"Yes, we. You know perfectly well that before I went into it I consulted you. The mine was paying well then, and at the rate I bought in would have paid twenty per cent on the investment. I told you that there was a certain risk always with these mines, and that it was either a big addition to our income or a total loss."
"Yes, but you said that coal mines were not like other mines."
"And as a rule they are not," he said, "but there was first that great strike, then a fall in the price of coal, and then just when things began to look better again we came upon that fault that nobody had dreamt of being there, and then the whole thing went to smash. You must not be impatient. I am as anxious as you are, Eliza, to have done with all this, and I hope by the time Clara and Julia are ready to come out, I may be able to carry out the plans we have always had—I as much as you. Tancred takes a great deal of the work off my hands now, and I can see that he has the confidence of most of my people. In another couple of years I shall have no fear of the business falling off if I hand it over to him entirely. You know he has only a fifth share, and I have no doubt he will be glad to arrange to pay me half or perhaps three-fifths when I retire. Now I must be going across to the office."
The office was situated in a smaller house standing opposite the lawyer's residence. In his father's time a portion of the ground floor of the house was devoted to business purposes, but after his marriage Jeremiah Brander had taken the house opposite and made it his place of business.
About twelve o'clock a gig drew up at the door; a moment later a young clerk came in.
"Doctor Edwards wishes to speak to you, Mr. Brander."
"Show him in."
"Well, doctor," he said, as his visitor entered, "it is seldom that I see you here, though we meet often enough elsewhere. Come you to buy or to sell, or do you want a will prepared or a patient sued? If so you know that's altogether out of my line."
"I quite understand that, Brander," the other said, as he took the armchair the lawyer pointed out to him. "No, I have come to tell you something you will be very sorry to hear. I have just come in from Fairclose. I had a note from Hartington last night asking me to go over first thing this morning."
"He does not look like a man who would require professional services, doctor; he is sixty, I suppose, but he could tire out most of the younger men either across country or after the partridges."