"Republican institutions in America are in a transition state; they have not yet separated themselves from foreign and antagonistic ideas and traditions, derived from old countries; and the labors necessary for the upbuilding of society are not yet so adjusted that there is mutual pleasure and comfort in the relations of employer and employed. We still incline to class-distinctions and aristocracies. We incline to the scheme of dividing the world's work into two orders: first, physical labor, which is held to be rude and vulgar, and the province of a lower class; and second, brain labor, held to be refined and aristocratic, and the province of a higher class. Meanwhile, the Creator, who is the greatest of levellers, has given to every human beingbotha physical system, needing to be kept in order by physical labor, and an intellectual or brain power, needing to be kept in order by brain labor.Work, use, employment, is the condition of health in both; and he who works either to the neglect of the other lives but a half-life, and is an imperfect human being.
"The aristocracies of the Old World claim that their only labor should be that of the brain; and they keep their physical system in order by violent exercise, which is made genteel from the fact only that it is not useful or productive. It would be losing caste to refresh the muscles by handling the plough or the axe; and so foxes and hares must be kept to be hunted, and whole counties turned into preserves, in order that the nobility and gentry may have physical exercise in a way befitting their station,—that is to say, in a way that produces nothing, and does good only to themselves.
"The model republican uses his brain for the highest purposes of brain work, and his muscles inproductivephysical labor; and useful labor he respects above that which is merely agreeable.
"When this equal respect for physical and mental labor shall have taken possession of every American citizen, there will be no so-called laboring class: there will no more be a class all muscle without brain power to guide it, and a class all brain without muscular power to execute. The labors of society will be lighter, because each individual will take his part in them; they will be performed better, because no one will be overburdened.
"In those days, Miss Jennie, it will be an easier matter to keep house, because, house-work being no longer regarded as degrading drudgery, you will find a superior class of women ready to engage in it.
"Every young girl and woman, who in her sphere and by her example shows that she is not ashamed of domestic labor, and that she considers the necessary work and duties of family life as dignified and important, is helping to bring on this good day. Louis Philippe once jestingly remarked,—'I have thisqualification for being a king in these days, that I have blacked my own boots, and could black them again.'
"Every American ought to cultivate, as his pride and birthright, the habit of self-helpfulness. Our command of the labor of goodemployésin any department is liable to such interruptions, that he who has blacked his own boots, and can do it again, is, on the whole, likely to secure the most comfort in life.
"As to that which Mr. Ruskin pronounces to be a deep, irremediable ulcer in society, namely, domestic service, we hold that the last workings of pure democracy will cleanse and heal it. When right ideas are sufficiently spread,—when everybody is self-helpful and capable of being self-supporting,—when there is a fair start for every human being in the race of life, and all its prizes are, without respect of persons, to be obtained by the best runner,—when every kind of useful labor is thoroughly respected,—then there will be a clear, just, wholesome basis of intercourse on which employers and employed can move without wrangling or discord.
"Renouncing all claims to superiority on the one hand, and all thought of servility on the other, service can be rendered by fair contracts and agreements, with that mutual respect and benevolence which every human being owes to every other.
"But for this transition period, which is wearing out the life of so many women, and making so many households uncomfortable, I have some alleviating suggestions, which I shall give in my next paper."
He uttered a little shout of joy and amazement; his mare reared and plunged, and then was quiet. And thus Kate Peyton and he met,—at right angles,—and so close that it looked as if she had meant to ride him down.
How he stared at her! How more than mortal fair she shone, returning to those bereaved eyes of his, as if she had really dropped from heaven!
His clasped hands, his haggard face channelled by tears, showed the keen girl she was strong where she had thought herself weak, and she comported herself accordingly, and in one moment took a much higher tone than she had intended as she came along.
"I am afraid," said she, very coldly, "you will have to postpone your journey a day or two. I am grieved to tell you that poor Mr. Charlton is dead."
Griffith uttered an exclamation.
"He asked for you; and messengers are out after you on every side. You must go to Bolton at once."
"Well-a-day!" said Griffith, "has he left me, too? Good, kind old man, on any other day I had found tears for thee! But now, methinks, happy are the dead. Alas! sweet mistress, I hoped you came to tell me you had—I might—what signifies what I hoped?—when I saw you had deigned to ride after me. Why should I go to Bolton, after all?"
"Because you will be an ungrateful wretch else. What! leave others to carry your kinsman and your benefactor to his grave, while you turn your back on him, and inherit his estate? For shame, Sir! for shame!"
Griffith expostulated, humbly.
"How hardly you judge me! What are Bolton Hall and Park to me now? They were to have been yours, you know. And yours they shall be. Icame between and robbed you. To be sure, the old man knew my mind. He said to himself,—'Griffith or Kate, what matters it who has the land? They will live together on it.' But all that is changed now; you will never share it with me; and so I do feel I have no right to the place. Kate, my own Kate, I have heard them sneer at you for being poor, and it made my heart ache. I'll stop that, any way. Go you in my place to the funeral; he that is dead will forgive me; his spirit knows now what I endure; and I'll send you a writing, all sealed and signed, shall make Bolton Hall and Park yours; and when you are happy with some one youcanlove, as well as I love you, think sometimes of poor jealous Griffith, that loved you dear and grudged you nothing; but," grinding his teeth and turning white, "Ican'tlive in Cumberland, and see you in another man's arms."
Then Catharine trembled, and could not speak awhile; but at last she faltered out,—
"You will make mehateyou."
"God forbid!" said simple Griffith.
"Well, then, don't thwart me, and provoke me so, but just turn your horse's head and go quietly home to Bolton Hall, and do your duty to the dead and the living. You can't gothisway, for me and my horse." Then, seeing him waver, this virago faltered out, "And I have been so tried to-day, first by one, then by another, surelyyoumight have some pity on me. Oh! oh! oh! oh!"
"Nay, nay," cried Griffith, all in a flutter, "I'll go without more words; as I am a gentleman, I will sleep at Bolton this night, and will do my duty to the dead and the living. Don't you cry, sweetest; I give in. I find I have no will but yours."
The next moment they were cantering side by side, and never drew rein till they reached the cross-roads.
"Now tell me one thing," stammered Griffith, with a most ghastly attempt at cheerful indifference. "How—do you—happen to be—on George Neville's horse?"
Kate had been expecting this question for some time; yet she colored high when it did come. However, she had her answer pat. The horse was in the stable-yard, and fresh; her own was tired.
"What was I to do, Griffith? And now," added she, hastily, "the sun will soon set, and the roads are bad; be careful. I wish I could ask you to sleep at our house; but—there are reasons"—
She hesitated; she could not well tell him George Neville was to dine and sleep there.
Griffith assured her there was no danger; his mare knew every foot of the way.
They parted: Griffith rode to Bolton, and Kate rode home.
It was past dinner-time. She ran up stairs, and hurried on her best gown and her diamond comb. For she began to quake now at the prank she had played with her guest's horse; and Nature taught her that the best way to soften censure is—to be beautiful.
"On pardonne tout aux belles."
"On pardonne tout aux belles."
And certainly she was passing fair, and queenly with her diamond comb.
She came down stairs and was received by her father. He grumbled at being kept waiting for dinner.
Kate easily appeased the good-natured Squire, and then asked what had become of Mr. Neville.
"Oh, he is gone long ago! Remembered, all of a sudden, he had promised to dine with a neighbor."
Kate shook her head skeptically, but said nothing. But a good minute after, she inquired,—
"How did he go? on foot?"
The Squire did not know.
After dinner old Joe sought an interview, and was admitted into the dining-room.
"Be it all right about the gray horse, Master?"
"What of him?" asked Kate.
"He be gone to Neville Court, Mistress. But I suppose" (with a horrid leer) "it is all right. Muster Nevilletold me all about it. He said, says he,—
"'Some do break a kine or the likes on these here j'yful occasions; other some do exchange goold rings. Your young mistress and me,weexchange nags. She takes my pieball, I take her gray,' says he. 'Saddle him for me, Joe,' says he, 'and wish me j'y.'
"So I clapped Muster Neville's saddle on the gray, and a gave me a goolden guinea, a did; and I was so struck of a heap I let un go without wishing on him j'y; but I hollered it arter un, as hard as I could. How you looks! It be all right, bain't it?"
Squire Peyton laughed heartily, and said he concluded it was all right.
"The piebald," said he, "is rising five, andI'vehad the gray ten years. We have got the sunnyside of the bargain, Joe."
He gave Joe a glass of wine and sent him off, inflated with having done a good stroke in horseflesh.
As for Kate, she was red as fire, and kept her lips close as wax; not a word could be got out of her. The less she said, the more she thought. She was thoroughly vexed, and sore perplexed how to get her gray horse back from such a man as George Neville; and yet she could not help laughing at the trick, and secretly admiring this chevalier, who had kept his mortification to himself, and parried an affront so gallantly.
"The good-humored wretch!" said she to herself. "If Griffith ever goes away again, he will have me, whether I like or no. No lady could resist the monster long without some other man close at hand to help her."
As, when a camel drops in the desert, vultures, hitherto unseen, come flying from the horizon, so Mr. Charlton had no sooner succumbed than the air darkened with undertakers flocking to Bolton for a lugubrious job. They rode up on black steeds, they crunched the gravel in grave gigs, and sent in black-edged cards to Griffith, and lowered their voices, and bridled their briskness, and tried hard, poor souls! to be sad; and were horribly complacent beneath that thin japan of venal sympathy.
Griffith selected his Raven, and then sat down to issue numerous invitations.
The idea of eschewing funereal pomp had not yet arisen. A gentleman of that day liked his very remains to make a stir, and did not see the fun of stealing into his grave like a rabbit slipping aground. Mr. Charlton had even left behind him a sealed letter containing a list of the persons he wished to follow him to the grave and attend the reading of his will. These were thirty-four, and amongst them three known to fame: namely, George Neville, Esq., Edward Peyton, Esq., and Miss Catherine Peyton.
To all and each of the thirty-four young Gaunt wrote a formal letter, inviting them to pay respect to their deceased friend, and to honor himself, by coming to Bolton Hall at high noon on Saturday next. These letters, in compliance with another custom of the time and place, were all sent by mounted messengers, and the answers came on horseback, too; so there was much clattering of hoofs coming and going, and much roasting, baking, drinking of ale, and bustling, all along of him who lay so still in an upper chamber.
And every man and woman came to Mr. Gaunt to ask his will and advice, however simple the matter; and the servants turned very obsequious, and laid themselves out to please the new master, and retain their old places.
And, what with the sense of authority, and the occupation, and growing ambition, love-sick Griffith grew another man, and began to forget that two days ago he was leaving the country and going to give up the whole game.
He found time to send Kate a loving letter, but no talk of marriage in it. He remembered she had asked him to give her time. Well, he would take her advice.
It wanted just three days to the funeral, when Mr. Charlton's own carriage, long unused, was found to be out of repair. Griffith had it sent to the nearest town, and followed it on that and other business. Now it happened to be what the country folk called "justicing day"; and who should ride into the yard of the "Roebuck" but the new magistrate, Mr. Neville? He alighted off a great bony gray horse before Griffith's very nose, and sauntered into a private room.
Griffith looked, and looked, and, scarcely able to believe his senses, followed Neville's horse to the stable, and examined him all round.
Griffith was sore perplexed, and stood at the stable-door glaring at the horse; and sick misgivings troubled him. He forgot the business he came about, and went and hung about the bar, and tried to pick up a clew to this mystery. The poor wretch put on a miserable assumption of indifference, and asked one or two of the magistrates if that was not Mr. Peyton's gray horse young Neville had ridden in upon.
Now amongst these gentlemen was a young squire Miss Peyton had refused, and galled him. He had long owed Gaunt a grudge for seeming to succeed where he had notably failed, and now, hearing him talk so much about the gray, he smelt a rat. He stepped into the parlor and told Neville Gaunt was fuming about the gray horse, and questioning everybody. Neville, though he put so bold a face on his recent adventure at Peyton Hall, was secretly smarting, and quite disposed to sting Gaunt in return. He saw a tool in this treacherous young squire,—his name was Galton,—and used him accordingly.
Galton, thoroughly primed by Neville, slipped back, and, choosing his opportunity, poisoned Griffith Gaunt.
And this is how he poisoned him.
"Oh," said he, "Neville has bought the gray nag; and cost him dear, it did."
Griffith gave a sigh of relief; for he at once concluded old Peyton had sold his daughter's very horse. He resolved to buy her a better one next week with Mr. Charlton's money.
But Galton, who was only playing with him, went on to explain that Neville had paid a double price for the nag: he had given Miss Peyton his piebald horse in exchange, and his troth into the bargain. In short, he lent the matter so adroit a turn, that the exchange of horses seemed to be Kate's act as much as Neville's, and the interference inevitable.
"It is a falsehood!" gasped Griffith.
"Nay," said Galton, "I had it on the best authority: but you shall not quarrel with me about it; the lady is nought to me, and I but tell the tale as 'twas told to me."
"Then who told it you?" said Gaunt, sternly.
"Why, it is all over the country, for that matter."
"No subterfuges, Sir! I am the lady's servant, and you know it: this report, it slanders her, and insults me: give me the author, or I'll lay my hunting-whip on your bones."
"Two can play at that game," said Galton; but he turned pale at the prospect of the pastime.
Griffith strode towards him, black with ire.
Then Galton stammered out,—
"It was Neville himself told me."
"Ah!" said Griffith; "I thought so. He is a liar, and a coward."
"I would not advise you to tellhimso," said the other, maliciously. "He has killed his man in France: spitted him like a lark."
Griffith replied by a smile of contempt.
"Where is the man?" said he, after a pause.
"How should I know?" asked Galton, innocently.
"Where did you leave him five minutes ago?"
Galton was dumbfoundered at this stroke, and could find nothing to say.
And now, as often happens, the matter took a turn not in the least anticipated by the conspirators.
"You must come with me, Sir, if youplease," said Griffith, quietly: and he took Galton's arm.
"Oh, with all my heart," said the other. "But, Mr. Gaunt, do not you take these idle reports to heart:Inever do. What the Devil, where are you carrying me to? For Heaven's sake, let this foolish business go no farther."
For he found Griffith was taking him to the very room where Neville was.
Griffith deigned no reply; he just opened the door of the room in question, and walked the tale-bearer into the presence of the tale-maker. George Neville rose and confronted the pair with a vast appearance of civility; but under it a sneer was just discernible.
The rivals measured each other from head to foot, and then Neville inquired to what he owed the honor of this visit.
Griffith replied,—
"He tells me you told him Miss Peyton has exchanged horses with you."
"Oh, you indiscreet person!" said George, shaking his finger playfully at Galton.
"And, by the same token, has plighted her troth to you."
"Worse and worse," said George. "Galton, I'll never trust you with any secrets again. Besides, you exaggerate."
"Come, Sir," said Griffith, sternly, "this Ned Galton was but your tool, and your mouth-piece; and therefore I bring him in here to witness my reply toyou: Mr. George Neville, you are a liar and a scoundrel."
George Neville bounded to his feet like a tiger.
"I'll have your life for those two words," he cried.
Then he suddenly governed himself by a great effort.
"It is not for me to bandy foul terms with a Cumberland savage," said he. "Name your time and place."
"I will. Ned Galton, you may go. I wish to say a few words in private to Mr. Neville."
Galton hesitated.
"No violence, Gentlemen: consider."
"Nonsense!" said Neville. "Mr. Gaunt and I are going to fight: we are not going to brawl. Be so good as to leave us."
"Ay," said Griffith; "and if you repeat a word of all this, woe be to your skin!"
As soon as he was gone, Griffith Gaunt turned very grave and calm, and said to George Neville,—
"The Cumberland savage has been better taught than to expose the lady he loves to gossiping tongues."
Neville colored up to the eyes at this thrust.
Griffith continued,—
"The least you can do is to avoid fresh scandal."
"I shall be happy to coöperate with you so far," said Neville, stiffly. "I undertake to keep Galton silent; and for the rest, we have only to name an early hour for meeting, and confide it to but one discreet friend apiece who will attend us to the field. Then there will be no gossip, and no bumpkins nor constables breaking in: such things have happened in this country, I hear."
It was Wednesday. They settled to meet on Friday at noon on a hillside between Bolton and Neville's Court. The spot was exposed, but so wild and unfrequented that no interruption was to be feared. Mr. Neville being a practised swordsman, Gaunt chose pistols,—a weapon at which the combatants were supposed to be pretty equal. To this Neville very handsomely consented.
By this time a stiff and elaborate civility had taken the place of their heat, and at parting they bowed both long and low to each other.
Griffith left the inn and went into the street; and as soon as he got there, he began to realize what he had done, and that in a day or two he might very probably be a dead man. The first thing he did was to go with sorrowful face and heavy step to Mr. Houseman's office.
Mr. Houseman was a highly respectable solicitor. His late father and he had long enjoyed the confidence of the gentry, and this enabled him to avoid litigious business, and confine himself pretty much to the more agreeable andlucrative occupation of drawing wills, settlements, and conveyances, and effecting loans, sales, and transfers. He visited the landed proprietors, and dined with them, and was a great favorite in the country.
"Justicing day" brought him many visits; so on that day he was always at his place of business. Indeed, a client was with him when Griffith called, and the young gentlemen had to wait in the outer office for full ten minutes.
Then a door opened and the client in question came out, looking mortified and anxious. It was Squire Peyton. At sight of Gaunt, who had risen to take his vacant place, Kate's father gave him a stiff nod, and an unfriendly glance, then hurried away.
Griffith was hurt at his manner. He knew very well Mr. Peyton looked higher for his daughter than Griffith Gaunt: but for all that the old gentleman had never shown him any personal dislike or incivility until this moment.
So Griffith could not but fear that Neville was somehow at the bottom of this, and that the combination was very strong against him. Now in thus interpreting Mr. Peyton's manner he fell into a very common error and fruitful cause of misunderstanding. We go and fancy that Everybody is thinking ofus. But he is not: he is like us; he is thinking of himself.
"Well, well," thought Griffith, "if I am not to have her, what better place for me than the grave."
He entered Mr. Houseman's private room and opened his business at once.
But a singular concurrence of circumstances induced Lawyer Houseman to confide to a third party the substance of what passed between this young gentleman and himself. So, to avoid repetition, the best way will be to let Houseman tell this part of my tale, instead of me; and I only hope his communication, when it comes, may be half as interesting to my reader as it was to his hearer.
Suffice it for me to say that lawyer and client were closeted a good hour, and were still conversing together when a card was handed in to Mr. Houseman that seemed to cause him both surprise and pleasure.
"In five minutes," said he to the clerk. Griffith took the hint, and bade him good-bye directly.
As he went out, the gentleman who had sent in his card rose from a seat in the outer office to go in.
It was Mr. George Neville.
Griffith Gaunt and he saluted and scanned each other curiously. They little thought to meet again so soon. The clerks saw nothing more than two polite gentlemen passing each other.
The more Griffith thought of the approaching duel, the less he liked it. He was an impulsive man, for one thing; and with such, a cold fit naturally succeeds a hot one. And besides, as his heat abated, Reason and Reflection made themselves heard, and told him that in a contest with a formidable rival he was throwing away an advantage. After all, Kate had shown him great favor; she had ridden Neville's horse after him, and made him resign his purpose of leaving her; surely, then, she preferred him on the whole to Neville: yet he must go and risk his chance of possessing her upon a personal encounter, in which Neville was at least as likely to kill him as he to kill Neville. He saw too late that he was playing his rival's game. He felt cold and despondent, and more and more convinced that he should never marry Kate, but that she would very likely bury him.
With all this he was too game to recoil, and indeed he hated his rival too deeply. So, like many a man before him, he was going doggedly to the field against his judgement, with little to win and all to lose.
His deeper and more solemn anxieties were diversified by a lighter one. A few days ago he had invited half the county to bury Mr. Charlton on Saturday, the 19th of February. But now he had gone and fixed Friday the 18th for a duel. A fine thing, if he should be himself a corpse on Fridayafternoon! Who was to receive the guests? who conduct the funeral?
The man, with all his faults, had a grateful heart; and Mr. Charlton was his benefactor, and he felt he had no right to go and get himself killed until he had paid the last rites to his best friend.
The difficulty admits of course of a comic view, and smells Hibernian; but these things seem anything but droll to those whose lives and feelings are at stake; and, indeed, there was something chivalrous and touching in Griffith's vexation at the possibility of his benefactor being buried without due honors, owing to his own intemperate haste to be killed. He resolved to provide against that contingency: so, on the Thursday, he wrote an urgent letter to Mr. Houseman, telling him he must come early to the funeral, and be prepared to conduct it.
This letter was carried to Mr. Houseman's office at three o'clock on Thursday afternoon.
Mr. Houseman was not at home. He was gone to a country-house nine miles distant. But Griffith's servant was well mounted, and had peremptory orders; so he rode after Mr. Houseman, and found him at Mr. Peyton's house,—whither, if you please, we, too, will follow him.
In the first place, you must know that the real reason why Mr. Peyton looked so savage, coming out of Mr. Houseman's office, was this: Neville had said no more about the hundred pounds, and, indeed, had not visited the house since; so Peyton, who had now begun to reckon on this sum, went to Houseman to borrow it. But Houseman politely declined to lend it him, and gave excellent reasons. All this was natural enough, common enough; but the real reason why Houseman declined was a truly singular one. The fact is, Catharine Peyton had made him promise to refuse.
Between that young lady and the Housemans, husband and wife, there was a sincere friendship, founded on mutual esteem; and Catharine could do almost what she liked with either of them. Now, whatever might have been her faults, she was a proud girl, and an intelligent one: it mortified her pride to see her father borrowing here, and borrowing there, and unable to repay; and she had also observed that he always celebrated a new loan by a new extravagance, and so was never a penny the richer for borrowed money. He had inadvertently let fall that he should apply to Houseman. She raised no open objection, but just mounted Piebald, and rode off to Houseman, and made him solemnly promise her not to lend her father a shilling.
Houseman kept his word; but his refusal cost him more pain than he had calculated on when he made the promise. Squire Peyton had paid him thousands, first and last; and when he left Houseman's room, with disappointment, mortification, and humiliation deeply marked on his features, usually so handsome and jolly, the lawyer felt sorry and ashamed,—and didnotshow it.
But it rankled in him; and the very next day he took advantage of a little business he had to do in Mr. Peyton's neighborhood, and drove to Peyton Hall, and asked for Mistress Kate.
His was a curious errand. Indeed, I think it would not be easy to find a parallel to it.
For here was an attorney calling upon a beautiful girl,—to do what?
To soften her.
On a daughter,—to do what?
To persuade her to permit him to lend her father £100 on insufficient security.
Well, he reminded her of his ancient obligations to her family, and assured her he could well afford to risk a hundred or even a thousand pounds. He then told her that her father had shown great pain at his refusal, and that he himself was human, and could not divest himself of gratitude and pity and good-nature,—all for £100.
"In a word," said he, "I have brought the money; and you must give in for this once, and let me lend it him without more ado."
Miss Peyton was gratified and affected, and a tear trembled a moment in her eye, but went in-doors again; and left her firm as a rock sprinkled with dew. She told him she could quite understand his feeling, and thanked him for it; but she had long and seriously weighed the matter, and could not release him from his promise.
"No more of this base borrowing," said she, and clenched her white teeth indomitably.
He attacked her with a good many weapons; but she parried them all so gently, yet so nobly, and so successfully, that he admired her more than ever.
Still, lawyers fight hard, and die very hard. Houseman got warm in his cause, and cross-examined this defendant, and asked her whethershewould refuse to lend her father £100 out of a full purse.
This question was answered only by a flash of her glorious eyes, and a magnificent look of disdain at the doubt implied.
"Well, then," said Houseman, "be your father's surety for repayment, with interest at six per centum, and then there will be nothing in the business to wound your dignity. I have many hundreds out at six per centum."
"Excuse me: that would be dishonest," said Kate; "I have no money to repay you with."
"But you have expectations."
"Nay, not I."
"I beg your pardon."
"Methinks I should know, Sir. What expectations have I? and from whom?"
Houseman fidgeted on his seat, and then, with some hesitation, replied,—
"Well, from two that I know of."
"You are jesting, methinks, good Mr. Houseman," said she, reproachfully.
"Nay, dear Mistress Kate, I wish you too well to jest on such a theme."
The lawyer then fidgeted again on his seat in silence,—sign of an inward struggle,—during which Kate's eye watched him with some curiosity. At last his wavering balance inclined towards revealing something or other.
"Mistress Kate," said he, "my wife and I are both your faithful friends and humble admirers. We often say you would grace a coronet, and wish you were as rich as you are good and beautiful."
Kate turned her lovely head away, and gave him her hand. That incongruous movement, so full of womanly grace and feeling, and the soft pressure of her white hand, completed her victory, and the remains of Houseman's reserve melted away.
"Yes, my dear young lady," said he, warmly, "I have good news for you; only mind, not a living soul must ever know it from your lips. Why, I am going to do for you what I never did in my life before,—going to tell you something that passed yesterday in my office. But then I know you; you are a young lady out of a thousand; I can trust you to be discreet and silent,—can I not?"
"As the grave."
"Well, then, my young mistress,—in truth it was like a play, though the scene was but a lawyer's office"—
"Was it?" cried Kate. "Then you set me all of a flutter; you must sup here, and sleep here. Nay, nay," said she, her eyes sparkling with animation, "I'll take no denial. My father dines abroad: we shall have the house to ourselves."
Her interest was keenly excited: but she was a true woman, and must coquette with her very curiosity; so she ran off to see with her own eyes that sheets were aired, and a roasting fire lighted in the blue bed-room for her guest.
While she was away, a servant brought in Griffith Gaunt's letter, and a sheet of paper had to be borrowed to answer it.
The answer was hardly written and sent out to Griffith's servant, when supper and the fair hostess came in almost together.
After supper fresh logs were heaped on the fire, and the lawyer sat in a cosey arm-chair, and took out his diary, and several papers, as methodically as if he was going to lay the case by counsel before a judge of assize.
Kate sat opposite him with her gray eyes beaming on him all the time, andsearching for the hidden meaning of everything he told her. During the recital which follows, her color often came and went, but those wonderful eyes never left the narrator's face a moment.
They put the attorney on his mettle, and he elaborated the matter more than I should have done: he articulated his topics; marked each salient fact by a long pause. In short, he told his story like an attorney, and not like a romancist. I cannot help that, you know; I'm not Procrustes.
"Wednesday, the seventeenth day of February, at about one of the clock, called on me at my place of business Mr. Griffith Gaunt, whom I need not here describe, inasmuch as his person and place of residence are well known to the court—what am I saying?—I mean, well known to yourself, Mistress Kate.
"The said Griffith, on entering my room, seemed moved, and I might say distempered, and did not give himself time to salute me and receive my obeisance, but addressed me abruptly and said as follows: 'Mr. Houseman, I am come to make my will.'"
("Dear me!" said Kate: then blushed, and was more on her guard.)
"I seated the young gentleman, and then replied, that his resolution aforesaid did him credit, the young being as mortal as the old. I said further, that many disasters had happened, in my experience, owing to the obstinacy with which men, in the days of their strength, shut their eyes to the precarious tenure under which all sons of Adam hold existence; and so, many a worthy gentleman dies in his sins,—and, what is worse, dies intestate.
"But the said Griffith interrupted me with some signs of impatience, and asked me bluntly, would I draw his will, and have it executed on the spot.
"I assented, generally; but I requested him, by way of needful preliminary, to obtain for me a copy of Mr. Charlton's will, under which, as I have always understood, the said Griffith inherits whatever real estate he hath to bequeath.
"Mr. Griffith Gaunt then replied to me, that Mr. Charlton's will was in London, and the exact terms of it could not be known until after the funeral,—that is to say, upon the nineteenth instant.
"Thereupon I explained to Mr. Gaunt that I must see and know what properties were devised in the will aforesaid, by the said Charlton, to Gaunt aforesaid, and how devised and described. Without this, I said, I could not correctly and sufficiently describe the same in the instrument I was now requested to prepare.
"Mr. Gaunt did not directly reply to this objection. But he pondered a little while, and then asked me if it were not possible for him, by means of general terms, to convey to a sole legatee whatever lands, goods, chattels, etc., Mr. Charlton might hereafter prove to have devised to him, the said Griffith Gaunt.
"I admitted this was possible, but objected that it was dangerous. I let him know that in matters of law general terms are a fruitful source of dispute, and I said I was one of those who hold it a duty to avert litigation from our clients.
"Thereupon Mr. Gaunt drew out of his bosom a pocket-book.
"The said pocket-book was shown to me by the said Gaunt, and I say it contained a paragraph from a newspaper, which I believe to have been cut out of the said newspaper with a knife, or a pair of scissors, or some trenchant instrument; and the said paragraph purported to contain an exact copy of a certain will and testament under which(as is, indeed, matter of public notoriety) one Dame Butcher hath inherited and now enjoys the lands, goods, and chattels of a certain merry parson late deceased in these parts, and,I believelittle missed.
"Mr. Gaunt would have me read the will and testament aforesaid, and I read it accordingly: and inasmuch as bad things are best remembered, the said will and testament did, by its singularity and profaneness, fix itself forthwith in my memory; so that I can by no means dislodge it thence, do what I may.
"The said document, to the best of my memory and belief, runneth after this fashion.
"'I, John Raymond, clerk, at present residing at Whitbeck, in the County of Cumberland, being a man sound in body, mind, and judgment, do deliver this as my last will and testament.
"'I give and bequeath all my real property, and all my personal property, and all the property, whether real or personal, I may hereafter possess or become entitled to, to my housekeeper, Janet Butcher.
"'And I appoint Janet Butcher my sole executrix, and I make Janet Butcher my sole residuary legatee; save and except that I leave my solemn curse to any knave who hereafter shall at any time pretend that he does not understand the meaning of this my will and testament.'"
(Catharine smiled a little at this last bequest.)
"Mr. Gaunt then solemnly appealed to me as an honest man to tell him whether the aforesaid document was bad, or good, in law.
"I was fain to admit that it was sufficient in law; but I qualified, and said I thought it might be attacked on the score of the hussy's undue influence, and the testator's apparent insanity. Nevertheless, I concluded candidly that neither objection would prevail in our courts, owing to the sturdy prejudice in the breasts of English jurymen, whose ground of faith it is that every man has a right to do what he will with his own, and even to do it how he likes.
"Mr. Gaunt did speedily abuse this my candor. He urged me to lose no time, but to draw his will according to the form and precedent in that case made and provided by this mad parson; and my clerks, forsooth, were to be the witnesses thereof.
"I refused, with some heat, to sully my office by allowing such an instrument to issue therefrom; and I asked the said Gaunt, in high dudgeon, for what he took me.
"Mr. Gaunt then offered, in reply, two suggestions that shook me.Imprimis, he told me the person to whom he now desired to leave his all was Mistress Catharine Peyton." (An ejaculation from Kate.) "Secundo, he said he would go straight from me to that coxcomb Harrison, were I to refuse to serve him in the matter.
"On this, having regard to your interest and my own, I temporized: I offered to let him draw a will after his parson's precedent, and I agreed it should be witnessed in my office; only I stipulated that next week a proper document should be drawn by myself, with due particulars, on two sheets of paper, and afterwards engrossed and witnessed: and to this Mr. Gaunt assented, and immediately drew his will according to newspaper precedent.
"But when I came to examine his masterpiece, I found he had taken advantage of my pliability to attach an unreasonable condition, to wit: that the said Catharine should forfeit all interest under this will, in case she should ever marry a certain party therein nominated, specified, and described."
("Now that was Griffith all over," cried Catharine, merrily.)
"I objected stoutly to this. I tookleave to remind the young gentleman, that, when a Christian man makes his last will and testament, he should think of the grave and of the place beyond, whither we may carry our affections, but must leave the bundle of our hates behind, the gate being narrow. I even went so far as to doubt whether such a proviso could stand inlaw; and I also put a practical query: what was to hinder the legatee from selling the property and diverting the funds, and then marrying whom she liked?
"Mr. Gaunt was deaf to reason. He bade me remember that he was neither saint nor apostle, but a poor gentleman of Cumberland, who saw a stranger come between him and his lover dear: with that he was much moved, and did not conclude his argument at all, but broke off, and was fain to hide his face with both hands awhile. In truth, this touched me; and I looked another way, and began to ask myself, why should I interfere, who, after all, know not your heart in the matter; and, to be brief, I withstood him and Parson's law no more, but sent his draught will to the clerks, the which they copied fair in a trice, and the duplicates were signed and witnessed in red-hot haste,—as most of men's follies are done, for that matter.
"The paper writing now produced and shown to me—tush! what am I saying?—I mean, the paper writing I now produce and show to you is the draught of the will aforesaid, in the hand-writing of the testator."
And with this he handed Kate Peyton Griffith Gaunt's will, and took a long and satirical pinch of snuff while she examined it.
Miss Peyton took the will in her white hands and read it. But, in reading it, she held it up and turned it so that her friend could not see her face while she read it, but only her white hands, in which the document rustled a little.
It ran thus:—