“Read it, Colonel,” he said, moving the lamp to the old gentleman’s elbow.
It seemed that Colonel Kenwynton in his excitement could never get his pince-nez adjusted, and when this was fairly accomplished that he would be balked at last by an inopportune frog in his throat. But finally the reading was under way, and each of the listeners lent ear not only with the effort to discriminate and assimilate the intendment of the instrument, but to appraise its effect on a possible court of equity. For it particularized in very elaborate and comprehensive phrase the reasons for the manner, time, and place of its execution. It recited the facts that the promissory notes secured by the mortgage were in bank deposit in the city of Nashville, State of Tennessee, that the said city and State were in the occupation of the Federal army, that since the said notes could not be forwarded within the Confederate lines, by reason of the lack of mail facilities or other means of communication, the said promissory notes were herein particularly described, released and surrendered, the several sums for which they were made having been paid in full by George Blewitt Ducie in gold, the receipt of the full amount being hereby acknowledged, together with a quit-claim to the property on which they had been secured. For the same reason of the existence of a state of war, and the suspension of all courts of justice in the county in which the mortgage was recorded, and the absence of their officials, this release could not at that time be duly registered nor the original paper marked satisfied. Therefore the party of the first part hereunto appeared before a local notary-public and acknowledged the execution of this paper for the purposes therein contained, the reasons for its non-registration, and the lack of the return of the promissory notes.
Colonel Kenwynton took careful heed of the notarial seal affixed, and the names of five witnesses who subscribed for added security.
“Every man of them dead these forty-odd years and both the principals,” he commented, lugubriously.
“Great period for mortality, the late unpleasantness,” jeered Floyd-Rosney. With a debonair manner he was lighting a cigar, and he held it up with an inquiring smile at the tousled Hildegarde on the sill of the bow-window, her dilated blue eyes absorbed and expressive as she listened. She gave him a hasty and transient glance of permission to smoke in her presence and once more lapsed into deep gravity and brooding attention.