"Oh, yes, I will go, I will go," cried John Ayliffe, now quite maddened, "I will go to the devil, and you too, madam," and he burst out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.
"I can compassionate misfortune," cried Mrs. Hazleton, raising her voice to the very highest pitch for the benefit of others, "but I will have nothing to do with roguery and fraud," and as she heard his horse's feet clatter over the terrace, she heartily wished he might break his neck before he passed the park gates. How far she was satisfied, and how far she was not, must be shown in another chapter.
CHAPTER XXXV.
John Ayliffe got out of the park gates quite safely, though he rode down the slope covered with loose stones, as if he had no consideration for his own neck or his horse's knees. He was in a state of desperation, however, and feared little at that moment what became of himself or any thing else. With fierce and angry eagerness he revolved in his own mind the circumstances of his situation, the conduct of Mrs. Hazleton, the folly, as he was pleased to term it, of his mother, the crimes which he had himself committed, and he found no place of refuge in all the dreary waste of thought. Every thing around looked menacing and terrible, and the world within was all dark and stormy.
He pushed his horse some way on the road which he had come, but suddenly a new thought struck him. He resolved to seek advice and aid from one whom he had previously determined to avoid. "I will go to Shanks," he said to himself, "he at least is in the same basket with myself. He must work with me, for if my mother has been fool enough to keep my letters, I have been wise enough to keep his—perhaps something may be done after all. If not, he shall go along with me, and we will try if we cannot bring that woman in too. He can prove all her sayings and doings." Thus thinking, he turned his horse's head towards the lawyer's house, and rode as hard as he could go till he reached it.
Mr. Shanks was enjoying life over a quiet comfortable bowl of punch in a little room which looked much more tidy and comfortable, than it had done twelve or eighteen months before. Mr. Shanks had been well paid. Mr. Shanks had taken care of himself. No small portion of back rents and costs had gone into the pockets of Mr. Shanks. Mr. Shanks was all that he had ever desired to be, an opulent man. Moreover, he was one of those happily constituted mortals who knew the true use of wealth—to make it a means of enjoyment. He had no scruples of conscience—not he. He little cared how the money came, so that it found its way into his pocket. He was not a man to let his mind be troubled by any unpleasant remembrances; for he had a maxim that every man's duty was to do the very best he could for his client, and that every man's first client was himself.
He heard a horse stop at his door, and having made up his mind to end the night comfortably, to finish his punch and go to bed, he might perhaps have been a little annoyed, had he not consoled himself with the thought that the call must be upon business of importance, and he had no idea of business of importance unconnected with that of a large fee.
"To draw a will, I'll bet any money," said Mr. Shanks to himself; "it is either old Sir Peter, dying of indigestion, and sent for me when he's no longer able to speak, or John Ayliffe broken his neck leaping over a five-barred gate—John Ayliffe, bless us all, Sir John Hastings I should have said."
But the natural voice of John Ayliffe, asking for him in a loud impatient tone, dispelled these visions of his fancy, and in another moment the young man was in the room.
"Ah, Sir John, very glad to see you, very glad to see you," said Mr. Shanks, shaking his visitor's hand, and knocking out the ashes of his pipe upon the hob; "just come in pudding time, my dear sir—just in time for a glass of punch—bring some more lemons and some sugar, Betty. A glass of punch will do you good. It is rather cold to-night."