838
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
"Sell Five Oaka — that's fourteen hundred a year,"
said he.
"Hardly so much, but nearly, perhaps."
"Forty-three thousand pounds were offered for it. Old
Chudworth offered that about ten years ago."
"Of course, Captain Lake, if you are looking for a
fancy price from me I must abandon the idea. I was
merely supposing a dealing between friends, and in that
sense I ventured to name the extreme limit to which I
could go. Little more than five per cent, for my money,
if I insure — and possibly to defend an action before I've
been six months in possession. I think my offer will
strike you as a great one, considering the posture of
affairs. Indeed, I apprehend, my friends will hardly think
me justified in offering so much."
The ice once broken, Jos Larkin urged his point with
all sorts of arguments, always placing the proposed trans-
action in the most plausible lights and attitudes, and
handling his subject in round and flowing sentences. This
master of persuasion was not aware that Captain Lake
was arguing the question for himself, on totally different
grounds, and that it was fixed in his mind pretty much in
those terms:—
"That old villain wants an exorbitant bribe — is he
worth it?"
He knew what the lawyer thought he did not know —
that Five Oaks was held by the lawyers to be possibly
without those unfortunate limitations which affected all
the rest of the estate. It was only a moot-point; but the
doubt had led Mr. Jos Larkin to the selection
"I'll look in upon you between eight and nine in the
morning, and I'll say yes or no then," said the Captain,
as they parted under the old stone porch, the attorney
with a graceful inclination, a sad smile, and a wave of