Mortification, exasperation, and pride made the haughty heart of Lord Oakhampton thrill painfully, and he listened to this, and much more that the little lawyer had to advance, as one in a dream. The flies buzzed about the flowers in a magnificent jardiniere; a French clock ticked monotonously on the mantelpiece; and the busy life of London outside, went on as a ceaseless stream; but he felt as if all this evil were about to happen, not to himself, but to someone else, in the confusion and irritation of his mind.
"We shall suppose this peculiar claim made good and clear in law, Mr.--Mr.----"
"De Murrer," suggested the lawyer, blandly.
"Can you ask me?" said Mr. De Murrer; "most calamitous to your Lordship, I assure you."
"With the title would go lands and estate, plate, pictures--everything, even to your household effects!"
Lord Oakhampton grew pale--very pale, yet less at the thought of himself than of his daughter, for the world was all before her yet. Rallying a little, he said:--
"You cannot think, Mr. De Murrer, that I will yield without a struggle--and a desperate one too!"
"With the solid and simple proofs we----"
"Proofs that must be submitted to the legal acumen and most searching analysis of my law advisers!"
"Indubitably, my Lord; yet the dates are, fortunately for us, not remote ones."
"Your Lordship's great-grandfather Derval, to whom a great mass of the estate came by marriage with the Mohuns, was called to the Upper House in the year of the Union with Scotland, 1707, and sat in the first British House of Lords, as the direct heir of Derval, Lord Oakhampton, who was forfeited under Edward IV., but was restored by Henry VII. for his service against the King of Scotland; yet your great-grandsire was so summoned in ignorance that his eldest brother, who had quarrelled with his family, was not dead, but was married, and settled in Bermuda, where he became ancestor, in the third degree, of Greville Hampton, now of Finglecombe."
"Intolerable dry-as-dust stuff this!" exclaimed Lord Oakhampton, his pride and passion rising again. "Do you imagine that I am an entire committee of privileges, to listen to all this twaddle, and that the title that has come to me, through a long line of stainless ancestors, is to be disturbed by the outrageous pretensions of an obscure colonist's grandson. Moreover, sir, do you think that I am also unaware how men of your trade make it their business to rake up such claims if they can, and assume to guide the destinies of the rich and noble, as the means of bringing money to their own coffers?"