George Manville Fenn (continued 2)

“And you spend enough on ballet-girls to keep you from making profits by lending,” retorted Jessop. “All right, my Jonathan,” said Wrigley.

“All right, my David,” replied Jessop. “Let me see: David was a Jew.”

“Whilst I am not,” said Wrigley sharply.

“Oh, of course not. No one would suppose Wrigley to be an Israelitish name. There, don’t set up all your feathers, man, and look so indignant because I suggested that you belonged to the chosen race. There are good Jews.”

“And precious bad Christians,” said Wrigley sourly.

“Awfully! But I say, don’t be so ruffled, man. Lucky I didn’t come for some hard coin this morning.”

“It is; and hang me if I ever lend you money again if I’ve to have blood thrown in my face.”

“Bah! you shouldn’t be so sensitive about it. I don’t mind about your descent.”

“Enough to make any man sensitive. Gad, sir, any one would think we were lepers, seeing the treatment we receive.”

“Yes, it’s too bad,” said Jessop soothingly; “but you do have your recompense, old man. Nice refined revenge your people have had for the insult and contempt they have met with. There, let’s talk business.”

“Yes, let’s talk business. Now, then, what about the hole in the earth down which people throw their money?”

“Well, it’s a big hole.”

“Yes, I know that, but is it a big do after all?”

“No. As I told you, the old man wouldn’t have gone in for it if it hadn’t been right.”

“Then he really does hold a great deal in it?”

“More than half, that I know of.”

“You’ve carefully made sure of that.”

“Yes, carefully. It’s all right, I tell you.”

“Good! And what about the dear brother?”

“He’s still down there.”

“Surveying the mine?”

“Surveying? He has been down it every day for nearly a week, examining every crack and corner—adit, winze, shaft, driving, all the whole lot of it.”

“Well?”

“He sends reports to the old man every night.”

“And what does he say? Do you know?”

“Yes; the old man reads them to me.”

“Fudge! Flams to rig the market. Chatter for you to spread on the Stock Exchange and make the shares go up.”

“No,” said Jessop quietly, as he sat on a corner of the lawyer’s table, and swung his cane and one leg to and fro. “The dad and I don’t hit it, and we’ve had more quarrels than I can count about money and—other little matters; but he’s always straightforward with me over business, and I’d trust his word sooner than any man’s in London.”

“Good son.”

“Ah! you needn’t sneer; you’d only be too glad to get his name to a bit of paper.”

“True, O king! He is a model that way. But then he is pretty warm, and can afford to lose.”

“Yes; but it would be the same if he were hard up. The old man’s dead square.”

“Then you believe your brother’s reports are all that are read to you?”

“Implicitly.”

“No garbling, you think?”

“I’m sure there isn’t. No, old fellow, I hate my fortunate brother most bitterly, and I don’t love my father; but I’d sooner take their word than that of any one I know.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the lawyer. “Well, then, the mine is not quite played out!”

“Played out! Pish! It has never been worked properly. Only scratched and scraped. There’s plenty of ore to pay by following on the old workings with modern tackle, and a little fortune in re-smelting the old refuse that has been accumulating for fifteen hundred or two thousand years.”

“Yes, it is very old,” said Wrigley thoughtfully.

“Old! Why, no one knows how old it is. The Romans worked it, and I daresay the Phoenicians had a finger in it before them.”

“Go on, old fellow,” said Wrigley, laughing. “Can you prove that pigs of lead were got from it to ballast the ark?”

“Well, you needn’t believe it without you like.”

“But I do believe a great deal of it. There’ll be quite enough for us, if you mean business.”

“If I mean business! Why, of course I do. Do you suppose I am going to sit still and let my brother have all the cream of life? He’ll get all the old man’s money. Plenty without that. I’m not blind. Precious little for me there.”

“Then what is going to be done?”

“They are going to set to work directly. My brother has laid his reports before the board. I did not tell you that he has discovered a new untouched lode that promises to yield wonderfully.”

“Indeed!” said Wrigley—“a new lode?” and he looked searchingly at his companion.

“Yes; an important vein of ore that promises to be of immense value.”

“Hah! that sounds well,” said Wrigley.

“For the shareholders?”

“No; for us. Have you forgotten?”

“No,” said Jessop gloomily, “but will it work?”

“Work? You, an old hand, and ask that. My dear Jessop, if we cannot work that between us it is strange.”

“Yes, but the money necessary. It will be enormous.”

“Pretty well, my dear boy,” said Wrigley, with quiet confidence; “but don’t you fidget about that. Millions are to be had for a safe thing, so we need not be scared about thousands. Yes; that new vein will do. Jessop, my lad, you and I must work that vein. The idea of the great lode is glorious and makes our task easy in that direction; but there is a stumbling-block elsewhere—a difficulty in the way.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Jessop testily. “Hang it, man! Don’t be so mysterious. Now then, please, what do you mean?”

“Let me take my own pace, my dear Jessop, as the inventor of our fortune.”

“Anyhow you like, but let me see how we are going.”

“Well, then, you shall. Now, then, we want an enemy. Clive Reed’s or your father’s enemy. Has your brother any?”

“Yes; here he is, confound him!”

“And you will not do, my dear boy! Besides, it would not be your work. I meant some man who dislikes him so consumedly that he would not stick at trifles for the sake of revenge—and hard cash. What is more,” continued Wrigley, as Jessop shook his head, “it must be some one connected with the mine.”

“Bah! How can it be, when the mine is not started?”

“Then it must be as soon as possible after the mine has been started. Some workman under him in a position of trust, whom he has injured: struck him, taken his wife or sweetheart, mortally injured in some way.”

Jessop burst into a coarse laugh, and Wrigley looked at him inquiringly.

“My dear boy,” said the stockbroker, “I thought this was to be a matter of finessing and making a few thousands.”

“It is, and of making a good many thousands.”

“And you talk as if it were a plot for an Adelphi drama. My dear fellow, my brother Clive is a sort of nineteenth-century saint—not the cad in a play. Clive doesn’t drink, bet, nor gamble in any way. He is a good boy, who is engaged, and goes to church regularly with the lady.”

“Oh, yes; that’s as far as you know now.”

“I do know,” cried Jessop. “Clive has never run away with any one’s wife, nor bullied men, nor gone to the—your friends for coin. If you can’t hit out a better way than that, we may pitch the thing up.”

“At the first difficulty?” said Wrigley, smiling. “No, my boy. We want such a man as I have described—a man whose opinion about the mine will be worth taking. He must, as I say, hate your brother sufficiently to give that opinion when we want it, so as to say check to your brother and be believed.”

“Well, then, there isn’t such a man,” said Jessop sourly.

“Indeed! When do you expect your brother back?”

“At any time now. To-morrow or next day, to meet the directors at the board and report again upon his inspection.”

“Again?”

“Yes; he has been down twice before.”

“Who is down there?”

“Only the man in charge of the mine.”

“Who is he?”

“Some fellow my father got hold of in connection with other mine speculations.”

“Well, wouldn’t he do?”

“Pooh! He is, I should say, out of the question.”

“At a price?”

“At a price!” Jessop started and looked keenly at the solicitor.

“Every man they say has his price, my dear Jessop. We want the kind of man I describe. You say there is no such man. I say there are in the market, and I should say this is the very chap.”

“But surely you would not bribe him to—”

“Don’t use ugly terms. If I saw my way to make a hundred thousand pounds I should not shrink from giving a man five hundred to help me make it.”

“No, nor a thousand,” said Jessop.

“My dear boy, I would get him for five hundred if I could, but if I could not, I would go higher than you say; in fact, I would go up to ninety-five thousand sooner than lose five. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand. Anything to turn an honest penny.”

“Exactly! So now then, as soon as possible, we must begin to feel our way, so as to secure our man.”

“But if there is not such a man to be had?”

“Then we must make one.”

“Wrigley, I thought I was sharp,” said Jessop, with a peculiar smile.

“But you find there is always a sharper.”

“Was that a lapsus linguae, Wrigley?”

“If you like to call it so,” said the lawyer coldly. “But to business. Let me know the moment your brother gets back.”

“Yes, but why?”

“I am going down to see what I think of the mine.”

Chapter Ten.

The Grim Visitor.

“The game’s up, then, Doctor, eh? There, man, don’t shuffle. This isn’t whist, but the game of life, and nature wins.”

The Doctor stood holding his old friend’s hand, and gazing sadly down in the fine manly face, which looked wonderfully calm and peaceful as he lay back on the white pillow.

“That’s right; don’t say medical things to me—clap-trap: you never did. We always understand each other, and I shouldn’t like it now I’m dying. For that’s it, Praed; the game’s up. I haven’t read so plainly how many trumps you held in your hand for all these years, old man, without being able to judge your face now.”

“Reed, old fellow,” said the Doctor, in a voice full of emotion, “God knows I have done my best. Let me send for—”

“Tchah! What for?” said the old man. “You know more than he does. It’s of no use fighting against it. Nature says the works must stop soon. Very well; I shall meet it as I have met other losses in my time. Do you hear, Clive—Jessop?”

A murmur came from the other side of the bed, where the two young men were standing, and then all was still again, save the rumble of a vehicle in the street.

“It’s disappointing just now, when I had made the coup of my life, and meant to settle down in peace; but it wasn’t to be, and I’m going to meet it like a man. Clive, boy, come here.”

The young man came to the bedside and knelt down.

“Ah! I like that,” said the old father. “Good lad!” and he laid his hand gently upon his son’s head. “I’m not a grand old patriarch,” he sighed. “What, Doctor?—not talk? Yes, I must have my say now, while there’s time. Not a good old patriarch, Clive—not a religious man; made too much of a god of money; but I said my wife and sons should never know the poverty from which I had suffered, and I think it was right; but I overdid it, boy. Don’t follow my example; there’s no need. There—my blessing for what it’s worth, boy. Now go: I want Jessop.”

Clive rose, and his brother came and stood where he had knelt.

“Well,” said the dying man, in a firm voice, “I have little to say to you, Jessop. Shake hands, my boy, and God forgive you, as I do—everything.” Jessop was silent, and after a few moments the old man went on—

“I have settled everything, my lad. The Doctor here is one of my executors, and he will see that Clive does his duty by you; though he would without.”

Jessop winced, for these words were very pregnant of meaning, and showed only too well the place he would take after his father’s death.

“There,” said his father, pressing his hand, “that is all. I know your nature, boy, so I will not ask you to promise things which you cannot perform. Go now.”

“Not stay with you, father?” said the young man, speaking for the first time.

“No; go now. I’ve done my duty by you, boy; now go and do yours by your brother. Good-bye, Jessop.” There was dead silence, and the old man spoke again as he grasped his son’s hand, “Good-bye, Jessop, for the last time.”

“Good-bye, father,” was the reply; and then, with head bent, the young man walked slowly out.

“Hah! that’s over!” sighed the dying man. “He will not break his heart, Doctor; and if I had left him double, it would do him no good. Now then, Praed, I want to see little Janet. Where is she?”

“Downstairs in the drawing-room.”

“That’s right. Go and fetch her. Tell her not to be frightened. She shan’t see me die, for it won’t be yet.”

The Doctor left the bedroom, and the old man was alone with his younger son.

“Take hold of my hand, Clive. Sit down, my lad. That’s right. There, don’t look so cut up, my boy. I’m only going to sleep like a man should. It’s simply nature; not the horror fanatics teach us. Now I want to talk business to you for a few minutes, and then business and money will be dead to me for ever.”

“You wish me to do something, father?”

“Yes, boy. You will find everything in my will—you and the Doctor. He’s a good old friend, and his counsel is worth taking. Marry Janet, and make her a happy wife. She has some weaknesses, but you can mould her, my lad; and it will make her happy, and the Doctor too, for he loves you like a son.”

“Yes, father.”

“That’s good. You’re a fine, strong, clever man, Clive, but that was the dear, good, affectionate boy of twenty years ago speaking. Now then, about money matters. You’ll be enormously rich over that mine, so for heaven’s sake be a true, just man with it, and do your duty by all the shareholders. Stick to it through thick and thin. I remember all you told me when I recovered from my fit. I could repeat your report. But I was convinced before, when all the London world thought I was getting up a swindle. There! that’s enough about the mine—save this. You’ll be thinking of sharing with your brother. I forbid it. Keep to your portion as I have left it to you, and do good with it. To give to Jessop is to do evil. I am sorry, but it is the truth. He cannot help it perhaps, but he is not to be trusted, and you are not to league yourself with him in any way. You understand?”

“Yes, father!”

“I have made him a sufficiently rich man. Let him be content. You are not to trust him. I know Jessop by heart, and I can go from here feeling that I have done my duty by him.”

At that moment the Doctor returned with his daughter, and the old speculator’s face lit up with pleasure.

“Come here, Pussy,” he said. “I’m not very dreadful yet, my dear.”

“Dear Mr Reed—dear Mr Reed!” cried Janet, running sobbing to his side; “don’t, pray, talk like that.”

The old man smiled with content as the girl fell upon her knees by the bed, and embraced him tenderly, “Ah! that’s right. That’s like my little darling,” he said, and he stroked her cheek. “Don’t cry any more, my dear. There! you two go farther away; Janet and I have a few words to say together.”

Clive and the Doctor moved to the window and stood with their backs to the bed, the old man watching them intently for a few moments, and then smiling at Janet as he held and fondled her hand.

“There!” he said, “you are not to fret and be miserable about it, and when I’m gone it is not to interfere with your marriage.”

“Oh, Mr Reed!” she cried passionately.

“No, no, no,” he continued quietly; “not a bit. Life is short, my dear; enjoy it, and do your work in it while you can. And mind, there is to be no silly parade of mourning for me. I’m not going to have your pretty face spoiled with black crape, and all that nonsense. Mourn for me in your dear little heart, Janet: not sadly, but with pleasant, happy memories of one who held you when you were a baby, and who has always looked upon you as his little daughter.” Janet’s face went down on the old man’s hands with the tears flowing silently.

“Now, just a few more words, my dear,” he almost whispered. “Your father and I have rather spoiled you by indulgence.”

“Yes, yes,” she whispered quickly. “I have not deserved so much.”

“Never mind; you are going to be a dear good girl now, and make Clive a true, loving wife.”

“Yes, I’ll try so hard.”

“It will not take much trying, Janet, for he loves you very dearly.”

She raised her head sharply, and there was an angry look in her eyes.

“No, no, you are wrong,” said the old man. “Always the same, my pet. I can read you with these little jealous fits and fancies. I tell you, he loves you very dearly, and I’m going to say something else, my pet, my last little bit of scolding, for I’ve always watched you very keenly for my boy’s sake.”

“Mr Reed!” she whispered, shrinking from him and glancing towards the window; but he held her hands tightly.

“They cannot hear us, little one,” he said, “and I want you to listen. For your own happiness, Janet, my child. It is poor Clive who ought to have been jealous and complained.”

Janet hid her burning face.

“It was not all your fault, little one, but I saw a great deal. Innocent enough with you; but Jacob has always been trying to win Esau’s heritage, and even his promised wife.”

The girl sobbed bitterly now, and laid her burning face close to the old man’s, hiding it in the pillow.

“Oh, don’t, don’t,” she whispered. “I never liked him, but he was always flattering me and saying nice things.”

“Poison with sugar round them, my dear. But that’s all past. You are to be Clive’s dear honoured wife. No more silly, girlish little bits of flirtation. You are not spoiled, my dear, only petted a little too much. That’s all to be put behind us now, is it not?”

“Yes, dear—yes, dear Mr Reed,” she whispered, with her arms about his neck; and it was as if years had dropped away, and it was the little child the old man had petted and scolded a hundred times, asking forgiveness, as she whispered, “I will be good now, and love him very dearly.”

“That’s like my own child,” said the old man. “Now let’s hear the true woman speak.”

“And do always what you wish,” she said, looking him full in the eyes.

“That’s right—try,” he said, drawing her down to kiss her, and then signing to her to go.

“I’m tired,” he said wearily. “Clive, take your little wife downstairs for a bit. Your hand, my boy. God bless you! Now, Doctor, I’ll have an hour’s sleep.”

The Doctor signed for the young people to go down; and as he took a chair by the bed’s head, Grantham Reed turned his head away from the light, and went off into the great sleep as calmly as a tired child.

Chapter Eleven.

Jessop Plays Trumps.

Jessop Reed, when he left his father’s bedroom, had gone straight down to the study, with his brow contracted and his heart full of bitterness, without seeing that he was closely watched, and that a pale, troubled face was raised over the top balustrade, which looked very dull and gloomy in the yellow light which streamed through the soot-darkened skylight panes.

“So that’s it,” he said to himself, as he closed the door and threw himself into his father’s great morocco-covered chair. “I’m nobody at all. The new king is to reign, and his name is Clive. I’m not even executor. No voice in anything; only the naughty boy to be punished. If I could only see that will!”

His eyes wandered about the dark room with its conventional cases of books that were never read, and he looked at the cabinets and writing-table as if he expected to see some drawer open with the key already in it, so that he could take out the will and read it at his ease.

But he shook his head, for he knew that his father was too business-like a man to be careless over so important a document.

“At the lawyer’s,” he said to himself; “and there is no need. I know the old man too well; but I wonder what he has said. A few hundred a year for his naughty boy, and the dear, good, industrious youth, who always did as father wished, nearly everything.”

“I know,” he said, half aloud, as he sat back in the chair and took out his cigar-case to open it and select a strong, black roll of the weed, bit off the end savagely, and spat it upon the carpet.

“I suppose I may smoke here now without getting into grief. Poor old boy! his game’s over; but, curse him, he might have played fair.”

He lit the cigar, and began to smoke and muse with his eyes half closed.

“I know,” he thought, and he laughed bitterly. “To my dear old friend, Peter Praed, M.D., my cellar of wine, the Turner picture, and one hundred pounds to buy a mourning ring and as recompense for acting as my executor. To my servants fifty pounds each and six months’ wages. To my son Jessop the interest on bank-stock to produce five hundred pounds per annum, paid in quarterly dividends. To my beloved son, Clive Reed, the whole of my remaining property in bank-stock, shares, and my interest in the ‘White Virgin’ mine in the county of Derby. Hah! yes,” he said aloud, “and it is good, or the old man would not have taken it up as he has. Yes, it is no balloon business puffed into a state of inflation, but a genuine, solid affair. All to him, and he is co-executor with the Doctor. He said he had made him so months ago; I am nowhere. And that’s my father!”

He bit off a piece of the end of his cigar and spat it out angrily, but started up as a thought struck him.

“No, that’s not all,” he muttered, as his eyes flashed,—“Janet!”

“Of course,” he said, with a long-drawn breath, full of satisfaction, “he would not forget her. He worshipped the girl, and he would leave her quite independent of Clive. A hundred thousand, if he has left her a penny. The artful little jade: she played her cards right with the old man.”

He started from the chair, threw the cigar-end into the fireplace, and hurried up to the drawing-room, to find it empty, and rang the bell.

“Where is Miss Praed?” he asked, as the servant appeared.

“She was fetched up into poor master’s room, sir.”

Jessop Reed went back to the study, and shut himself in, his brow contracted more and more, and lighting another cigar, he lay back smoking and thinking intently, but with his face less clouded by anger, as he felt more and more satisfied that he was right about his father’s disposition of his property, and over his own plans and those of his friend Wrigley.

“There is such a thing as salvage when there is a fire,” he said, with a laugh which disfigured his handsome features; “and it comes in too after a wreck. Well, we shall see, my dear brother; matters may balance themselves fairly after all.”

He started almost out of his chair just then, for a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and there stood pretty, fair-haired Lyddy, with her eyes red and swollen with weeping.

“How did you get here?” cried Jessop angrily.

“I opened the door, dear, and came in softly; didn’t you hear me?”

“Hear you? No; and how many more times am I to tell you not to call me dear?”

“Oh, Jessop, don’t, don’t!” cried the poor girl, bursting into tears. “Poor master! he’s dying fast, they say, and there’ll be no need to hide anything from him now.”

“But—but—”

“I was on the staircase watching for you, dear, and you were shut up here so long, instead of being with master, that I was afraid you were ill.”

“Well, I’m not; so now go, there’s a good girl; and wait a bit till I’ve settled something about you.”

“Settled something about me, dear! Why, as soon as poor dear master’s dead you’ll be master then, and can do as you like. You won’t be the first gentleman who has married a servant.”

“Oh no, of course not,” he replied, with a bitter sarcasm in his tone.

“And you will make me happy then, won’t you, dear? For I am so miserable when I see you courting Miss Janet, I could find it in my heart to go some night to the Serpentine and end it all.”

“Will you hold your tongue?” he cried, with a shiver. “Do you think I haven’t enough to worry me as it is? Now, my good girl, is this a time for you to come bothering me?”

“I’m not a good girl,” she replied with spirit; “and it’s cruel of you, in your man’s selfishness, to talk of my bothering you. No, no, no, I won’t be angry with you,” she cried, hurriedly changing her tone. “And now, dear, that you can do as you like, you will not think of Miss Janet any more.”

“Wait,” he said sullenly; “and now go. Do you think I want the servants to be tattling about your being shut up here?”

“Let them tattle,” cried the girl proudly. “Let them, if they dare. They shall soon find that I’m their mistress. Tattle, indeed!”

“You heard what I said. Now, then, go away from here at once. There’s a ten-pound note. Don’t bother about your pay, but get away from here, for your dignity’s sake. Your box can be fetched at any time. Go down home.”

“Go down home!” said the girl in a low voice, full of suppressed anger; “home, eh? so as to be out of your way now? No,” she cried, flashing out into a fit of passion; “it’s to get rid of me. I’m in your way now that you are going to be master, and you don’t mean to marry me, as you’ve promised a hundred times. I know: it’s Miss Janet.”

“Lyddy, don’t be a fool,” cried Jessop, in a tone full of suppressed passion. “Now, go, there’s a good girl. It’s all for the best. Hush! you will be heard.”

“Then every one shall hear me,” she cried, tearing up the note he had placed in her hand and flinging it in his face. “No; I won’t be a fool any longer. You’re as good as master now; you’ve promised to marry me, and I will not be packed off in disgrace. You’re master here, Jessop, and I’m mistress; and come what may, I will not stir.”

She flung her arms round him as she spoke, and in his rage he raised his doubled fist to strike her down, but it fell to his side.

“Mr Jessop Reed is not master here,” said a stern voice at the door, “and you are not the mistress.”

Jessop flung the girl from him, so that she staggered, and would have fallen heavily, had not Clive, who had opened the door softly to come and sit with his brother, caught her in his arms.

“Jessop,” he said coldly, “have you not done enough to insult our father without this miserable disgraceful episode, now while he is lying upstairs almost at his last.”

“The woman’s mad,” cried Jessop. “Crazy with grief or drink, I suppose. I don’t know what she means.”

“I’m not, I’m not, Mr Clive,” cried the girl, bursting into a violent fit of weeping.

“Lyddy,” cried Jessop.

“I don’t care; I must, I will speak. He has promised to marry me again and again, and now that master is dying and he is going to be free to do as he likes, he is trying to pack me off—to send me home, and I’d sooner go and jump off the bridges at once.”

“Jessop!” cried Clive, “how can you be such a scoundrel?”

“Scoundrel yourself!” shouted Jessop furiously. “The woman’s an impostor; it’s a hatched-up breach of promise case to get money—a fraud.”

“No, no, no,” cried Lyddy wildly, as she flung herself at Clive’s feet, and caught and clung to his hands. “It’s true—all true. Dear Mr Clive, don’t, don’t you forsake me. Don’t you turn against me now.”

“Doctor! you here!” cried Clive, as he became conscious of the fact that they were not alone; and he made a step to cross the room to where Doctor Praed was standing with his child’s arm locked in his. But, at the first movement, Lyddy uttered a piteous cry, clung to him wildly, and suffered herself to be dragged over, and half lie sobbing hysterically on the carpet.

“Yes, sir, I am here,” said the Doctor gravely.

“But my father?” cried Clive excitedly.

“Is spared this fresh trouble, sir,” said the Doctor coldly.

“Dead!” cried Clive, in a voice fall of agony, and he turned to his brother.

Jessop was drawing Janet’s arm through his as she gazed with flashing eyes at her betrothed.

“Come away,” Jessop whispered. “Janet, dearest, this is no place for you.”

Chapter Twelve.

In Russell Square.

“But surely, Doctor, you don’t believe I could be such a scoundrel?”

“My dear Clive, I should be sorry to think ill of any one, but you see I am a student of man’s nature.”

“Then you believe it?”

“That you are a scoundrel, my dear boy? Oh, dear no; I think you one of the best of fellows, or I would not have allowed that engagement to take place; and as I said to Janet, we must be a bit lenient; there was every excuse.”

“What!” roared Clive, leaping from his seat in Doctor Praed’s consulting-room the morning after his father’s death.

“Now, now, be calm, and listen to what I have to say.”

Clive sank back with his face flushed and hands clenched, while the Doctor continued gravely—

“She was hot-headed and angry as could be when I got her home. You see, my dear boy, women are different in their nerve forces to men. There had been a great drain upon her during the interview with your poor father, and then the sad surprise with that woman and the shock of your father’s death combined were sufficient to completely disturb the nerve centres.”

Clive Reed looked at the Doctor, as though he would have liked to shake him, but he only waited.

“I told her, as I have said, that she must not be too severe.”

Clive drew his breath hard.

“That, speaking as her father and a man of the world of a few experiences, a young lady was in error if she expected to find the man to whom she was betrothed quite perfect.”

“Doctor, you’ll drive me mad,” said Clive.

“No, I am going to teach you to be a little philosophical and to be patient, for of course she will come round. I am angry, terribly angry with you; I think it disgraceful—”

“But—”

“Hear me out, boy, or, confound you, I’ll have you shown the door,” cried the Doctor angrily. Then calming down: “It is most unfortunate, coming at such a time, too. The old writer may well have said that about our pleasant vices and the rods, or whatever it was, to scourge us. Be silent, sir: you shall speak when I have done. I know there was every excuse, living in the same house with a pretty gentle young girl who looked above her station, but was not in her manners. I have known lots of cases. Bit of vanity—good-looking young master—thinks she’ll be a lady—flings herself literally at young fellow’s head. Yes, a young man needs to be superhuman, I may say, under the circumstances.”

“Have you done, Doctor?”

“No, sir, I have not. You will have to go through a kind of probation with Janet—and with me, of course; and in time the matter may perhaps be patched up. Now we will set that aside, and talk about the business matters connected with your father’s decease. Poor old Grantham! It’s a gap out of my life, Clive. We were chums for thirty years. Thank God he did not know of this, poor fellow, for he thought so highly of you, my boy.”

“Would to God he were here now!” cried Clive passionately.

“Amen!”

“To hear his son defend himself. I swear to you, Doctor Praed, by all that is holy, by my dead father lying there at home, and who from the spirit-world may hear my words, I am perfectly innocent. For years I have not had a thought that Janet might not know—that has not been hers. It was all a mistake—a misconception, and in her hurry and readiness to jump at conclusions she believed it.”

“But, my dear boy, do you mean to deny that the unhappy girl, whose words I heard as she knelt by you, has not had a promise of marriage?”

“No, sir—unfortunately no.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“Oh, Doctor,” cried Clive passionately, “why is it in this, world that one man may go on adding blot after blot to his bespattered scutcheon, and at each revelation people smile and shrug their shoulders; while another who has tried to make his life blameless and keep the shield of his honour bright is doubted at the first blur that is cast upon it; every one seems to rejoice, sets him down as a hypocrite, and cries ‘Ah! found out at last!’”

“Well, my boy, it is human nature. I must confess to feeling something like that yesterday myself.”

“Then shame upon you, sir!—Doctor, you’ve known me from a boy, and ought to be better able to judge me.”

“Well, you see, my boy, the circumstances,” said the Doctor—“the temptations. You suddenly lifted up to a position of great wealth and influence, she a poor servant.”

“Doctor, she is a gentle woman, and my nature would not let me forsake her like a brute. Damn you, sir!” cried Clive, leaping from his seat, “how dare you believe it of me—that I could come here ready to swear fidelity to Janet, kiss her sweet pure lips, and tender her my love, while I frankly offered you—her father—my hand? It is a shame, a disgrace, a blot upon your own nature, to think it of your old friend’s son.”

“I—I—beg your pardon, Clive, humbly, my boy,” said the Doctor, rising and catching the young man by the shoulders. “I was wrong, I ought to have known you better. I am as hasty and jealous as Janet. Forgive me. I was angry for my child’s sake. Things looked so against you. There, there! curse me again, my dear boy, I deserve it, I do indeed.”

“Then you do not believe it now?” cried Clive, as the Doctor got hold of his hands and shook them warmly.

“Believe it? No, not a word of it, nor shall Janet neither—a silly little jealous baby. Then it was that scoundrel Jessop, and the poor girl was appealing to you for help?”

“I am not going to be my brother’s accuser,” said Clive bitterly.

“And he played the hypocrite, and took Janet away home here out of the scene. Here! say damn again to me, Clive, my boy, for I am about the most idiotic old fool that ever lived. But why—why the deuce didn’t you speak out?”

“I was literally stunned, sir.”

“But the girl—why didn’t you make her?”

“You saw, sir; she ran sobbing out of the room.”

“Then you must make her speak now. No, no: not now; let’s set this aside till after the funeral. We cannot enter into such matters with my poor old friend lying there.”

“No, sir, not there; and there is a hindrance: the poor girl has gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes; she disappeared last night. But I cannot go on living like this, Doctor. Take me up to Janet now; I must clear myself in her eyes.”

“I would, my boy, but she is not here.”

“Not here?” cried Clive excitedly.

“No; she left this letter and went out again within an hour.”

The Doctor took a note from his breast-pocket and handed it to Clive to read.

“Cannot stay at home and hear about that shame and disgrace—gone away to be at peace, and try to forget it—with one of her aunts or a schoolfellow—will write,” stammered Clive, as he hastily read the letter.

“Yes, my dear boy, you know what a creature of impulse she is; and I don’t know that we can wonder under the circumstances.”

“But tell me—where do you think she will be? I must follow her.”

“Heaven only knows,” said the Doctor. “Since my poor wife died she has been mistress here, and naturally very independent and womanly—a strange girl, my dear boy. I have been so wrapped up in my profession, that I have lost the habit of guiding her.”

“But the servants—what do they say?”

“That your brother saw her to the door, and she went straight up to her bedroom and shut herself in. When I came back she had gone out again, leaving this letter. I am afraid, my boy, you will have to wait. But there! it will be all right. Poor child! she will be as humble to you as I am.—Yes!”

This was to the Doctor’s confidential servant, who brought in half-a-dozen cards with pencilled appeals.

“Dear me! dear me!” said the Doctor, taking the cards. “Any one else?”

“Room’s packed, sir.”

“Clive, my dear boy, I must see my poor patients. There, there! go and wait patiently. I’ll come on to-night. You will see to matters, and perhaps I shall have a letter from Janet, and you will be able to write to her or go and see her. There, there! We are all straight again?”

“My dear old friend!” cried Clive.

“That’s right! I did see the lawyer last night. Go and be patient; matters are mending fast. One moment though. Clive, my dear boy, angry passions rise; you will not go and see your brother.”

“No, sir; he is keeping out of my way, or—”

“Eh? yes—or what?”

“I believe I should kill him.”

Chapter Thirteen.

The Rich Man’s Will.

Jessop Reed took good care that his brother should have no opportunity for meeting him to bring him to book, and during the interval before Grantham Reed’s funeral the only news Clive heard of Janet was that she would be back to accompany her father to old Mr Reed’s burial.

“There! my dear boy,” said the Doctor; “I can do no more. You see she does not even give me her address. I believe, though, that she is down at Weymouth with the Hartleys.”

This was on the day before the funeral, and Clive had to exercise a little more patience till after all was over.

He was calmer now. There was that awful presence in the gloomy old house, and he felt that it was no time to think of his own troubles or to attack his brother. These matters, in spite of the suffering they caused him, were put aside, and he sat in the study thinking of all that had passed with the stern, kindly-hearted old man lying above there in his last sleep. Of how he had fought the world to amass wealth, and of this his last speculation, whose success he had been fated not to witness, cut off as he was just after his son’s announcement of the wealth it must of a certainty produce.

It seemed to Clive to be a hard lesson in the vanity of human hopes; but he did not flinch from his task.

“It was his wish,” he said to himself, “that the mine should come out triumphant, and it shall, for all our sakes.”

As he mused, he thought of different business friends who had embarked in the speculation upon the base of his father’s credit, but mainly upon the reports which he had sent home, his father having made these announcements to him during his absence in the replies to letters, the last being that the Doctor had bought heavily just before the shares bounded up and were still rising.

“Poor old father!” he said to himself; “he shall find that I will do my duty by it to the end, for I suppose he will leave me the management—perhaps fully to take his place.”

These business matters would intrude, and he did not cavil at them, for he knew that he was carrying out the old man’s wishes.

Then came the thoughts of Janet again, and they were mingled with a bitter feeling of indignation against her for her readiness to think evil of one whose every thought had been true. But he knew that the reconciliation would be very sweet, and told himself that she was still but a girl, and that her character would ripen by and by.

“And be full of trust,” he muttered.

Then the scene of her leaving that room, angry, jealous, and proud, leaning upon his brother’s arm, came back, and a sensation of fierce anger thrilled him.

“A coward!” he muttered, “a base, miserable coward! Well, we shall meet to-morrow, and afterward the less we see one another in the future the better for both.”

Then he hurriedly devoted himself to his father’s papers, so as to change the current of his thoughts and try to check the throbbing of his brain.

The next day broke gloomy and chill, well in accordance with the solemn occasion. Grantham Reed had instructed that his funeral should be perfectly quiet, and that few people should be asked, but many came unbidden to show their respect for a business friend whose name had been a power in the City, his word as good as any bond.

Jessop came late, and took his place in the darkened drawing-room without a word; and, nearly the last, Doctor Praed arrived with Janet, in deep mourning, and her face hidden behind a thick crape veil, without a word passing between her and either of the brothers, from both of whom she seemed to shrink.

A few of the oldest friends went up to see the dead; then Janet placed her hand upon her father’s arm, and went to the solemn chamber, staying some time, and being led back hanging heavily upon her father’s arm, sobbing bitterly and covering her face beneath her veil as she sank down in her seat.

Clive’s heart throbbed and his eyes grew dim.

“God bless her!” he murmured to himself; “she did love him dearly.”

He felt softened, and as if he could rush across the room, clasp her to his heart, and whisper that he was true, as staunch as steel to her, the darling of his heart, his first and only love.

But it was neither time nor place for such an action, and turning to his brother, he signed to him to come, and, in the midst of a silence broken only by Janet’s sobs, they two went out and upstairs without a word, to stand by the open coffin where their father lay calmly as if in sleep.

“How can I feel enmity now!” thought Clive, “as we stand here before you, father, whom I shall see no more on earth? Am I to forgive him and wipe away the past?”

As the young man bent down in that solemn moment, the words of the old prayer came to him, and he breathed out, “As we forgive them that trespass against us,” and tenderly kissed the broad forehead.

Then half-blinded he went out, conscious that his brother followed him closely down to the drawing-room, to listen, as Janet’s sobs still rose from time to time, to the heavy footsteps overhead, the hurried rustling on the stairs, and then to rise when the door was opened, and pass out with his brother to the mourning-coach.

Two hours, and the party were back in the long, gloomy dining-room, well filled now, for of the many who followed, those most intimate had entered to hear the reading of the deceased’s will.

The brothers were widely separated now, while the Doctor, who looked old and careworn, was seated near the family lawyer, who sat there at a table with a tin despatch-box by his elbow, the most important personage present. Janet was by her father’s side, clinging to his hand, still closely veiled, but trembling and weak, while a faint, half-suppressed sob escaped from her lips at intervals.

A few remarks were made by old friends, but the importance of the occasion acted as a check, and there was a sigh of relief as the deceased’s old legal friend cleared his throat, put on his glasses, and took them off again twice to rub away imaginary blurrings which obscured his sight.

Then he began to read the various clauses of the will, which was singularly free from repetition, being concise, business-like, and clear in the extreme.

Clive, as he sat back in his chair, half closed his eyes, for to him it was as if his father were speaking, and all sounded so matter-of-fact that he felt that he had nothing to learn at first. Everything nearly was as he expected to hear; while Jessop, who kept his eyes rigidly fixed upon the lawyer’s lips, smiled in a peculiar way as he found how prophetic he had been.

There were the minor bequests to servants of small sums and six or twelve months’ wages; a snuff-box to this old friend, a signet ring to another, the watch and chain “to my dear trusty old friend Peter Praed, doctor of medicine; also one hundred pounds as a slight remuneration for his services as co-executor.” And so on, and so on, till the lawyer turned over a sheet and paused for a few moments before beginning again, amidst profound silence now, for the more interesting portion of the will was to come.

In brief. “To my son Jessop Reed, the interest of twenty-one thousand pounds, two and a half per cent, bank-stock, to be paid to him during the term of his life quarterly by my executors, the aforesaid Peter Praed and Clive Reed, the capital sum of twenty-one thousand pounds reverting at the death of my said son Jessop Reed to my estate.”

“Exactly what I expected,” said Jessop, with a smile of indifference. “Five hundred a year, eh?”

“About, sir,” said the old lawyer gravely. Then, after sitting attent, as if expecting another question, he coughed again, and went on.

“I give and bequeath to my son, Clive Reed, the whole of my interest in the ‘White Virgin’ mine, together with everything of which I die possessed in shares, bank-stocks, freehold and leasehold property, begging him that he will act in his possession thereof as a true and just man, and the steward of a large estate committed to his charge. I do this believing that he will carry out my wishes in connection with the said property for his own benefit, as well as for that of many friends who have embarked their money in my last enterprise, the aforesaid ‘White Virgin’ mine.”

The lawyer read the few remaining words connected with the signature amidst a murmur of congratulations, in the midst of which Jessop started up, black with fury and disappointment.

“Shame!” he cried. “I protest!” and a dead silence fell.

“May I ask why, sir?” said the lawyer coldly. “My deceased friend has done more than his duty by you.”

“Your words are uncalled-for and insolent, sir,” cried Jessop. “Recollect that you are only a paid professional man.”

“And Grantham Reed’s trusted confidential friend, sir. Dr Praed and I were the two men to whom he opened his heart—eh, Doctor?”

“Yes, in all things.”

“I was not speaking about my own beggarly, tied-up legacy,” cried Jessop, who was now deadly pale, “but of the cruel, disgraceful way in which my father has behaved to a young lady whom he professed to love as a daughter, and led to expect that she would stand high in his will.”

Janet’s hands were extended deprecatingly toward the speaker, and Clive half rose in his chair, but sank back as the lawyer said coldly—

“Perhaps Mr Jessop Reed will listen to the codicil before he adds to a long list of injuries by casting aspersions upon the generosity of my dear dead friend.”

“What! is there a codicil?” cried Jessop.

The lawyer bowed his head.

“Then why have you kept it back, sir?”

“Because it comes last,” said the lawyer, with a faint smile, “and also because I have had no opportunity to read it on account of interruptions.”

A dead silence fell once more, and Clive darted a glance across to Janet, whose eyes, as far as he could see, appeared to be directed at his brother.

“The codicil,” began the lawyer, “is dated six months before our lamented friend’s death.”

He paused, and then read on, after the customary preliminaries—

“I give and bequeath to Janet Praed, daughter of my old friend, Peter Praed, the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, standing in Bank of England and Government of India stock, free of legacy duty.”

“Hah!” cried Jessop, in a triumphant tone; and unable to contain himself, he rose and crossed to Janet to take her hands, which she resigned to him, while Clive felt as if he had received a thrust from a knife, as the old lawyer raised his head and gazed curiously at the group before him.

Then, as a low murmur once more arose, the lawyer coughed loudly, and went on; every ear being again attent to his words, as he raised his voice and sent a galvanic shock through the semicircle of his listeners.

“Conditionally—”

He paused, and Jessop dropped Janet’s hands, while his lips parted, displaying his white teeth.

“Conditionally,” repeated the lawyer, “upon her becoming the wife of my son, Clive Reed. In the event of her refusing to fulfil these my wishes, the above legacy of one hundred thousand pounds to become null and void.”

Jessop muttered an oath beneath his breath as he literally staggered at this announcement.

Then, recovering himself—

“Stop!” he cried hoarsely; “there is another codicil.”

“No, sir,” said the old lawyer gravely; and he began slowly to double up the will.

“Wait a minute, sir,” cried Jessop, whose hand, as he stretched it out in the midst of a painful silence, was trembling visibly.

“Jessop—dear Jessop,” said Janet faintly, as she tore off her veil, “be calm;” and she took a step or two towards the infuriated man, while Clive felt sick, as if from some terrible blow, and sat gazing at the shrinking girl as, with her face drawn with misery and white as ashes, she touched his brother on the arm.

“Silence, woman!” he cried. “Here you!” and he turned to the lawyer, “give me that will.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the lawyer gravely. “I have read the document.”

“Give it to me, I say. I want to see for myself.”

“It is not customary, sir,” replied the lawyer. “You have heard its contents, and I am custodian, the representative of every one whose name is mentioned there.”

“Give it to me, I say,” cried Jessop, stepping forward. “I will read it aloud again—myself.”

There was a dull sound, a snap, and the rattle of a key being withdrawn.

“No, sir,” said the lawyer, placing the key in his pocket. “In your excited state, and as the elder son, I would not trust that document in your hand a moment.”

“And quite right,” said Dr Praed firmly.

Quick as lightning Jessop made a dash at the lawyer; but a strong hand was upon his arm, and he was swung aside by Clive.

“Are you mad—and at a time like this!”

“Call it what you like,” cried Jessop, “but don’t you think I am going to be cheated and juggled out of my—of her rights. You have your share and are out of court. I’ll have that will and read it over again.”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” said Clive, “and you will not make a scene in this—in my house.”

“Indeed! Oh, yes, I know it is your house, but you’ve got too strong a man to deal with.”

“Mr Jessop,” said the old lawyer gravely, “you have the remedy in your hands. There is no underhand work possible with a will like that. If you are dissatisfied, go and consult your own legal adviser. The will of course has to be proved, and in a very short time you will find it accurately copied at Somerset House. Under all the circumstances, as my deceased friend’s trusted adviser, I cannot let it pass from my hands into yours. I think, gentlemen, the executors, you agree with my action.”

“Quite!” came in unison, in company with a murmur of approval from the old friends present.

“Then my duties are at an end,” said the solicitor, while Jessop stood panting, speechless, and biting his lips. “Clive Reed, my dear sir, I have made many wills in my time—”

“And you influenced the old man in this,” said Jessop.

The lawyer shook his head and looked at the disappointed man tolerantly.

“No, my dear sir. Your worthy, father was too strong-minded a man to be influenced. You have listened to his own clear, concise words and well-thought-out intentions. As I was going to say, my dear Clive Reed, I never made a will with whose principles I could more thoroughly coincide. God bless you, my dear boy! I congratulate you, and I know how well you will carry out poor old Grantham’s wishes. Ah! Doctor,” he continued sadly, “one dear old companion gone. Many’s the good bottle of port we three cracked together in this room, and many’s the sterling hour of enjoyment, rational and social, we had together.”

“Ay,” said the Doctor, with tears in his eyes, “and our turn must come before long.”

“Yes! He half apologised to me for not putting you down for a big lump sum; but he said you did not want it, and he was favouring you in your children.”

“God bless me! I didn’t want his money,” said the Doctor warmly. “What’s the use of money to me? But a hundred thousand pounds to Janet. Great heavens, what a sum!”

“Yes, and in her husband’s trust,” said the old lawyer, with a tender, paternal smile, as he advanced to Janet, held out his hands, and she nestled with a sob to him, the old family friend, upon whose knee she had sat as a child scores of times. “Hah!” sighed the old man, patting her shoulder gently, “a woman grown, Janet, but still only the little girl to me. Bless you, my dear! May you be very happy!”

“Happy!” she moaned, as Jessop engaged fiercely in conversation with some of the old family friends, and Clive stood silent and watchful, fighting against the horrible despair in his breast.

“Yes, happy, my dear—eh, Doctor? We old fellows grow to think that death when it comes is not a horror, but a restful ending to a busy life, if we go down to the quiet grave loving and beloved, honoured, too, by all our friends.”

There was a subdued murmur of approval here, for the old lawyer had looked round as he spoke.

“Come, come, wipe those pretty eyes.”

“I tell you I will,” cried Jessop fiercely; and he wrenched himself away from an elderly man who tried to restrain him.

“Oh, Jessop, Jessop,” sighed Janet, as she shrank from the lawyer’s arms, and then hurriedly turned her head away as she met Clive’s searching eyes.

“But I tell you, you haven’t a leg to stand on, man.”

“Then, curse it!” cried Jessop, “I’ll fight on crutches. It’s a false will, got out of the old man when he was imbecile. He would never have invented it himself.”

“What!” cried the Doctor warmly; and Janet burst into tears.

“I say it’s all a made-up, blackguardly concoction, schemed by my smug, smooth brother, who has always been fighting against me. Miner—underminer he ought to be called. But it shan’t stand. I’ll throw the whole thing into Chancery, and fight it year after year till there isn’t a penny left.”

“And you have been shut up in a lunatic asylum, and the best place for you,” said the Doctor angrily.

“Oh, now you’ve begun,” cried Jessop, with quite a snarl. “You think your child’s going to have a hundred thousand, do you, and that you will be able to have your coin all to yourself.”

“Jessop,” began Clive excitedly.

“No, no, my dear boy,” said the lawyer, “there must be no brotherly quarrel. It is so unseemly at a time like this. Let me try and settle it.”

“What, make terms?” cried Jessop. “No; those are for me to make, for I’ve got the whip hand of you, and you shall beg to me if all the old man’s cursed money is not to go to the lawyers. Now, then, what have you to say?”

“Oh, Jessop, Jessop,” whispered Janet, laying her hand upon his arm.

“Will you be silent, fool!” cried Jessop, seizing her by the wrist, and giving her a rough shake.

He had gone too far. Clive uttered a cry of rage, and flew to save the woman he loved from this indignity, but, as he dashed forward, his brother, with a mocking laugh, full of triumphant pride, snatched the yielding girl to his breast, and held her there.

“No, you don’t,” he said coolly: “not you, my clever schemer. You can’t hit a man through his wife.”

“What!” cried Clive wildly.

“Yes, father-in-law,” said Jessop, turning to the Doctor. “I am fighting for our legacy. Janet and I were married three days ago, and this is part of our honeymoon.”

Chapter Fourteen.

At Dinner.

“Hold your tongue, boy! Don’t contradict me. You’re not to think because your father is dead that you are going to do just as you like. Try some more of that claret; it’s very good. There were only fifty dozen of it, and your father and I shared the lot. I suppose you’ve got some of it left in the cellar—your cellar. Dear, dear! poor old Grantham, what a change! There, fill up your glass. That won’t hurt you. I say it as a medical man. That’s wine that maketh glad the heart of man; and one needs it now, for homes desolate enough. The miserable jade!”

“It was not her fault,” said Clive sadly.

“What! I say it was her fault, so don’t you defend her. Confound you, sir, I know you’ve grown into a big, ugly, consequential fellow; but recollect this, sir, I consider I take your father’s place now he’s gone. I’m the first man who ever held you in his hands. Didn’t I vaccinate you, and bring you through half-a-dozen miserable little baby disorders? You are Clive Reed, mine-owner and rich man to the world; but you are only the squalling brat and scrubby boy, sir, to me.”

The Doctor tossed off a glass of his rich claret, and then swung himself round in his chair.

“Don’t take any notice of what I say, boy. I’m not myself.”

Clive rose from his chair and went and laid his hand upon the Doctor’s shoulder, to have it seized and held.

“My dear old friend!” he said, in a low voice.

“Thank you, my boy, thank you. God bless you! I seem to have no one but you—now she’s gone. Clive, my lad, I’ll tell you. I came back here after the funeral and went into the drawing-room, and I turned her picture with its face to the wall, after I’d cursed her like old fathers used to do in the plays when I was a boy. I said I cast her off for ever; and then I sat down in my chair, and did what I hadn’t done since her mother, my poor dear wife, died. I cried, boy, like a little child. For it seemed as if she was dead too—dead and gone—and I had suddenly turned into a disappointed, lonely old man.”

“And then you turned the picture back, and owned to yourself that you loved her very dearly still, as I do, sir. For we cannot tear our affections up by the roots like that.”

“I did, Clive, my boy, I did; for you are right. I know too now that it’s my own fault, for I spoiled and indulged her. She was left to me almost a child, motherless, and I began to treat her at once as a woman. I let her have her own way in everything, and she grew up pettish and jealous, and ready to resent every check. Times and times, when I’ve offended her, has she gone right off on a visit, just to annoy me, and show how independent she was. But there! it’s all over now.”

“Yes,” said Clive softly, “it’s all over now.”

“And how I used to reckon upon it all!” continued the Doctor. “You two married, and the little children springing up—hers and yours, boy, to make my old life young again. But it’s all over. I won’t say I’ll never see her again, but I’ve done with her; and as for that miserable, cunning, unprincipled scoundrel, how long will it be before he’s laid up with D.T., or something worse—if there is anything worse? I’ll go and attend him gratis, and pay for his funeral afterwards with pleasure.”

“No, no, not you,” said Clive quietly.

“I will, sir; I shall consider it a duty to that poor girl to make her a widow as soon as possible, so that she may live in peace and repent.”

Clive shook his head.

“The man she loves,” he said softly.

“She doesn’t; she can’t love such a scoundrel. The brainless, little, thoughtless idiot! She believed all that of you directly, and ran off to marry the blackguard who has been trying for weeks to undermine you, so as to get my money. Why, I find he has been constantly coming here to see her, and she in her vanity played with him—a little coquette—played with the confounded serpent, till he wound round and stung her.”

Clive hung his head.

“And all the time you and I would have been ready to knock the man down who had dared to suggest that she was trifling with you. Bah! they’re a poor, weak, pitiful lot, the women, Clive. I’ve doctored enough of them to know all their little weaknesses, my lad. A poor, pitiful lot!”

“Do you think so?” said Clive quietly.

“Well, some of them. But, by jingo, boy, what a punishment for the designing scoundrel. He had heard poor old Grantham let drop that he had put Janet—I mean that girl—down for a big sum, and he played for it—gambled. He meant that. By jingo! his face when he found he had lost! I’m going to let you know, too, what I have done.”

“What have you done?” said Clive, rather anxiously.

“Made a new will, sir, and had the old one burned before my eyes. I’ve gone on saving for that girl, and the money’s hers, and she shall have it when I die; but he shan’t. I went to old Belton, told him what I wanted, and he went into it con amore, for he dislikes Master Jessop consumedly. He says it’s a natural reversion—the harking back to a bad strain that once got into the Reed blood.”

“But what did you do?” said Clive.

“Do, boy! tied the money up as tight as the law can tie it. My little bit is to be in the hands of trustees, and she will get the dividends, but she cannot sell out and give the money to your blackguard of a brother; and in a very short time he’ll know it, begin to ill-use her, and go on till she shows that she has some spirit, and then she’ll turn upon him, there’ll be a row, and she’ll come home.”

Clive sat frowning.

“It will be my revenge upon the scoundrel. I say, by the way, that little parlour-maid, Lyddy, what about her?”

“I know nothing,” said Clive sadly.

“The scoundrel has spirited her away somewhere, I suppose. Ah! well, they’ll make him suffer for it in the long-run, and you and I will have a pretty revenge. There now, not another word about either of them. You told me you were going down to Derbyshire again.”

“Yes, to-morrow.”

“That’s right! Go and work, my lad. You won’t do it merely for the money, but to carry out my poor old friend’s wishes. You’ve got to make that mine a very big success. I’ve put a lot in it, my boy, so you mustn’t let me lose. I mean to take up what Byron calls a good old gentlemanly vice—avarice. Don’t be down-hearted, boy. Have another glass of claret, and we’ll drink to your success. One of these days I shall come and drink your bride’s health. Some true, sweet girl, whom I can call daughter. Ah! you shake your head now, because you have just been to the funeral of your coming hopes. But wait a bit, my boy. The world turns round, and after the winter the summer comes again.”

Clive Reed sighed, and at that hour, sick and sore at heart, and despairing, as much on account of the woman he loved as upon his own, everything ahead looked black but the prospect of his late father’s venture, and over this he now set himself to work; not to make money, for he had plenty, but to dull the gnawing pain always busy at his heart.

Chapter Fifteen.

The Undercurrent.

“Hah! I nearly had you that time, my fine fellow,” said Major Gurdon, as he stood deep in the shade, where twilight was falling fast, and ever and anon he deftly threw a fly with his lissome rod right across to the edge of the black water, where the deep suddenly grew shallow, and a sharp rippling was made by the swiftly flowing stream.

“Feel it chilly, my dear?” he said, as he made the brass winch chirrup as he drew out more line.

“No, dear,” said Dinah, with her pale, troubled face lighting up, as she stood there holding a landing-net. “It is very beautiful and cool and pleasant now.”

“Ah! that sounds better,” said the Major, as he made his fine line whish through the air and sent the fly far away down-stream. “You have been fidgeting me, my dear.”

“I, papa?” said the girl hurriedly.

“Yes. You haven’t seemed the same since you had that fall.”

“Oh, it was nothing much, dear.”

“But it was a good deal to make you look so white and upset ever since.—Missed him!—Do you know, my dear,” continued the Major, making another throw, “I lay awake half last night thinking that I ought to take you up to London to see some clever physician.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said the girl hurriedly. “You shouldn’t fidget about that. I am better. I am, indeed.”

“Then impossibilities have come to pass, and your little face is deceitful.”

“You take too much notice of things, dear,” said Dinah, shrinking a little behind her father, so as to hide the fresh shade of trouble in her countenance.

“Oh no, I don’t,” said the Major, as he threw his fly again. “I have not studied your face since you were a baby, Diny, for nothing. Do you know, my dear,” he continued, as his child stood with her lips pressed so firmly together that they formed a thin white line, “I really think that fish have more gumption than we give them credit for. They really do get to be educated and know when they are being fished for.”

“Well, what wonder that they should refuse to take a tiny patch of hair and feathers hiding a hook?”

“But it’s a lovely black gnat I am trying, my dear. I couldn’t tell it in the water from the real; and there: look at that,” he cried, in a tone full of vexation, as a big trout suddenly sucked down an unfortunate fly floating close by the Major’s cunningly made lure. “I knew that fellow was there, and I hereby register a vow that I mean to have him wrapped in buttered writing-paper and grilled for my breakfast before I have done. What a—ah! that’s a good throw, right above him. That ought to tempt any natural fish. Got him!—Be ready with the net,” he cried. “Not yet,” as there was a wallow, a boil in the water, a splash, and an ejaculation as the Major’s rod, which had bent nearly double, became straight again.

“Lost him, papa?”

“Lost him! Of course. My usual luck. Lightly hooked in the lip.—Eh?—No. A badly-tempered hook snapped short off. I wish the scoundrel who made it—Dinah, my dear, would you mind walking just out of hearing. There are a few good old trooper’s oaths just suitable to this occasion, and I should like to let them off.”

Dinah did not stir, but a sad smile crossed her features, and she stood waiting while her father selected a fresh fly, straightened the gut, and began to fasten it to the collar of his line.

“Such a pity! Just as I had hooked him too. I wonder whether he will try again. I was going to say what a deal of trouble one does take, and what an amount of time one does waste in fishing. And so you think that I need not take you up to town?”

“Oh, no, no,” cried Dinah quickly. “I am quite well.”

“Ahem!”

“Well, nearly well again, dear. Don’t fidget about me, pray.”

“Oh, no. You are of no consequence whatever, not the slightest; and I am to take no interest in you of any kind. Ah! you are a strange girl, Di, but you make my life bearable, only it seems brutally selfish to keep you down here in this wilderness.”

“You know I am very happy here.”

“No, I do not,” said the Major, whipping the stream rather viciously. “You have looked miserable for a month past.”

“No, no, dear, you exaggerate,” said Dinah, with a smile that was piteous. “There! I am going to be as cheerful as can be now, and you shall hear me singing about the place again.”

“Hah! at last!” cried the Major, striking sharply. “Home this time, Di. I believe it’s that big trout with the distorted tail-fin. That’s right, my fine fellow; run, but I think I have you. No more lovely May-flies to be sucked down your capacious gullet. I have you, my tyrant of the waters. I’ll bring him in ten yards lower down, my dear. Mind and get your net well under him, and don’t touch him with the ring.”

There followed five minutes’ playing of the gallant fish, which leaped twice out of the water in its desperate efforts to escape, and then it was gently reeled in and lifted out on the stones.

“Best this season, my dear. A beauty,” said the Major, transferring the speckled beauty to his creel, and preparing for another throw. It was suppertime with the trout in the twilight, and they were feeding eagerly now, as the Major began once more—casting his line, and chatting the while to his child, who stood just beside him on his left.

“They’re pretty busy bringing the machinery over to the mine, I see.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes; and the men told me that Mr What’s-his-name, Reed, is down again.”

Dinah drew a faint breath and exhaled it in something like a sigh.

“Reed—bad name for a man of trust. I say, Dinah, I don’t like that other fellow, that man Sturgess, at all.”

Dinah’s hands grasped the landing-net handle convulsively.

“He is offensive. A coarse, overbearing, brutal sort of fellow. I don’t like the way he looks at me. I suppose in his eyes a man living down here in a cottage cannot be a gentleman. I shall have to give him a setting down. He is not coming to lord it over us. I saw him fishing below here the other day.”

“No, no, don’t speak to him,” cried Dinah hastily.

“Nonsense! I have commanded bigger and uglier fellows than he, my dear. The fellow’s insolent, and I saw him twice over clambering round the rocks and staring into the garden. I won’t have it. He shall respect my boundaries, and—Ah! good evening, Mr Reed. Down again, then! What is the last news in London?”

Clive Reed had come upon them suddenly from behind one of the angles of the perpendicular rock which rose up from the narrow pathway beside the river, and was quite unnoticed until he was close at hand.

Dinah turned pale as death as she uttered a low gasp, and for the moment looked as if she were about to turn and run.

“Good evening, Miss Gurdon,” said Clive.

He took off his hat to the Major’s daughter as he spoke; and then, as the fisherman released the hand which had been warmly grasped, the young man stood hesitating; but as Dinah made no sign, he let it fall to his side.

“I have been expecting to see something of you,” continued the Major. “Have you been to the cottage?”

“No,” said Clive, in a quiet, constrained tone, and to Dinah’s great relief he did not look her way, but seemed to stare about him strangely. “I did not call. I did not expect to meet you here.”

“Ah! well, never mind; we are glad to see you, but—Good heavens!—Mr Reed! You’ve been ill or something. My dear sir, have you had some accident up at the mine?”

“No,” said Clive, smiling faintly. “The trouble is past. I have lost my father, Major Gurdon, since I was here. He died suddenly.”

“God bless me!” cried the Major, in a tone full of sympathy, as he threw his rod aside, and laid his hand with a sympathetic movement upon the young man’s arm. “And I was thoughtlessly amusing myself here while you were in trouble. In the midst of life—dear, dear me! I am deeply grieved, sir—we are deeply grieved. Mr Reed, you have suffered much. Dinah, my child, I am sure Mr Reed will give us his company to-night.”

Dinah bent her head, and, in spite of herself, gave their companion a commiserating glance, their eyes meeting, and his resting upon hers with a sad, wistful look as if he were grateful for their kindly sympathy. Then he turned to the Major.

“I thank you warmly,” he said, “but not this evening. I have been down in the mine all day, and chose this path for the sake of the cool, sweet, moist air.”

“The more need for a little rest and quiet communion with others, my dear young friend,” said the Major. “You will give us pain if you do refuse, Mr Reed. I too have known trouble, perhaps greater than yours. Don’t say no, sir. You will come?” Dinah stood with her lips apart, listening, as she mentally prayed that her father’s hospitality might be refused.

“You wish it?” said Clive.

“My dear sir,” paid the Major, speaking rather stiffly, “I very rarely ask a visitor to my little hermitage. I have many failings, but my daughter here will endorse my words when I tell you that insincerity is not one.”

“I beg your pardon, Major Gurdon,” said Clive, more warmly, “I beg Miss Gurdon’s. I am not a society man, and—and trouble and anxiety have made me rather boorish, I am afraid.”

“Suppose we set aside attack and defence, my dear sir,” said the Major gravely. “I too am no society man, a mere hermit living in this desolate—no, not desolate spot. Dinah here makes my home a place of happiness and rest.”

It was on Clive Reed’s lips to say coldly that he was sure that was the case, but he was in no mood for passing empty compliments, and he remained silent.

“Let me be frank, Mr Reed. I look back upon the time you spent with us, sir, as a bright little spot in rather a dark existence. You impressed me favourably, sir. This is a very unconventional admission, but I am eccentric. Let me tell you openly that you impressed me very favourably, and when you do have a leisure evening, you will be conferring a kindness upon me by coming across to the cottage, where we will do our best to make your stay such as would be acceptable to a busy man—restful and calm. There, Dinah, what do you say to that for a long complimentary speech.”

Dinah murmured something, but her eyes did not endorse her father’s words, for they fell, and the nerves about the corners of her lips twitched slightly as she listened to their visitor’s reply.

“This is very good and kind of you, Major Gurdon,” he said; “and I should be ungrateful if I did not accept your hospitality. Let me be frank, though, with you, sir. I came down here to try and forget my troubles in hard work. My mission is to make this mine a successful venture for the sake of those who have embarked in the scheme, and my thoughts run upon the work, and that alone. I shall prove to be a very dreary guest.”

“Let me have my opinion about that,” said the Major, smiling. “You have done wisely, sir. Hard work in these solitudes will restore your tone. I came down years ago in despair, to die forgotten; but I soon found out that ‘there is a divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may.’ I was not to die, sir. Life began to have attractions once more. I found that there was something to live for besides self. Here we are, then, and, Mr Reed, you are very welcome.”

He drew back for his guest to enter, and he in turn made place for Dinah, who raised her eyes to thank him in silence for his courtesy, when he saw a sudden change come over her countenance, which in an instant was full of a painful look of utter despair, as she seemed to have caught sight of something over his shoulder.

The next moment she had hurried in, and Clive Reed followed, feeling a new interest in his host’s child, and at the same moment asking himself whether she were not suffering from some mental trouble, which was eating away the hopefulness of a life so young as hers.

There was something very restful and calm about that evening at the cottage. Dinah hardly spoke a word, but after the pleasant meal sat engaged upon some piece of work, over which her white fingers passed hastily to and fro, as the guest sat back in his chair and watched them, while the Major smoked his cigar at the window, and chatted at times about London and India, where he had gone through some service at the time of the Mutiny.

But there were many lapses into silence, and the whole tone of the evening was grave and still, according wonderfully with Clive Reed’s state of mind, as he felt a kind of sympathy for the lady before him, and found himself working out her career, without female companionship, saving that of the stern-looking elderly servant. Dinah Gurdon, he thought, must have gone through some terrible time of anguish to wear such an aspect as he had noticed more than once, and he pitied her, as he saw the busy hands, utterly devoid of any ornament but their natural beauty of form and whiteness, still going to and fro the needlework in the light cast upon them by the shaded lamp.

And then all at once it was late, and time for him to go; but he did not care to stir—all was truly calm, there was such a sweet repose about the place that life had suddenly grown dreamy, and he lay back in his chair listening to the Major, and still watching those hands that were as beautiful as—more beautiful than—Janet’s.

Her face came into his mind with that, like a painful jarring discord in the midst of some soft, dreamy symphony, and he started up.

“Eh? What is the matter?” cried the Major suddenly.

“It is late, sir. I am keeping you up far beyond your usual time, I am sure.”

“Yes, and thank you for doing so,” said the Major. “It is a pleasant change. Early to bed is good, but not too early. Why, you do not suppose, Mr Reed, that we are going to let you tramp across the bleak mountain-side to-night, and have inquiries made for you in the morning, because you have not gone to the mine.”

“But really, Major Gurdon,” protested Reed.

“My dear sir, after all these years in this solitude, I know the place by heart, and there are dozens of spots—old shafts and the like—where a man may lose his life.”

“But indeed—”

“You are a new-comer. Yes, my dear sir, and we must take care of you. See how dark it is. Look, Dinah, my child. Go and see what the night is like.”

Dinah trembled as she went to the open French window, stepped into the verandah, and came back looking ghastly, just as the dog began to bark fiercely from somewhere at the back.

“Poachers after the grouse,” said the Major decisively. “I hope, Mr Reed, you will use your influence to keep your men from trespassing and going after the game—and my trout.”

“Of course, sir, but—”

“Well, Dinah?” said the Major, without noticing her agitated face.

“It is very dark,” she said huskily.

“Exactly! Too dark for you to go, my dear sir. Stay! We will have an early breakfast, and you can walk across to the mine. I will not have my peace of mind destroyed by being summoned to sit on a jury at an inquest upon my late guest.”

There was a mingling of mirth and seriousness in the Major’s words, and Reed hesitated.

“Well, sir,” he said, involuntarily glancing across at Dinah, and meeting her troubled gaze.

“I insist,” cried the Major. “What do you say, my dear?”

Dinah started, and her voice sounded strange as she said hurriedly—

“It would be very imprudent of Mr Reed to go back—on so dark a walk.”

“Exactly! There, my dear sir, you are a prisoner for to-night.”

“Mr Reed will excuse me now,” said Dinah quietly. “Good-night,” and she held out her hand.

“Good-night,” he replied, with a grave sympathy in his tone; and he stood gazing at the door through which she had passed with the touch of her cold, moist, trembling hand still lingering in his, till the Major spoke again, after walking to the window, and shouting to the dog to lie down.

“Been madness to have gone,” he said. “Why, even in broad daylight the way across the mountain needs care. My poor darling there had that nasty slip some little time ago, and she has not been the same since. You noticed, perhaps, that she looks pale and quite hysterical?”

“I had noticed—I did on my first visit too—that Miss Gurdon looked very pale and ill.”

“Exactly! She gives me a great deal of concern about her health. I shall be obliged to take her up to town for good advice. But come, sit down; I will not trouble you about my cares.”

“It is very late, sir.”

“It is. But only a few minutes, Mr Reed. I wish to say something to you.”

Reed seated himself.

“Only a few words, sir, and I shall begin by asking you to pardon a much older man for his frankness.”

“Pray speak, sir.”

“Well, Mr Reed, I like you, and therefore I say, as a man whose life and hopes were blasted when he was young, and who would see with pain another suffer a defeat, be careful.”

“Over what, sir?” said Clive sadly.

“That mine. Don’t think me impertinent; but I would say to you, as a young man to whom the income you receive as engineer or manager may be of importance, don’t put too much faith in that ‘venture.’”

“May I ask why, sir?”

“Because mining is very treacherous, and you might be bitterly disappointed. I have seen so many failures. There, my dear sir, that is all. To put it in plain English, don’t put all your hopes or eggs into one basket. I don’t believe in that ‘White Virgin’ at all. There! forgive me:—good-night.”

“I forgive you, sir,” said Clive warmly, as he clasped the hand extended to him, “and thank you, too. Good-night.”

Half-an-hour later Clive Reed was lying in the pretty little bedroom, thinking again how restful and calm it all was, and that instead of lying mentally feverish, and tossing restlessly in turn, a pleasant drowsiness was coming over him.

Then he was wide awake and attent, for, from somewhere close at hand, he could hear the sound of a woman sobbing gently, evidently in her despair, and after a time it came to him that the wall on one side of his room was merely a papered over partition, and the sobs that came so faintly to his ears must be those of Dinah Gurdon, suffering from some terrible mental burden of which her father was possibly not aware.

The sobbing ceased, but in spite of the peacefulness of the place, Clive Reed did not drop off to sleep, but lay thinking of the mine. Then came thoughts of Janet and of his brother—his father’s wishes—of the Doctor, and then, by a natural sequence, of the Major and his child.

What was the Major? Of course his name would be in old Army Lists, but why was he down there leading so retired a life? He had hinted at some trouble. Then there was his child! Sweet, ladylike, with a charm and dignity that were strange in such a cottage as that. What was her great trouble? It was evidently mental, and her father was in ignorance, and attributed it to bodily infirmity; and that being so, she must have some secret hidden from him, possibly too from her father.

So restful the minute before, now Clive Reed felt as if a hot iron had seared him, and he turned angrily on his couch.

“What is it to me?” he said to himself. “She is like the rest of them—pleasant to the eye and good for food, but once plucked, no more paradise. The old story! Pater in profound ignorance, and there is a lover. Well, I did not come here to play the spy upon Mademoiselle’s love affairs. I have had my stab, and it has been sharp. I suppose now that I ought to turn cynic and look on. No; I am too busy even for that. I have my betrothed—my ‘White Virgin’—to whom I must be faithful. Hang the girl! why couldn’t she go and cry at the bottom of the garden—top, I ought to say—or down by the river, and not where I could hear her? Mademoiselle Dinah Gurdon, you and I will never be friends, but I like the old man, and I should like to know what his secret has been. Has no faith in the mine, hasn’t he? ‘Don’t trust it, young man’—‘Don’t place all your eggs in one basket.’ I suppose he thinks I am a regular employé. Well, I look it, coming fresh out of it covered with limestone mud. Well meant, old gentleman, and I like you all the better for it. I know that you are not civil to me because I happen to be well off, and don’t ask me here because I might prove to be an eligible party for your daughter.”

“Rubbish!” he muttered; “don’t be an idiot. If I thought that, I’d stay away. But it is not that. The old man is a thorough gentleman, and the girl is ladylike and nice enough.”

She proved to be nice enough to make Clive Reed lie wakeful still, with his mind running upon her pale, care-marked face, and begin to wonder who the man might be who troubled her rest.

“Some one at a distance,” he thought; “and the fellow doesn’t write. That’s it. Poor lassie! These women do not monopolise all the deception. It is on the other side here. Little Phyllis is left neglected in this out-of-the-way place, quite forgotten perhaps, while Corydon has gone up to London, and plunged into all the gaieties of life—and so the world runs on.”

Suddenly it struck him that there was a photograph over the mantelpiece of a fine, handsome fellow in undress uniform. He noted it when he came into the room, but thought no more of it. Now it came strongly to his mind, and suggested a fresh train of thought.

That was it! The portrait of the gentleman. The father was an old soldier: the more likely for the lover to be military, and he was either away on foreign service, or leading a giddy life in some barrack town.

“Why, by Jove!” thought Clive, raising himself upon his elbow. “This is a tiny cot of a place, without a spare room, I should say. The old man would be too Spartan and military to have anything but the simplest of accommodation, and the best is given to the guest. I am in my lady’s chamber. Of course. The place is feminine and full of knick-knacks. So that is the cavalier’s portrait, and I have the key to the Pandora’s box of troubles. Poor girl! But what a shame for me to turn her out. What’s that?”

The endorsement of one set of Clive Reed’s musings, the overturning of others, and a glimpse into Dinah Gurdon’s secret care. For, sharp and clear, there was the rattle of a few shot against the lattice panes of the window.

Then in the stillness that instantly followed there was a movement on the other side of the partition, and directly after the ringing, echoing report of a gun fired from a room on the other side of the cottage.

Chapter Sixteen.

Sturgess Shows his Teeth.

The loud barking of a dog followed the shot, and directly after Reed heard a sharp, light tap on a neighbouring door, and the Major’s voice—

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear. I thought I heard steps in the garden; my window was open. Some prowling tramp, I expect. Lie down and go to sleep.”

“Rather a military order,” thought Reed; “as if the poor girl could go to sleep under the circumstances, with her lover being shot at—Yes!”

“Don’t be startled, Mr Reed,” said the Major, who had tapped at his door. “We don’t have policemen here to go their rounds. Some scoundrel was after my chickens, I expect; and the dog was asleep, so I just fired a cartridge at random as a warning to my visitor. Good-night.”

“Shall I get up and go round with you?” said Reed.

“My dear sir, no. He’s over the hills and far away by now. Good-night.”

“Good-night, sir,” said Reed, who was half-dressed; and once more stillness reigned in the mountain solitude.

“No business of mine,” he thought, as he quietly returned to bed; “I’ve enough to do to-morrow, and want rest. Chickens, eh? Poor old fellow! for chickens read little ewe lamb. Who’d have thought it of the pretty, ladylike girl? And I might have married, and eighteen or twenty years hence have had a daughter like these two in the narrow circle of my acquaintance—a child whom I had tenderly nursed in infancy, trained as she grew up, believed in, trusted, and fancied that I shared her inmost thoughts. Then the revelation would probably have come. No; I don’t think I shall marry now; and—well, how strange! I feel as if I can sleep—that engine ought to be fixed in a week, and we’ll begin at once. I’ll have the smelting-house where I settled, and the furnaces here shall be utilised for supplying additional steam. I must send a telegram off to-morrow to hurry on that tubing. Bah! I’ll let all that go to-night, and—”

“Would you like a little hot water, sir?”

Clive Reed started up.

“Eh? No, thanks. I don’t shave. Can I have a canful of cold, fresh from the river?”

“I have brought one up, sir. Breakfast in half an hour.”

Clive Reed was dressed and out in half that space of time, to find the Major busily tying up some beautiful carnations, one of which he cut and presented, dew wet, to his guest.

“The most aromatic of our plants, Mr Reed,” he said. “I’m sorry I disturbed you in the night, but it was no false alarm. Look! I would not rake them out till you had seen them.”

He pointed to the couple of heavy footprints in the soft soil, and to one of his carnations crushed by a boot heel.

“Nothing missing,” continued the Major. “Our friend was startled; but don’t say anything about the footprints at breakfast.”

“Certainly not. But are you much troubled in this way?”

“Well, no,” replied the Major, smiling grimly.

“The fact is, never. I’m afraid the news of the reopening of the mine has brought some roughs down into the neighbourhood. When you get your men all at work, they’ll be too tired of a night to go wandering about.”

“I am very sorry,” said Reed.

“Oh, don’t say a word about it, my dear sir. I am not blaming you. I cannot expect to have Derbyshire reserved to me. There! those are smoothed out, and a man who finds that there are firearms upon premises, with people who mean to use them, will think twice before he comes again.”