It is Never Too Late to Mend. Charles Reade Reade

George.

      Mr. Winchester endeavored to turn this adverse topic in his favor; he made a remark that produced no effect at the time. He said, “People don't go to Australia to die—they go to Australia to make money, and come home and marry—and it is what you must do—this “Grove” is a millstone round your neck. Will you have a cigar, farmer?”

      George consented, premising, however, that hitherto he had never got beyond a yard of clay, and after drawing a puff or two he took the cigar from his mouth, and looking at it said, “I say, sir! seems to me the fire is uncommon near the chimbly.” Mr. Winchester laughed; he then asked George to show him the blacksmith shop. “I must learn how to shoe a horse,” said the honorable Frank.

      “Well, I never!” thought George. “The first nob in the country going to shoe a horse,” but with his rustic delicacy he said nothing, and led Mr. Winchester to the blacksmith's shop.

      While this young gentleman is hammering nails into a horse's hoof, and Australia into an English farmer's mind, we must introduce other personages.

      Susanna Merton was beautiful and good. George Fielding and she were acknowledged lovers, but marriage was not spoken of as a near event, and latterly old Merton had seemed cool whenever his daughter mentioned the young man's name.

      Susanna appeared to like George, though not so warmly as he loved her; but at all events she accepted no other proffers of love. For all that she had, besides a host of admirers, other lovers besides George; and what is a great deal more singular (for a woman's eye is quick as lightning in finding out who loves her), there was more than one of whose passion she was not conscious.

      William Fielding, George's brother, was in love with his brother's sweetheart, but though he trembled with pleasure when she was near him, he never looked at her except by stealth; he knew he had no business to love her.

      On the morning of our tale Susan's father, old Merton, had walked over from his farm to “The Grove,” and was inspecting a field behind George's house, when he was accosted by his friend, Mr. Meadows, who had seen him, and giving his horse to a boy to hold had crossed the stubbles to speak to him.

      Mr. Meadows was not a common man, and merits some preliminary notice.

      He was what is called in the country “a lucky man”; everything he had done in life had prospered.

      The neighbors admired, respected, and some of them even hated this respectable man, who had been a carter in the midst of them, and now at forty years of age was a rich corn-factor and land-surveyor.

      “All this money cannot have been honestly got,” said the envious ones among themselves; yet they could not put their finger on any dishonest action he had done. To the more candid the known qualities of the man accounted for his life of success.

      This John Meadows had a cool head, an iron will, a body and mind alike indefatigable, and an eye never diverted from the great objects of sober industrious men—wealth and respectability. He had also the soul of business—method!

      At one hour he was sure to be at church; at another, at market; in his office at a third, and at home when respectable men should be at home.

      By this means Mr. Meadows was always to be found by any man who wanted to do business; and when you had found him, you found a man superficially coy perhaps, but at bottom always ready to do business, and equally sure to get the sunny side of it and give you the windy.

      Meadows was generally respected; by none more than by old Merton, and during the last few months the intimacy of these two men had ripened into friendship; the corn-factor often hooked his bridle to the old farmer's gate, and took a particular interest in all his affairs.

      Such was John Meadows.

      In person he was a tall, stout man, with iron gray hair, a healthy, weather-colored complexion, and a massive brow that spoke to the depth and force of the man's character.

      “What, taking a look at the farm, Mr. Merton? It wants some of your grass put to it, doesn't it?”

      “I never thought much of the farm,” was the reply, “it lies cold; the sixty-acre field is well enough, but the land on the hill is as poor as death.”

      Now this idea, which Merton gave out as his, had dropped into him from Meadows three weeks before.

      “Farmer,” said Meadows, in an undertone, “they are thrashing out new wheat for the rent.”

      “You don't say so? Why I didn't hear the flail going.”

      “They have just knocked off for dinner—you need not say I told you, but Will Fielding was at the bank this morning, trying to get money on their bill, and the bank said No! They had my good word, too. The people of the bank sent over to me.”

      They had his good word! but not his good tone! he had said. “Well, their father was a safe man;” but the accent with which he eulogized the parent had somehow locked the bank cash-box to the children.

      “I never liked it, especially of late,” mused Merton. “But you see the young folk being cousins—”

      “That is it, cousins,” put in Meadows; “it is not as if she loved him with all her heart and soul; she is an obedient daughter, isn't she?”

      “Never gainsaid me in her life; she has a high spirit, but never with me; my word is law. You see, she is a very religious girl, is Susan.”

      “Well, then, a word from you would save her—but there—all that is your affair, not mine,” added he.

      “Of course it is,” was the reply. “You are a true friend. I'll step round to the barn and see what is doing.” And away went Susan's father uneasy in his mind.

      Meadows went to the “Black Horse,” the village public house, to see what farmers wanted to borrow a little money under the rose, and would pawn their wheat ricks, and pay twenty per cent for that overrated merchandise.

      At the door of the public-house he was met by the village constable, and a stranger of gentlemanly address and clerical appearance. The constable wore a mysterious look and invited Meadows into the parlor of the public-house.

      “I have news for you, sir,” said he, “leastways I think so; your pocket was picked last Martinmas fair of three Farnborough bank-notes with your name on the back.”

      “It was!”

      “Is this one of them?” said the man, producing a note.

      Meadows examined it with interest, compared the number with a memorandum in his pocketbook, and pronounced that it was.

      “Who passed it?” inquired he.

      “A chap that has got the rest—a stranger—Robinson—that lodges at “The Grove” with George Fielding; that is, if his name is Robinson, but we think he is a Londoner come down to take an airing. You understand, Sir.”

      Meadows' eyes flashed actual fire. For so rich a man, he seemed wonderfully excited by this circumstance.

      To an inquiry who was his companion, the constable answered sotto voce, “Gentleman from Bow Street, come to see if he knows him.” The constable went on to inform Meadows that Robinson was out fishing somewhere, otherwise they would already have taken him; “but we will hang about the farm, and take him when he comes home.”

      “You had better be at hand, sir, to identify the notes,” said the gentleman from Bow Street, whose appearance was clerical.

      Meadows had important business five miles off; he postponed it. He wrote a line in pencil, put a boy upon his black mare, and hurried him off to the rendezvous, while he stayed and entered with strange alacrity into this affair. “Stay,” cried he, “if he is an old hand he will twig the officer.”

      “Oh, I'm dark, sir,” was the answer; “he won't know me till I put the darbies on him.”

      The two men then strolled as far as the village stocks, keeping an eye ever on the