‘I think, sir,’ said he modestly, ‘I have something rather curious to show you.’
‘Eh, what?’ said Mr. Erin, knitting his brow in the depreciating manner peculiar to the examiner of all curios before purchase, ‘some old deed or another, I suppose.’
Then he turned very white and eager, and sat down with the document spread out before him. It was a note of hand of the usual kind, though of ancient date, and dealing with a very small sum of money; but if it had been a letter from a solicitor’s office acquainting him with the fact that he had been bequeathed ten thousand pounds, it could not have aroused in him greater interest and astonishment.
It ran as follows:—‘One month from the date hereof I doe promyse to paye to my good and worthy friend John Hemynge the sum of five pounds and five shillings, English Moneye, as a recompense for his great trouble in settling and doinge much for me at the Globe Theatre, as also for hys trouble in going down for me to Stratford.—Witness my hand,
‘William Shakespere.
‘September the Nynth, 1589.’
‘Received of Master William Shakespeare the sum of five pounds and five shillings, good English Money, this Nynth day of October, 1589.
‘John Hemynge.’
‘This is indeed a most marvellous discovery, William Henry,’ said Mr. Erin, breaking a long silence, and regarding his son with a sort of devout amazement, such as might have been exhibited by some classic shepherd of old on finding the Tityrus he had been treating as a chawbacon was first cousin to Apollo. ‘You are certainly a most fortunate young man.—Maggie’ (for Maggie, learning that the visitors had departed, had joined them, full of vague expectancy), ‘see what your cousin has brought home with him.’
This appeal of Mr. Erin to his niece was significant in many ways. It would have been most natural in such a matter to have turned to Dennis, but for the moment he could not brook incredulity, nor even a critical examination of the precious manuscript. Moreover, he had said ‘your cousin,’ a relationship between the two young people to which he had never before alluded. It was plain that within the last five minutes William Henry had come nearer to the old man’s heart than he had been able to get in seventeen years.