Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I

by Various

EXPECTING HEIRS.

The doctor and Susan reckoned rather too confidently on the inheritance of the aunt; for, even supposing that the dear old lady had been so near to her beatification as her loving friends imagined, still it was matter of speculation whether her dear niece would or would not be her heir. The sighing pair of wedded lovers stood indeed most in need of the inheritance: but it so happened that there was another niece, married to one Lawyer Tweezer; not to speak of two nephews, the Reverend Primarius Bugle, and a certain doctor of philosophy of the same name. Their claims were all as strong as those of Susan and her husband, and all looked forward with equal longing to the ascension of the blessed virgin.

Bugle, the philosopher, had perhaps least cause of all. He was rich enough; and, while enjoying the delicacies of his table, and smacking his lips after his Burgundy, his philosophy was perfectly edifying to his guests. We have a proof of his acuteness in a work of his, in five volumes, now forgotten, but once immortal, entitled "The Wise Man surrounded by the Evils of Life;" in which he proved that there was no such thing as suffering in the world; that pain of every kind was the mere creature of imagination; and that all a man had to do, was to contemplate every object on the agreeable side.

Accordingly, he always contemplated his aunt on the agreeable, namely, on her money side. He visited her assiduously, often invited her to dinner, sent her all sorts of tit-bits from his kitchen, and was accordingly honoured with the appellation of her "own darling nephew."

He would have succeeded well enough with his philosophy, had not his cousin, the Reverend Primarius Bugle, by means of his theology, exercised great influence over the aunt. She was very pious and devout, contemned the vanities of the world, visited the congregations of the godly, in which the spiritual bugle at times was heard to utter a loud strain, and was mightily comforted by the visits of her reverend nephew, who joined her frequently in her devotions, and gave her pretty clearly to understand, that, without his assistance, she would find it difficult to prepare her soul for its future blissful abode. When, sighing and with weeping eyes, she would come from the edifying discourses of her godly nephew, she would call him the saviour of her soul, her greatest of benefactors, and promise to think of him in her last hour. This was music to the ears of the theologian. "I can scarcely fail to be the sole legatee," he would think to himself; "or, as our pious aunt is wont to say, it would be a blue wonder indeed."

Nor would his calculation have been a bad one, but for his cousin Lawyer Tweezer; whose legal ability made him a man of great importance to the aunt. The chaste Sarah did indeed despise the Mammon of unrighteousness, and sincerely pitied the grovelling children of the world; but on that very account she did her best to detach them from their Mammon, or at least their Mammon from them, which is all the same. She lent money on high interest and good security, and worked so diligently for the salvation of those who borrowed from her, that they were always sure to became poorer and poorer under her ministration. "Blessed are the poor!" she would exclaim when they were paying her interest on interest; "if I could have my way, I would have the whole town poor, that they might all inherit the kingdom of heaven. The less people have in this world, the more they will long for the world to come."

It would sometimes happen, however, that the pious maid was carried too far by her virtuous zeal for the future welfare of her neighbours; so that, what with her securities, and her compound interest, and the wickedness of her debtors, she would occasionally find herself involved in disputes and litigation. Without the aid of Lawyer Tweezer, who was universally looked on as the most cunning pettifogger in the whole town, she would frequently have seen interest and principal slipping through her fingers. But, between her piety, and his cunning and obduracy, a poor debtor was fain to bundle with bag and baggage out of his house, rather than a single guilder she had lent out, should miss its way back to her strong-box.

"I should be a poor, forsaken, lost woman, my dearest nephew," she would often say to Tweezer, "if you were not there, to take my part. I may thank you for nearly all I have; but the time may come when I shall be able to repay you." This was music to the ears of the jurist. He hoped one day to find himself sole heir, and fancied he should be able to touch the right note when it came to the drawing out of the will.