“I wish I had ready money,” said Arthur; “I should not mind risking a little on it myself.”
“Oh yes, you would,” answered Mr. Black; “if you had been inclined for any mischief of that kind, you would not have kept your hands out of it so long.”
“How the deuce is a man to mix up in anything of the kind, if opportunity never offer?” Arthur demanded.
“But opportunity does offer; opportunities are always lying under people’s feet, only some are too proud, or too cautious, or too lazy, to stoop and pick them up. No, no, Squire, you had better stick to your farming; you must be making a lot of money here, and your wife would not like you to go into business.”
“My wife would wish me to do whatever was best for all our interests,” said Arthur, sharply.
“Perhaps so; but, if she would, she differs wonderfully from mine,” was the reply, “Lord knows I have often been thankful I never cared twopence about her, or she would have kept me a go-by-the-ground all my life. When a man is fond of his wife, naturally he does not like to cross her. I can quite understand what has kept you back, Dudley; you ought, as Mrs. Ormson says, to have married a rich wife, and then you could have afforded to humour her.”
“No man ever had a better wife than I have, Mr. Black.”
“Is not that what I have just said? and naturally she influences you. I think it is a pity, you know, because women do not know what is best either for their husbands or themselves; but it is very greatly to your credit. I dare say, if I had married differently, I should feel like you. After looking at Mrs. Dudley, I think what a pity it is to see her wasting her life at Berrie Down. By Jove! if I had a wife like her, it would be worth a thousand a year to me. Don’t she set off the head of a man’s table! Wouldn’t she be the one to entertain the great people I want to make useful! And your sisters, Dudley. It’s a sin to see them buried here—girls who might marry well to-morrow. Mrs. Ormson and I often talk it over; but we have agreed it is of no use fretting about the business, which is just one of those matters we were not sent into the world to right.”
In which last portion of his sentence, had Mr. Black omitted the “not,” he would much more truthfully have stated his own and Mrs. Ormson’s opinions. At all events, if the pair had not sufficient reliance on Providence to believe they were sent to right the matter, they thought they ought to have been, and were not slow about asserting their conviction, which comes to nearly the same thing.
“Supposing your scheme turned out well, how soon should you expect to make money by it?” inquired Arthur, apparently a little irrelevantly.