“Nothing of the kind,” interposed another; “the really heavy policies on his life were held by an old Cumberland baronet, Sir Elkanah Crofton, who first established Whalley in the iron trade. I 've heard it from my father fifty times, when a child, that Sam Whalley entered Milford in a fustian jacket, with all his traps in a handkerchief.”
At the mention of Sir Elkanah Crofton, my attention was quickly excited; this was the uncle of my friends at the Rosary, and I was at once curious to hear more of him.
“Fustian jacket or not, he had a good head on his shoulders,” remarked one.
“And luck, sir; luck, which is better than any head,” sighed the meek man, sorrowfully.
“I deny that, deny it totally,” broke in he of the asthma. “If Sam Whalley hadn't been a man of first-rate order, he never could have made that concern what it was,—the first foundry in Wales.”
“And what is it now, and where is he?” asked the attorney, triumphantly.
“At rest, I hope,” murmured the sad man.
“Not a bit of it, sir,” said the wheezing voice, in a tone of confidence; “take my word for it, he 's alive and hearty, somewhere or other, ay, and we 'll hear of him one of these days: he 'll be smelting metals in Africa, or cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Heaven knows what, or prime minister of one of those rajahs in India. He's a clever dog, and he knows it too. I saw what he thought of himself the day old Sir Elkanah came down to Fairbridge.”
“To be sure, you were there that morning,” said the attorney; “tell us about that meeting.”
“It's soon told,” resumed the other. “When Sir Elkanah Crofton arrived at the house, we were all in the garden. Sir Samuel had taken me there to see some tulips, which he said were the finest in Europe, except some at the Hague. Maybe it was that the old baronet was vexed at seeing nobody come to meet him, or that something else had crossed him, but as he entered the garden I saw he was sorely out of temper.