THE TWO ENVELOPES
CAPTAIN FORTESCUE followed his father to the grave, the chief and only mourner. No one else was present, except Mr. Fortescue's doctor and lawyer, who came in their official capacity. The extensive town cemetery looked the very picture of desolation and gloom. It lay in a narrow valley, the rising ground on either side and the stretch of lower ground between being densely covered with the resting-places of the dead.
In the quiet village churchyard, with its green mounds and neat flower-covered graves; its pure white marble crosses and the moss-covered headstones of earlier date; its neat well-kept paths, by the side of which are growing snowdrops and primroses planted by loving hands which are now, it may be, themselves lying in one of those newer mounds; the grave is robbed of some of its outward ghastliness and nakedness, and is clothed tenderly by the loving hand of mother earth.
But in this large town cemetery everything is unsightly and depressing, and the hosts of barren graves, which may be counted by their thousands, are marked only by blackened stones, upon which layer after layer of furnace smoke has settled, and is still settling as the years go by. No flowers will grow there, no trees will thrive; even the scanty grass is more black than green, whilst down in the hollow there lies, at the further end of the valley, a dismal pond, in which the body of a poor suicide was found not so long ago, and the memory of whom leaves an additional shadow upon that melancholy and dismal place.
"Earth to earth; dust to dust; ashes to ashes;" and so the poor earthly remains were left behind, and another leaf was added to the great heap of fallen leaves in the forest of mortal humanity.
When Captain Fortescue arrived home, and walked into the empty house which he would never again call home, he felt as if he were crossing the threshold of the life of hardship which lay in front of him. He determined, however, to face it bravely, and in higher strength than his own, and not to flinch from any duty, however unpleasant, which lay along its course.
In the strength of this resolution, he rang the bell, as soon as his solitary dinner was over, and requested all the servants to assemble in the library, as he had something which he wished to say to them.
He went in, carrying his father's will in his hand, and then he told them that he felt that it was only right they should know that their old master had remembered their faithful service, and had intended rewarding it by a handsome legacy, the amount of which was regulated by the length of time each had lived with him; but that it was his sad and painful duty to inform them that the whole of his father's invested money had been lost, and that therefore, he feared that these legacies existed merely in name.
"Do you mean to tell us, sir, that we shall get nothing?" inquired Watson.
"I fear not, Watson; time alone will show. My father's lawyer, Mr. Northcourt, who was here to-day, is winding up his affairs, of which I know practically nothing, and should there turn out to be money available, of course the legacies will be paid."