Prices were named; I forget now the exact sums, but enormous prices, I thought, for the gun and the dogs, Fanny and Slut. The bargain was eagerly concluded, and the money paid at once. Possibly the buyer had a vague notion, that a portion of the vender's skill might come to him with his purchases.
'You be in 'arnest, then, in this fool's business, James Dutton,' observed a farmer gravely. 'I be sorry for thee; but as I s'pose the lease of Ash Farm will be parted with; why—— John, waiter, tell Master Hurst at the top of the table yonder, to come this way.'
Master Hurst, a well-to-do, highly respectable-looking, and rather elderly man, came in obedience to the summons, and after a few words in an under-tone with the friend that had sent for him, said: 'Is this true, James Dutton?'
'It is true that the lease and stock of Ash Farm are to be sold—at a price. You, I believe, are in want of such a concern for the young couple, just married.'
'Well, I don't say I might not be a customer, if the price were reasonable.'
'Let us step into a private room, then,' said Dutton rising. 'This is not a place for business of that kind. Sharp,' he added, sotto voce, 'come with us; I may want you.'
I had listened to all this with a kind of stupid wonderment, and I now, mechanically as it were, got up and accompanied the party to another room.
The matter was soon settled. Five hundred pounds for the lease—ten years unexpired—of Ash Farm, about eleven hundred acres, and the stock, implements; the ploughing, sowing, &c. already performed, to be paid for at a valuation based on present prices. I drew out the agreement in form, it was signed in duplicate, a large sum was paid down as deposit, and Mr Hurst with his friend withdrew.
'Well,' I said, taking a glass of port from a bottle Dutton had just ordered in—'here's fortune in your new career; but as I am a living man, I can't understand what you can be thinking about.'
'You haven't read the newspapers?'