"Certainly not," said the magistrate; "I shall not disturb the course of justice; there is not even an exparte case against this gentleman at present. Such an application must be supported by a witness, and a disinterested one." So all the parties retired crest-fallen except Mr. Middleton; as for him, he was imitating a small but ingenious specimen of nature—the cuttle-fish. This little creature, when pursued by its enemies, discharges an inky fluid which obscures the water all around, and then it starts off and escapes.
One dark night, at two o'clock in the morning, there came to the door of the Dun Cow an invalid carriage, or rather omnibus, with a spring-bed and every convenience. The wheels were covered thick with India-rubber; relays had been provided, and Monckton and his party rolled along day and night to Liverpool. The detectives followed, six hours later, and traced them to Liverpool very cleverly, and, with the assistance of the police, raked the town for them, and got all the great steamers watched, especially those that were bound westward, ho! But their bird was at sea, in a Liverpool merchant's own steamboat, hired for a two months' trip. The pursuers found this out too, but a fortnight too late.
"It's no go, Bill," said one to the other. "There's a lawyer and a pot of money against us. Let it sleep awhile."
The steamboat coasted England in beautiful weather; the sick man began to revive, and to eat a little, and to talk a little, and to suffer a good deal at times. Before they had been long at sea Mr. Middleton had a confidential conversation with Mrs. Monckton. He told her he had been very secret with her for her good. "I saw," said he, "this Monckton had no deep regard for you, and was capable of turning you adrift in prosperity; and I knew that if I told you everything you would let it out to him, and tempt him to play the villain. But the time is come that I must speak, in justice to you both. That estate he left your son half in joke is virtually his. Fourteen years ago, when he last looked into the matter, there were eleven lives between it and him; but, strange to say, whilst he was at Portland the young lives went one after the other, and there were really only five left when he made that will. Now comes the extraordinary part: a fortnight ago three of those lives perished in a single steamboat accident on the Clyde; that left a woman of eighty-two and a man of ninety between your husband and the estate. The lady was related to the persons who were drowned, and she has since died; she had been long ailing, and it is believed that the shock was too much for her. The survivor is the actual proprietor, Old Carruthers; but I am the London agent to his solicitor, and he was reported to me to be in extremis the very day before I left London to join you. We shall run into a port near the place, and you will not land; but I shall, and obtain precise information. In the meantime, mind, your husband's name is Carruthers. Any communication from me will be to Mrs. Carruthers, and you will tell that man as much, or as little, as you think proper; if you make any disclosure, give yourself all the credit you can; say you shall take him to his own house under a new name, and shield him against all pursuers. As for me, I tell you plainly, my great hope is that he will not live long enough to turn you adrift and disinherit your boy."
To cut short for the present this extraordinary part of our story, Lewis Carruthers, alias Leonard Monckton, entered a fine house and took possession of eleven thousand acres of hilly pasture, and the undivided moiety of a lake brimful of fish. He accounted for his change of name by the favors Carruthers, deceased, had shown him. Therein he did his best to lie, but his present vein of luck turned it into the truth. Old Carruthers had become so peevish that all his relations disliked him, and he disliked them. So he left his personal estate to his heir-at-law simply because he had never seen him. The personality was very large. The house was full of pictures, and China, and cabinets, etc. There was a large balance at the banker's, a heavy fall of timber not paid for, rents due, and as many as two thousand four hundred sheep upon that hill, which the old fellow had kept in his own hands. So, when the new proprietor took possession as Carruthers, nobody was surprised, though many were furious. Lucy installed him in a grand suite of apartments as an invalid, and let nobody come near him. Waddy was dismissed with a munificent present, and could be trusted to hold his tongue. By the advice of Middleton, not a single servant was dismissed, and so no enemies were made. The family lawyer and steward were also retained, and, in short, all conversation was avoided. In a month or two the new proprietor began to improve in health, and drive about his own grounds, or be rowed on his lake, lying on soft beds.
But in the fifth month of his residence local pains seized him, and he began to waste. For some time the precise nature of the disorder was obscure; but at last a rising surgeon declared it to be an abscess in the intestines (caused, no doubt, by external violence).
By degrees the patient became unable to take solid food, and the drain upon his system was too great for a mere mucilaginous diet to sustain him. Wasted to the bone, and yellow as a guinea, he presented a pitiable spectacle, and would gladly have exchanged his fine house and pictures, his heathery hills dotted with sheep, and his glassy lake full of spotted trout, for a ragged Irishman's bowl of potatoes and his mug of buttermilk—and his stomach.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CURTAIN.
Striking incidents will draw the writer; but we know that our readers would rather hear about the characters they can respect. It seems, however, to be a rule in life, and in fiction, that interest flags when trouble ceases. Now the troubles of our good people were pretty well over, and we will put it to the reader whether they had not enough.