WYLDER'S AjIjYD
447
Well, one thing was plain. The purchase of the re-
version was to wait, and fraudulent as was the price at
which he had proposed to buy it, he was now resolved to
get it for less than half that sum, and he wrote a short
note to the Vicar, which he forthwith despatched.
In the meantime there was not a moment to be lost in
clenching the purchase of Five Oaks. And Mr. Jos Lar-
kin, with one of his "young men" with him in the
tax-cart, reached Brandon Hall in a marvellously short
time after his arrival at home.
Jos Larkin, his clerk, and the despatch-box, had a short
wait in the Dutch room, before his admission to the library,
where an animated debate was audible. The tremendous
contest impending over the county was of course the
theme. In the Dutch room, where they waited, there was
a large table, with a pyramid of blank envelopes in the
middle, and ever so many cubic feet of canvassing circu-
lars, six chairs, and pens and ink. The clerks were in
the housekeeper's room at that moment, partaking of re-
freshment. There was a gig in the court-yard, with a
groom at the horse's head, and Larkin, as he drew up,
saw a chaise driving round to the stable yard. People of
all sorts were coming and going, and Brandon Hall was
already growing like an inn.
"How d'ye do, dear Larkin?" said Captain Brandon
Stanley Lake, the hero of all this debate and commotion,
smiling his customary sly greeting, and extending his slim
hand across the arm of his chair —'' I'm so sorry you
were away— this thing has come after all, so suddenly —
we are getting on famously though — but I'm awfully
fagged." And, indeed, he looked pale and tired, though
smiling. "I've a lot of fellows with me; they've just
run into luncheon; won't you take something?"
But Jos Larkin, smiling after his sort, excused himself.