“Mother, did you observe what a handsome gentleman that was?”
“No,” replied the landlady; “I only observed that he brought no servant”
“I wonder,” said the daughter, “if he is in the army? he has a military air!”
“I suppose he has dined,” muttered the landlady to herself, looking towards the larder.
“Have you seen Squire Mordaunt within a short period of time?” asked, somewhat abruptly, a little thick-set man, who was enjoying his pipe and negus in a sociable way at the window-seat. The characteristics of this personage were, a spruce wig, a bottle nose, an elevated eyebrow, a snuff-coloured skin and coat, and an air of that consequential self-respect which distinguishes the philosopher who agrees with the French sage, and sees “no reason in the world why a man should not esteem himself.”
“No, indeed, Mr. Bossolton,” returned the landlady; “but I suppose that, as he is now in the Parliament House, he will live less retired. It is a pity that the inside of that noble old Hall of his should not be more seen; and after all the old gentleman’s improvements too! They say that the estate now, since the mortgages were paid off, is above 10,000 pounds a year, clear!”
“And if I am not induced into an error,” rejoined Mr. Bossolton, refilling his pipe, “old Vavasour left a great sum of ready money besides, which must have been an aid, and an assistance, and an advantage, mark me, Mistress Merrylack, to the owner of Mordaunt Hall, that has escaped the calculation of your faculty,—and the—and the—faculty of your calculation!”
“You mistake, Mr. Boss,” as, in the friendliness of diminutives, Mrs. Merrylack sometimes styled the grandiloquent practitioner, “you mistake: the old gentleman left all his ready money in two bequests,—the one to the College of ——, in the University of Cambridge, and the other to an hospital in London. I remember the very words of the will; they ran thus, Mr. Boss. ‘And whereas my beloved son, had he lived, would have been a member of the College of —— in the University of Cambridge, which he would have adorned by his genius, learning, youthful virtue, and the various qualities which did equal honour to his head and heart, and would have rendered him alike distinguished as the scholar and the Christian, I do devise and bequeath the sum of thirty-seven thousand pounds sterling, now in the English Funds,’ etc; and then follows the manner in which he will have his charity vested and bestowed, and all about the prize which shall be forever designated and termed ‘The Vavasour Prize,’ and what shall be the words of the Latin speech which shall be spoken when the said prize be delivered, and a great deal more to that effect: so, then, he passes to the other legacy, of exactly the same sum, to the hospital, usually called and styled ——, in the city of London, and says, ‘And whereas we are assured by the Holy Scriptures, which, in these days of blasphemy and sedition, it becomes every true Briton and member of the Established Church to support, that “charity doth cover a multitude of sins,” so I do give and devise,’ etc., ‘to be forever termed in the deeds,’ etc., ‘of the said hospital, “The Vavasour Charity;” and always provided that on the anniversary of the day of my death a sermon shall be preached in the chapel attached to the said hospital by a clergyman of the Established Church, on any text appropriate to the day and deed so commemorated.’ But the conclusion is most beautiful, Mr. Bossolton: ‘And now having discharged my duties, to the best of my humble ability, to my God, my king, and my country, and dying in the full belief of the Protestant Church, as by law established, I do set my hand and seal,’ etc.”
“A very pleasing and charitable and devout and virtuous testament or will, Mistress Merrylack,” said Mr. Bossolton; “and in a time when anarchy with gigantic strides does devastate and devour and harm the good old customs of our ancestors and forefathers, and tramples with its poisonous breath the Magna Charta and the glorious revolution, it is beautiful, ay, and sweet, mark you, Mrs. Merrylack, to behold a gentleman of the aristocratic classes or grades supporting the institutions of his country with such remarkable energy of sentiments and with—and with, Mistress Merrylack, with sentiments of such remarkable energy.”
“Pray,” said the daughter, adjusting her ringlets by a little glass which hung over the tap, “how long has Mr. Mordaunt’s lady been dead?”