Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

"And what will Sir John do?" said the magistrate, "and poor Miss Slingsby?"

"I am afraid we must touch Sir John's person," replied the lawyer, with a sneer; "and as to poor Miss Slingsby, I see nothing for it, but that she should go out as a governess. But do not let us talk nonsense, Wittingham. You are a man of sense and of business. I have given you a caution, and you will act upon it. That is all I have to do with the matter."

To Mr. Wharton's surprise, however, he did not find Mr. Wittingham so ready to act in the way he hinted as had been anticipated. The old gentleman hesitated, and doubted, and seemed so uneasy that the solicitor began to fear he had mistaken his character totally, to apprehend that, after all, he might be a kind-hearted, benevolent old gentleman. The reader, however, who has duly remarked the conversation between the magistrate on his sick-bed, and worthy Dr. Miles, may, perhaps, perceive other causes for Mr. Wittingham's hesitation. He had found that Sir John Slingsby possessed a secret which might hang his son. Now, although I do not mean at all to say that Mr. Wittingham wished his son to die, in any way, or that he would not have been somewhat sorry for his death, by any means, yet he would have much preferred that the means were not those of strangulation. To have his son hanged, would be to have his own consideration hanged. In short, he did not at all wish to be the father of a man who had been hanged; and consequently he was somewhat afraid of driving Sir John Slingsby into a corner. But each man, as Pope well knew, has some ruling passion, which is strong even in death. Sir John Slingsby owed Mr. Wittingham five thousand pounds; and Mr. Wittingham could not forget that fact. As he thought of it, it increased, swelled out, grew heavy, like a nightmare. To lose five thousand pounds at one blow! What was any other consideration to that? What was the whole Newgate-calendar, arranged as a genealogical tree and appended to his name either as ancestry or posterity? Nothing, nothing! Dust in the balance! A feather in an air-pump! Mr. Wittingham grew exceedingly civil to his kind friend, Mr. Wharton; he compassionated poor Sir John Slingsby very much; he was sorry for Miss Slingsby; but he did not in the least see why, when other people were about to help themselves, he should not have his just right. He chatted over the matter with Mr. Wharton, and obtained an opinion from him, without a fee, as to the best mode of proceeding--and Mr. Wharton's opinions on such points were very sound; but in this case particularly careful. Then Mr. Wittingham went home, sent for his worthy solicitor, Mr. Bacon, whom he had employed for many years, as cheaper and safer than Mr. Wharton, and gave him instructions, which set the poor little attorney's hair on end.

Mr. Bacon knew Mr. Wittingham, however; he had been accustomed to manage him at petty sessions; and he was well aware that it was necessary to set Mr. Wittingham in opposition to Mr. Wittingham, before he could hope that any one's opinion would be listened to. When those two respectable persons had a dispute together, there was some chance of a third being attended to who stepped in as an umpire.

But, in the present case, Mr. Bacon was mistaken. He did not say one word of the pity, and the shame, and the disgrace of taking Sir John Slingsby quite by surprise; but he started various legal difficulties, and, indeed, some formidable obstacles to the very summary proceedings which Mr. Wittingham contemplated. But that gentleman was as a gun loaded with excellent powder and well-crammed down shot, by Mr. Wharton; and the priming was dry and fresh. Mr. Bacon's difficulties were swept away in a moment; his obstacles leaped over; and the solicitor was astonished at the amount of technical knowledge which his client had obtained in a few hours.

There was nothing to be done but obey. Mr. Wittingham was too good a card to throw out: Sir John Slingsby was evidently ruined beyond redemption; and with a sorrowful heart--for Mr. Bacon was, at bottom, a kind and well-disposed man--he took his way to his office with his eyes roaming from one side of the street to the other, as if he were looking for some means of escaping from a disagreeable task. As they thus roamed, they fell upon Billy Lamb, the little deformed pot-boy. The lawyer eyed him for a minute or so as he walked along, compared him in imagination with one of his own clerks, a tall, handsome-looking fellow, with a simpering face; thought that Billy would do best, though he was much more like a wet capon, than a human being, and beckoning the boy into his office, retired with him into an inner room, where Mr. Bacon proceeded so cautiously and diffidently, that, had not Billy Lamb's wits been as sharp as his face, he would have been puzzled to know what the solicitor wanted him to do.

CHAPTER XXVII

It was a dark, cold, cheerless night, though the season was summer, and the preceding week had been very warm--one of those nights when a cold cutting north-east wind has suddenly broken through the sweet dream of bright days, and checked the blood in the trees and plants, withering them with the presage of winter. From noon till eventide that wind had blown; and although it had died away towards night, it had left the sky dark and the air chilly. Not a star was to be seen in the expanse above; and, though the moon was up, yet the light she gave only served to show that heavy clouds were floating over the heavens, the rounded edges of the vapours becoming every now and then of a dim white, without the face of the bright orb ever being visible for a moment. A dull, damp moist hung about the ground, and there was a faint smell, not altogether unpleasant, but sickly and oppressive, rose up, resembling that which is given forth by some kinds of water-plants, and burdened the cold air.

In the little churchyard, at the back of Stephen Gimlet's cottage, there was a light burning, though ten o'clock had struck some quarter of an hour before; and an elderly man, dressed, notwithstanding the chilliness of the night, merely in a waistcoat with striped sleeves, might have been seen by that light, which was nested in a horse-lantern, and perched upon a fresh-turned heap of earth. His head and shoulders were above the ground, and part of his rounded back, with ever and anon the rise and fall of a heavy pickaxe, appeared amongst the nettles and long hemlocks which overrun the churchyard. His legs and feet were buried in a pit which he was digging, and busily the sexton laboured away to hollow out the grave, muttering to himself from time to time, and sometimes even singing at his gloomy work. He was an old man, but he had no one to help him, and in truth he needed it not, for he was hale and hearty, and he put such a good will to his task, that it went on rapidly. The digging of a grave was to him a sort of festival. He held brotherhood with the worm, and gladly prepared the board for his kindred's banquet.

The grave-digger had gone on for some time when, about the hour I have mentioned, some one paused at the side of the low mossy wall, about a hundred yards from the cottage of the new gamekeeper, and looked over towards the lantern. Whoever the visitor was, he seemed either to hesitate or to consider, for he remained with his arms leaning on the coping for full five minutes before he opened the little wooden-gate close by, and walking in, went up to the side of the grave. The sexton heard him well enough, but I never saw a sexton who was not a humorist, and he took not the least notice, working away as before.