Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

As the visitor took his way back to Buxton's Inn, he looked boldly round for Stephen Gimlet with a pleasant consciousness of coming vengeance; but the gamekeeper was not to be seen, and meditating the pleasant pastime laid out for the following day, Mr. Wittingham reached the inn, and ordered a very good dinner as a preparation. He felt a little feverish, it is true, but nevertheless he drank the bottle of stiff port which was placed on the table when dinner was served; and elated with wine, set out as soon as it was dark to take part once more in one of those schemes of evil which suited too well his rash and reckless disposition, little knowing that all the time he was the mere tool of another.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"Well doctor, well doctor, what is the matter?" asked Sir John Slingsby, at the door of his own house, towards two o'clock on that Saturday afternoon; "you look warm, doctor, and not half as dry as usual. I declare, you have made that fat pony of yours perspire like an alderman at the Easter ball. What has put you into the saddle? Has the chaise broken down?"

"No, Sir John," answered Doctor Miles; "but the horse was sooner saddled than harnessed, and I wanted to see you in haste--where are you going now? for you are about to mount, I perceive."

"I am going down to set the fools at Tarningham to rights," answered Sir John Slingsby. "I hear that that bilious old crow, Wittingham, and deaf old Mr. Stumpforth, of Stumpington, have been sitting for these two or three hours at the justice-room getting up all sorts of vexatious cases with Wharton, to torment the poor people of the parish, and to put them in a devout frame of mind for their Sunday's duties; so I am going down to put my finger in the pie and spoil the dish for them. Come along, doctor, and help, for you are a magistrate too, and a man who does not like to see his fellow-creatures maltreated. You can tell me what you want as we jog along."

"We shall be going exactly in the right direction," said Doctor Miles, "for my business with you referred to your magisterial capacity, Sir John."

The worthy, who had his foot in the stirrup, raised himself into the saddle with wonderful agility, considering his size and his age; and, accompanied by Doctor Miles, was soon on his way towards Tarningham, listening with all his ears to the communication which the rector had to make.

"You must know, my good friend," said the doctor, "that some short time ago your gamekeeper, Stephen Gimlet, found in the little vicarage church at Moreton some one busily engaged, as it appeared, in the laudable task of altering the registers in the vestry. He locked him safely in, but the culprit got out in the night; and Gimlet communicated the fact to me. I would have spoken to you about it, but circumstances occurred at that time which might have rendered it unpleasant for you to deal with that business."

"I understand," said Sir John Slingsby, nodding his head significantly, "who was the man?"

"Why, Gimlet asserts that it was no other than that worst of all bad fellows, Captain Moreton," replied Doctor Miles. "I examined the register, and found that an alteration had certainly been committed; for the date of one of the insertions was advanced several years before those that followed, by skilfully changing a nought into a six. Under the circumstances, I thought it best to consult with Wittingham, and I proposed that a warrant should be issued against Captain Moreton; but the worthy gentleman thought fit both to examine and cross-examine Gimlet in the first instance; asked him nine times over if he would swear that it was Captain Moreton; and, when he found that he had not seen the man's face, his back being turned to the door of the vestry when Gimlet went in, he pooh-poohed the whole matter, and refused to issue the warrant. I did not choose to do so myself, the event having occurred in a parish of my own, and with one of my registers, but this morning, on visiting old Grindley, the sexton, who is very ill, he made a full confession of his part in the affair: Moreton had bribed him, it seems, to open for him the family vault and the door of the vestry. In the one the worthy captain altered the date on his great grandfather's coffin from 1760 to 1766 by an instrument he seemed to have had made on purpose; and in the vestry performed the same operation with plain pen and ink."