What Mr. Chattaway's precise object could be in wishing to get George away from home, he alone knew. That he had such an object, there could be no shadow of doubt about; and Mrs. Ryle's usual clear-sightedness must have been just then obscured not to perceive it. Had his own interests or pleasure not been in some way involved, Chattaway would have taken no more heed as to what became of George than he did of a clod of earth in that miserable field just rendered famous by the ill-conditioned bull. It was Chattaway who did it all. He negotiated with Wall and Barnes; he brought news of his success to Mrs. Ryle; he won over Farmer Apperley. Wall and Barnes had occasionally taken a youth without premium--the youth being expected to perform an unusual variety of work for the favour, to be at once an apprentice and a general factotum, at the beck and call of the establishment. Under those concessions, Wall and Barnes had been known to forego the usual premium; and this great boon was, through Mr. Chattaway, offered to George Ryle. Chattaway boasted of it; enlarged upon his luck to George; and Mrs. Ryle--accepted it. And George? Every pulse in his body coursed on in fiery indignation against the measure, every feeling of his heart rebelled. But of opposition he could make none: none that served him. Chattaway quietly put him down; Mrs. Ryle met all remonstrances with the answer that she had _decided_; and Farmer Apperley laboured to convince him that it was a slice of good fortune, which any one (under the degree of a gentleman who rode to cover in a scarlet coat and white smalls) might jump at. Was not Wall, who had not yet reached his five-and-fortieth year, a ten-thousand pound man? Turn where George would, there appeared to be no escape for him. He must give up all the dreams of his life--not that the dreams had been as yet particularly defined--and become what his mind revolted at, what he knew he should ever dislike bitterly. Had he been a less right-minded boy, he would have defied Chattaway, and declined to obey Mrs. Ryle. But that sort of rebellion George did not enter upon. The injunction of his dead father lay on him all too forcibly--"Obey and reverence your mother." And so the agreement was made, and George Ryle was to go to Wall and Barnes, to be bound to them for seven years. He stood leaning out of the casement window the night before he was to enter; his aching brow bared to the cold air, cloudy as the autumn sky. Treve was fast asleep, in his own little bed in the far corner, shaded and sheltered by its curtains; but there was no such peaceful sleep for George. The thoughts he was indulging were not altogether profitable; and certain questions which arose in his mind had been better left out of it.