"And excuse me, sir, you have only got your slippers on. Here are your boots, Mr. Tincroft."
"Thank you, Barry. Ah! I forget myself sometimes," said John, as he properly equipped himself. "And now I am ready," he added.
"But, Barry," said he, as they, having taken a short cut, were crossing the Peckwater Quadrangle of Christ Church, "there must be some mistake, I think. For I happen to know that the nurse's name on that occasion was Elizabeth Foold; and your mother's is Barry."
"That's just it, sir," replied the scout, without showing any symptoms of surprise, happening to be tolerably well acquainted with John's absence of mind. "You see most girls or women take another name when they get married; and that's how mother's name is Barry now. Otherwise for five-and-thirty years or more, before she fell in with my father (and lost him ten years after), her name was Elizabeth Foold; and so it stands in her old Bible and her Rippon's hymn-book, that she used to take to chapel with her. For mother's a Baptist, sir; but a good woman for all that, and one that would not deceive you for anything you could name, Mr. Tincroft—not if she knew it."
The information conveyed to Mr. Roundhand by his client and the unexpected witness was too important, as well as welcome, not to be immediately turned to account. Proceeding at once to Jericho, and the old lady having forgotten or overcome her aversion to being made a sight of in her eagerness to behold the grandson of the "dear good gentleman, Makepeace Tincroft, and his lovely, patient Susannah," the two visitors were at once admitted to an audience.
"To think—" exclaimed the amiable obesity, as she filled up the whole space of a ponderous and well-seasoned and doubly-strengthened easy-chair, large enough to accommodate a pair of ordinary-sized mortals with comfort, "To think," said she, as tears of gladness rolled down her plump cheeks, "that I should ever be permitted to set eyes on the only son of that dear little infant that I fed with pap, yes I did, more than fifty years ago! And he is gone, the poor dear! Ah, well, we must all go, my dear," she added, addressing John; "some sooner, some later—"
"Like crowded forest trees we stand
And some are marked to fall."
"It is a blessed thing to be prepared, my dear."
It was a little while before the old lady could be made fully to comprehend what was wanted of her. But as soon as the matter was explained by the lawyer, she entered into it with great heartiness. Even the terrors of having to take a journey to London, and give evidence before the Lord Chancellor or his Vice, were counterbalanced by the ardent desire to see dear little Josiah's son righted. Meanwhile she recognised, and was ready to swear before the Mayor of Oxford to her signature on the certificate. And in confirmation of truthfulness, in respect of that handwriting, she produced her old pocket Bible and her Rippon's hymn-book, in which her name was written in full. Manifestly the writing tallied.
The reader will be mistaken, however, if he thinks that the way was even yet clear for the ending of the Chancery suit. Like a wounded snake, it dragged its slow length along more than two years before it was finally settled.