"No, papa," said Mary; "why should you leave your mine when everything is going so prosperously? I think I should like to go to the lakes, and pay my old nurse a visit."
"And she would talk to you of Walter Clifford?"
"Yes, papa," said Mary, firmly, "she would; and that's the only thing that can do me any good."
"Well, Mary," said Bartley, "if she could be content with praising him, and regretting the insuperable obstacles, and if she would encourage you to be patient—There, let me think of it."
Things went hard with Colonel Clifford. He felt his son's desertion very bitterly, though he was too proud to show it; he now found out that universally as he was respected, it was Walter who was the most beloved both in the house and in the neighborhood.
One day he heard a multitude shouting, and soon learned the reason. Bartley had struck a rich vein of coal, and tons were coming up to the surface. Colonel Clifford would not go near the place, but he sent old Baker to inquire, and Baker from that day used to bring him back a number of details, some of them especially galling to him. By degrees, and rapid ones, Bartley was becoming a rival magnate; the poor came to him for the slack, or very small coal, and took it away gratis; they flattered him, and to please him, spoke slightingly of Colonel Clifford, which they had never ventured to do before. But soon a circumstance occurred which mortified the old soldier more than all. He was sole proprietor of the village, and every house in it, with the exception of a certain beer-house, flanked by an acre and a half of ground. This beer-house was a great eye-sore to him; he tried to buy this small freeholder out; but the man saw his advantage, and demanded £1500—nearly treble the real value. Walter, however, by negotiating in a more friendly spirit, had obtained a reduction, and was about to complete the purchase for £1150. But when Walter left the country the proprietor never dreamed of going again to the haughty Colonel. He went to Bartley, and Bartley bought the property in five minutes for £1200, and paid a deposit to clinch the contract. He completed the purchase with unheard-of rapidity, and set an army of workmen to raise a pit village, or street of eighty houses. They were ten times better built than the Colonel's cottages; not one of them could ever be vacant, they were too great a boon to the miners; nor could the rent be in arrears, with so sharp a hand as the mine-owner; the beer-house was to be perpetuated, and a nucleus of custom secured from the miners, partly by the truck system, and partly by the superiority of the liquor, for Bartley announced at once that he should brew the beer.
All these things were too much for a man with gout in his system; Colonel Clifford had a worse attack of that complaint than ever; it rose from his feet to other parts of his frame, and he took to his bed.
In that condition a physician and surgeon visited him daily, and his lawyer also was sent for, and was closeted with him for a long time on more than one occasion.
All this caused a deal of speculation in the village, and as a system of fetch and carry was now established by which the rival magnates also received plenty of information, though not always accurate, about each other, Mr. Bartley heard what was going on, and put his own construction upon it.
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