping of the pee-wits in the low land
