“It must be late in the afternoon then,” said the lawyer, rather crossly—for he did not enter into the business with a good grace yet.
“All the same to me,” acquiesced the pater, pleased at having got his consent on any terms.
And when the Squire drove in that evening just at the dinner-hour and brought Lawyer Crow with him, we wondered what was agate. Old Jacobson, who had called in, and been invited to stay by the mater, was as curious as anything over it, and asked the Squire aside, what he was up to, that he must employ Crow instead of his own man.
The will Nash Caromel wished to make was accomplished, signed and sealed, himself and this said Evesham lawyer being alone privy to its contents. Dobbs the blacksmith was fetched in, and he and Grizzel witnessed it.
And, as if Nash Caromel had only lived to make the will, he went galloping on to death at railroad speed directly it was done. A change took place in him the same night. His bell rang for Grizzel, and the old woman thought him dying.
But he rallied a bit the next day: and when the Squire got there in the evening, he was sitting up by the fire dressed. And terribly uneasy.
“I want to see her,” he began, before the Squire had time to say, How are you, or How are you not. “I can’t die in peace unless I see her. And it will not be long first now. I am a bit better, but I thought I was dying in the night: has Grizzel told you?”
The Squire nodded in silence. He was struck with the change in Nash.
“Who is it you want to see? Charlotte Tinkle?”
“Ay, you’ve guessed it. ’Twasn’t hard to guess, was it? I want to see her, Todhetley. I know she’d come.”