d had
prospered. He was one of those men whose very touch seems to multiply
possessions. He was a much younger man than Arthur's father, and
robust at the time of his death. He explained to Arthur that he was
doing him an incalculable service in purchasing his patrimonial
estate, when he announced his decision so to do, after taking several
weeks to conceal his alacrity.

"It is not everybodee would take a propertee, with such a condeetion
attached, Arthur, boy," he said. He had at times a touch of the
Scotch in his accent. His father had been straight from the old
country when he married the planter's daughter. "Not everybodee, with
such a condeetion," he repeated, and the boy innocently believed him.
He had been used, ever since he was a child and could remember
anything, to seeing a good deal of the man. The Southern wife had
died early and the man had been lonely and given to frequent friendly
meetings with Mr. Carroll, who had valued him.

"He's the right sort, Arthur," he had often told the boy; "you can
depend on him. He has given his gold and his flesh and blood for the
South, although he came on one side of another race and might have
sided against us. He's the right sort."

So the Scotch-Southern planter had been one of the bearers at the old
Carroll's funeral, and the son, when he had formulated his business
schemes, had gone to this friend with them, and with his proposal for
the sale of the Carroll property. The boy, who was honorable to the
finish, had been loath to ask, in the then reduced state of the
property, for a loan on mortgage to the extent which he would
require; therefore he proposed this conditional sale as offering
rather better, or at least more evident, security, and he regarded it
in his own mind as practically amounting to the same thing. He was as
sure of his being able to purchase back his own, should he secure the
necessary funds, as he would have been of paying up the mortgage. The
advance price would about twice cover the interest at a goodly rate,
had the affair been conducted on the mortgage basis. Arthur himself
had proposed that, and "I will of course pay for any improvements you
may have made in the mean time," he said. There was nothing in the
least mean or ungenerous about Arthur Carroll. He meant, on the
whole, rather more squarely to his fellow-men than to himself.

Then with the money obtained from the sale of his patrimony he went
to work on his coal-mine. A very trifl