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