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The present rector is an elderly widower with seven children; an easy good-natured soul, who is more prone to bestow his money in charity than to punctuality in the payment of his debts. Having discovered thus much, I rang the bell at the iron gate and boarded the Haygarthian mansion. The rector was at home, and received me in a very untidy apartment, par excellence a study.
It is not a speculative affair, I suppose? There is money to meet the current expenses of the business?" "Yes, there is money. Within reasonable limits my friend is prepared to pay for the advancement of his claims." After this the Haygarthian business progressed, slowly, quietly. The work was up to this point underground work.
The one bright dream of my misused life faded from me in the hour in which I discovered my dearest girl's claim to the Haygarthian inheritance. But I am not going to throw up the sponge before the fight is over. Time enough to die when I am lying face downward in the ensanguined mire, and feel the hosts of the foemen trampling above my shattered carcass.
Beyond this sense of uncertainty, which had made the Haygarthian fortune seem at best such "stuff as dreams are made of," there had been ever present in his mind of late the dismal association connected with this money.
The Haygarthian household is now the rectory. I ascertained this fact from the landlord of the Seven Stars, at which house of entertainment I took a bottle of soda-water, in order to sonder le terrain before commencing business.
Thus the Captain alternated from sentimental penitence to captious worldliness, during may days and weeks. The business of the Haygarthian inheritance was progressing slowly, but surely. Documents were being prepared, attested copies of certificates of marriages, births, baptisms, and burials were being procured, and all was tending towards the grand result.
But if we fail in that direction, we must of course fall back upon the Judsons, who are a disgustingly complicated set of people, and will take half a lifetime to disentangle, to say nothing of other men who may be working the same business, and who are pretty sure to have pinned their faith on the female branch of the Haygarthian tree.
The vanquished is fain to accept whatever the victor is pleased to give, though discontent and impotent rage may be gnawing his entrails. George Sheldon had been a loser in that game in which the Haygarthian inheritance was the stake. He had held good cards, and had played them with considerable cleverness; but no play could prevail against his antagonist's ace of trumps.
But might not his attention have been attracted by that advertisement for heirs-at-law to the Haygarthian estate which appeared in the Times? These are questions with which the legal intellect of my Sheldon may best grapple. For myself, I can only drift with the resistless stream called life. I was so unfortunate as to make my appearance in our common sitting-room five minutes after my patron.
And again I asked myself, Could it be possible that this sweet girl, whose changeful face had saddened with those old memories, whose innocent heart knew not one sordid desire could it be indeed she whose fair hand was to wrest the Haygarthian gold from the grip of Crown lawyers? The sight of that old Bible seemed to have revived Mr. Mercer's memory of his first wife with unwonted freshness.
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