Lord Jocelyn wore an expression of great gravity, as befitted the occasion. In fact, he was intrusted with an exceedingly delicate mission; he had to tell these worthy people that there was not the slightest hope for them; to recommend them to go home again; and, though the counsel would be clothed in sugared words, to renounce forever the hope of proving their imaginary claim. But it is better to be told these things kindly and sympathetically, by a man with a title, than by any coarse or common lawyer.
"Before I begin"—Lord Jocelyn addressed himself to the lady instead of her husband—"I would ask if you have any relic at all of that first Timothy Clitheroe who is buried in your cemetery at Canaan City?"
"There is a book," said her ladyship. "Here it is."
She handed him a little book of songs, roughly bound in leather; on the title-page was written at the top "Satturday," and at the bottom "Davvenant."
Lord Jocelyn laid the book down and opened his case.
First, he reminded them that Miss Messenger in her first letter had spoken of a possible moral, rather than legal, triumph; of a possible failure to establish the claim before a committee of the House of Peers to whom it would be referred. This, in his opinion, was the actual difficulty; he had read the Case, as it had been carefully drawn up and presented by his lordship—and he complimented the writer upon his lucid and excellent style of drawing up of facts—and he had submitted the Case for the opinion of friends of his own, all of them gentlemen eminently proper to form and to express an opinion on such a subject. He held the opinions of these gentlemen in his hands. One of them was from Lord de Lusignan, a nobleman of very ancient descent. His lordship wrote that there were very strong grounds for supposing it right to investigate a case which presented, certainly, very remarkable coincidences, if nothing more; that further investigations ought to be made on the spot; and that, if this Timothy Clitheroe Davenant turned out to be the lost heir, it would be another romance in the history of the Peerage. And his lordship concluded by a kind expression of hope that more facts would be discovered in support of the claim.
"You will like to keep this letter," said the reader, giving it to Lady Davenant. She was horribly pale and trembled, because it seemed as if everything was slipping from her.
"The other letters," Lord Jocelyn went on, "are to the same effect. One is from a lawyer of great eminence, and the other is from a herald. You will probably like to keep them, too, when I have read them."
Lady Davenant took the letters, which were cruel in their kindness, and the tears came into her eyes.
Lord Jocelyn went on to say that researches made in their interest in the parish registers had resulted in a discovery which might even be made into an argument against the claim. There was a foundling child baptized in the church in the same year as the young heir; he received the name of the village, with the day of the week on which he was found for Christian name; that is to say, he was called Saturday Davenant.