Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

CHAPTER VI.

THE SALE.

The Colonel would not expose himself even to the appearance of flight, but remained in the neighborhood manfully, and went personally to Manchester, before the court of bankruptcy, through which he passed very easily. His name then appeared in the Manchester papers, and in the "Sootythorn Gazette," in the list of bankrupts.

Bailiffs were in possession of the house and estate of Wenderholme, and Mr. Jacob Ogden foreclosed his mortgages, by which he became owner of a fair portion of the land.

Finally, Wenderholme Hall and the remainder of the estate, including the Cottage, in which Mrs. Stanburne still resided, were sold by auction in the large room at the Thorn Inn at Sootythorn—the very place which the Colonel's regiment of militia was accustomed to use as a mess-room.

Little had John Stanburne or his officers foreseen, whilst there consuming Mr. Garley's substantial dinners, that the hammer of the auctioneer would one day there transfer Wenderholme from the name of Stanburne to another name—to what name?

The room was crowded. The sale was known all over Lancashire and Yorkshire. Competitors had come even from distant counties. Wenderholme had been a famous place since the fire, and the magnificent restoration which had succeeded to the fire. Drawings of it had appeared in the "Illustrated London News," and, since the failure of the Sootythorn Bank, the creditors had cunningly caused a volume to be made in which the whole place was fully illustrated and described. This volume they had widely circulated.

The sale had been announced for eight o'clock in the evening, and at ten minutes after eight precisely the auctioneer mounted his rostrum. He made a most elaborate speech, in which (with the help of the volume above mentioned) he went over every room in the house, describing, with vulgar magniloquence, all those glories which had cost John Stanburne so dear.

There was one person present to whom the description can hardly have been very agreeable. John Stanburne himself, from anxiety to know the future possessor, and the amount realized, had quietly entered the room unperceived, for every one was looking at the auctioneer. He had stationed himself near the wall, and there bore the infliction of this torture, his hat over his eyes.