Mr. Tims apologized and declared his ignorance, and vowed he would not have done such a thing for the world, et cœtera; but Lord Ashborough soon stopped him, and demanded, with some impatience, what had given rise to the apprehension he had expressed. The lawyer, then, with circumlocution, if not with delicacy, proceeded to state the rumours that he had heard at Emberton, which had been confirmed to him by Mrs. Wilson, namely, that Mr. Beauchamp's hat had been washed on shore on the sea-side not far from that place. He had found it his duty, he said, to make enquiries, especially as the good landlady had declared that the young gentleman had appeared very melancholy and "out of sorts" on the day he left her. No other part of Mr. Beauchamp's apparel had been found except a glove, which was picked up on the road leading from Emberton to a little fishing village not far off.
"There is one sad fact, my lord, however," continued the lawyer "which gives me great apprehension. I, myself, in the course of my enquiries, discovered Mr. Beauchamp's beautiful hunter, Martindale, in the hands of a poor pot-house keeper, in a village about three miles, or not so much, from Emberton. This man and his servants were the last people who saw your nephew. He came there, it appears, late one evening on horseback, asked if they had a good dry stable, put up his horse, saw it properly attended to, and then walked out, looking very grave and disconsolate, the man said. I found that this person knew the horse's name; and, when I asked him how he had learned it, for he did not know Mr. Beauchamp at all, he said, that the gentleman, just before he went, had patted the horse's neck, and said, 'my poor Martindale! I must take care of you, however!'"
Lord Ashborough listened with a quivering lip and haggard eye as Mr. Tims proceeded with his tale. "Have you been at his house?" he demanded, as the other concluded.
"I went there the first thing this morning, my lord," replied Mr. Tims; "but I am very sorry to say, none of his servants know any thing whatever in regard to him. They all say they have been expecting him in town every day for the last week."
Lord Ashborough again rang the bell. "Order horses to the carriage immediately!" he said, when his servant appeared; "and go on to Marlborough Street with my compliments to Sir George F----, and a request that he would send me an experienced officer, who can go down with me into the country directly. Mr. Tims, I must enquire into this business myself. I leave you here behind to take every measure that is necessary; but, above all things, remember that you have ten thousand pounds to pay into the hands of poor Beauchamp's agents. Do not fail to do it in the course of to-day; and explain to them that the business of the bill was entirely owing to forgetfulness. Let all the expenses be paid, and clear away that business at once. I am almost sorry that it was ever done."
"And about Sir Sidney Delaware, my lord?" said Mr. Tims. "What"----
"Proceed against him instantly!" interrupted the peer, setting his teeth firm. "Proceed against him instantly, by every means and all means! The same with his son! Leave not a stone unturned to bring him to justice, or punish him for contumacy. If it had not been for those two villains, and their damned intrigues, this would not have happened to poor Henry!"
Thus do men deceive themselves; and thus those things that, would they listen to conscience instead of desire, might become warnings and reproofs, they turn to apologies for committing fresh wrongs, and fuel to feed the fire of their passions into a blaze. The observation may be commonplace, but it is true; and let the man who does not do so, call it trite, if he will--no one else has a right.
It was evident that the earl was in no placable mood; and Mr. Tims, though he had much yet to speak of, and many a plan to propose, in order to overcome those legal difficulties to the design he had suggested, which were now springing up rapidly to his mind, yet thought it expedient to put off the discussion of the whole till his noble patron was in a more fitting humour, not a little apprehensive that, if he touched upon the matter at present, the earl's anger might turn upon himself, for discovering obstacles in a path which he had formerly represented as smooth and easy. He therefore contented himself with asking a few more directions; and, leaving Lord Ashborough, proceeded straight to Doctors' Commons to make the necessary arrangements concerning his uncle's property. That done, he visited the stamp-office; his business there being of no small consequence to himself. It was neither more nor less than to cause a paper to be stamped, which he had found amongst other documents belonging to his uncle, which acknowledged the receipt of the sum of ten thousand pounds from Mr. Tims of Ryebury, and was signed by Henry Beauchamp.
Considerable difficulties were offered at the stamp-office to the immediate legalization of this paper; but Mr. Tims was so completely aware of every legal point, and, through Lord Ashborough's business, was so well known at the office, that it was at length completed, and he immediately turned his steps towards the house of Messrs. Steelyard and Wilkinson, who had lately become the law-agents of Henry Beauchamp. Before he had gone above half a mile on the road thither, he pulled the check-string of the hackney-coach in which he was seated, and bade the man drive to Clement's Inn. This was immediately done; and Mr. Tims entered his chambers, and retired into its inmost recesses, to pause upon and consider the step that he had just been about to take.