AS he started on his rapid walk back to Kenlisle at a very brisk pace, for the distance was between four and five miles, and business hours were approaching, Horace put together rapidly the information he had obtained. Perhaps a mind of different calibre might have rejected the pitman’s inference, and benevolently trusted, with the defrauded Squire, that Pouncet and his partner were only “confoonded looky” in their land speculation – such things have happened ere now honestly enough. Horace, however, was not the man to have any doubt on such a subject. His mind glanced, with a realization of the truth, quick and certain as the insight of genius, along the whole course of the affair, which appeared to him so clear and evident. How cautious, slow Mr. Pouncet, in most matters a man of the usual integrity, had been pounced upon by the sudden demon which appeared by his side in the shape of his clever clerk: how his mind had been dazzled by all the sophisms that naturally suggested themselves on this subject: how he had been persuaded that it was a perfectly legitimate proceeding to buy from the needy Squire these lands which at present to all the rest of the world were only worth so little, and which concealed, with all the cunning of nature, the secret of their own wealth. The Squire wanted the money, and was disposed to sell this portion of his estate to any bidder; and even if he were aware of the new discovery, had he either money or energy to avail himself of it? Horace knew, as if by intuition, all the arguments that must have been used, and could almost fancy he saw the triumphant tempter reaping the early harvest of his knavery, and stepping into a share of his victim’s business, and of the new purchase which was made in their joint names. These coal-pits were now a richer and more profitable property than the whole of Mr. Pouncet’s business, satisfactory as his “connection” was; but Horace was very well able to explain to himself how it was that the career of Mr. Stenhouse at Kenlisle had been very brief, how all Mr. Pouncet’s influence had been exerted to further the views of his partner elsewhere, and how it happened that the stranger’s reception showed so much ceremonious regard and so little cordiality. With a certain sense of envy and emulation, the young man regarded this new comer, who held another man, repugnant and unwilling, fast in his gripe, and had him in his power. It is chacun a son gout in matters of ambition as well as in other matters. There was something intoxicating to the mind of Horace in this species of superiority. To have command secretly, by some undisclosable means, of another individual’s will and actions: to domineer secretly over his victim by a spell which he dared neither resist nor acknowledge; this was something more than a mere means of advancement; independent of all results, there was a fascination indescribable in the very sensation of this power.

And it was this power which he himself had acquired over these two men, so totally unlike each other, who would see him to-day, unsuspicious of his enlightenment, and this evening meet him at the social table, which already won such influence, put under a painful constraint. Horace exulted as he thought of it, and brushed past the early Kenlisle wayfarers with such a colour on his cheek, and a step so brisk and energetic, that not one of them believed the tales to his disadvantage, and furtive hints of having been seen in unnameable places, which began to be dropped about the little gossiping town. He had only time to make a hurried toilette, deferring to that more important necessity, the breakfast, which he had no leisure to take, and to hasten to “the office,” where he sat punctual and composed at his desk, for full two hours before his companion of the previous night appeared, nervous and miserable, at his post, with an aching head and trembling fingers. Horace glanced across with cool contempt at this miserable as he entered. He was conscious that he himself, in his iron force of youth and selfishness, looked rather better and more self-controlled than usual under the inspiration of his new knowledge, and he looked at his weaker compeer with a half-amused, contemptuous smile. This very smile and disdain had their effect on the little circle of spectators, who all observed it with an involuntary respect, and forgot to think what might be the heart and disposition of this lofty comrade of theirs, in admiring homage to the coolness of his insolence and the strength of his head.

Meanwhile, thoughts at which they would have stood aghast mingled in the busy brain of Horace with the drier matters of daily work which passed through his hands. Upon which of these two men who were in his power should he exercise that unlooked-for empire? Should he frighten Mr. Pouncet out of his wits by disclosing to him his new discovery? He was certainly the most likely person to be frightened with ease; but this did not suit the ideas of Horace. He was tired of Kenlisle, and found no advantage in a residence there, and he felt in Mr. Stenhouse a kindred spirit with whom he could work, and under whom his fortune was secure. Thus the virtuous young man reasoned as he sat at his desk, the bland object of his thoughts passing him occasionally with smiles upon that wide mouth which the old pitman remembered so well. It might not be possible for Horace to refrain from waving his whip over the head of his present employer, but it was the stranger upon whom for his own advancement he fixed his eyes. Mr. Stenhouse was a man much more able to understand his gifts, and give them their due influence, than Mr. Pouncet would ever be; and in the excitement and exaltation of his present mood Horace thrust from his mind more consciously than ever before that anxiety about his father’s secret which had moved him to so much eagerness ere he began to have affairs and prospects of his own. He became contemptuous of it in his youthful self-importance and sense of power. He was dazzled to see how his own cool head and unimpressionable spirit, the undeviating iron confidence of his supreme self-love, had imposed upon his comrades in the town – if comrades they could be called, who won no confidence and received no friendship from him; and he was elated with the new power he had gained, and ready to believe himself one of those conquerors of fortune before whose promptitude and skill and unfailing acuteness every obstacle gives way.

In this mood he filled his place in Mr. Pouncet’s office during that day, meditating the means by which he should open proceedings in the evening. Mr. Pouncet, meanwhile, as it happened, by way of diverting his conversation with his former partner from matters more intimate and less manageable, had been pointing out to his notice the singular qualities of Horace, his remarkable position and subtle cleverness. Perhaps Mr. Pouncet would not have been very sorry to transfer his clever clerk to hands which could manage him better; at all events, it was a subject ready and convenient, which staved off the troublesome business explanations which had to be made between them. Mr. Pouncet had committed himself once in his life, and betrayed his client; but he was a strictly moral man notwithstanding, and disapproved deeply of the craft of his tempter, even though he did not hesitate to avail himself of the profits of the mutual deceit. Twenty years had passed since the purchase of that “most valuable property,” but still the attorney, whose greatest failure of integrity this was, remained shy of the man who had led him into it, reluctant to receive his periodical visits, and most reluctant to enter into any discussion with him of their mutual interest. So Mr. Pouncet talked against time when necessity shut him up tête-à-tête with Mr. Stenhouse, and told the stranger all about Horace; while Horace outside, all his head buzzing with thoughts on the same subject, pondered how to display his occult knowledge safely, and to open the first parallels of his siege. For which purpose the young man made his careful toilette in preparation for Mr. Pouncet’s dinner-table, where the attorney’s important wife, and even Mr. Pouncet himself, received the young clerk with great affability, as people receive a guest who is much honoured by their hospitality. How he laughed at them in his heart!

CHAPTER XX

HORACE laughed at the condescension of his hosts, but not with the laugh of sweet temper or brisk momentary youthful indignation. There was revenge in his disdain. It fired his inclination to exhibit the power he had acquired, and make the most of it. The party was few in number, and not of very elevated pretensions; a few ladies of the county town, in sober but bright-coloured silk and satin, such as was thought becoming to their matronly years, who had plenty of talk among themselves, but were shy of interfering with the conversation of “the gentlemen”; and a few gentlemen, the best of their class in Kenlisle, but still only Kenlisle townsmen, and not county magnates. Even the vicar was not asked to Mr. Pouncet’s on this occasion; the show was very inconsiderable – a fact which Horace made out with little difficulty, and which Mr. Stenhouse’s sharp eyes were not likely to be slow of perceiving. Nothing, however, affected the unchangeable blandness of that wide-smiling mouth. Before the dinner was over, Horace, by dint of close observation, became aware that there was a little bye-play going on between the hosts and their principal guest, and that Mr. Stenhouse’s inquiries about one after another of the more important people of the neighbourhood, and his smiling amazement to hear that so many of them were absent, and so many had previous engagements, had an extremely confusing effect upon poor Mrs. Pouncet, who did not know how to shape her answers, and looked at her husband again and again, with an appeal for assistance, which he was very slow to respond to. Horace, however, permitted Mrs. Pouncet and her accompanying train to leave the room before he began his sport; and it was only when the gentlemen had closed round the table, and when, after the first brisk hum of talk, a little lull ensued, that the young man, who had hitherto been very modest, and behaved himself, as Mr. Pouncet said, with great propriety, suffered the first puff of smoke to disclose itself from his masked battery, and opened his siege.

“Did you see in yesterday’s Times a lawcase of a very interesting kind, sir?” said this ingenuous neophyte, addressing Mr. Pouncet – “Mountjoy versus Mortlock, tried in the Nisi Prius. Did it happen to strike you? I should like extremely to know what your opinion was.”

“I was very busy last night. I am ashamed to say I get most of my public news at second hand. What was it, Scarsdale? Speak out, my good fellow; I daresay your own opinion on the subject would be as shrewd, if not as experienced, as mine; a very clever young man – rising lad!” said Mr. Pouncet, with an aside to his next neighbour, by way of explaining his own graciousness. “Let us hear what it was.”

Mr. Stenhouse said nothing, but Horace saw that he paused in the act of peeling an orange, and fixed upon himself a broad, full smiling stare; a look in which the entire eyes, mouth, face of the gazer seemed to take part – a look which anybody would have said conveyed the very soul of openness and candour, but which Horace somehow did not much care to encounter. Mr. Stenhouse looked at him steadily, as if with a smiling consideration of what he might happen to mean, glanced aside with a slight malicious air of humour at Mr. Pouncet, gave a slight laugh, and went on peeling his orange. The whole pantomime tended somehow to diminish the young schemer’s confidence in his own power, which naturally led him to proceed rather more vehemently and significantly than he had intended with what he had to say.

“The case was this,” said Horace, with somewhat too marked a tone – “Mortlock was a solicitor and agent among others to a Sir Roger Mountjoy, a country baronet. Sir Roger was very careless about his affairs, and left them very much in his agent’s hands; and, besides, was embarrassed in his circumstances, and in great need of ready money. Mortlock somehow obtained private information concerning a portion of his client’s land which more than tripled its value. After which he persuaded the baronet to sell it to him at a very low price, on pretence that it was comparatively worthless, and that he made the purchase out of complacency to meet the pressing needs of his patron. Immediately after the sale a public discovery was made of a valuable vein of lead, which Mortlock immediately set about working, and made a fortune out of. A dozen years after, when the baronet was dead, his heirs brought an action against the solicitor, maintaining that the sale was null and void, and demanding compensation. Only the counsel for the plaintiff has been heard as yet. What do you think they will make of such a plea?”

Mr. Pouncet set down upon the table the glass he was about raising to his lips, and spilt a few drops of his wine. He was taken by surprise; but the momentary shock of such an appeal, made to him in the presence of Stenhouse, and under his eye as it was, did not overwhelm the old lawyer as Horace, in the self-importance of his youth, imagined it would. His complexion was too gray and unvarying to show much change of colour for anything, and the only real evidence of his emotion were these two or three drops of spilt wine. But he cleared his throat before he answered, and spoke after a pause in a very much less condescending and encouraging tone.

“It depends altogether on what the plea is,” said Mr. Pouncet; “the story looks vastly well, but what is the plea? Can you make it out, Stenhouse? Of course, when a man acquires a property fairly at its fair value, no matter what is found out afterwards, an honest bargain cannot be invalidated by our laws. I suppose it must be a breach of trust, or something of the sort. You are very young in our profession, my friend Scarsdale, or you would have known that you have stated no plea.”

“The plea is, of course, that the solicitor was bound to his client’s interest, and had no right to make use of private information for his own advantage – and they’ll win it. There, my young friend, I give you my opinion without asking,” said Stenhouse; “purchases made by an agent for his needy client are always suspicious, sure to create a prejudice to start with, and against the honour of the profession, Mr. Pouncet? Attorneys can’t afford to risk a great deal – we don’t stand too high in the public estimation as it is. It’s a very interesting case, I do not wonder it attracted your attention. The baronet was a gouty, old spendthrift, perfectly careless of money matters – the solicitor, a sharp fellow, with an eye to his own interests; which,” continued Mr. Stenhouse, with his frank laugh, and a humorous roll of his eye towards his former partner, “is a thing permissible, and to be commended in every profession but our own.”

A general laugh followed this proposition. “You manage to feather your nests pretty well, notwithstanding; better than most of those other people who are encouraged to look after their own interests, and do not pretend to nurse their neighbour’s,” said one of the guests.

“Accident, my dear sir, accident!” said Stenhouse, laughing; “to be truly and sublimely disinterested, a man must be an attorney. It is the model profession of Christianity. Here you must see innumerable personal chances slip past you, at all times, without a sigh. Why? – because you are the guardian of other men’s chances, perpetually on the watch to assist your client, and forgetting that such a person as yourself is in the world, save for that purpose. That is our code of morals, eh, Pouncet? But it is high, certainly – a severe strain for ordinary minds; and as every man may follow the common laws of nature, save an attorney, it follows that an attorney, when he is caught tripping, has more odium and more punishment than any other man. Mr. Pouncet, you agree, don’t you, with all I say.”

And Mr. Stenhouse, once more with his broad laugh of self-mockery and extreme frankness, directed everybody’s attention to his old partner, who by no means relished the conversation. Mr. Pouncet’s glass remained still untasted before him on the table – he himself was fidgety and uneasy – the only answer he made was a spasmodic attention to his guests, to encourage the passing of the bottle, and a sudden proposition immediately after to join the ladies. Not one individual at his table had the slightest sympathy with the old lawyer – every man chuckled aside at the idea that all these arrows were “in to old Pouncet;” not that he was generally disliked or unpopular, but sublime disinterestedness was so oddly uncharacteristic of the man, and unlike the ordinary idea of his profession, that everybody was tickled with the thought. Next to Mr. Pouncet, however, the person most disconcerted of the party was Horace, whose “power” and menace were entirely thrust aside by the jokes of the stranger. The young man went in sulkily, last of the party, to Mrs. Pouncet’s drawing-room, dimly and angrily suspecting some wheel within wheel in the crafty machinery which he had supposed his own rash hand sufficient to stop. Perhaps Mr. Pouncet, after all, was the principal criminal, and Stenhouse only an accomplice – certainly appearances were stronger against the serious and cautious man, evidently annoyed and put out by this conversation, as he was, than against the bold and outspoken one, who showed no timidity upon the subject. But Horace’s ideas were disturbed, and his calculations put out. He had no knowledge of the character of Stenhouse, when he exulted in the vain idea of having him “in his power.” If things were really as he suspected, this was not an easy man to get into anybody’s power; and Horace began to inquire within himself whether it would not be better to have a solemn statement made by the old pitman, to send for authority from Roger Musgrave, the old Squire’s heir-at-law, and to come out on his own account in the grand character of redresser of injuries and defender of rights. That at least, stimulated by the influence of Mountjoy versus Mortlock, was in Horace’s power.

While the young man hung about the corners of the drawing-room, turning over Mrs. Pouncet’s stock of meagre Albums and superannuated Annuals, and pondering over his future proceedings, Mr. Stenhouse came up to him with his usual frankness. He was ready to talk on any subject, this open-minded and candid lawyer, and spoke upon all with the tone of a man who is afraid of none.

“Well, Mr. Scarsdale! so you are interested in this Mountjoy and Mortlock business,” said his new acquaintance – “a curious case in every way, if they can prove it. Want of legal wisdom, however, plays the very devil with these odd cases – it may be perfectly clear to all rational belief, and yet almost impossible to prove it. Perhaps something of the kind has fallen under your own observation – eh?”

“I have,” said Horace, a little stiffly, “become suddenly acquainted with a case of a very similar kind.”

“Aha, I thought so – I daresay there’s plenty,” said Stenhouse. “Capital cases for rising young barristers that want to show in the papers and get themselves known. Famous things for young fellows, indeed, in general – that is to say,” he added, more slowly, “if the heir happens to be anybody, or to have friends or money sufficient to see the thing out. In that case it does not matter much whether he loses or wins. Thinking perhaps of striking off from my friend Pouncet and establishing yourself, eh? Could not do better than start with such an affair in hand.”

“I should be glad of more experience first,” said Horace; “and, to tell the truth, I don’t care for beginning by betraying old friends. Mr. Pouncet has behaved very liberally by me, receiving me when I had very little qualification.”

“Pouncet!” cried Mr. Stenhouse – “you don’t mean to say that Pouncet has been burning his fingers in any such equivocal concerns. Come, come, my young friend, we must be cautious about this. Mr. Pouncet is a most respectable man.”

“Mr. Stenhouse,” said Horace, “I was, as it happens, at Tinwood this morning – perhaps you know Tinwood?”

“A little,” said the other, with his most engaging smile.

“There I met, partly by chance,” said Horace, feeling himself provoked into excitement by the perfect coolness of his antagonist, “an old man, who gave me an entire history of the first finding of the coal.”

“Ah, it was a very simple business. I was there myself, with a scientific friend of mine; a blind fellow, blind as a mole to everything that concerns himself – feeling about the world in spectacles, and as useless for ordinary purposes as if he had moved in a glass case,” said Mr. Stenhouse; “extraordinary, is it not? It was he who found the first traces of that coal.”

“And found them,” said Horace, pointedly, “before the land was purchased by Mr. Pouncet and yourself from Squire Musgrave of the Grange.”

“Ah, we had better say as little as possible about that in the present company. Pouncet mightn’t like it – it might look ugly enough for Pouncet if there was much talk on the subject,” said Mr. Stenhouse, sympathetically glancing towards his old partner, and subduing his own smile in friendly deprecation of a danger in which he seemed to feel no share.

“And how might it look for you?” said Horace, with his rough and coarse boldness.

Mr. Stenhouse laughed, and turned round upon him with the most candid face in the world.

“My dear fellow, Squire Musgrave was no client of mine!” said the good-humoured lawyer. “The utmost punctilio of professional honour could not bind me to take care of his interests. I was a young fellow like yourself, with my fortune to make. You put it very cleverly, I confess, and it might look ugly enough for Pouncet; but, my excellent young friend, it is nothing in the world to me.”

“Yet you were Mr. Pouncet’s partner,” said Horace, with a certain sulky virulence, annoyed at the small success of his grand coup.

“After, my dear sir, after!” cried Mr. Stenhouse, with another of his éclats de rire.

Horace made a pause, but returned to the charge with dogged obstinacy.

“I know Roger Musgrave,” he said, “and I know friends who will stand by him as long as there is the slightest hope – ”

“Ah, very well, as you please, it is not my concern; and it is quite likely you might make a good thing out of Pouncet,” said Mr. Stenhouse. “By-the-bye, now I think of it, come and breakfast with me to-morrow, when we can speak freely. I have no particular reason to be grateful to him, but Pouncet and I are very old friends. Come to the ‘George’ at eight o’clock, will you? I’d like to inquire into this a little more, for old Pouncet’s sake.”

So they parted, with some hope on Horace’s side, but no very great gratification in respect to his hoped-for “power.”