“The Discovery,” he thought, “which is worse than all the rest put together. No more misfortunes? No more consequences, then. What does she mean? Consequences must go on.”
You remember how, one day, there came to a certain Patriarch one who told of trouble, and almost before he had finished speaking there came also another with more trouble, and yet a third with more. You remember also how to this man there came, one after the other, messengers who brought confession of fraud and disgrace.
This afternoon the opposite happened. There came three; but there were not messengers of trouble, but of peace, and even joy.
“I’ve come,” she said, “with a message from my brother. Sam is very sorry that he carried on here as he says he did. I don’t know how he carried on, but Sam is very nasty sometimes, when his temper and his troubles get the better of him.”
“Pray do not let him be troubled. I have quite forgotten what he said.”
“It seems that he brought his precious bill against granny, and showed it to you. He says that he’s put it in the fire, and that he didn’t mean it, except in the hope that you’d lend him a little money.”
“Oh, he begs your pardon humbly. And he says that the builder has got the Bank to back him after all: and he’ll be contented to wait now for his share of the accumulations.”
“I am sorry that he still entertains hopes in that direction.”
“Oh! he thinks about nothing else. He has got the whole amount worked out: he knows how much there will be. If it is left to you or to anybody else he will dispute the will. He’ll carry it up to the Lords, he says.”
“Very good. We may wait until the will is produced. Meantime, Mary Anne, there is a little point which he seems to forget. It his grandmother and not himself who could have a right to dispute the will. Can he be so poor in law as not to know that?”
“He makes granny sign papers. I don’t know how many she has signed. He is always thinking about some other danger to be met, and then he draws up a paper and makes her sign it with me as witness. Granny never asks what the paper means.”
“Signing documents is dangerous. You must not allow it, my cousin. If there is anything coming to your branch of the family from Campaigne Park, you are as much concerned as Sam.”