‘I promise,’ curtly replied Septimus, and left the orchard without more ado, the wretched Martha gazing after his retreating figure with features on which despair in its acutest phase was deeply written.
We have but little to add respecting the personages who have figured in our tale. Mrs Fraser was, as the reader will readily imagine, inexpressibly mortified at so suddenly losing the legacy bequeathed by the late Colonel Redgrave. But if anything could soften the blow, it was the fact that the fortunate recipient was her only child, her dear Blanche, who was shortly afterwards married to Mr Frank Lockwood. On the same day Mrs Fraser changed her name for that of Redgrave.
Septimus never entered the house in Bury Street again, employing an agent for the removal of his household gods and the numerous curios he had accumulated during his long residence as the tenant of Mrs Jones.
Immediately after the failure of his nefarious plot, Mr Bradbury posted the second will to Miss Blanche Fraser, and immediately thereafter disappeared from Bury Street and Lincoln’s Inn. Several unfortunate individuals suffered severely in consequence, as it was found that large sums intrusted to him by confiding clients had disappeared, ‘leaving not a wrack behind.’
Mr Lockwood is now one of the most rising solicitors in London; his undeniable abilities, by a singular coincidence, being universally recognised immediately after the inheritance by his wife of Colonel Redgrave’s legacy.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
When we are told that ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ the fact appears to be self-evident. Yet there was a time when there was something in a name. We have abundant evidence from the history of the ancients, and from observations of savage tribes, to show that they believed in some inseparable and mysterious connection between a name and the object bearing it, which has given rise to a remarkable series of superstitions, some of which have left traces even amongst ourselves.
The Jews believed that the name of a child would have a great influence in shaping its career; and we have a remarkable instance of this sort of superstition in quite a different quarter of the world. Catlin, the historian of the Canadian Indians, tells us that when he was among the Mohawks, an old chief, by way of paying him a great compliment, insisted on conferring upon him his own name, Cayendorongue. ‘He had been,’ Catlin explains, ‘a noted warrior; and told me that now I had a right to assume to myself all the acts of valour he had performed, and that now my name would echo from hill to hill over all the Five Nations.’
The generosity of the Mohawk chief will doubtless be more appreciated when we observe that it is seldom the superstition takes the form of giving one’s name away as in his case; on the contrary, most savages are very much opposed to mentioning their names. A well-known writer points out that the Indians of British Columbia have a strange prejudice against telling their own names, and his observation is confirmed by travellers all over the world. In many tribes, if the indiscreet question is asked them, they will nudge their neighbour and get him to answer for them. The mention of a name by the unwary has sometimes been followed by unpleasant results. We are told, for instance, by Mr Blackhouse, of a native lady of Van Diemen’s Land who stoned an English gentleman for having, in his ignorance of Tasmanian etiquette, casually mentioned the name of one of her sons. Nothing will induce a Hindu woman to mention the name of her husband; in alluding to him she uses a variety of descriptive epithets, such as ‘the master,’ &c., but avoids his proper name with as scrupulous care as members of the House of Commons when speaking of each other in the course of debate. Traces of this may be seen even in Scotland; one may often come across women in rural districts who are in the habit of speaking of their husbands by no other name than ‘he.’ To such an extent is this superstition carried among some savage tribes, that the real names of children are concealed from their birth upwards, and they are known by fictitious names until their death.
The fear of witchcraft probably is the explanation of all those superstitions. If a name gets known to a sorcerer, he can use it as a handle wherewith to work his spells upon the bearer. When the Romans laid siege to a town, they set about at once to discover the name of its tutelary deity, so that they might coax the god into surrendering his charge. In order to prevent their receiving the same treatment at the hands of their enemies, they carefully concealed the name of the tutelary deity of Rome, and are said to have killed Valerius Soranus for divulging it. We have several examples in our nursery tales of the concealment of a name being connected with a spell. It is made use of by Wagner in the plot of his opera of Lohengrin, where the hero, yielding to the curiosity of his lady-love, divulges the secret of his name, and has in consequence to leave her and return to a state of enchantment. In Grimm’s tale of The Gold Spinner, again, we have an instance of a spell being broken by the discovery of the sorcerer’s name.