TEMPLE BAR.

JULY 1874,

Patricia Kemball.

I

CHAPTER XVIII.

LATE FOR LUNCHEON.

NSTEAD of turning in at the Abbey Holme gates when he passed them on his way from Long Field, Mr. Hamley did violence to the domestic institution of luncheon, and cantered off to Milltown. He thought it best to take time by the forelock, and to have the first word with Mr. Simpson, the local lawyer, before Garth could put in his oar. So, grievously harassing that unfortunate gentleman by his untimely visit, disturbing him at his dinner, much to Mrs. Simpson's disgust, spoiling his food and deranging his digestion, he opened at once on his business.

He had no need to manage appearances with Mr. Simpson. He had long ago bought him, body and soul, and held him in his hand able to crush him at a moment's notice. The lawyer had nothing for it, then, but a flexible back-bone and a plastic conscience; and to keep on good terms with his master and creditor, let what would stand in his path or be trampled out of it, was the only way open to him. Milltown, by-the-by, wondered that Mr. Hamley, who did everything in such a grandiose manner, and who never touched clay when he could handle gold, should employ Simpson at all. A lowclass, second-rate man as he was, it was odd that the eminently respectable, self-made master of Abbey Holme should stand by him rather than by Mr. Perkins, who was at the head of his profession in these parts, and was a really honourable and worthy gentleman. But Mr. Hamley gave it as his reason that Simpson had once been kind to him in the days when he needed a friend; "and I never forget a kindness and never forsake a friend," said Mr. Hamley of Abbey Holme, airing his gratitude ostentatiously.

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'Simpson," said Mr. Hamley abruptly, as the lawyer, a sandyhaired, red-eyed, furtive kind of person, came sideways into the room, "you'll be hearing from James Garth, of Long Field, one of these fine days."

'Yes, sir, so I anticipate," said Mr. Simpson. he's in a bad way, is James."

"By all accounts,

"Couldn't be worse," said Mr. Hamley. Then, after a pause; "There's Cooper pressing him for money, and the fool refuses to sell." "Cooper pressing him for money and he refuses to sell; what a fool indeed, as you say, sir!" echoed Mr. Simpson.

"I have just offered him two thousand for his farm, and he says no," continued Mr. Hamley, in an injured tone.

"Two thousand, and he says no; he doesn't see his own interests," repeated Simpson.

"That's what I told him not half an hour ago; but Lord! you might as well speak to a stone wall as to him! He's blind and deaf and stupid, that's what he is; and he can't see his bread when it's stuck under his nose buttered side uppermost. He's the most of a pig's-head I've ever come across, and he'll have to suffer for his folly. Such men always do."

"No doubt, sir, no doubt. As you say, such men always do. I'm sorry for him, but if he will cut his own throat-why- The lawyer spread out his hands, and shrugged his shoulders, intimating that he abandoned James Garth to that interesting operation, and washed his hands of all responsibility in the matter of sharpening the

razors.

"Sorry for him!" said Mr. Hamley fiercely; "how can you be such a fool as to say that, Simpson? Sorry for a born jackass who won't take advice, and pocket a cool thousand when it's given him!" "Well, not exactly sorry perhaps, but one would rather see him wiser," apologized the lawyer, bowing.

Mr. Hamley frowned. "I don't do much myself in the way of soft soap and sawder," he said insolently; "I leave that to you, Simpson. And as for wishing him anyways different to what he is, you might as well wish a mole was a hawk and that geese didn't cackle."

The lawyer laughed and smoothed his hair. "He! he he! you'll excuse me, Mr. Hamley, but you are so very funny, sir!" he said. "As I always say, if you want to hear what I call a regular out-and-out good thing, there's no one that comes near Mr. Hamley of Abbey Holme. That's the genuine article and no mistake!"

'Well, I always was accounted a droll dog," answered Mr. Hamley with a self-satisfied smile, stretching out his legs and running his fingers through his bushy black whiskers. "Many's the time I've kept them all in a roar down at Ledbury's when I was junior and hadn't what one may call so much to keep up as now. I was king of

my company, that's what I was, and could cut a joke or sing a song with the best of them."

"That's what all Milltown says, sir!" cried Mr. Simpson enthusiastically.

"And Milltown has made worse guesses in its day and been further off the bull's-eye than here," said Mr. Hamley. Whereat they both laughed. This was one of the great man's witticisms: a fair specimen of the kind of thing which made him king of his company. "But I

did not come here to crack jokes; I came to talk business," he said, breaking off suddenly.

"And business be it," returned Mr. Simpson, grave on the instant, and assuming his professional manner like a mask.

"Garth will come here for a mortgage," said Mr. Hamley, checking off his first proposition on his finger.

"Just so."

"You must find the money." This was the second, marked off in the same way.

Mr. Simpson made two strokes on his blotting-pad.

"And you must lend it on your own hand, and give him rope. Give him twelve hundred if he wants it, at five per cent. That will be a tidy lot; and when he has it, he's hooked."

"He is," said Mr. Simpson.

"And then one of the eyesores of the neighbourhood will be abolished," said Mr. Hamley, taking up his grand manner; "and Long Field will be farmed as it ought to be."

"Which will be a public benefaction, Mr. Hamley," said the lawyer.

"I think so too, Simpson, I think so too," he answered pompously. "I think I may say I have deserved well of Milltown for the good I have done the land. It was weeds and rubbish, most of it, when I found it a set of beggarly bankrupts, that's what they wereand I have made it, as one might say, a smiling garden."

"You have, sir; and a beautiful simile it is."

"And yet that pig-headed brute would not sell !" said Mr. Hamley with his injured tone.

"Incredible!" returned the lawyer; "most extraordinary!" "You may well say that," said Mr. Hamley. "Meantime see to

the note of hand when Garth calls, and give him rope."

"I will, sir; rope enough to hang him," said Mr Simpson with an unpleasant laugh.

Mr. Hamley frowned, as he had frowned before; this time from a benevolent motive. "I don't like such harsh expressions, Simpson,' he said sternly. "They are unchristian, and not the thing."

"I am sorry I offended, sir," Mr. Simpson answered with a contrite

look.

"But one is apt to let one's feelings run away with one, even

in office hours; and a man who's no friend to one who has been, as I may say, the making of me and mine-why I can't be very soft on him, you see, sir."

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'Yes, all that is proper enough," Mr. Hamley answered; "but don't let your zeal get ahead of your discretion, that's all."

And the lawyer answered, "No, sir, I will not," humbly.

What good these two men proposed to themselves by this little transparent farce, it would have been difficult for either to have explained; but it was the kind of thing they kept up together, and each assumed that he deceived the other.

"By-the-by, Simpson, how about the last quarter's interest from Cragfoot?" asked Mr. Hamley suddenly. "Paid yet?"

"No, sir. Money's bad to get from the Colonel; grows tighter quarter by quarter."

"Overdue how long?"

"A week and two days."

"Give him a full fortnight, and then-" Mr. Hamley indulged in a little pantomime expressive of turning a screw.

"I understand, sir," said Mr. Simpson, with another hieroglyphic on the blotting-pad. "A fortnight's grace, and then the screw ?" "Just so; not too hard at first, you know. Gently does it, but fast hold all the same. You understand."

"All right, sir; I know."

"Well then, I think I have no more to say; so good morning to you," said Mr. Hamley, flinging a condescending nod to his tool, who bowed as low as if the master of Abbey Holme, Ledbury's successful office-boy, was the Dalai-Lama in person, and he one of his chosen worshippers. Then, mounting his showy bay, Mr. Hamley cantered up the street, followed by his smart groom also on a showy bay, luncheon waiting for him at home-as he knew.

"Why whatever has kept you all this long time, Mr. S. !" was Mrs. Simpson's querulous ejaculation rather than question, as her husband went into the dingy little back parlour where his cold chop and flat beer awaited him.

"That beast Hamley!" was his reply. "I wish the devil would wring his neck for him!"

"Law, Simpson, how you do talk!" said his wife. "But I don't wonder at your being in a wax; it is rousing to be wanting one's dinner and it a-spoiling on the hob."

"It's more rousing to have to do that beast's dirty work," said Mr. Simpson, fencing with his conscience in that curious way in which slaves and cowards compound for the evil they commit by throwing the shame of responsibility on the man who has bought them, and is now driving them to iniquity.

"Well, he saved us when we wanted a good turn," said Mrs. Simp

son, with a wife's natural contradiction and aggravating gratitude for the benefits which gall her husband. "And it's only natural he should be wanting his money's worth somehow. If you didn't want him on your hands, you should have been careful to keep him off them."

"Don't be a fool, woman, and hold your mag on things you don't understand," said Mr. Simpson coarsely.

Whereat Mrs Simpson tossed her head and said, "Well I'm sure!" in a pet in which she continued to the end of the day; though it was uncomfortable, because she wanted to tell her lord some Milltown gossip she had just heard-how that those heathenish Fletchers were getting as thick as thieves with Miss Kemball up there at the Abbey, and Miss Biggs did say she expected soon to have an order, and she supposed they would do it handsome.

When James Garth went down that night to Mr. Simpson's he found everything as smooth as velvet. The lawyer happened to have just twelve hundred pounds of his own to which he was as welcome as the flowers in May; and he would draw out the note of hand as he stood there. This would pay off all his creditors at one stroke, and give him a tidy little sum to put into the land for better crops next harvest-time. Twelve hundred pounds! It would set him square he hoped, both now and in the future; and he might take his own time to pay it off.

No, he would not put that into the bond, he said, when Garth, with a peasant's natural acuteness where land is concerned, wanted it expressly stated under stamp and seal that the money should not be called in before such a date, and then not until due notice had been given. There must be some kind of trust between man and man; and besides, it was not professional. All he could do, or would, was to lend the money at five per cent., and to promise verbally that, unless unforeseen accidents should arise-which he did not contemplate, but for which he would not hold himself responsible should they come-he would not call it in while the interest was paid regularly, and the I.O.U. looked safe.

And as need was pressing, and this was the best he could do, James Garth took the loan on these conditions; and manfully set himself to overlay a certain uneasy sense of insecurity with the rose-coloured hopefulness of his buoyant temper.

As Mr. Hamley was riding smartly homewards, he said to himself again and again what a remarkably easy thing it was to be successful, and how pleasant life was to the man who knew how to make hay while the sun shone, and to take time and Mr. Simpson by the forelock! He had no sympathy with all those white-livered dyspeptic fellows who go about the world shoes down at heel and coats out at elbows, unsuccessful and unhappy. Look at him, how he managed! Why, men were so many puppets in his hand, and he was the master