From this extract it will be seen that Antony had meant merely to play a joke on his cousin, but it was taken seriously.
When, after a long, delightful gipsy ramble in Ireland, Antony returned somewhat unexpectedly to Manby Hall, his father and cousin were still in Norway. He had come back without the 'Gipsy Queen.' In fact, so pleased was he with Ireland that he had made up his mind to return there some day and go roving once more. So he had stored his caravan and sold his horses.
He would have liked very much to have seen his father; but fate forbade, for, as he told his mother and sister, he, Antony, had broken out in a new place. In fact, a wandering spirit had gained an ascendency over his mind, and now he was going abroad, far away to the savage island of New Guinea in short, to see some of the most savage life that exists anywhere in the world. But, first and foremost, and as a mere matter of course, he went to visit the little girl who, young though she was, he cared for more perhaps than he had ever cared for any one. This may not have been wise; but—well, perhaps it was only natural under all the strangely romantic circumstances. And Lotty in her new character really appealed to Antony as much, though probably not more, than she had done as the little gipsy lass.
But now something was going to happen, and there would be a nine days' source of wonder and even amusement for society. A very curious case indeed was to be sifted before a well-known judge of the Probate Court. And so, for the very last time in this story, we will see some of its old actors on the stage, and one at least who is new.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
'HO, HO, HO! SET HIM UP.'
IT surprised nobody who knew him well to be informed that Frank Antony Blake had left England in a sailing ship without bidding good-bye to any one except his very nearest and dearest, including the little gipsy lass, with whom his parting had been most sad and tender. Probably it had taken him only a few minutes to make up his mind, and only a few hours to get ready his kit or outfit, so much a creature of impulse was he. He needed an entire change, he told himself, and he would remain away for a whole year. In the long run, this really extended to four whole years and over.
He had not been gone more than a month, however, before the curious will-case, of which mention has now to be made, became for a short time the talk of the town. Law is a much drier subject to write about than either love or friendship; but even in a romance there are times when it cannot well be avoided.
Until this lawsuit came off—or came on rather, for it dragged out its wearying length for a week—few probably except people living in their own county had ever heard much about the Broxleys of Blankshire. They were a very old family nevertheless, and had as much right as any to say that they had come over with William the Conqueror. Be that as it may, the Broxleys were a county family noted for their love of true English sport—if following the hounds and hunting tame and innocent deer to death be sport—and all manly games.
The family was by no means a prolific one; and going into its back history it was found that there was seldom a direct heir to the estate. An owner would either die a bachelor, or if married leave the world a childless man, so that the rich lands and castles took now and then a leap, as it were, into side branches of the old family. But when the estates passed into the hands of Talbot Broxley, Esq., it was believed that they were at last settled, for he had a splendid healthy young son, the only member of his family, by the way, who was quite independent of the wealth that apparently nothing could keep him out of. He was a great favourite both in town and country, and was engaged to a charming young lady, a cousin of the Marquis of Kingslee. The two seemed very fond of each other, and were the admired of all the gossips on that day when together they rode off to a distant steeplechase. It was the last ride the happy pair ever had, for, mournful to say, young Stanley's horse shied at an urchin who had popped unexpectedly out of a ditch by the wayside; shied and bolted, and that forenoon the rider was carried home dead.
This terrible accident quite broke his father's heart, and so the estates fell into the hands of a comparative stranger, a bachelor who had previous to this been as poor as the proverbial church-mouse. His only brother had died some time before this man's succession, and his baby daughter was sent to a convent to be nursed and reared.