CATHEDRAL NUMBER THREE.
THE core of the inquiry which Mr. William Wallace had a heart, lay imbedded in the depositories of unimpeachable Ecclesiastical Registry number three. To the city of that See he therefore repaired, warmed by that flaming zeal which only burns in the breast of an earnest antiquary, and which no amount of disappointment can quench. Though sanguine, even for an antiquity-hunter, the hopes which rebounded from his previous failures, sunk within him, when he remembered that whereas he was in former instances fortified with letters of recommendation—almost of command—from the Bishops of each Diocese; on this occasion, he had to fight single-handed, (like another St. George,) the dragons that “guarded” the treasures he sought. He had no better introduction to the third Deputy-Registrar than an honest purpose; and, his former experience taught him that that was about as unpromising an usher into such a Presence as could be imagined. Mr. Wallace therefore commenced this new attack with no strong presentiment of success.
Strengthened with an ally, in the person of a friendly attorney, Mr. William Wallace marched boldly to the great functionary’s house, a splendid edifice in the Cathedral Close, with thirty-three windows in front, extensive grounds behind, detached stables and a tasteful boat-house at the edge of what is here called the “Minster Pool.”
Into this great house of a great man, Mr. William Wallace was ushered by his friend. Nothing could exceed the obsequiousness of the man of law, and great was the civility of the man of wills. The interview was going on pleasantly and the antiquary was beginning to believe that at last he had found a pattern Deputy-Registrar, when the lawyer happened to mention that Mr. William Wallace was a literary man. Mr. Wallace felt that this would be fatal—and it was so. He knew the condign contempt Ecclesiastical Registrars entertained for the literary world, from the little circumstance of hearing only the week before in another Registry, the most eminent historian of the present day, and our best archaic topographer, designated as “contemptible penny-a-liners.” Mr. Wallace was therefore not at all astonished when the Deputy-Registrar folded up his smiling countenance into a frown. He evidently knew what was coming. Literary men never pay, and Mr. William Wallace wanted to consult “his” registers gratis.
When this shrewd surmise was, by a word from the attorney, realized, the Registrar struggled hard to smoothe his face again to a condition of bland composure; but in vain. The wound which had pierced through his pocket, rankled within. The depravity of literary people in endeavoring to dig and delve for historical information without paying for the privilege of benefitting the public by their researches, was too abominable! The Registrar was so good as to say that he would grant Mr. Wallace the privilege of consulting any wills he pleased—on the usual terms: namely, two shillings and sixpence for every document.
With this condescending permission (which placed Mr. Wallace on exactly the same footing as the great body of the public which had not done itself the honor of visiting the Deputy-Registrar) he repaired to the Searching Office. The point he had set himself to ascertain at this Cathedral Registry number three, hinged upon an authentic attestation of the decease of the father of a distinguished general under Charles the First. The name was a very common one in the diocese, and of course continually occurred in the index. Will after will was produced by the clerks; half-crown after half-crown fell glibly out of Mr. Wallace’s pocket. Still no success. This proved an expensive day. Mr. Wallace had had to pay, in the course of it, twenty-five pounds; although he was not allowed, as at the other places, to make a single extract.
The income of the office even of Deputy Registrar sometimes admits of the maintenance of from six to a dozen race-horses, but the expense of compiling paper calendars could never be tolerated. To make indexes of wills that have never been catalogued would be quite out of the question; for the Registrar charges his clients for the time of his clerks in making searches, and it was owned to Mr. Wallace that it would take a year (at from one to two guineas per day) to find any will dated before the year 1526.
The searching office of this Registry was, like the others, inconvenient, small, and often crowded. The policy of the clerks was, therefore, to despatch the inquirers as fast as possible, so as to ensure a rapid change of visitors and a streaming influx of half-crowns. On the second day of Mr. Wallace’s search the trouble he had given on the previous day for his money was intelligibly hinted to him. He was broadly told that he was “very much in the way;” for room was so much required that some applicants were plainly told that they must “come again to-morrow.” To others who had not their inquiries ready cut and dried, in a business form, and who threatened long explanations respecting testators, a deaf ear was turned, or a pretended search was made, and they were told “there was no such will in the place.” A pleasant case occurred on the second morning. An illiterate laborer tried to make the officials understand that an uncle of his wife had, he had heard, left him a legacy, and “he wanted to know the rights o’ it.” He gave the name and the exact date of the death, and a clerk retired under pretence of searching for the document. In a very short time he returned with—
“No such will in the place—half-a-crown, please.”
“Half-a-croone?” said the countryman, “Wat vor?”
“Half-a-crown!” repeated the clerk.
“Wat, vor telling me nought?”
“Half-a-crown!” was again let off with a loud explosion, over the stiff embrasure of white cravat.
“But darn me if oi pay’t,” persisted the expectant legatee.
“Half-a-crown!”
The countryman went on raising a storm in the office, in midst of which the “Half-a-crown!” minute guns were discharged with severe regularity. At length, however, the agriculturist was obliged to succumb, and after a mighty effort to disinter the coin from under a smock-frock, and out of the depths of a huge pocket and a leather purse, the poor man was obliged to produce and pay over what was probably a fifth of his week’s earnings.
This circumstance having attracted Mr. Wallace’s attention and pity, he took a note of the name of the testator; and, after the inquirer had left, found it in the Calendar, and by-and-by, by dint of a little manœuvring, got a sight of the will. In it he actually found that the poor man had been left a small legacy.
Meanwhile Mr. William Wallace had been actively employed in calling for wills and paying out half-crowns. It was quite evident from the calendars that no greater care was taken of paper and parchment here than in the other Registries. Several wills entered in it, as having been once in the depository—wherever that was—had against them the words “wanting” and “lost.” That ancient records should in the course of centuries fall aside, cannot be wondered at, even in a Registry, which produces at present to its officers from seven to ten thousand per annum; but what excuse can there be for the loss of comparatively modern ones? Certain wills were not to be found of the years 1746; 1750; 1753; and 1757.
Mr. Wallace soon found that in a place where dropping half-crowns into the till and doing as little as possible in return for them, is considered the only legitimate business, he was looked upon even at twenty-five pounds per day as a sort of bad bargain, who required a great deal too much for his money. They could not coin fast enough by Mr. William Wallace, and the Deputy-Registrar indulged the office with his august presence to inform him, that as he gave so much trouble for the searches he was making, he must pay, besides two-and-six-pence for every future search, two guineas per diem for the use of the office!
It happened that the Bishop of Cathedral number three was then in the city, officiating at an ordination, and to him Mr. William Wallace determined to apply for relief from this extortion. He enclosed to his Lordship his letters from other prelates and stated his case. The answer he received was the Bishop’s unqualified authority to search wherever and for whatever he wanted in the Registers of his Lordship’s diocese.
Although this letter was addressed by the Bishop to the servant or deputy of his servant, the Registrar, yet Mr. Wallace’s dear-bought sagacity had taught him to place very little faith in a Bishop’s power over his inferiors. As it turned out, he found himself one of those who are blessed, because, expecting nothing, they are not disappointed. The Deputy-Registrar received his superior’s mandate with supercilious sang-froid. The old story—“The Bishop had no jurisdiction whatever over him,” but this once, &c. &c.
Mr. William Wallace had met in Cathedrals numbers one and two, repulses and rudeness. But each Cerberus who pretended to guard the documentary treasures of those dioceses, honestly showed his teeth. They had not been guilty of deceit. Deputy-Registrar number three was wiser in his generation. He gave a cold assent to the Bishop’s mandate in Mr. Wallace’s behalf; but with it such wily instructions to his clerks, as rendered it as nugatory as if he had put it in his waste basket or had lighted his cigar. During the two days that half-crowns rained in silver showers from the Antiquary’s purse, nearly every Will he asked for was produced; but now, on the third day, when the Bishop’s letter had closed his purse-strings, Mr. Wallace demanded document after document, and was told by the “Conservators” of this important kind of public property, that they had “been lost,” “could not be found,” “mislaid.” But the most frequent return was, “destroyed at the siege of the City, in the year 1643”—stolen away with the Tomb of Marmion when
“Fanatic Brooke
The fair Cathedral storm’d and took.”
The result of the three days’ investigations stood thus: “During the two paying days, out of a hundred Wills asked for, eighty were produced. Throughout the non-paying day, out of ninety Wills asked for, only one was produced!”
When half-crowns were rife, not one word was said about “the siege of the City, in the year 1643,” although nearly all the Wills Mr. Wallace was obliged with a sight of, were dated anterior to that destructive event.
For some explanation Mr. Wallace repaired to the Deputy-Registrar’s abode. It was too late. The clever sub. knew what was coming—and retreated from the field. The servant’s answer to Mr. Wallace was,
“Out of town, sir!”
But Mr. William Wallace was foiled even more completely in another point: he had a great desire to see where and how the Wills were kept. He knew their condition in 1832, from what Ulster King-at-Arms said before the Ecclesiastical Commission, “I consider the records very dirty; they have not, apparently, been dusted for many years.” The remarkable result of Mr. Wallace’s urgent inquiries was that not a soul he asked could, or would, tell in what place the ecclesiastical records of Cathedral number three were deposited.
Mr. Wallace gave up this investigation in despair and left the city. The locus of the documents was to him a mystery and a wonder!
The habits of the antiquary do not, however, dispose him to indulge in listless despair. To find out the secret masses of the records of Cathedral number three was a task Mr. William Wallace had so earnestly set himself, that next to his domestic relations and his literary labors, it grew into one of the duties of his existence; therefore, on his way to Cathedral number four, he paid another visit to the city of Cathedral number three, fortified with letters to some of its clergy. To be sure they could clear up the mystery.
His first application was to one of the Canons. Did he know where the ecclesiastical records were kept? Well, it was odd, but it never entered his head to inquire. He really did not know. Perhaps some of the Chapter officials could tell.
To one of these, hies Mr. Wallace. Even that functionary—whose courteousness, together with that of his colleague, was pleasant to the applicant by the force of mere contrast—was equally unable to reveal the secret. “But surely,” he added, “such a place cannot, when one sets about it, be so impenetrable a mystery. I have an idea that the Miller could enlighten you.”
“The Miller?”
“Yes. He knows everything about the town. Try him.”
Mr. Wallace had business at the searching office, and having transacted it, determined to make another effort in this legitimate quarter. The following short dialogue occurred between him and the clerk:—“Pray,” said Mr. Wallace, “where are the Wills kept?”
“That’s not your business!” was the answer. Mr. Wallace returned to the charge but the clerk became deaf, and went on with some writing, precisely as if Mr. William Wallace were invisible and inaudible.
The Miller was the only resource. He was from home, and his wife gave the same answer as everybody else had done. “But,” she said, pointing to an individual who was sauntering into the Close, “there’s one as can tell ’ee. He’s a rachetty man—he is.” Without waiting to inquire the meaning of this strange expression, off starts the record-hunter upon the new secret. He runs down his game in no time. It consists of a burly biped, bearing a cage of fine ferrets. Round his person is displayed the broad insignia of office,—he is a rat-catcher.
Here Mr. William Wallace’s perseverance triumphs. The Rat-catcher knows all about it. “Why you see, Sir,” he said, “I contracts for the Registrar.”
“What for?”
“What for? Why, I catches the rats for him at so much a-year.”
“And where do you catch them?”
“Where do I catch them? Why, where the old wills is.”
“And where is that?”
“Where is that? Why, there.”
The Rat-catcher points to a sort of barn that rises from the edge of the Minster Pool. It has no windows on the ground-floor. On the first-floor are six—two in the front of the building and four at the end,—twenty-seven windows less than are displayed in the front of the Registrar’s beautifully glazed house; but much of the little glass afforded to the registry is broken. To mend it upon seven thousand a-year would never do, especially when old parchment is lying about in heaps. Why pay glaziers’ charges when ancient wills and other ecclesiastical records keep out wind and weather as well as glass?—for light is a thing rather to be shunned than admitted into such places. Accordingly, as the Rat-catcher points to the shed, Mr. Wallace observes numberless ends of record rolls and bundles of engrossed testaments poked into the broken windows: in some places variegated with old rags.
Judging from the exterior, and from the contract for rat-catching, the interior of this depository of the titles of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property, must be an archæological Golgotha, a dark mouldy sepulchre of parchment and dust.
Lawyers say that there is not an estate in this country with an impregnable title; in other words, it is on the cards in the game of ecclesiastical and common law, for any family to be deprived of their possessions in consequence of being unable to establish a perfect title to them. How can it be otherwise when the very deeds by which they have and hold what they enjoy, are left to be eaten by rats, or to be stuffed into broken windows?