But when Walter left the country the proprietor never dreamed of going
again to the haughty Colonel. He went to Bartley, and Bartley bought the
property in five minutes for L1200, and paid a deposit to clinch the
contract. He completed the purchase with unheard-of rapidity, and set an
army of workmen to raise a pit village, or street of eighty houses. They
were ten times better built than the Colonel's cottages; not one of them
could ever be vacant, they were too great a boon to the miners; nor could
the rent be in arrears, with so sharp a hand as the mine-owner; the
beer-house was to be perpetuated, and a nucleus of custom secured from
the miners, partly by the truck system, and partly by the superiority of
the liquor, for Bartley announced at once that he should brew the beer.
All these things were too much for a man with gout in his system; Colonel
Clifford had a worse attack of that complaint than ever; it rose from his
feet to other parts of his frame, and he took to his bed.
In that condition a physician and surgeon visited him daily, and his
lawyer also was sent for, and was closeted with him for a long time on
more than one occasion.
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