A list was made out of some seventy claimants, and then a period of darkest anxiety and suspicion began for the Hemel. Every day, as it slowly wore itself out, deepened the agonizing conviction that “the judges” were cutting their slices off the communal cake. “Humpy Jack,” who could fluently read words of three syllables, gave voice to the general sentiment. “A legacy in the lawyers’ hands,” he said, “is just like a lump of ice on a red-hot stove.”
Pessimists shook their heads and expressed an opinion that “nobody would get nothing.”
In a fortnight the excitement reached fever-heat. Meanwhile, numerous members of the community regularly visited—and called upon—Ursula.
At last, on a beautiful spring day, full of promise and hope, all the heirs, or their legal representatives, obeyed a summons to fetch each man his share. Not a soul but was amazed by the vagaries of “the judges,” and annoyed by their rapacity. The people who received a couple of hundred florins were almost as angry as those who stared down on half a dozen silver pieces in a grimy palm. Yet surely the queer fractions and subdivisions should have convinced the unconvincible.
But after the return of the anxiously expected gold-seekers, a general appeasement settled upon the whole clan. Then followed a brief period of frizzling and frying, of dancing and shouting, and the children’s cheeks were shiny and the parents’ breath was strong. And the voices of the singer and the swearer were abundantly heard in the land. Then the flame burned low, like a dying “Catherine-wheel,” and fell away. Seven days after the visit to “the judges” not a penny of Uncle Methuselah’s inheritance was left in the Hemel.
On the eighth day several woe-begone faces appeared at the kitchen entrance of the Horst. Not one of these faces, according to information freely vouchsafed, belonged to “a cousin” of the patriarch.
Horstwyk, as always, pulled up its collective nose. “Can anything good come out of the Hemel?” it asked. Besides, Horstwyk had other matters to interest it. Scandal about Ursula had become more general than ever, and to this was soon added the all-engrossing topic of “the Baron’s” return. He came back as soon as the chill Dutch summer could feebly be counted on to cherish this hero-son of the soil; he came back, enfolded in wraps and coverings, with the imprint of wearying pain on his white but unchangeably handsome face.
“Your rooms are quite ready at the Manor-house,” said Ursula, having gone with the Dowager to greet him on his arrival in Amsterdam. The Dowager could only sit silent with her hand in his; it had been her intention to ask him if really he had been wounded, but she had got sufficient answer before the question could be put.
“Thank you,” said Gerard, “I am going to stay a few days with the Trossarts, and I shall be glad to come and see you from Drum. I am thinking of settling down for the present at the Hague.”
Ursula bit her under-lip. The Dowager’s pale eyes flashed fire. “For the present.” Of course. The best legal advice, she supposed, could be obtained at the Hague.