LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1534, 17 January 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THIS MASTER OF THE COLDEN HOUSE. [“ London Society.”] CIf.M'TF.U I. TIIK MIX OK COM), Mu Toux lU.mitvldk was essenti diy a man ; f gold. There was no doubt of the matter. He had an abumbnt knowledge of it, a knowledge equally scientific and satisfactory. He had plenty of it; metaphorically, he rolled in it ; he could a Herd to speak of it ns a mere ‘drug in Hie market,’ Let me say also that a man knows a good deal who knows all about gold, lie must he an observant reflective, and clover fellow. Ho must understand nature and human nature, tho markets, currency, and exchange. This was the ease with our man of g id. He began in too simple, dii'em, physical way. ! le knew .ill ah nit gold as a metal. It happened this way. John Bampfyldc c-uao of a good old stock. He was ti e eldest son, and IV many yurn the only child. Hi' father was one of th.we jeotnen of Devon who have inherited five--1 old cetatcg which have been in the fanny

for centuries. Sometimes they rise into squires; sometimes they subside into farmers. Bampfy Ido’s father was betwixe and between. When old and foolidi h' married a (Cheltenham I'dy, who p isuadcl him to sell his farm, mid go and live a; Cheltenham ou tlic proceeds. One or two children came of the see.md marriage; and of course the lady naturally wished to have the ready-money for herself and her children.

At her suggestion young Bampfylde wm bound apprentice to a chemist. The chemist to whom he was apprenticed considered that he was as good as any doctor. (Most chemists consider themselves as good as doctors.) In this respect he was wrong. (Most chemists are, in this respect.) He also considered himself a man of science ; and hero he was quite right, ITe had a laboratory, and made excellent use of it. He taught Bampfylde a good deal ; and the lad picked it all up accurately and quickly. At his stepmother’s suggestion he was induced later to go out to Australia and settle there. The boy passionately loved the woods and streams and liclds of his county ; but when the old place was gone for good he did not take unkindly to this notion of emigrating to Australia, though ho went out with a bitter sense of injustice, and a warp was given to his nature. Young Bampfylde, who at the time of our story had become old Bampfylde, always felt that he had had very hard lines in his youth The lands had been in his family for hundreds of years, In due course they ought to have come to him. The land had been illused by the transfer into the hand of strangers. To the end of his life he always spoke of ‘the land’ as semi-human, a sentient sensitive creature. Many people do. They would not act unfairly ‘by the land ’ for all the world. They would rather act unfairly by kith and kin than by the land. John Bampfylde had been well brought up. Devonshire is famous for old, good, and well endowed schools. Au enterprising new head master had imported a dash of physical science into the scheme of education. Bampfyldc was one of the few boys who really cared for it, and got on. Moreover he saw a good deal of the gentry of the neighborhood. In the kindly society of that pleasant hospitable county of Devon there is no hard and fast line of demarcation among the country people. Though Bampfylde’s father was only a farmer, his name was a good old name in Devonshire ; it was simply known in Cheltenham as that of a retired tradesman, in a semi-genteel street in a new quarter. But the Bampfylde before him was in the commission of the peace ; and still higher up, some generations ago, another Bampfylde had been a member of Parliament.

John Bampfylde, having mado such good use of his time when apprenticed to the English chemist, did capitally at Melbourne, lie got on very avcll with his employer, and was soon able to turn chemist on his OAvn account. By and by he received the news of his father’s death. This quite diverted his thoughts from England, and he became thoroughly colonial. He took no interest in his stepmother—who had caused him, as he considered, to be treated with injustice—or in any children there might be. He was at Melbourne when tho gold discoveries were made. Shortly before this time he had been engaged to a young avoman, and shortly afterwards the young woman, from mercenary motives, jilted him. She was a fuel. All young women Avho jilt men from mercenary motives are fools There is something so utterly autagonistc to a woman’s nature and happiness in such au act that it is necessarily a foolish one. Nearly every person in Melbourne was sinq.ly mad on the subject of making a fortune Bampf Ide was oneof tbo nxi entions. He stuck by tho shop. Sic told Polly that the shop kept him, and that ho should keep to the shop. Polly tried to arouse him to a nobler ambition in tho way of netting money, but ignominiously failed. Then there came in her way a lucky dug with a heap of nuggets, Avho promised her carriages and dresses ; aud she jilted Bampfylde. But Bampfylde—how different it would have been if she had only known it! —was begin ring to make money fast A disappointment in love acta differently on different people, Some people are upset by it altogether ; they lose their friends and their business H;s misfortune made this remarkable man apply himself to business more than ever. Some men immediately lly to get consolation from some other fair one Bampfylde simply abjured the sex. Some years afterwards, when he used to see Polly very slatternly, and her children grimy little bens‘ s lie was thankful for his escape. None tbe lers he had been treated very basely, and another Avarp Avas given to avhat had been originally a sound and generous nature.

_ A grout opening came to him with the gold The people who found the gold were highly delighted, and at the same time slightly puzzled, Was it really the same gold as other gold—no touch of inferiority, no measure of alloy ? Would they really be able to get in England a weight of shining sovereigns equivalent to the weight of the nuggets ? People brought the gold to Bampfykle, the seienfific chemist, to examine it. Bampfyldo tried his tests—his solid tests and his fluid tests. Ho was perfectly satisfied with the quality of the gold. Pie was prepared to buy it to any extent. As a matter of fact, I believe, an Australian is worth fourpeuce more than an English sovereign, Bampfylde had saved some money, audas a steady, industrious business man he was ahlc to command considerable credit. Thus he drove a flourishing trade as a gold merchant, making at first his thirty or forty per cent profit on every sovereign, though of course this rate was not long maintained. Still his profits were enormous ; and there were very few finders of nuggets who in reality found so big a one as did he, Bimpfylde. The gold business had entirely outgrown the chemical business. This was disposed of vety advantageously, and Mr Bampf j Ifle then betook himself to the study of investments. He gradually became a financier. He turned himself into a syndicate, or whatever they call it for furnishing loans to’companies and governments ; and it is to be wished that all syndicates understood their business in as legitimate a manner. Then, the old love knowledge being strong upon him, he visited foieign countries; and the old love of Devonshire reviving, ho went back and revisited the fields and woodlands of his youth, By this time he had visited many lands and known many people, lie was a great financial authority, a great social fiet.

Ho found all things changed except the sweet eternal aspects of Nature. Still sprang tho heather on the moorland, still waved the woods over tho streams as of yoro ; but while lie had been wandering in the wilderness of life for forty years, the bygone generation had been swept olf the face of the earth. Bampfyldc told himself that he was quite entitled to hate his stepmother and any half-brothers and sisters he might have. But there was an unknown fount of tenderness in the man’s nature. He went down to Cheltenham, He found Cheltenham changed, Pittvili was deserted, the old parish church was discarded for an iron structure, old streets were swept away for new. Ho examined the registers. The registers in terse inexorable language told him of the birth end death of two children, of h’s father’s death, of his stepmother’s death, /Hi the inquiries which he made added very little to these fact?. Ho found that a. very large estate, which comprised a good deal of his native village, and extended far away over moor and hill, was to ho sold. Hove, as usual, ho was lucky. It was the time of miserable commercial crisis. Everybody wanted to sell, and there were not very many to buy. Ho bought the great Downe estate, lie built a wall seven miles long around bis park. He found a big house, to which he throw out wings right and left. He built a picture-gallery, and filled it with good pictures. He dug cellars, and filled t'mm with good wines. Prosperity, travel, intercourse with many lands and many minds, bad gradually given him an educat ion and relin meat which contrasted strongly with h'B rough exterior. The dormant love of reading, <b rmaut since tho days of hie boyhood, revived, The same love of letters

is like the wheat buried with mummies : it may bo buried for ever so long, but lot the vivifying influences come, and it blooms. In his big silo't Devonshire home he rea l and read. The place might lie a showhouse, onlv lie couhl not allow it to be i-hown. Still he was not unsocial. ft is

business relations had uco ssaiily drawn him into connection wit's many people and there were seasons in which he filled his h ire with visitors. Such visitors sometimes said that ho was a money-proud man, an ostentatious man. Ho made a great display of gold. The precious metal glimmered, glanced, and glittered at every turn. His favorite service of plate was of massive gold. The cornices of his rooms were inlaid with gold. His letters were brought to him on a golden salver. In the library, in a glass case edged with gold, was a mass of gold - a famous nugget. There were other rumors about his gold. The very knockers or his door were made of gold. If he gave anything it was always gold. He never had any other metal in his pm se than gold, never took or gave change. In his bedroom there ■was a big chest full of gold pieces. All this talk cv-mo to my knowledge by and by and gradually. Thera was a mixture of truth and error, hut a solid substratum of truth. But his motive was so mean and poor as is commonly supposed. That lucky omip about the Australian gold had made his fortune ; and he felt very grateful to the i gold, as he would have been to anybody or anything else that bad made his fortune. He loved the gold as he loved the Devonshire landscape, hia old home, his old family. The love was not so sordid as it looked, ft was levs flowing forth to inanimate, because it was denied to human, objects. Old mother Rothschild always need to sleep in the old dirty house with the ironnailed d n or in the Jndenstrasse at Frankfort, because it was there that all the money was made. It was from a similar feeling that Pampfylde made such a lavish use of it. Wealth is a great thing for a man if he knows how to use it wisely Wealth means well-being, as Adam Smith tells ns; but wealth and well-being don’t generally go together in this life. It is one thing to know how to make money, and another thing to know how 1 o spend it. There are many men who think tliojr are worth their half million or million of money. They are worth nothing of the kind. They are only worth the hundreds a year—nob very many—which they spend. They are merely the pipes which pass on the precious stream of wealth to the future fertilisers.

Mr Bampfyldc had learned in the early part of hia career how to make money. It took him a much longer time and much greater pains to learn how to spend it. But he managed this at last—after a fashion, and not a bad fashion either. But he was a humorist, and also something better than a humorist.

There was one thing on which hie mind was particularly set. He wanted an heir. He need not have wanted for long, for doubtless many people would have been very happy to oblige him. Who would not consent to be adopted by a millionaire P But old Bamofylde had a fad on the subject. He wanted to maintain the old name and the old race. He had a great idea that his money should go to the family. ’Put he found that he had no family to which the money should go. There are many poor people who are absolutely burdened with families—ancestors, descendants, collaterals —to any extent Bampfyldc often mused over the fate of bis big possessions. Suppose he made no wdl at all, and let the law dispose of his property for him; he <upposed the law of the land would rot nv.ko such a bad disposition of bis effects. Suppose he made a will, and left it all to her most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, as another man had once done. That would not be at all bad. Suppose lie spent it all upon himself. But bow ? The thing was impossible. If be ate and drank more than he did, he would got the gout, and do fur himself. If he spent hia money t-a fast as 'possible on books, pictures, horses, buildings, wines all tliis would prove an accumulation of property, which would be struggled for and scattered by and by. Surely somewhere there must still be a bea-l for the famous okl family of Bampfylde. Surely there must somewhere be an heir-at-law, or what was the good of the law? He had a great

idea of reeusitatiug the old family, of discovering the direct lineage and its present representative. Why should therebe a great fight over his property aft'r he was dead, and the property itself be dissipated amo \g the lawyers ? It was a quest ion which would be best settled in his own lifetime. He would feel all the better if ho could find a proper legal heir ; bettor still if he could make that heir a friend, and a support to his declining years. The way in which I came to know old Batapfylde was as follows.

(To he Continued.)