Page images
PDF
EPUB

could come so closely home to all of them. They had neither loved nor respected him; but he had been their chief, with power in his hands which he could use for their welfare or injury. But it was not so much his loss, as the question who would succeed him that was agitating them, every one. There was scarcely a child among them who had not heard their dead master say that his runaway son should be cut off from his estates, and that his step-son should succeed to them. Now would come the confirmation of these oaths if they had been genuine and true. But there was the doubt. Old Richard Herford had worshipped his son so openly, that it seemed incredible he could really leave him penniless and landless. The villagers were vehemently discussing this doubt when Master Justin, as they still called him, became visible in the street. He felt inclined to hurry past without speaking to these weather-beaten, hard-featured men and women; but they came thronging about him with the familiarity of long acquaintance.

"So th' old squire's dead and gone," said the parish clerk, a hale old man of eighty himself, "and we're all a-wondering who's to come after him up yonder. Please God, I say, as our Master Justin's made squire in his stead. That's what I'm looking for, please His holy will!”

"Nay, nay!" cried a loud shrill woman's voice, "Herford's been Herford time out o' mind. Master Justin 'll never be offended with such as we if we wishes a Herford to come into it; and there's none save Master Dick, as has been lost these four years."

"Well! we shall all see what we shall see," said the mistress of the dame-school, the only person in the village of whom Pansy stood in awe, "there's a providence in all things; and Master Justin's next to own son to the old squire, and he's almost a Herford. He'd get the queen's leave to change his name, so it would be all one."

"But it wouldn't be the old breed," objected the shrill voice.

"Th' old breed's a bad breed," interrupted a sturdy fisherman; "we don't want Master Dick to lord it over us. I'm for Master Justin. Hurrah!"

"My good folks," shouted Justin, to get himself heard amid the din of contending voices, "as a matter of course my brother Richard will come into the estates; and no doubt he will quickly reappear now he is Herford of Herford. Some among you know his whereabouts, or I am very much mistaken."

"Not me," "nor me," cried a chorus of voices. "We want you to have it; you'd make a vast sight better squire than parson," cried out a strong voice after him, as he walked hurriedly on, "though we've nought to say agen you as parson, Master Justin. It's only my way of speaking."

Justin kept steadily on his way, the words ringing in his ears. He knew only too well that he did not and could not make a good parson; and that the rough, honest fellows about him knew it quite as well as he did. What was it that was so necessary to make him a true, efficient minister to the spiritual wants of this little community, so shut in and hedged round from the great world? They loved him heartily after their fashion, and looked up to him as the most learned and scholarly man in the place. They also looked up to him as one who could give them good counsel about their fields and their boats. There was not a fisherman among them who would not rather have him in his boat, on a stormy and dangerous sea, than any other man in the village. He was a leader among them in all things save one; but that one was the very soul of the profession he had entered into. The moment he put on the garb of a clergyman he ceased to be their guide; and knew himself to be the blind leading the blind. A fact they knew by instinct also.

As Justin drew nearer to the Court, and saw its quaint old-fashioned grey pile of building lying sheltered within its own curving brow of the cliff, these vexing thoughts died away to give place to others as vexing. How would he be able to bear to see his brother leading a riotous, disreputable life within its walls, and probably in the course of a few years bring the old place to the hammer? It had, perhaps, grown dearer to him since he had looked at it with the eye of a possible owner than it had been before; but it had always been an object of admiration to him. Richard was not fit to be master of it; yet he was left in absolute, unrestricted, immediate possession, as though destiny itself had decreed the speedy ruin of Herford Court.

The house seemed dark and dreary when he entered it. With a step that echoed noisily through the silent stone-paved hall, Justin crossed it to the door of the room where he knew he should find his mother. She was seated in a low easy-chair on the hearth in the darkened room, her face hidden behind the handkerchief she was holding up to her eyes. Though she was nearly fifty years of

age she was still slim and almost girlish in figure; and her face, though there were a few lines on the forehead, and crow's-feet about the corners of the eyes, was nearly as round and fair and full as when she had married a second time, twenty-five years ago. Justin stooped down to kiss her, with an unusual emotion of tenderness and compassion for his mother, once again a widow.

It was not probable that she could feel any profound grief at the loss that had just befallen her. Her husband, like any other man utterly wrapped up in self, had made her life a weariness and burden to her. The little love she might once have cherished for one who had taken her from poverty, and who was the father of her favourite son, had long ago been worn out. But she had not failed in the fulfilment of her duty towards him; partly, perhaps, because he had never released his claim upon it. She did not lift up her head when Justin kissed her; but she moaned a little, and rocked herself to and fro, as if bound to prove in this manner the depth of her affliction.

There was another occupant of the room, however, who hailed Justin's appearance with eagerness; an elderly man, shortsighted and slightly deaf, who had been sitting sideways by the table, and strumming upon it with his fingers, in a perplexed and uncomfortable silence. He sprang up the instant the door opened and shook hands hurriedly and warmly.

"I'm here, Justin," he said. "I came over this morning to see if I couldn't persuade the old man to do right at last. So he's gone, and I'm too late! I was at him only a week ago, when I saw him last. Make another | will, I said; and he swore he never would. Ah! well! we must all knock under sooner or later, as I've been telling your mother. What is it in the service? There's only a step between us and old Herford. Susan is more overcome than I expected; but time, Justin, time will work wonders."

"Time has not worked many wonders for me yet, uncle," answered Justin. "Come, mother, we must attend to business now my uncle is here. There are a good many matters to arrange.”

"I have no heart for business so soon," murmured the widow from behind her handkerchief.

"Come, come, Susan !" said her brother sharply, "I cannot leave my business every day, I can tell you, to dance upon you. But I know quite well the provisions of your husband's will, and the directions he has left

[ocr errors]

for his funeral; so we need not look to that. A handsome funeral it will be, I promise you, and will cost a mint of money. But there! he had a perfect right to do what he chose with his own."

"What is the date of the will?" inquired Justin, with a slight spasm of regret as he asked the needless question.

"We drew it up four years ago," answered his uncle, "and it was executed at once by the old squire. There! I'll say no more till after the funeral, unless you wish it opened and read at once."

"I do wish it," said Justin; "my mother and I know where it is to be found. Shall I fetch it here, or will you come with me to my father's room, and give a glance at it? It would be as well to see that he has made no change."

"Oh! bring it here," exclaimed his mother, in an impatient tone; "though I must say it seems an extraordinary thing to meddle with a man's will almost before the breath is out of his body. If my poor dear Richard was only here there would be no such haste; indecent haste it seems to me."

"If Richard was here he would be master," said Justin, speaking from a sore heart. He went away without another word to the chamber where the corpse was lying. There were the peculiar hush, the blank stillness, and emptiness about it which always attend the dreary presence of death. It was a very familiar room to him, for old Richard Herford had not kept his wife's boy at a distance from him; yet to-day it seemed strange in the white dulled light entering through the shrouded windows. Not even the ashes of the fire were left upon the hearth, where last night he had watched the will consumed before his eyes, which would have made him master in the place of his prodigal brother. The stiff and straightened form of the dead man lay slightly outlined under the sheet that covered it. Justin paused for a minute at the foot of the bed, looking down upon it, his brain busy with retracing the past. This lapsed existence, which had had no link of blood relationship with his own, had yet been bound up with it in the most intimate connection. This man, with his dominant, over-mastering will, had filled the position of a father to him, so far as authority constitutes a part of fatherhood. It was he who had placed him where he was, and chosen in a great degree his life for him; a bad choice, as Justin elt to the very core of his heart. There was not much grief in his absorbed contemplation of the lifeless form; this

death was a release, though it could not undo the mischief he had done. It could not give him back his youth, and a fresh entry upon manhood, with all its bright possibilities. "I forgive you!" he breathed softly; and a momentary moisture dimmed his eyes. With hushed and slow steps, as if fearful of disturbing the sleeper, he crossed the floor to the cabinet, and took from it the will he had deposited there the night before. The cover bore the date of it on the front. It was twenty-two years back, a few months after the birth of old Richard Herford's son and heir. Justin read it half-aloud. How well he could recall the earlier years of his little brother's life, whilst he was still a young child like his Pansy! There had been no jealousy and contempt between them then. He almost felt a return of the old affection, and the sense of protectorship towards Richard. But he did not linger longer in the room. He carried the packet downstairs, and placed it in his uncle's hands, who cut the ribbon that tied it, and broke the seal with a composure Justin could not share. He glanced at the date and signatures of the will.

"Ah! I see," he said, glancing up for a moment over his spectacles; "we drew it up, you know, from the old squire's instructions, and I was present when it was signed. Well, well! I wish I'd come yesterday. I did expostulate with him strongly at the time; but a wilful man must have his way. He turned a deaf ear to all I urged on him. would cut off Dick and make Justin heir."

He his

"Good heavens!" cried Justin. His brain whirled, and his senses seemed to be playing him false. He leaned over his uncle's shoulder and devoured the will with his eyes. The date was that of four years ago, the time when his father's anger raged most fiercely against Richard. Yielding to a sudden and almost unconscious impulse, Justin crushed up the cover which was lying on the table and thrust it in his pocket. He had not time to deliberate now; he must wait, and reflect, and decide. The lawyer, whose deaf ear was turned towards him, went on with his tranquil comments.

"Ah! no codicil," he said, "£300 a year to Susan, and right of residence in Herford Court for her life; with a few legacies of no consequence. The whole of the residue, estate and personalty, to my beloved step-son, Justin Webb, who shall take the name of Herford.' We valued it, two years ago, Justin, and reckoned it at

over £1,200 a year after Susan's £300 is deducted. And there are splendid openings for improvement, which old Herford talked of but never set about. There's Undercliff Cove would make a magnificent oyster-bed. By the way the squire has entailed the estate now; he will not let you be free to play such a high prank as he has. You and your heirs ; eldest son, or daughter if you have no son. He was fond of little Pansy. But poor Dick is merely mentioned in the will to be cut off from the inheritance."

"Oh! my poor Richard! my dear boy!" cried Mrs. Herford. "It's a wicked will, Thomas; it must be set aside. Oh! my darling! my poor boy! Perhaps he made another will and had it somewhere. Let us go and look this minute."

"Ah! ay! he made another will," said Mr. Watson drily; "we drew up a will for him when Richard was six months old, and I remonstrated strongly with him about that. We all but quarrelled and parted over it. It was a very unfair will in my opinion; almost as bad, if not quite as bad, as this. He left absolutely everything to his son, without reserve and without condition. There was no provision whatever for you, Susan ; you were left altogether dependent upon Dick. 'It will make her a good mother to him,' said the old Squire; 'she'll keep a civil tongue in her head if she's to look to him for her living.' You know what sort of a living you would get from Dick." "Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Herford. "That was a more wicked will than this one. Why Richard would soon make ducks and drakes of his money; and then where should I be! Justin will do what is right; everybody knows what Justin is. But my poor boy has always gone wrong, and no wonder, with such a wilful, headstrong man for his father."

Now she knew the contents of her husband's first will, which she had burned with her own hands the night before, she felt quite reconciled to this later one. There would have been no hope for her if Richard had succeeded as uncontrolled master; but Justin had always been good and steady and dutiful to her and her husband. Besides, she was independent of him and mistress of Herford Court. She turned to him and lifted up her face to kiss him.

"God bless you, Justin!" she said; "you'll make a better master than poor Richard. But I am sorry for him. Perhaps he'd have tried to be a good man if he'd had a chance; but he'll never have a chance

now." She sank down again in her chair and began weeping in more real earnest than before, partly with hysterical emotion, but partly with real genuine disappointment for her disinherited son. Justin had listened and looked on apart from them as if it was all a dream.

"Mother," he stammered, "the estate is not mine. I ought not to take it from Richard."

"But what will you do?" asked his uncle sharply. "Old Herford had a right to leave it as he chose, and he left it to you. His last will was wiser than the first. Of course Dick is his own son; but he knew, and everybody knew, the lad would squander it away. What would £1,500 a year be to a youngster who would like to spend £15,000? As it is, if he should turn up again, and that's doubtful, you could do something handsome for him; or if he continues a reprobate, you could but keep him out of the gutter at least. Your father knew very well what he was about, you may be sure. When I expostulated with him at leaving Dick without a penny, 'Justin's a good man,' he said, 'he'll never see him starve. I wish he would!' he said, for he was awfully bitter against Dick. Then there's your mother. She has her £300 a year to do what she likes with. It's a younger son's share, and as much as Dick deserves. Take your good luck, and thank Heaven for it. You'll make a better Herford than if you'd been born one."

"Of course he will," added his mother pettishly. "Oh! don't begin to harry us all with scruples and doubts. He always promised me my boy should be the same as his own, and he'd act by you as if you were, or else I never would have married him. You are the eldest son, and you're the heir." "Not old Richard Herford's heir," said Justin.

It seemed to her as if she had just had a narrow escape from some dire calamity. The sword that had been hanging over her head was taken away; but she could see both the sword and the frail thread by which it had been suspended. She shivered and quailed at the mere thought of it. But with Justin she was safe. At last she would be mistress of Herford Court; the position she had married for, but had not gained. After the long, wearisome season of bondage were coming those gay, good times she had promised herself when she became old Richard Herford's wife. She had chafed under a yoke more burdensome than Justin's. But at length the oppression had ceased, and the oppresser was gone. Already, though he had not been one day dead, she was experiencing the relief of freedom; and this was gathering strength now she knew she was provided for, and left dependent upon no one. She was thankful according to her nature; and when she left her brother Watson and Justin, she retired to her own room, and knelt down to return thanks for the provision made for her, before sending for her draper and dressmaker, and entering upon the elaborate task of putting on weeds for old Richard Herford.

CHAPTER VI.-RIGHT OR WRONG? JUSTIN gave what orders were absolutely necessary, and then left the Court, having agreed with his uncle that the will should not be discussed again till after the funeral. He had kept his own counsel in the first moments of amazement and perplexity, and now he desired solitude and silence to turn over the whole of the matter in his mind. He was like a man in a trance, unable to catch the end of any clear thread of thought, and unravel it from the vague confusion of his brain. After a while he found himself wandering aimlessly along the narrow, grass-grown path "Yes, you are," she persisted; "he's made which followed the crooked bends of the you heir, and nobody can alter that. Good cliffs. The thick rain that had been sweeping gracious! what would have become of me if across the country all day had spent itself at he had told me to burn this will and keep last, but the grey gloom of the sky and sea the other? with my own hands too! No continued. The unbroken curve of the seaprovision for me! To think that he'd left line was of a dark leaden hue, and the rippleme without a penny! I know I should have less water looked sulky and dull. The little been compelled to live with you in that poky birds, which were wont to sing at sunset, even little vicarage, with nothing to live upon! through the winter days, were silent; and not But now I'm safe, and you are safe; and if a note was to be heard this evening except Richard comes back we can do something the wailing cry of the seagull flying inland. for him. Thank God that first will was not The light was dying away behind its thick to be! I should never have slept in my bed grey veil of clouds, and the night was coming all these years if I'd had an idea what he on swiftly and steadily. But Justin had had done." neither eye nor ear for anything outside of

himself. His brain was too busy to take about him. That was the right light to see note either of the weather or the hour.

There could be no doubt whatever that the will which had been destroyed was the very one old Richard Herford had intended to preserve. That was as clear as day. The old man's faculties, his sight especially, had been failing him for some months past; and he must, at some time, after reading his two wills, have enclosed them in the wrong covers. He had been too precise and clear in speaking of the one he wished to leave behind him for any mistake to be possible. On his deathbed he had forgiven his prodigal son, and revoked the will he had made in an hour of bitter anger against him. He had passed away in the belief that his only child would succeed to the possessions of his forefathers. It was a mere accident that had caused the former will to be destroyed and the later one to be preserved.

it.

it in. Providence had allotted the inheritance to the one who could make the best use of He had not had a finger in it himself. He had even urged his father to forgive Richard. It was his mother, the mother of both of them, who had burned the will; so that even the mere mechanism of the error had not been his. He was perfectly free, in will and act, of any plot to seize his brother's birthright. It had come to him.

What ought he then to do? He had no idea of what the law of the land would demand of him; and he hardly wished to know it. There had been no third person present during his conversation with his step-father, and all must rest upon his word and testimony alone. If the law took his word, and gave up all to Richard, what would become of his poor mother? Her life had been a monotonous bondage for many years, and in But was it right to call it an accident? her old age she would be cast upon the Justin could not deny that it would be a mercy of a careless and profligate son for the grievous calamity to every other person in- very bread she ate. No. It would be madvolved in the matter, if not to Richard him-ness to throw away the responsibility laid self, for him to come into uncontrolled pos- | upon him for the welfare of others, and for the session of the estate. There was barely a maintaining the name and dignity of an old chance against his squandering it recklessly. family. If he stood alone in the matter it To squander it meant that it would soon would be quite another question. But was pass into the hands of strangers; while the it not his bounden duty to keep silence and very name of Herford of Herford would die enter into possession of the estate? away altogether from their ancient dwelling- He tore up into small pieces the cover, place. Old Richard Herford, with his strong which bore no other writing than the words, family pride, could never have meant that." Richard Herford's Will, Sept. 14, 1835," He had made his first will when his heir was an infant in the cradle. To revert to that would be as much opposed to his real mind as that his step-son should succeed to the lands and take the name. He was keensighted enough to know the folly of leaving his son absolute master of the place. He had had two wills at variance within himself; and it was only in the hour of mortal weakness that his passion for his son had triumphed over his conviction that his old house and name would be sacrificed to his prodigality.

Surely it was no accident, this slight mistake of a dim-eyed old man, which had been allowed by Providence. Justin did not use the name of God. Providence had permitted the half-childish father to enclose the papers in the wrong covers. Thus he had died more happily; like an over-indulged child who falls asleep with some dangerous tool in his hands, which is gently drawn away as the nerveless fingers lose their hold. There was no harm done. Power would be a dangerous weapon in Richard's hands; in his it would be an instrument of blessing to all

|

and he watched the fragments floating slowly away on the light breeze. Then he felt some regret at having destroyed it; but why? There was nothing in the words, written though they were in the bold, large-hand writing of his step-father. It was simply a slight corroboration of a fact he had decided to keep to himself.

Yes. He would keep it to himself. He would do his utmost to find Richard; and if he came home reformed, indisputably reformed, giving proof of a radical change, and likely to be what the master of Herford ought to be, why, then, it would be his duty to relinquish the inheritance to him. And Justin felt sure he could fulfil that duty. He had never failed yet at the call of principle and honour. Let his younger brother come home a penitent prodigal, and he should have his father's lands, none the poorer for Justin's stewardship. He lifted up his bowed head and strode along more freely as he registered this vow. This was the right thing to do. Light was breaking on his path and making it clear to him. He would keep the whole matter

« PreviousContinue »