you had better ask him," said Walter. "I should wish you to hear both sides."
"That is like you," said Bartley; "but where does the shoe pinch, in your opinion?"
"Well, he tells me, in sober earnest, that he loses money by it as it is; but when he is drunk he tells his boon companions he has made seven thousand pounds here. He has one or two grass fields that want draining, but I offer him the pipes; he has only got to lay them and cut the drains. My opinion is that he is the slave of habit; he is so used to make an unfair profit out of these acres that he can not break himself of it and be content with a fair one."
"I dare say you have hit it," said Bartley. "Well, I am fond of farming; but I don't live by it, and a moderate profit would content me."
Walter said nothing. The truth is, he did not want to let the farm to Bartley.
Bartley saw this, and drew Mary aside.
"Should not you like to come here, my child?"
"Yes, papa, if you wish it; and you know it's dear Mr. Hope's birth-place."
"Well, then, tell this young fellow so. I will give you an opportunity."
That was easily managed, and then Mary said, timidly, "Cousin Walter, we should all three be so glad if we might have the farm."
"Three?" said he. "Who is the third?"
"Oh, somebody that everybody likes and I love. It is Mr. Hope. Such a duck! I am sure you would like him."
"Hope! Is his name William?"
"Yes, it is. Do you know him?" asked Mary, eagerly.
"I have reason to know him: he did me a good turn once, and I shall never forget it."
"Just like him!" cried Mary. "He is always doing people good turns. He is the best, the truest, the cleverest, the dearest darling dear that ever stepped, and a second father to me; and, cousin, this village is his birth-place, and he didn't say much, but it was he who told us of this farm, and he would be so pleased if I could write and say, 'We are to have the farm—Cousin Walter says so.'"
She turned her lovely eyes, brimming with tenderness, toward her cousin
Walter, and he was done for.
"Of course you shall have it," he said, warmly. "Only you will not be angry with me if I insist on the increased rent. You know, cousin, I have a father, too, and I must be just to him."
"To be sure, you must, dear," said Mary, incautiously; and the word penetrated Walter's heart as if a woman of twenty-five had said it all of a sudden and for the first time.
When they got home, Mary told Mr. Bartley he was to have the farm if he would pay the increased rent.
"That is all right," said Bartley. "Then to-morrow we can go home."
"So soon!" said Mary, sorrowfully.
"Yes," said Bartley, firmly; "the rest had better be done in writing. Why, Mary, what is the use of staying on now? We are going to live here in a month or two."
"I forgot that," said Mary, with a little sigh. It seemed so ungracious to get what they wanted, and then turn their backs directly. She hinted as much, very timidly.
But Bartley was inexorable, and they reached home next day.
Mary would have liked to write to Walter, and announce their safe arrival, but nature withheld her. She was a child no longer.
Bartley went to the sharp solicitor, and had a long interview with him. The result was that in about ten days he sent Walter Clifford a letter and the draft of a lease, very favorable to the landlord on the whole, but cannily inserting one unusual clause that looked inoffensive.
It came by post, and Walter read the letter, and told his father whom it was from.
"What does the fellow say?" grunted Colonel Clifford.
"He says: 'We are doing very well here, but Hope says a bailiff can now carry out our system; and he is evidently sweet on his native place, and thinks the proposed rent is fair, and even moderate. As for me, my life used to be so bustling that I require a change now and then; so I will be your tenant. Hope says I am to pay the expense of the lease, so I have requested Arrowsmith & Cox to draw it. I have no experience in leases. They have drawn hundreds. I told them to make it fair. If they have not, send it back with objections.'"
"Oh! oh!" said Colonel Clifford. "He draws the lease, does he? Then look at it with a microscope."
Walter laughed.
"I should not like to encounter him on his own ground. But here he is a fish out of water; he must be. However, I will pass my eye over it. Where the farmer generally over-reaches us, if he draws the lease, is in the clauses that protect him on leaving. He gets part possession for months without paying rent, and he hampers and fleeces the incoming tenant, so that you lose a year's rent or have to buy him out. Now, let me see, that will be at the end of the document—No; it is exceedingly fair, this one."
"Show it to our man of business, and let him study every line. Set an attorney to catch an attorney."
"Of course I shall submit it to our solicitor," said Walter.
This was done, and the experienced practitioner read it very carefully.
He pronounced it unusually equitable for a farmer's lease.
"However," said he, "we might suggest that he does all the repairs and draining, and that you find the materials; and also that he insures all the farm buildings. But you can hardly stand out for the insurance if he objects. There's no harm trying. Stay! here is one clause that is unusual: the tenant is to have the right to bore for water, or to penetrate the surface of the soil, and take out gravel or chalk or minerals, if any. I don't like that clause. He might quarry, and cut the farm in pieces. Ah, there's a proviso, that any damage to the surface or the agricultural value shall be fully compensated, the amount of such injury to be settled by the landlord's valuer or surveyor. Oh, come, if you can charge your own price, that can't kill you."
In short, the draft was approved, subject to certain corrections. These were accepted. The lease was engrossed in duplicate, and in due course signed and delivered. The old tenant left, abusing the Cliffords, and saying it was unfair to bring in a stranger, for he would have given all the money.
Bartley took possession.
Walter welcomed Hope very warmly, and often came to see him. He took a great interest in Hope's theories of farming, and often came to the farm for lessons. But that interest was very much increased by the opportunities it gave him of seeing and talking to sweet Mary Bartley. Not that he was forward or indiscreet. She was not yet sixteen, and he tried to remember she was a child.
Unfortunately for that theory she looked a ripe woman, and this very Walter made her more and more womanly. Whenever Walter was near she had new timidity, new blushes, fewer gushes, less impetuosity, more reserve. Sweet innocent! She was set by Nature to catch the man by the surest way, though she had no such design.
Oh, it was a pretty, subtle piece
