Mr. Stenhouse smiled as he went, and so did Horace, almost without being aware of it. They had both a certain pleasure in the sufferings of their victim--a pure amateur enjoyment, entirely distinct from any consideration of advantage; however, they settled the matter between them easily and rapidly enough. To be liberal with another man's means is no difficult matter. Mr. Stenhouse arranged that a sum sufficient for a year's stipend to the old pitman, at his own terms of ten shillings a-week, should be paid into the hands of Horace, who undertook to dispense it; and Horace, on his part, lost no time in demanding from his new employer a few days' leave of absence before proceeding to his post. Mr. Stenhouse was very curious to know why this sudden permission was asked from him--so curious, that he granted it only on condition that Horace should first be settled in his office, and ascertain the nature of his new duties. After he had spent a week in Harliflax, perhaps he might be spared for another week; and as he was going to London, as he said, why, Harliflax was so much nearer London than Kenlisle, and indeed on the way. With which decision Horace chafing considerably, but compelled to assent, had no alternative but to declare himself satisfied. It was so arranged accordingly. Mr. Pouncet, when he returned, put his name to the required check, which certainly committed him to nothing, and might indeed appear nothing but a gratuity to the clerk who was about to leave him; and Horace put twenty pounds out of the six-and-twenty in his own pocket. Not that he meant to defraud the pitman, or anybody else, but he was completely indifferent whether the money he used for his own immediate purposes was his own, or Mr. Pouncet's, or the property of old Adam. He made full arrangement to have the weekly stipend paid to the old miner. He saw him indeed, paid him the first instalment himself, and persuaded the poor pensioner that his own bounty was the immediate source of this little income; his own bounty, subject to the approval of the young Squire. Then having done this Christian office, and procured for the ungrateful Mr. Pouncet the unwilling virtue of doing good by stealth, Horace, with Mr. Pouncet's twenty pounds in his pocket, started on his journey to Harliflax, full of hope, ambition, and expectation, with Doctors' Commons and the unknown will occupying most of his thoughts. But a week--no more--and he should know what was his "singular and unhappy fortune," and what the mysterious document which was supposed to have influenced him in his earliest childhood, and had broken all ties of nature between himself and his father, actually was. CHAPTER III.