"Ay, even so," said the half-witted man, thrusting his hand into his breast. "I found the key upon the door of the room, and I opened the hole in the wall, and took them out."
"What right had you with them!" thundered Sir Henry Heywood, who had sat by, no unconcerned spectator of the scene. "What right had you with anything in that place! You confess robbery!"
"What right had I with them?" exclaimed Silly John, with a wild laugh. "Why, you are as foolish as if you had been born before Noah's flood! Wasn't there the leaf of the register which they cut out of my own register-book just about the time I first went mad, when I was usher of Uppington Grammar School, and clerk of the parish! and did not that make me madder than before? Who had any right to the leaf but I? and there it is!" and he spread out upon the table an old yellow leaf of paper, written over both sides with pale ink, and bearing the traces of many foldings.
"If is a falsehood! a forgery!" exclaimed Sir Henry Heywood. "It is got up for the occasion! It is a conspiracy! Let me see the sheet!" and he started forward to snatch it up from the table; but at that moment Mr. Evelyn, the lawyer, stepped in before him, and laid his hand firmly upon it.
"By your leave, sir," he said, "this valuable document is fingered by nobody. Do not, bend your brows on me, sir. I am firm! Clerk, take up the document, and be you responsible for it. If Sir Henry chooses to bring this business into court, he may; but if he will take my advice he will listen to a few quiet words. While thinking that my noble client and patron, the young Earl of Danemore, here present," and he pointed to Langford, "would certainly obtain this same document from another source, I busied myself eagerly to obtain every collateral testimony which could prove the identity of the leaf that had been so nicely extracted from the register; and I have here, under my hand, the certificates of five marriages which took place in that same year in the parish of Uppington, which are not now to be found in the volume of the register, but which will be found, I will answer for it, in the leaf that is now produced. This will be confirmation, beyond all doubt, if it be so. Clerk, compare the papers!"
"Oh, but that is all nonsense, Master Turney," cried Silly John; "there's no need of comparing anything. Was not I clerk of the parish myself, and witness of the marriage? And besides, here's the certificate of the marriage in the Rev. Jonathan Whattle's own hand. Anybody in the place will swear to the drunken parson's handwriting. The only difference was, that it was more crooked and shaky when he was sober than when he was drunk; and here's my own handwriting to it, as I used to write in those days. God help me! I've nearly forgotten how to write now. And then there's Mistress Bertha's there; her hand is to it too, and a Frenchman's hand that was with them at the time. I remember very well. And here's another paper besides, written in a tongue I don't understand, which is all the more likely to prove a matter of moment. God help us all! we're as blind as kittens of time days old, and can tell nothing of what will happen at the end of the nine."
"Sir," said the clerk, who had been busily looking over the papers, "I find all these extracts placed at intervals in the leaf of the register before me. There are nine or ten others, too, which could doubtless easily be traced. Shall I send for the register of Uppington to compare the book and the leaf?"
"It is unnecessary, sir; it is unnecessary," said Sir Henry Heywood, making a virtue of necessity. "My Lord the Earl of Danemore, I congratulate you on your unexpected accession to such honours and so much wealth. That you have cast me out from them I forgive you. Disappointed I must feel; but that disappointment, believe me, proceeds more from affection for my two poor girls, whose inheritance will be but their father's sword, useless in their hands, and their mother's virtues, which God grant may adorn them always, than from the loss of rank and wealth to myself. Sir, I give you good morning, and leave you."
"Stop a moment, Sir Henry Heywood," said Langford; "a word in your ear before you go." That word was spoken in a moment, but Sir Henry Heywood's face was in that moment lighted up with joy, and grasping Langford's hand in both his own, he exclaimed, "Indeed! indeed, my Lord, you are too generous!"
"Not so, Sir Henry," replied Langford; "for the present, adieu. We will meet to-morrow at Danemore Castle, and all shall be settled entirely. Sir Walter," he added, in a lower tone, "there is some one whom I would fain see, in this moment of joy and agitation, before I say a word more to any one."