(hastily.) – "Advice for the future, certainly. I will quicken the action, and" —
"Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal account-book. "We have lost £200 by our barley!"
Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the "Fair Shadowland."
CHAPTER II
"Halt!" cried a voice; and not a little surprised was Leonard when the stranger who had accosted him the preceding evening got into the chaise.
"Well," said Richard, "I am not the sort of man you expected, eh? Take time to recover yourself." And with these words Richard drew forth a book from his pocket, threw himself back, and began to read. Leonard stole many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of his companion, and gradually recognised a family likeness to poor John, in whom, despite age and infirmity, the traces of no common share of physical beauty were still evident. And, with that quick link in ideas which mathematical aptitude bestows, the young student at once conjectured that he saw before him his uncle Richard. He had the discretion, however, to leave that gentleman free to choose his own time for introducing himself, and silently revolved the new thoughts produced by the novelty of his situation. Mr Richard read with notable quickness – sometimes cutting the leaves of the book with his penknife, sometimes tearing them open with his forefinger, sometimes skipping whole pages altogether. Thus he galloped to the end of the volume – flung it aside – lighted his cigar, and began to talk.
He put many questions to Leonard relative to his rearing, and especially to the mode by which he had acquired his education; and Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he was replying to a kinsman, answered frankly.
Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead brethren, who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new; to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world. He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas – a common mistake – and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day.
Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through to Leonard, and, taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into an absorbed train of thought – part pecuniary, part ambitious.
Leonard found the book interesting; it was one of the numerous works, half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the working-classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought to bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last.
"Dull stuff – theory – claptrap," said Richard, rousing himself from his reverie at last: "it can't interest you."
"All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially; for it relates to the working-class, and I am one of them."
"You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard good-humouredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad, that it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory – only ten hours a-day – pooh! and so lose two to the nation! Labour is wealth: and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a-day, we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilisation is to proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a-bed doing nothing all night, sir." Then with a complacent tone – "We shall get to the twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we shan't flog the Europeans as we do now."
On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made acquaintance with Mr Dale, the coach by which he had intended to perform the rest of the journey was found to be full. Richard continued to perform the journey in post-chaises, not without some grumbling at the expense, and incessant orders to the postboys to make the best of the way. "Slow country this, in spite of all its brag," said he – "very slow. Time is money – they know that in the States; for why, they are all men of business there. Always slow in a country where a parcel of lazy idle lords, and dukes, and baronets, seem to think 'time is pleasure.'"
Towards evening the chaise approached the confines of a very large town, and Richard began to grow fidgety. His easy cavalier air was abandoned. He withdrew his legs from the window, out of which they had been luxuriously dangling; pulled down his waistcoat; buckled more tightly his stock: it was clear that he was resuming the decorous dignity that belongs to state. He was like a monarch who, after travelling happy and incognito, returns to his capital. Leonard divined at once that they were nearing their journey's end.
Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and touched their hats. Richard returned the salutation with a nod – a nod less gracious than condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped before a smart lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric columns in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!" cried the postboy, and cracked his whip.
Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little building.
"Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As I live, the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy." During this soliloquy, a good-looking young woman had rushed from the door – slapped the children as, catching sight of the chaise, they ran towards the house – opened the gates, and, dropping a curtsey to the ground, seemed to wish that she could drop into it altogether, so frightened and so trembling seemed she to shrink from the wrathful face which the master now put out of the window.
"Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, "that I would not have these horrid disreputable cubs of yours playing just before my lodge gates?"
"Please, sir – "
"Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that the next time I saw you making a drying-ground of my lilacs, you should go out, neck and crop – "
"Oh, please sir – "
"You leave my lodge next Saturday: drive on, boy. The ingratitude and insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature," muttered Richard, with an accent of the bitterest misanthropy.
The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of gravel roads, and through fields of the finest land, in the highest state of cultivation. Rapid as was Leonard's survey, his rural eye detected the signs of a master in the art agronomial. Hitherto he had considered the Squire's model farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he had seen; for Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on the minute scale of market-gardening than what can fairly be called husbandry. But the Squire's farm was degraded by many old-fashioned notions, and concessions to the whim of the eye, which would not be found in model farms now-a-days – large tangled hedgerows, which, though they constitute one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, make sad deductions from produce; great trees, overshadowing the corn, and harbouring the birds; little patches of rough sward left to waste; and angles of woodland running into fields, exposing them to rabbits, and blocking, out the sun. These and suchlike blots on a gentleman farmer's agriculture, common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to the acute comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in Richard Avenel's domain. The fields lay in broad divisions, the hedges were clipped and narrowed into their proper destination of mere boundaries. Not a blade of wheat withered under the cold shade of a tree; not a yard of land lay waste; not a weed was to be seen, not a thistle to waft its baleful seed through the air: some young plantations were placed, not where the artist would put them, but just where the farmer wanted a fence from the wind. Was there no beauty in this? Yes, there was beauty of its kind – beauty at once recognisable to the initiated – beauty of use and profit – beauty that could bear a monstrous high rent. And Leonard uttered a cry of admiration which thrilled through the heart of Richard Avenel.
"This is farming!" said the