"And you have been in trade, haven't ye?"
"Why, yes."
"Then you will detect plenty of swindles, if you find out one in ten. Above all, cut down my expenditure to my income. A gentleman of the nineteenth century, sharpened by trade, can easily do that. Sell Clifford Hall? I'd rather live on the rabbits and the pigeons and the blackbirds, and the carp in the pond, and drive to church in the wheelbarrow."
So for a time Walter administered his father's estate, and it was very instructive. Oh! the petty frauds—the swindles of agency—a term which, to be sure, is derived from the Latin word "agere," to do—the cobweb of petty commissions—the flat bribes—the smooth hush-money!
Walter soon cut the expenses down to the income, which was ample, and even paid off the one mortgage that encumbered this noble estate at five per cent., only four per cent. of which was really fingered by the mortgagee; the balance went to a go-between, though no go-between was ever wanted, for any solicitor in the country would have found the money in a week at four per cent.
The old gentleman was delighted, and engaged his own son as steward at a liberal salary; and so Walter Clifford found employment and a fair income without going away from home again.
CHAPTER V.
MARY'S PERIL.
Whilst Mr. Bartley's business was improving under Hope's management, Hope himself was groaning under his entire separation from his daughter. Bartley had promised him this should not be; but among Hope's good qualities was a singular fidelity to his employers, and he was also a man who never broke his word. So when Bartley showed him that the true parentage of Grace Hope—now called Mary Bartley—could never be disguised unless her memory of him was interrupted and puzzled before she grew older, and that she as well as the world must be made to believe Bartley was her father, he assented, and it was two years before he ventured to come near his own daughter.
But he demanded to see her at a distance, himself unseen, and this was arranged. He provided himself with a powerful binocular of the kind that is now used at sea, instead of the unwieldy old telescope, and the little girl was paraded by the nurse, who was in the secret. She played about in the sight of this strange spy. She was plump, she was rosy, she was full of life and spirit. Joy filled the father's heart; but then came a bitter pang to think that he had faded out of her joyous life; by-and-by he could see her no longer, for a mist came from his heart to his eyes; he bowed his head and went back to his business, his prosperity, and his solitude. These experiments were repeated at times. Moreover, Bartley had the tact never to write to him on business without telling him something about his girl, her clever sayings, her pretty ways, her quickness at learning from all her teachers, and so on. When she was eight years old a foreign agent was required in Bartley's business, and Hope agreed to start this agency and keep it going till some more ordinary person could be intrusted to work it.