By-and-by, the women left the two men alone.
Anthony turned and struck the farmers knee.
Youve got a jewel in that gal, brother William John.
Eh! shes a good enough lass. Not much of a manager, brother Tony. Too much of a thinker, I reckon. Shes got a temper of her own too. Im a bit hurt, brother Tony, about that other girl. She must leave London, if she dont alter. Its flightiness; thats all. You mustnt think ill of poor Dahly. She was always the pretty one, and when they know it, they act up to it: she was her mothers favourite.
Ah! poor Susan! an upright woman before the Lord.
She was, said the farmer, bowing his head.
And a good wife, Anthony interjected.
None betternever a better; and I wish she was living to look after her girls.
I came through the churchyard, hard by, said Anthony; and I read that writing on her tombstone. It went like a choke in my throat. The first person I saw next was her child, this young gal you call Rhoda; and, thinks I to myself, you might ask me, Id do anything for yethat I could, of course.
The farmers eye had lit up, but became overshadowed by the characteristic reservation.
Nobodyd ask you to do more than you could, he remarked, rather coldly.
Itll never be much, sighed Anthony.
Well, the worlds nothing, if you come to look at it close, the farmer adopted a similar tone.
Whats money! said Anthony.
The farmer immediately resumed his this-worldliness:
Well, its fine to go about asking us poor devils to answer ye that, he said, and chuckled, conceiving that he had nailed Anthony down to a partial confession of his ownership of some worldly goods.
What do you call having money? observed the latter, clearly in the trap. Fifty thousand?
Whew! went the farmer, as at a big draught of powerful stuff.
Ten thousand?
Mr. Fleming took this second gulp almost contemptuously, but still kindly.
Come, quoth Anthony, ten thousands not so mean, you know. Youre a gentleman on ten thousand. So, on five. Ill tell ye, many a gentlemand be glad to own it. Lor bless you! But, you know nothing of the world, brother William John. Some of em havent oneaint so rich as you!
Or you, brother Tony? The farmer made a grasp at his will-o-the-wisp.
Oh! me! Anthony sniggered. Im a scraper of odds and ends. I pick up things in the gutter. Mind you, those Jews aint such fools, though a curse is on em, to wander forth. They know the meaning of the multiplication table. They can turn fractions into whole numbers. No; Im not to be compared to gentlemen. My propertys my respectability. I said that at the beginning, and I say it now. But, Ill tell you what, brother William John, its an emotion when youve got bags of thousands of pounds in your arms.
Ordinarily, the farmer was a sensible man, as straight on the level of dull intelligence as other men; but so credulous was he in regard to the riches possessed by his wifes brother, that a very little tempted him to childish exaggeration of the probable amount. Now that Anthony himself furnished the incitement, he was quite lifted from the earth. He had, besides, taken more of the strong mixture than he was ever accustomed to take in the middle of the day; and as it seemed to him that Anthony was really about to be seduced into a particular statement of the extent of the property which formed his respectability (as Anthony had chosen to put it), he got up a little game in his head by guessing how much the amount might positively be, so that he could subsequently compare his shrewd reckoning with the avowed fact. He tamed his wild ideas as much as possible; thought over what his wife used to say of Anthonys saving ways from boyhood, thought of the dark hints of the Funds, of many bold strokes for money made by sagacious persons; of Anthonys close style of living, and of the lives of celebrated misers; this done, he resolved to make a sure guess, and therefore aimed below the mark.
Money, when the imagination deals with it thus, has no substantial relation to mortal affairs. It is a tricksy thing, distending and contracting as it dances in the mind, like sunlight on the ceiling cast from a morning tea-cup, if a forced simile will aid the conception. The farmer struck on thirty thousand and some odd hundred poundsoutlying debts, or so, excludedas what Anthonys will, in all likelihood, would be sworn under: say, thirty thousand, or, safer, say, twenty thousand. Bequeathedhow? To him and to his children. But to the children in reversion after his decease? Or how? In any case, they might make capital marriages; and the farm estate should go to whichever of the two young husbands he liked the best. Farmer Fleming asked not for any life of ease and splendour, though thirty thousand pounds was a fortune; or even twenty thousand. Noblemen have stooped to marry heiresses owning no more than that! The idea of their having done so actually shot across him, and his heart sent up a warm spring of tenderness toward the patient, good, grubbing old fellow, sitting beside him, who had lived and died to enrich and elevate the family. At the same time, he could not refrain from thinking that Anthony, broad-shouldered as he was, though bent, sound on his legs, and well-coloured for a Londoner, would be accepted by any Life Insurance office, at a moderate rate, considering his age. The farmer thought of his own health, and it was with a pang that he fancied himself being probed by the civil-speaking Life Insurance doctor (a gentleman who seems to issue upon us applicants from out the muffled folding doors of Hades; taps us on the chest, once, twice, and forthwith writes down our fateful dates). Probably, Anthony would not have to pay a higher rate of interest than he.
Are you insured, brother Tony? the question escaped him.
No, I aint, brother William John; Anthony went on nodding like an automaton set in motion. Theres two sides to that. Im a long-lived man. Long-lived men dont insure; that is, unless theyre fools. Thats how the Offices thrive.
Case of accident? the farmer suggested.
Oh! nothing happens to me, replied Anthony.
The farmer jumped on his legs, and yawned.
Shall we take a turn in the garden, brother Tony?
With all my heart, brother William John.
The farmer had conscience to be ashamed of the fit of irritable vexation which had seized on him; and it was not till Anthony being asked the date of his birth, had declared himself twelve years his senior, that the farmer felt his speculations to be justified. Anthony was nearly a generation ahead. They walked about, and were seen from the windows touching one another on the shoulder in a brotherly way. When they came back to the women, and tea, the farmers mind was cooler, and all his reckonings had gone to mist. He was dejected over his tea.
What is the matter, father? said Rhoda.
Ill tell you, my dear, Anthony replied for him. Hes envying me some one I want to ask me that question when Im at my tea in London.
CHAPTER IV
Mr. Fleming kept his forehead from his daughters good-night kiss until the room was cleared, after supper, and then embracing her very heartily, he informed her that her uncle had offered to pay her expenses on a visit to London, by which he contrived to hint that a golden path had opened to his girl, and at the same time entreated her to think nothing of it; to dismiss all expectations and dreams of impossible sums from her mind, and simply to endeavour to please her uncle, who had a right to his own, and a right to do what he liked with his own, though it were forty, fifty times as much as he possessedand what that might amount to no one knew. In fact, as is the way with many experienced persons, in his attempt to give advice to another, he was very impressive in lecturing himself, and warned that other not to succumb to a temptation principally by indicating the natural basis of the allurement. Happily for young and for old, the intense insight of the young has much to distract or soften it. Rhoda thanked her father, and chose to think that she had listened to good and wise things.