CHAPTER IX.
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR.
Although it may be very true that kings can affect but little the happiness of their subjects, the petty kings of every household—from Paterfamilias the First down to his latest descendants—have a very important influence in that way. The difference which a morose or cheerful parent makes in the lives of those beneath their roof is incalculable. In the one case the atmosphere of existence is all cloud, in the other, all sunshine. It must be confessed that up to this period the Jupiter of the little household in Norfolk Street had been something of a Jupiter Pluvius. There were storms, there were tears; and even when it was not so, the domestic sky was sullen. From the date of the discovery, however, of that note of hand, from William Shakespeare to John Hemynge, the weather cleared. Moreover, matters looked all the brighter by contrast. It is one of the many advantages that selfish persons of strong will possess, that when they do condescend to be genial, people are prone to believe that they always were so, or at all events that they have misjudged them in setting them down as churlish.
So in the Orient, when the gracious light
Lifts up his long-hid head, each under eye
Doth homage to this new appearing sight,
.........
And mortal looks adore his majesty.
Mr. Erin’s domestics began to acknowledge that their master was not half a bad fellow; and his niece, to whom, however, it is but fair to say he had always been kind, was quite triumphant over his new-found good nature. ‘Now, Willie, did I not always tell you so?’ &c., while Frank Dennis had reason to believe that he had at last been quite forgiven his heretical doubts as to whether deer could shed tears as easily as their antlers.
As to William Henry himself, the strides he had made in Mr. Erin’s favour, thanks to that ‘find’ of his in the ‘Templar’s’ chambers, was something magical, as if he had got seven-league boots on. His father even called him Samuel, as though he were verily and indeed that son he had lost with all the hopes that were wrapped up in him. It must be confessed, however, that this may have been partly owing to the birth of new hopes; William Henry, indeed, though he had twice visited his friend in the Temple since that one momentous occasion, had found nothing very new—or rather very old—there; but on the other hand, what Mr. Erin justly thought a great piece of good fortune, and one that showed promise of much more, had befallen him. On looking over his patron’s papers he came across a deed of no great antiquity in truth, but which to that gentleman himself was especially valuable, since it established his right to a certain property that had long been the subject of litigation. For this, something was certainly due to the young man himself, since, but for his legal learning and knowledge of the nature of the document, he might easily have passed it over as being of no importance. It was, therefore, not so very surprising that the old gentleman, in a sudden glow of gratitude, for which his mind, from its natural leaning towards the young fellow was, as it were, ‘ready laid,’ had given him a promise that whatever he might henceforth discover among his papers of general interest should, by way of recompense for the service he had rendered him, become his own.
Gladly as William Henry himself doubtless received this mark of his patron’s favour, his joy could hardly have exceeded that of Mr. Erin when the news was communicated to him. It must need be confessed, however, that his gratitude was not wholly dissociated from a sense of favours to come.