CHAPTER IX.
In the house of Lord Ashborough--which is situated in Grosvenor-square, fronting the south--there is a large room, which in form would be a parallelogram, did not one of the shorter sides--which, being turned to the north, looks out upon the little rood of garden attached to the dwelling--bow out into the form of a bay window. The room is lofty, and, as near as possible, twenty-eight feet in length by twenty-four in breadth. Book-cases, well stored with tomes in lettered calf, cover the walls, and a carpet, in which the foot sinks, is spread over the floor. Three large tables occupy different parts of the room. Two covered with books and prints lie open to the world in general, but the third, on which stand inkstands and implements for writing, shows underneath, in the carved lines of the highly-polished British oak, many a locked drawer. Each chair, so fashioned that uneasy must be the back that would not there find rest, rolls smoothly on noiseless casters, and the thick walls, the double doors, and book-cases, all combine to prevent any sound from within being caught by the most prying ear without, or any noise from without being heard by those within, except when some devil of a cart runs away in Duke-street, and goes clattering up that accursed back street behind.
Such were the internal arrangements and appearance of the library at Lord Ashborough's, on a morning in September of the same year, one thousand eight hundred and something, of which we have been hitherto speaking. The morning was fine and clear; and the sun, who takes the liberty of looking into every place without asking permission of any one, was shining strongly into the little rood of garden behind the house. The languishing plants and shrubs that had been stuffed into that small space, dusty and dry with the progress of a hot summer, and speckled all over with small grains of soot--the morning benediction showered down upon them from the neighboring chimneys--no doubt wished that the sun would let them alone; and, as through an open passage-door they caught a sight of the conservatory filled with rich exotics, all watered and aired with scrupulous care, one of the poor brown lilacs might be heard grumbling to a stunted gray laburnum about the shameful partiality of the English for foreigners and strangers.
About eleven o'clock Lord Ashborough himself entered the room; and before any one else comes in to disturb us, we may as well sit down and take a full-length picture of him. He was a man of about fifty-nine or sixty, tall and well-proportioned, though somewhat thin. His face was fine, but pale, and there was a great deal of intellect expressed on his broad brow and forehead, which looked higher than it really was, from being perfectly bald as far down as the sutures of the temples. From that point, some thin dark hair, grizzled with gray, spread down, and met his whiskers, which were of the same hue, and cut square off, about the middle of his cheeks. His eyes were dark blue and fine, but somewhat stern, if not fierce, and in the space between his eyebrows there was a deep wrinkle, in which a finger might have been laid without filling up the cavity; the eyebrows themselves, though not very long, were overhanging; the nose was well formed and straight, though a little too long perhaps; but his mouth was beautifully shaped, and would have appeared the best feature in his face, had he not frequently twisted it in a very unbecoming manner, by gnawing his nether lip. His chin was round, and rather prominent; and his hand small, delicate, and almost feminine.
It is all nonsense that a man's dress signifies nothing. It is--if he takes any pains about it; and if he takes none, it comes to the same thing--it is the habitual expression of his mind or his mood; and in the little shades of difference which may exist with the moat perfect adherence to fashion, you will find a language much easier read than any of those on the Rosetta stone. Lord Ashborough was dressed more like a young than an old man, though without any extravagance. His coat was of dark green, covering a double-breasted waistcoat of some harmonizing color, while his long, thin, rather tight-fitting trowsers, displayed a well-formed leg, and were met by a neat, and highly-polished boot. Around his neck he wore a black handkerchief, exposing the smallest possible particle of white collar between his cheek and the silk; and on one of his fingers was a single seal ring. Taking him altogether he was a very good-looking man, rather like the late Mr. Canning, but with a much less noble expression of countenance.
Walking forward to the table, which we have noted as being well supplied with locks, Lord Ashborough opened one of the drawers, and, having rang the bell, sat down and took out some papers. The door opened; a servant appeared;--"Send to Mr. Tims!" said Lord Ashborough, and the man glided out. After a short pause, another person appeared, but of very different form and appearance from the servant; and therefore we must look at him more closely. He was a short, stout, bustling-looking little man, of about thirty-eight or forty, perhaps more, habited in black, rather white at the seams and edges. His countenance was originally full and broad; but the habit of thrusting his nose through small and intricate affairs had sharpened that feature considerably; and the small black eyes that backed it, together with several red blotches, one of which had settled itself for life upon the tip of the eminence, did not diminish the prying and intrusive expression of his countenance. There was impudence, too, and cunning written in very legible characters upon his face; but we must leave the rest to show itself as we go on.
As Mr. Peter Tims, of Clement's Inn, attorney-at-law--for such was the respectable individual of whom we now treat--entered the library of Lord Ashborough, he turned round and carefully closed the double-door, and then, with noiseless step, proceeded through the room till he brought himself in face of his patron. He then made a low bow--it would have been _Cow Tow_ if it had been desired--and then advanced another step, and made another bow.
"Sit down, sit down, Mr. Tims!" said Lord Ashborough, without raising his eyes, which were running over a paper he had taken from the drawer. "Sit down, sit down, I say!"
Mr. Tims did sit down, and then, drawing forth some papers from a blue bag, which he held in his hand, he began quietly to put them in order, while Lord Ashborough read on.
After a minute or two, however, his lordship ceased, saying, "Now, Mr. Tims, have you brought the annuity deed?"
"Here it is, any lord," replied the lawyer "and I have examined it again most carefully. There is not a chink for a fly to break through. There is not a word about redemption from beginning to end. The money must be paid for the term of your lordship's natural life."
Lord Ashborough paused, and gnawed his lip for a moment or two. "Do you know, Mr. Tims," he said at length, "I have some idea of permitting the redemption? I am afraid we have made a mistake in refusing it."
Mr. Tims was never astonished at any thing that a great man--_i.e_. a rich man--did or said, unless he perceived that it was intended to astonish him, and then he was very much astonished indeed, as in duty bound. It was wonderful, too, with what facility he could agree in every thing a rich man said, and exclaim, "Very like an ousel!" as dexterously as Polonius, or a sick-nurse, though he had been declaring the same question "very like a whale!" the moment before. Nor was he ever at a loss for reasons in support of the new opinion implanted by his patrons. In short, he seemed to have in his head, all ticketed and ready for use, a store of arguments, moral, legal, and philosophical, in favor of every thing that could be done, said, or thought, by the wealthy or the powerful. In the present instance, he saw that Lord Ashborough put the matter as one not quite decided in his own mind; but he saw also, that his mind had such a leaning to the new view of the matter, as would make him very much obliged to any one who would push it over to that side altogether.
"I think your lordship is quite right," replied Mr. Tims. "You had every right to refuse to redeem if you thought fit; but, at the same time, you can always permit the redemption if you like; and it might indeed look more generous--though, as I said before, you had every right to refuse. Yet perhaps, after all, my lord--"
"Tush! Do not after all me, sir," cried Lord Ashborough, with some degree of impatience, which led Mr. Tims to suspect that there was some latent motive for this change of opinion, which his lordship felt a difficulty in explaining: and which he, Mr. Tims, resolved at a proper time to extract by the most delicate process he could devise. "The means, sir," added Lord Ashborough; "the means are the things to be attended to, not the pitiful balancing of one perhaps against another."
"Oh! my lord, the means are very easy," replied Tims, rubbing his hands. "You have nothing to do but to send word down that your lordship is ready to accept, and any one will advance the means to Sir ----"
"Pshaw!" again interrupted Lord Ashborough. "You do not understand me, and go blundering on;" and, rising from his chair, the peer walked two or three times up and down the room, gnawing his lip, and bending his eyes upon the ground. "There!" he cried at length, speaking with abrupt rudeness. "There! The matter requires consideration--take up your papers, sir, and begone! I will send for you when I want you."
Mr. Tims ventured not a word, for he saw that his patron had made himself angry with the attempt to arrange something in his own mind which would not be arranged; and taking up his papers, one by one, as slowly as he decently could, he deposited them in their blue bag, and then stole quietly toward the door. Lord Ashborough was still walking up and down, and he suffered him to pass the inner door without taking any notice; but, as he was pushing open the red baize door beyond, the nobleman's voice was heard exclaiming, "Stay, stay! Mr. Tims, come here!" The lawyer glided quietly back into the room, where Lord Ashborough was still standing in the middle of the floor, gazing on the beautiful and instructive spots on the Turkey carpet.. His reverie, however, was over in a moment, and he again pointed to the chair which the lawyer had before occupied, bidding him sit down, while he himself took possession of the seat on the other side of the table; and, leaning his elbow on the oak, and his cheek upon his hand, he went on in the attitude and manner of one who is beginning a long conversation. The commencement, however, was precisely similar to the former one, which had proved so short. "Do you know, Mr. Tims," he said, "I have some idea of permitting the redemption? I am afraid we have made a mistake in refusing it;" but then he added, a moment after--"for the particular purpose I propose."
Mr. Tims was as silent as a mouse, for he saw that he was near dangerous ground; and, at that moment, six-and-eightpence would hardly have induced him to say a word--at least if it went farther than, "Exactly so, my lord!"
The matter was still a difficult one for Lord Ashborough to get over; for it is wonderful how easily men can persuade themselves that the evil they wish to commit is right; and yet how troublesome they find even the attempt to persuade another that it is so, although they know him to be as unscrupulous a personage as ever lived or died unhung. Now Lord Ashborough himself had no very high idea of the rigid morality of his friend Mr. Tims's principles, and well knew that his interest would induce him to do any thing on earth; and yet, strange to say, that though Lord Ashborough only desired to indulge a gentlemanlike passion, which, under very slight modifications, or rather disguises, is considered honorable and is patronized by all sorts of people, yet he did not at all like to display, even to the eyes of Mr. Tims, the real motive that was now influencing him. As it was necessary, however, to do so to some one, and he knew that he could not do so to any one whose virtue was less ferocious than that of Mr. Tims, he drew his clenched fist, on which his cheek was resting, half over his mouth, and went on.
"The fact is, you must know, Mr. Tims," he said, "this Sir Sidney Delaware is my first cousin--but you knew that before. Well, we were never very great friends, though he and my brother were; and at college it used to be his pleasure to thwart many of my views and purposes. There is not, perhaps, a prouder man living than he is, and that intolerable pride, added to his insolent sarcasms, kept us greatly asunder in our youth, and therefore you see he has really no claim upon my friendship or affection in this business."
"None in the world! None in the world!" cried Tims. "Indeed, all I wonder at is, that your lordship does not use the power you have to annoy him!"
Mr. Tims harped aright, and it is inexpressible what a relief Lord Ashborough felt--one of the proudest men in Europe, by the way--at finding that the little, contemptible despised lawyer, whom he looked upon, on ordinary occasions, as the the dust under his feet, had, in the present instance, got the right end of a clew which he was ashamed or afraid to unwind himself. Besides, the way he put it gave Lord Ashborough an opportunity of _chucking_ fine and generous, as the Westminster fellows have it; and he immediately replied--"No, sir, no! I never had any wish to annoy him. My only wish has been to lower that pride, which is ruinous to himself, and insulting to others; and I should not have even pursued that wish so far, had it not been that a circumstance happened which called us into immediate collision."
On finding that simple personal hatred and revenge--feelings that might have been stated in three words--were the real and sole motives which Lord Ashborough found it so difficult to enunciate, Mr. Tims chuckled--but mark me, I beg--it was not an open and barefaced cachination--it was, on the contrary, one of those sweet internal chuckles that gently shake the diaphragm and the parietes of the abdomen, and cause even a gentle percussion of the ensiform cartilage, without one muscle of the face vibrating in sympathy, or the slightest spasm taking place in the trachea or epiglottis. There is the anatomy of a suppressed chuckle for you! The discovery, however, was of more service than in the simple production of such agreeable phenomena. Mr. Tims, perceiving the motive of his patron, perceived also the precise road on which he was to lead, and instantly replied, "Whatever circumstance called your lordship into competition with Sir Sidney Delaware, must of course have been very advantageous to yourself, if you chose to put forth your full powers. But that, let me be permitted to say, is what I should suspect, from all that I have the honor of knowing of your lordship's character, you would not do. For I am convinced you have already shown more lenity than was very consistent with your own interest, and perhaps more than was even beneficial to the object; but I humbly crave your lordship's pardon for presuming to--"
Lord Ashborough waved his hand. "Not at all, Mr. Tims! Not at all!" he said. "Your intentions, I know, are good. But hear me. We came in collision concerning the lady whom he afterward married, and made a well bred beggar of. He had known her, and, it seems, obtained promises from her before I became acquainted: and though a transitory fancy for her took place in my own bosom"--and Lord Ashborough turned deadly pale--"yet of course, when I heard of my cousin's arrangements with her, I withdrew my claims, without, as you say, exerting power that I may flatter myself--"
He left the sentence unfinished, but he bowed his head proudly, which finished it sufficiently; and Mr. Tims immediately chimed in, "Oh, there can be no doubt--if your lordship had chosen--who the deuce is Sir Sidney Delaware, compared--" &c., &c., &c., &c.
"Well, I forgot the matter entirely," continued Lord Ashborough, in a frank and easy tone, for it is wonderful how the lawyer's little insignificances helped him on. "Well, I forgot the matter entirely."
"But you never married any one else," thought the lawyer, "and you remember it now." All this was thought in the lowest possible tone, so that Satan himself could hardly hear it--but Lord Ashborough went on. "I never, indeed, remembered the business more, till, on lending the money to his father, I found from a letter which the late man let me see, that the present man had not forgiven me some little progress I had made in the lady's affection. He said--I recollect the words very well--he said, that he could have borne his father borrowing the money at any rate of interest from any person but myself, who had endeavored to supplant him--and all the rest that you can imagine. Well, from that moment I determined to bow that man's pride, for his own sake, as well as other people's. I thought I had done so pretty well too; but, on my refusing to suffer the redemption--which no one can doubt that I had a right to do--he wrote me that letter; and his lordship threw across the table, to his solicitor, the letter which he had taken out of the drawer, just as the other entered. It was in the form of a note, and couched in the following terms:--
"Sir Sidney Delaware acknowledges the receipt of Lord Ashborough's letter, formally declining to accept the offer he made to redeem the annuity chargeable upon the estate of Emberton. The motives, excuses, or apologies--whichever Lord Ashborough chooses to designate the sentences that conclude his letter--were totally unnecessary, as Sir Sidney Delaware was too well acquainted with Lord Ashborough, in days of old, not to appreciate fully the principles on which he acts at present.
"Emberton Park, 1st September, 18--."
"Infamous! brutal! heinous!" cried Mr. Tims. "What does your lordship intend to do? I hope you will, without scruple, punish this man as he deserves. I trust that, for his own sake, you will make him feel that such ungrateful and malignant letters as that, are not to be written with impunity--ungrateful I may well call them! for what cause could your lordship have to write to him at all except to soften the disappointment you conceived he would feel?"
"You say very true, Mr. Tims," replied Lord Ashborough, with a benign smile. "You say very true, indeed; and I do think myself, in justice to society, bound to correct such insolence, though, perhaps, I may not be inclined to carry the chastisement quite so far as yourself."
"Nothing could be too severe for such a man!" cried Mr. Tims, resolved to give his lordship space enough to manœuvre in. "Nothing could be too severe!"
"Nay, nay, that is saying too much," said Lord Ashborough. "We will neither hang him, Mr. Tims, nor burn him in the hand, if you please," and he smiled again at his own moderation.
"A small touch of imprisonment, however, would do him a world of good," said Mr. Tims, feeling his ground--Lord Ashborough smiled benignly a third time. "But the mischief is," continued the lawyer, "he pays the annuity so regularly that it would be difficult to catch him."
"That is the reason why I say we have done wrong in refusing to allow the redemption," rejoined the peer. "Do you not think, Mr. Tims, some accident might occur to stop the money which he was about to borrow for the purpose of redeeming and if we could but get him to give bills payable at a certain day, we might have him arrested, in default?"
The lawyer shook his head. "I am afraid, my lord, if you had permitted the redemption, the money would have been ready to the minute," he said. "My uncle, I hear, was to have raised it for him; and, as he was to have had a good commission, it would have been prepared to the tick of the clock."
"And was your uncle to have lent the money himself, sir?" demanded Lord Ashborough, with a mysterious smile of scorn. "Did your uncle propose to give the money out of his own strongbox?"
"No, my lord, no!" replied Tims, eagerly; "no, no! He would not do that without much higher interest than he was likely to have got. Had he been the person, of course your lordship might have commanded him; but it was to be raised from some gentleman connected with Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson--a very respectable law house, indeed!"
"Some gentleman connected with Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson!" repeated Lord Ashborough, curling his haughty lip; "and who do you suppose that gentleman is, but my own nephew, Harry Beauchamp?"
The lawyer started off his chair with unaffected astonishment, the expression of which was, however, instantly mastered, and down he sat again, pondering, as fast as he could, the probable results that were to be obtained from this very unexpected discovery. Some results he certainly saw Lord Ashborough was prepared to deduce; and he knew that his only plan was to wait the development thereof, assisting as much as in him lay, the parturition of his patron's designs. But Lord Ashborough having spoken thus far, found very little difficulty in proceeding.
"The simple fact is this, Mr. Tims," he said; "Harry Beauchamp, full of all the wild enthusiasm--which would have ruined his father, if we had not got him that governorship in which he died--to my certain knowledge has gone down to Emberton, with the full determination of assisting these people, of whom his father was so fond. I have reason to think even, that the coming up of that young man, the son, was at Henry's instigation, although they affected not to know each other, and I am told carried their dissimulation so far as to pass each other in the hall as strangers. At all events, they went down together in a stage-coach, and are now, beyond all doubt, laying out their plans for frustrating all my purposes."
"Shameful, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Tims.
"On Harry's part," replied Lord Ashborough, affecting a tone of candor and moderation; "on Harry's part it is but a piece of boyish enthusiasm--a touch of his father's folly. I love the boy, who, as you know, will succeed me--when it pleases Heaven," he added, piously,--"to remove me from this life. I love the boy, and I do not choose to see him spend his splendid fortune, which will make a noble addition to the family estates, upon a set of mean and designing beggars; and I wish at once to punish them for their low and cunning schemes, and to save my nephew from their snares. Can we not, Mr. Tims, do you think, hit upon some plan by which this may be effected?"
"Why, my lord," replied Mr. Tims, hesitating slightly, for he was totally unprepared either for the intelligence he had received, or the demand that followed it; "why, my lord, your lordship's views are as kind and generous as usual; and doubtless--doubtless we may soon devise some means by which your lordship's nephew may be extricated from this little entanglement--but it will, of course, require thought--though perhaps your lordship's clear and perspicuous mind may have already devised some project. Indeed, I can not doubt it," he added, seeing a slight but well satisfied smile cross the features of the noble earl. "Your lordship has so much of what Burke used to call creative talent, that I doubt not you have already discovered the fitting means, and only require an agent in your most devoted servant."
"Something more, Mr. Tims, something more than a mere servant," replied Lord Ashborough. "I require your legal advice. We must proceed cautiously, and not suffer either zealous indignation, or regard for my nephew, to lead us into any thing that is not quite lawful. A slight scheme of the matter may, indeed, have suggested itself to my mind, but I want you to consider it well, and legalize it for me, as well as some of the details. Could we not, I say--could we not--it is but a supposition, you know, sir--could we not give notice to this Sir Sidney Delaware, that we are willing to permit the redemption; and even to give him time to pay the money, canceling, in the mean time, the annuity deed--"
"Not before you have got the amount!" exclaimed the lawyer, in unutterable astonishment.
"Yes, sir, before I have got the amount," replied Lord Ashborough, phlegmatically, "but not before I have got bills or notes of hand, payable within a certain time, and with an expressed stipulation, that unless those are duly paid, the annuity itself holds in full force."
"Ay; but if they be paid, my lord," cried Mr. Tims, "the annuity is at an end; and then where is your lordship?"
"But can not we find means to stop their being paid, Mr. Tims?" said Lord Ashborough, fixing his eyes steadily upon the lawyer. "In all the intricate chambers of your brain, I say, is there no effectual way you can discover to stop the supplies upon which this Delaware may have been led to reckon, and render him unable to pay the sum on the day his bills fall due? Remember, sir, your uncle is the agent, as I am led to believe, between this person and my nephew. Harry Beauchamp, forsooth, has too fine notions of delicacy to offer the money in his own person; but he is the man from whom the money is to come, and it has been for some weeks lodged in the hands of Steelyard and Wilkinson, his solicitors, awaiting the result--that is to say, the whole of it except ten thousand pounds in my hands, which I have promised to sell out for him to-morrow, and pay into their office. Are there no means, sir, for stopping the money?"
"Plenty, plenty, my lord!" replied the lawyer. "The only difficulty will be the choice of them. But, first, can not your lordship refuse to pay the ten thousand?"
"That will not do," answered the peer. "I know Harry well; and his first act would be to sell out the necessary sum to supply the deficiency. You must devise something else."
"Let us make the bills payable at Emberton, my lord," said the attorney; "at the house of my uncle. Mr. Beauchamp must then either come to town for the money, or send some one to receive it; and in either case it may be staid."
"How so?" demanded Lord Ashborough. "If he come, the matter is hopeless. He has sold out of the army, too; so there is no chance of his being called away there."
"Ay, but there is a little process at law going on against him, my lord," replied the attorney, "of which he knows nothing as yet. Some time ago, he threw the valet he had then down stairs, head foremost, for seducing the daughter of his landlady. The fellow has since prosecuted him for assault, and served the process upon me, whom he employed in the affair. I am not supposed to know where he is, so that the matter may be easily suffered to go by default; and, one way or another, we can contrive to get him arrested for a day or two, no doubt--especially as it is all for his own good and salvation, I may call it."
"Certainly, certainly!" answered Lord Ashborough. "I should feel no scruple in doing so; for no one could doubt that I am actuated alone by the desire of keeping him from injuring himself. But suppose he sends, Mr. Tims?"
"Why, that were a great deal better still," said the lawyer. "The only person he could send would be his servant, Harding, who owes me the place; and who, between you and I, my lord, might find it difficult to keep me from transporting him to Botany Bay, if I chose it. He would doubtless be easily prevailed upon to stop the money for a time, or altogether, if it could be shown him that he could get clear off, and the matter would be settled forever."
There was a tone of familiarity growing upon the lawyer, as a natural consequence of the edifying communion which he was holding with his patron, that rather displeased and alarmed Lord Ashborough, and he answered quickly, "You forget yourself, sir! Do you suppose that I would instigate my nephew's servant to rob his master?"
Mr. Peter Tims had perhaps forgot himself for the moment; but he was one of those men that never forget themselves long; and, as crouching was as natural to him as to a spaniel, he was instantly again as full of humility and submission as he had been, previously to the exposé which had morally sunk Lord Ashborough to a level with Mr. Tims. "No, my lord, no!" he exclaimed eagerly; "far be it from me to dream for one moment that your lordship would form such an idea. All I meant was, that this servant might easily be induced to delay the delivery of the money, on one pretext or another, till it be too late; and if he abscond--which perchance he might do, for his notions concerning property, either real or personal, are not very clearly defined--your lordship could easily intend to make it good to Mr. Beauchamp."
"I do not know what you propose that I should easily _intend_, Mr. Tims," replied Lord Ashborough; "but I know that it would not sound particularly well if this man were to abscond with the money, and there were found upon his person any authorization from me to delay discharging his trust to his master."
"Oh, my lord, that difficulty would be easily removed," answered Mr. Tims. "The law is very careful not to impute evil motives where good ones can be made apparent. It will be easy to write a letter to this man--what one may call a fishing letter--to see whether he will do what we wish, but stating precisely that your lordship's sole purpose and view is to save your nephew from squandering his fortune in a weak and unprofitable manner. We can keep a copy, properly authenticated; then, should he abscond, and be caught with the letter on him, your lordship will be cleared; while if, on being taken, he attempt to justify himself at your lordship's expense, the authenticated copy will clear you still."
"That is not a bad plan," said Lord Ashborough, musing. "But what if he draw for the money through your uncle, Mr. Tims? Do you think the old man could be induced to detain the money, or to deny its arrival for a day or two?"
"Why, I fear not, my lord," answered the other, shaking his head; "I fear not--he was five-and-thirty years a lawyer, my lord, and he is devilish cautious. But I will tell you what I can do. I can direct him to address all his letters, on London business, under cover to your lordship, which will save postage--a great thing in his opinion--and, as he holds a small share of my business still, I can open all the answers. So that we will manage it some way."
Lord Ashborough paused and mused for several minutes, for though his mind was comparatively at ease in having found his lawyer so eager and zealous in his co-operation, yet a certain consciousness of the many little lets and hindrances that occur in the execution of the best laid schemes, made him still thoughtful and apprehensive. Did you ever knit a stocking? No! nor I either--nor Lord Ashborough, I dare say, either. Yet we all know, that in the thousand and one stitches of which it is composed, if a single one be missed, down goes the whole concatenation of loops, and the matter is just where it began, only with a raveled thread about your fingers and thumbs, which is neither pleasant nor tidy. This consideration had some weight with the earl; so, after thinking deeply for several minutes, he rejoined--"The matter seems clear enough, Mr. Tims, but I will put it to yourself whether you can carry it through successfully or not--Hear me to an end, sir--I will on no account agree to the redemption of the annuity, if you are not certain of being able to bring about that which we propose. So, do not undertake it unless you can do so. If you do undertake it, the odds stand thus--You have five hundred pounds in addition to your fees if you be successful; but if you fail, you lose my agency forever."
"My lord," replied Tims, who was not a man to suppose that cunning could ever fail, "I will undertake the business and the risk. But, of course, your lordship must give me all your excellent advice and your powerful assistance. In the first place, you must allow me to bid my uncle send all his letters, and direct all the answers to be sent under cover to your lordship, and, in the next place, you must allow me to write immediately to Harding in your name."
"Not without letting me see the letter!" exclaimed Lord Ashborough. "But that, of course; and, if you succeed, the five hundred pounds are yours."
"Your lordship is ever generous and kind," replied Peter Tims; "and I will undertake to carry the matter through; but only"--and Mr. Tims was honest for once in his life, from the fear of after consequences--"but only I am afraid your lordship will not find the result put this Sir Sidney Delaware so completely is your power as you think."
"How so?" demanded Lord Ashborough, turning upon him almost fiercely. "How so, sir? How so?"
"Why, my lord," replied Mr. Tims, in a low and humble tone, "even suppose he is arrested, depend upon it, he will very easily find some one to lend him the money on the Emberton estates, to take up the bills he has given."
The earl's eye flashed, and the dark and bitter spirit in his heart broke forth for the first time unrestrained. "Let me but have him in prison!" he exclaimed; "let me but have him once in prison, and I will so complicate my claims upon his pitiful inheritance, and so wring his proud heart with degradations, that the beggar who robbed me of my bride shall die as he has lived, in poverty and disappointment!" and in the vehemence with which the long-suppressed passion burst forth, he struck his hand upon the table, till the ink-glasses danced in their stand.
Mr. Tims could understand envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness; but he was cowed by such vehemence as that into which the bare thought of seeing his detested rival in prison had betrayed his noble patron. Feeling, too, that he himself was not at all the sort of spirit to rule the whirlwind and direct the storm, he said a few quiet words about preparing every thing, and waiting on his lordship the next morning, and slunk away without more ado.