"Why, children," said Hope, pleased at their sympathy, but too manly to hunt for it, "it was more than he thought the information worth, and I assure you it was a blessed boon to me. I had spent my last shilling, and there I was trapesing across the island on a wild-goose chase with my reaping-hook and my fiddle; and my poor little Grace, that I—that I—"
Mary's hand went a moment to his other shoulder, and she murmured through her tears, "You have got me."
Then Hope was happy again, and indeed the simplest woman can find in a moment the very word that is balm of Gilead to a sorrowful man.
However, Hope turned it off and continued his theme. The jury, he said, would pounce on that ten shillings as the Colonel's true estimate of his coal, and he would figure in the case as a dog in the manger who grudged Bartley the profits of a risky investment he had merely sneered at and not opposed, until it turned out well; and also disregarded the interests of the little community to whom the mine was a boon. "No," said Hope; "tell your lawyer that I am Bartley's servant, but love equity. I have proposed to Bartley to follow a wonderful seam of coal under Colonel Clifford's park. We have no business there. So if the belligerents will hear reason I will make Bartley pay a royalty on every ton that comes to the surface from any part of the mine; and that will be £1200 a year to the Cliffords. Take this to the lawyer and tell him to unfix that hero's bayonet, or he will charge at the double and be the death of his own money—and yours."
Walter threw up his hands with amazement and admiration. "What a head!" said he.
"Fiddledee!" said Mary; "what a heart!"
"In a word, a phoenix," said Hope, dryly. "Praise is sweet, especially behind one's back. So pray go on, unless you have something better to say to each other;" and Hope retired briskly into his office. But when the lovers took him at his word, and began to strut up and down hand in hand, and murmur love's music into each other's ears, he could not take his eyes off them, and his thoughts were sad. She had only known that young fellow a few months, yet she loved him passionately, and he would take her away from her father before she even knew all that father had done and suffered for her. When the revelation did come she would perhaps be a wife and a mother, and then even that revelation would fall comparatively flat.
Besides his exceptional grief, he felt the natural pang of a father at the prospect of resigning her to a husband. Hard is the lot of parents; and, above all, of a parent with one child whom he adores. Many other creatures love their young tenderly, and their young leave them. But then the infancy and youth of those creatures are so short. In a few months the young shift for themselves, forgetting and forgotten. But with our young the helpless periods of infancy and youth are so long. Parental anxiety goes through so many trials and so various, and they all strike roots into the parent's heart. Yet after twenty years of love and hope and fear comes a handsome young fellow, a charming highwayman to a parent's eye, and whisks her away after two months' courtship. Then, oh, ye young, curb for a moment your blind egotism, and feel a little for the parents who have felt so much for you! You rather like William Hope, so let him help you to pity your own parents. See his sad face as he looks at the love he is yet too unselfish to discourage. To save that tender root, a sickly child, he transplanted it from his own garden, and still tended it with loving care for many a year. Another gathers the flower. He watched and tended and trembled over the tender nestling. The young bird is trying her wings before his eyes; soon she will spread them, and fly away to a newer nest and a younger bosom.
In this case, however, the young people had their troubles too, and their pretty courtship was soon interrupted by an unwelcome and unexpected visitor, who, as a rule, avoided that part, for the very reason that Colonel Clifford frequented it. However, he came there to-day to speak to Hope. Mr. Bartley, for he it was, would have caught the lovers if he had come silently; but he was talking to a pitman as he came, and Mary's quick ears heard his voice round the corner.
"Papa!" cried she. "Oh, don't let him see us! Hide!"