My visitor removed her gloves and, carefully smoothing them, placed them on the table beside her. She then produced from her pocket a large foolscap envelope, from which she drew a piece of paper folded longways. This she handed to me, explaining, in a hard monotonous voice, that she had been sent to me by her master, Mr Robert Bramleigh of Coleman Street, who was dangerously ill—in fact was not expected to live many hours. The paper, she said, had been written by his direction, and signed by him for his will that afternoon. Fearing lest it should not be in a proper form, he had desired her to take it to the nearest lawyer, and have one prepared according to the law.
I unfolded the paper, and read as follows:
‘In the name of God, Amen. I leave my body to the ground and my soul to Almighty God who gave it. Now this is the will of me, ROBERT BRAMLEIGH of 559 Coleman Street. I give and leave all my houses, lands, money, and everything that I have, to HANNAH CHURTON, my housekeeper, as a reward for her long and faithful services. Signed by me on Tuesday, December 12th, 1868.
_Witnesses_— ROBERT BRAMLEIGH. JAMES BURN. MARGARET SIMS.’
I examined the writing carefully. The signature ‘Robert Bramleigh’ was weak and shaky. The will itself was written in a masculine-looking hand of singular decision and boldness. The characters were large and well formed.
The will had evidently been prepared by some one who had had but an imperfect knowledge of the form to be used for such a purpose. The solemn appeal to the Deity and the bequest of the testator’s body and soul was an old form, much in vogue with our grandfathers, who generally headed a will with one or two pious phrases.
The document shewn to me was, however, sufficient to give Hannah Churton all Mr Bramleigh’s property. There were the requisite number of witnesses, and the Principal Registry of Her Majesty’s Court of Probate would have granted letters of administration with the will annexed (the appointment of an executor having been omitted, the ordinary probate could not have been obtained), on one of the attesting witnesses making an affidavit that the will had been executed by the testator in the presence of himself and the other attesting witness, and that they had at the same time, and in the presence of each other, subscribed their names thereto as witnesses.