“No,” said Martha, blushing; “let him take father’s farm on shares, that will be easier, for I want Garry to take the next farm.”
Then there was a merry shout of laughter, and the boys declared she was right, and that Arthur should stay with them, and they would plough and reap for him while he tinkered about, shot birds, and caught fish.
Toward evening the answer to his letter came, he was requested to call at Herman Hall at ten o’clock the next day, and then he might decide whether the terms would suit him.
At ten o’clock he was at the porter’s lodge, where the solemn-looking personage who had so awed Garry stood ready to receive him. A low, garden-chaise, with a pair of handsome ponies, was waiting for him, into which he seated himself. The ride was enchantment. No fairy dream could have conjured up the beautiful scenery which opened to his view at every turn of the road. Arthur was lost in rapture, he forgot his humble circumstances and his slender fortunes, for his whole soul was filled with lofty thoughts, he seemed elevated to the companionship of angels, and he gloried that he was a man after God’s own image. “Angels,” thought he, as the carriage moved slowly along, “could not feel happier, nor have purer emotions than I enjoy this moment. I have had the fear of God before me and have reverenced Him always, but here I love Him—these are His glorious works. Cities are made by men.”
Arthur had lived in cities always, and his little excursions, hastily made, and very limited in duration, were for the purpose of fishing or shooting, and always with a dull companion, like Snow, who fished and shot in the same way that he kept books—pursuing the one act, the one thought which he proposed doing.
Herman Hall had been in the possession of the family for more than a century; it was originally selected on account of its beauty and fine prospects, and art had assisted nature in embellishing it. Arthur entered the mansion-house a far different man than he was an hour before. A new sense—a new feeling had been given to him.
His name was announced by the footman, and the man who received it passed it to another, who opened a parlor door, and then came forward to request him to walk in. With his mind filled with such a blaze of glory as that through which he had passed, the petty formalities of a common man, better in external gifts than himself, seemed as nothing, so that when Mr. Herman waved his hand to a chair, Arthur seated himself with as much ease as if he had been worth a million.
“This is your letter I presume,” said Mr. Herman. Arthur bowed. “You are competent to teach the German language”—another bow,—“and what are your terms?”
Arthur smiled, for the truth is he never thought of terms, he concluded there was a set price, and that there would be no difficulty on that score.
“You shall name your own terms, sir,” said he, “I have never taught, but I understand the method of teaching, and therefore leave the minor consideration to you.”