Yet half-way on this
journey fortune smiled on him suddenly. It was in Derbyshire. He went a
little out of his way to visit his native place--he had left it at ten
years old. Here an old maid, his first cousin, received Grace with
rapture, and Hope pottered about all day, reviving his boyish
recollections of people and places. He had left the village ignorant; he
returned full of various knowledge; and so it was that in a certain
despised field, all thistles and docks and every known weed, which field
the tenant had condemned as a sour clay unfit for cultivation, William
Hope found certain strata and other signs which, thanks to his
mineralogical studies and practical knowledge, sent a sudden thrill all
through his frame. "Here's luck at last!" said he. "My child! my child!
our fortune is made."
The proprietor of this land, and indeed of the whole parish, was a
retired warrior, Colonel Clifford. Hope knew that very well, and hurried
to Clifford Hall, all on fire with his discovery.
He obtained an interview without any difficulty.
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