Young Jacob was no match for his keen-eyed relations at Milend, who saw through the whole matter in a minute.
"That horse o' yours is a fast un, little Jacob, but it isn't quite sharp enough to make up for three hours' courtin' at Wendrum."
The next day young Jacob was sent to look over works in a totally opposite direction; and as he had a good many measurements to take, there was no chance of getting any time to himself. Twenty-four hours later Miss Stanburne received the following letter:—
"Madam,—I have discovered that my nephew has been idling his time away at Wenderholme Cottage. You may, perhaps, know how he was occupied. Excuse me if I say that, if my nephew idles his time away at Wenderholme Cottage, he will never be a rich man.
"Yours truly, Jacob Ogden."
The note was very intelligible, and the consequence of it was, that Edith resolved to sacrifice herself. "I love him too much," she said, "to ruin him."
The reader may remember one Jerry Smethurst whom Isaac Ogden met at Whittlecup when on duty in the militia, and with whom he got drunk for the last time. It is twelve years since then, a long interval in any place, but an especially long interval in Shayton, where delirium tremens carries off the mature males with a rapidity elsewhere unknown. There had been hundreds of deaths from drinking in that township since 1853; and of all the jolly companions who used to meet at the Red Lion, the only one remaining was the proprietor of Twistle Farm. James Hardcastle, the innkeeper, was dead; Seth Schofield was in Shayton churchyard, and so was Jerry Smethurst. A new generation was drinking itself to death in that parlor, served by another landlord.
Most of these worthies had ruined themselves in fortune as in health. Men cannot spend their time in public-houses without their business feeling the effects of it; and they cannot fuddle their intellects with beer and brandy and preserve their clearness for arithmetic. So, as the prosperity of a society is the prosperity of the individuals composing it, Shayton was not a very prosperous locality, and, in comparison with Sootythorn, lagged wofully behindhand in the race. A few men, however, managed somehow to reconcile business and the brandy-bottle, and the most successful conciliator of pleasure and affairs had been the notable Jerry Smethurst. He managed it by never drinking any thing before the mill was closed; drink, to him, was the reward of the labors of the day, and not their accompaniment. His constitution had been strong enough to resist this double strain of laborious days and convivial evenings for a much longer time than Dr. Bardly ever expected; and when the end came, which it did by a single attack of delirium tremens, succeeded by a fit of apoplexy (the patient had always apprehended apoplexy), Mr. Smethurst's affairs were found to be in admirable order, and his only daughter, then a fine girl of fourteen, became heiress to an extensive mill and a quantity of building land, as well as many shops and tenements in the interior of the town which would infallibly increase in value. In a word, Sarah Smethurst was worth forty thousand now, and would be worth a hundred thousand in twenty years; so that, as the charms of her youth faded, the man fortunate enough to win her might count upon a progressive compensation in the increase of her estate.
Jacob Ogden, senior, was very accurately acquainted with Miss Smethurst's property, and could calculate its future value to a nicety. He had the best opportunities for knowing these matters, being one of Jerry Smethurst's trustees. When Colonel Stanburne was a rich man, Jacob Ogden would have preferred Miss Stanburne for his nephew to any girl in Sally Smethurst's position; for though nobody could love and appreciate money more than Jacob did, he wished to see his nephew take a higher place in society than money of itself would be able to procure for him. As in mixing a glass of grog the time comes when we want no more spirit, but turn our attention to the sugar-basin, although there can be no doubt that the spirit is the main thing (since without it the glass would be nothing but eau sucrée), so, when we want to make that composite of perfections, a gentleman, there is a time when money is no longer needed, though that is the main element of his strength, and we turn our attention to the sugar-basin of the comme il faut. When Jacob Ogden, senior, was favorable to the Wenderholme match, it was not so much on account of Miss Stanburne's money as on account of her decided position as a young lady of the aristocracy; and when the Colonel was ruined, he did not disapprove of the match because Miss Stanburne would have no fortune, but because her position as member of a county family had been upset by her father's bankruptcy.
Well, if the lad could not marry like a gentleman, he should marry like a prince among cotton-spinners, and contract alliance with a princess of his own order. Sally Smethurst was such a princess. Therefore it was decided that young Jacob should espouse Sally Smethurst.