"Now, let me ask you again," continued Mr. Garway. "Have you any means of proving your descent from Hugh Mytton of Oaklands?"
"I remember my grandfather telling me all about him forty years ago, as well as if it were yesterday," stammered forth Mytton.
"Ah—you remember, but that's not quite enough. Can you tell me the names of your grandfather's parents, when they lived, and at what church they were married?"
Silas rubbed his brow, passed his fingers through his hair—looked first to the right, and then to the left—but could make no reply to the question. It was very clear that his memory could not go beyond his grandfather, and the tales which the old man had told. He was unable to declare, with certainty, even where his own parents had been married. Mytton could give no distinct evidence on any point, except as to his having heard in his childhood of the great property in Shropshire, owned by one of his ancestors, who used to go up to London once a year in a coach drawn by six fine grey horses.
"But have you no documents, no certificates, no family papers of any kind?" asked Mr. Sharp, upon whose steel pen the ink had dried, while his companion was vainly trying to draw information from Mytton.
Mytton caught at the lawyer's suggestion, as a drowning man might at a rope.
"There was a box holding papers somewhere," cried he.
"Yes, in our room," said Joe.
"Fetch it—bring it at once!" cried both the lawyers and Mytton, speaking together.
"Can't, it's a hen-coop now," muttered the boy, shrinking back, alarmed at the fierce expression on the face of his father.