“‘Can you read it so plain?’ says he. ‘Then I tell you I am in hell, and it were a merciful thing to slay me here and now’—and with that he rends his vest, and ‘shoot,’ says he, ‘and end it!’
“Now I got talking to my man, and, to make a short story of it, found him to be a noted heath-cock, one Cutwater”—(Aye, sir—there you have him!)—“as he was called, who had drawn a free living from the road, but was now smitten of a morbid disease of the kidneys and like to die. However, in a clean retirement had he lived for a year—or perhaps two or more—till his disorder came like to madden him; when, with the hope to borrow surcease of agony from the distraction of his ancient calling, he made post to Bagshot and rode out on the heath.
“Well, I took him back to my inn, and made him up a drug of my knowledge, and kept him by me for a day or two, thinking to mend the poor sinner before I set upon the Lord’s work with him. And he made a surprising recovery, and was ready to kiss my very feet out of his gratitude. But, so it happened, a summons coming to me from his Majesty’s Court at Windsor, I was to leave him perforce; and presently—my own complaint mending—forth I passed to the war again and from all thought of Master Cutwater.
“And now, as worthy Mr. Creel will attest—which has conducted the business, and is my friend and an attorney (and this our same fellow of the road had discovered, it seems)—not three weeks ago, I being again in London this summer of the year ’79, was waited upon by him, and to my astonishment handed over the title deeds of an estate which I had never so much as heard named, being ‘Delsrop’ House in the County of Hants.
“For thus it appeared my highwayman had died after all—yet not of his complaint but in some ruffian mêlée—having first, however, in gratitude at my service to him willed me this property, which I cannot but regard with perplexity as the wages of sin, inasmuch as it appeareth the reward designed, in totidem verbis, for prolonging of a rascal’s life.
“But so am I resolved that by no means and on no condition will I soil my hands with its possession; for whether come by honestly or in fraud, it is and must be a mansion of the wicked. I take no concern for it, nor have I troubled to visit it, nor yet considered by what manner of agreement I am to dispose of the incubus.
“Only this I set down here and now, in the presence of Mr. Creel, who will attest it, that, should occasion of dispute arise, it may be accepted a true and honourable statement of the matter, and that whether or no it passeth the understanding of the incredulous. And, moreover, I do solemnly asseverate that, whether the man Cutwater held the estate in fee-simple, justly and of his own right, or whether he held it the fruits of his ill-doing, or again whether, indeed, it represent the entire or but a portion of his property, I know not nor seek to know. For he was a rogue undoubted, of whose politic methods no Christian gentleman could deign to consider on equal terms.”
“Now,” said the lawyer, when he had come to an end of the narrative, “you are in possession of the facts as related and witnessed. For you must know the testator discovered your father’s friendship to me, and visited me here and begged me to act for him in the matter. And this, under the circumstances, I agreed to do, having regard to my reputation in the respect that the transaction should be——”
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Tuke a little irritably. His face had fallen grave and full of trouble. “I understand—I understand completely. And is that all?”
“No, sir—it is not all.” (He was secretly attentive of his client.) “There is a later document, from which it appears that Sir Robert abated, for any reasons of his own, the rigour of his resolve respecting this strange inheritance. For, by deed executed” (he had taken up and was referring to, and partly reading from, another paper) “the eleventh of October, 1779, he makes over the estate of ‘Delsrop’ to one Barnabas Creel—in trust, that is, and under certain conditions—said Barnabas Creel to have and enjoy said property without dispute, and until his benefactor’s son shall attain his majority (the which event is to happen, if he live, in the year 1790), and thereafter for all time, provided Sir Robert the junior comes not to bankruptcy of his affairs and threatened indigence. But in the latter event, if it happen any time between said son’s majority and his fortieth year—by which period of his life a man should be established whether for good or evil—the estate is to devolve upon said son, that he may take his profit of a cut-purse’s legacy (which is yet good enough for a gambler or rakehell) to reform his ways and live cleanly thenceforth; but on the sole condition that he foreswear his title—the which hath ever stood foremost in honour—and take the name of Tuke. For this name was borne by an honest woman, that shall shame her son to do it no discredit under his new conditions of fortune.”