HOW TO GET RID OF A COMPANY.

When Mr. Erin had closed the door behind him there was silence among those he had left; Dennis and Margaret naturally looked to William Henry for an explanation of so singular a scene, but he only turned over the leaves of ‘Stokes, the Vaulting Master,’ with an amused expression of countenance.

‘This reminds me,’ he observed presently, ‘of what one of Mr. Bingley’s female clients did the other day. She had a favourite cat, which one of her toadies used to extol in order to curry favour with her; and when she died she left him that, as being the richest legacy she could think of; her mere money went to a hospital.’

Margaret gave him a look which seemed to reproach him for his frivolity, and Dennis remarked gravely enough, ‘I do hope there is no mistake about that deed of yours, my lad; for I am afraid it would be a terrible blow to your father.’

‘Deed of mine!’ exclaimed the young man indignantly. ‘How on earth can I tell whether it is genuine or not?’

‘That is very true,’ said Margaret, ‘how can he? We must hope for the best. Now tell us where you found it, Willie, and all about it.’

‘Well, it’s a queer story, I promise you, and I can only give you my word of honour for the truth of it.’

‘I should hope that would be enough,’ said Margaret confidently.

‘It will be enough for you, Maggie,’ said the young man quietly, ‘but I am very doubtful whether it will be sufficient for others, since even to myself it would still seem like a dream save for the documentary evidence. If that is right, as Mr. Erin seems to think, all is right.’

‘And for that you are not responsible,’ put in Margaret eagerly.

‘Just so; I know no more about it being Shakespeare’s genuine signature than you do. How the thing came into my hands was this way. You know the Horn Tavern in Fleet Street, Dennis?’

‘Well, of course. Did I not dine with you ten days ago there?’

‘Nay; let us be accurate throughout. I dined with you,’ said the young man, smiling. ‘And that reminds me of what I had forgotten before; it was on that very day that I first met my friend. Did you notice an old gentleman with a flaxen wig dining by himself in the corner?—indeed, I know you did, for we remarked that it was rather early in the day for a man to be drinking port.’

‘I remember your making the observation,’ answered Dennis; ‘but I cannot recall the gentleman; I did not notice him with any particularity.’

‘Nor I. But it seems that he noticed me. I took my mid-day meal there the next day, and there he was again. We sat at adjoining tables, and he entered into conversation with me. His manner was at first a little stiff and reticent, like that of an old bachelor who lives alone; but something I said about Child’s bank seemed to attract his attention. He was not aware that the accounts for the sale of Dunkirk had been found among their papers, and seemed more astonished that I should know it. Again, it amazed him to find that I knew about Chaucer’s having beaten the Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street. Being ignorant, of course, of the set of people I have been brought up amongst here, it doubtless astonished him that so young a man should take any interest in such matters. He said he was but an indifferent antiquary himself, from an incurable habit of indolence, which had grown upon him during years of seclusion, but that his tastes had at one time lain in that direction; that he possessed a considerable collection of manuscripts bequeathed to him by a cousin, and that if I liked to look in upon him at his chambers in the Temple, I might perhaps find something worthy of my attention.

‘Of course I availed myself of this invitation. I found my friend in an unusually large set of chambers, but which had the appearance of great neglect. The rooms he occupied himself were well cared for enough, though he informed me that he saw no company; but the others were used as lumber-rooms. They were filled with old books, old armour, old manuscripts, piled up on the floor in the greatest confusion. There were heaps of law documents, relating to his own affairs, which had no better treatment. I suppose my new friend saw by the expression of my face that I thought him a very eccentric personage, for he suddenly observed, “I have taken a strong fancy to you, young gentleman, and I am not easily pleased; but there is one thing which you must beware of if you want our friendship to continue. I cannot be troubled with questions. The man who left me all these things was worried to death by the curiosity of other people. ‘Where did you get this? How did that come into your hands?’ and so on, There are some things here my possession of which would be so envied by some people, that I should never have a moment’s peace from their importunities. If you should come across any such treasure, and should reveal the place where you found it, you and I part company. Let that be thoroughly understood between us.” Of course I promised never to mention his name or address to any one.’

As William Henry paused a moment to take breath, ‘That will be rather awkward,’ observed Dennis gravely; ‘of course there was no help for it, but your inability to give a reference as to the discovery of the deeds will give rise to suspicion.’

‘Suspicion of what?’ inquired Margaret, with a flush on her cheek.

‘Of the authenticity of the document. I should rather have said would strengthen suspicion, for that there will be objectors to it is certain.’

‘My cousin has nothing to do with them,’ said Margaret; ‘surely he is not personally answerable for the genuineness of the deed.’

‘Certainly not,’ answered Dennis gently.

‘Pray go on, Willie,’ said Margaret. It was plain that what Dennis had said had annoyed her in some way; not only was he himself, however, quite unconscious of the cause of offence, but William Henry appeared equally in the dark. He glanced from one to the other with a puzzled look before he took up his tale.

‘I have paid several visits to the Templar, as I will call him, since then, and he has been most kind and hospitable. As my time is not my own, and I can only occasionally leave the office, he has lent me a latch-key, so that I may enter his chambers when I please, and pursue my researches. In order, as I believe, to remove from me any unpleasant sense of obligation, he has asked me to catalogue his library for him; which is, of course, a labour of love.’

‘Why, my good lad, it is evident the old gentleman intends to adopt you, and will make you his heir,’ exclaimed Dennis.

Though he spoke laughingly Margaret thought to herself that such an event was by no means out of the range of possibility. Her cousin was certainly very attractive; had excellent manners, and, as it happened, the somewhat exceptional tastes that were most likely to recommend him to such a patron. Perhaps the future that Willie had proposed to her in the garden at Shottery might not turn out so wild a dream after all.

‘I think my new friend has done enough for me as it is,’ said William Henry modestly. ‘In turning over some deeds yesterday I found that document which I brought home to-night. Mr.——, I mean the Templar—was not at home, so that I had to wait till I could see him this afternoon. You may imagine what a twenty-four hours I passed.’

‘I noticed, as I told my uncle, that you had something on your mind,’ said Margaret; ‘but that has been for some days. No doubt it was this making acquaintance with your new friend, and the possibilities that might arise from it.’

‘No doubt. I confess I allowed myself to indulge in certain hopes,’ returned the young man with a smile, but keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. ‘What has happened, however—always supposing that the document is genuine—has been far beyond my expectations. When I met my patron and told him what I had found he was surprised enough, but by no means in that state of elation which we have just seen in Mr. Erin; the reason of which was, I am convinced, that he at once made up his mind to give me the thing.

‘“It is very curious,” he said. “My cousin always set great store by those old manuscripts, but I did not know there was anything among them so interesting as this. Perhaps you may find some more; at all events, since but for you this discovery would certainly not have been made, or at least not in my lifetime, it is but fair that you should reap the benefit of it. This note of hand is yours.”’

‘What a gracious gentleman!’ exclaimed Margaret enthusiastically. ‘It was not as if he did not know the value of what he was giving away.’

‘Just so. I am afraid, though I begged him to reconsider the matter, that I was not very urgent that he should do so. I could not help picturing to myself how Mr. Erin would receive such a treasure, and how it might be the means’—here he hesitated a moment—‘of—making myself more acceptable to him.’

Dennis patted the lad on the shoulder approvingly. He understood that in his presence it was painful to the young fellow to allude to his father’s habitually cold and unpaternal behaviour. What he did not understand was that William Henry should resent this friendly encouragement as being the manner of a mature man to a junior.

Margaret for her part attributed her cousin’s hesitation to another cause. She felt that if they had been alone together he would have ended that last sentence—‘how it might be the means of’—in a different way.

‘In the end, of course,’ continued William Henry, smiling, ‘I took what the gods had given me without much scruple, but even if nothing more should come of it, I hope I shall never forget the old gentleman’s kindness.’

Nothing under the circumstances could be more moderate, or in better taste, than the speaker’s manner. Not only was there no exultation, such as might easily have been excused in a man so young, and moreover, so unaccustomed to good fortune, but he seemed to have resolutely determined not to encourage himself in expectation; and yet there was a confidence in his tone which to one at least of those who listened to him was very significant. If it is too much to say that pretty Margaret had repented of that promise given to her cousin at Anne Hathaway’s cottage, she had certainly thought it very unhopeful; or rather it would be more correct to say she had abstained from thinking of its possible results at all; but that night she could not shut them out from her dreams.

Mr. Samuel Erin would probably have also had his dreams—not less agreeable, though of quite another kind—but unfortunately he never went to sleep. Like Belshazzar, he beheld all night a writing on the wall, which, albeit it was not in modern characters, needed in his case no interpreter. It was Shakespeare’s autograph. It seemed to him to be inscribed everywhere, and, as though the secret of luminous paint had already been discovered, to shine miraculously out of the darkness.

He came down to the morning meal with a face of unwonted paleness, but which, when it turned to William Henry, wore also an unwonted smile. He listened to his narration of how he became possessed of the deed with interest, but without much comment, and yet not a word did he say about the precious document itself. His silence, however, was well understood. There would that day be a gathering of his Shakespeare friends, who would decide upon its genuineness; but in the meantime it was clear that he had a firm and cheerful faith in it such as men pray for so often in vain. For the first time for years he addressed his conversation almost wholly to his son, and even recalled events connected with the young man’s childhood. On later matters perhaps it was scarcely safe to venture, lest memories of a less cheerful kind should be raked up with them.

‘Do you remember, my boy, the days when we were wont to spout Macbeth together, and how you had to hold up the paper knife in your little hand and say, “Is this a dagger that I see before me?”’

William Henry remembered them very well, and said so. It was curious enough that Shakespeare should be the one common ground they had discovered on which to meet on terms of amity.

Then presently, ‘Have you heard anything of young Talbot lately?’

Talbot had been that schoolfellow of William Henry already spoken of, who was a poetaster like himself. More fortunate, however, in worldly circumstances, he had succeeded to a small estate in Ireland, where he lived, save when he occasionally came to London for a week or two for pleasure. On one occasion William Henry had ventured to bring the young man to Norfolk Street, but he had been received with such scant civility by the master of the house that the visit had not been repeated. That Mr. Erin should have given himself the trouble to recall his name spoke volumes of Shakespearean autograph.

‘Thank you, sir; Talbot is to be in town for a few days at the Blue Bear in the Strand, I believe.’

‘I beg if you see him, then, that you will give him my compliments,’ said Mr. Erin graciously.

The transformation was quite magical. It was as though some humble wight dwelling in the shadow of King Bulcinoso’s displeasure had suddenly become first favourite, and, instead of receiving buffets, had been given his Majesty’s hand to kiss.

Margaret had never liked her uncle so much as in this new character, and was indignant with her cousin that he did not respond to his father’s kindness with more enthusiasm.

‘If he had behaved so to me, Willie, I should have met him half way,’ she afterwards said reprovingly.

‘Yes,’ answered the young man gravely, ‘because you would have known that he loved you for your own sake.’ Then with a gentle sigh he added, ‘Why don’t you meet me half way, Maggie?’

She did not indeed reply as he would have had her, but her tender glance betrayed that if she had not got half way, she was on the road to meet him.

He went away to his work as usual, but by no means in his usual frame of mind. Nor were those he left behind him less moved by his late proceedings than himself.

Before midday the parlour in Norfolk Street was the reception room of quite a throng of dilettanti, some summoned that very morning by Mr. Erin’s special invitation. The new-found deed was handed round among these enthusiasts as a new-born babe, heir to millions, but about whom there are some doubts as to its legitimacy, might be received by a select circle of female gossips, while the proprietor, like a husband confident in his wife’s fidelity, regards their investigations with a complacent smile. They examined it tenderly but with great caution, through spectacles of every description, and in silence befitting so momentous an occasion; yet by their countenances, lit by a certain ‘fearful joy,’ it was easy to see that upon the whole they were satisfied—nay glutted—by the inspection.

f134

‘Well, gentlemen?’ inquired Mr. Erin with mock humility—a mere pretence of submission to a possible adverse opinion. ‘What say you, my dear Sir Frederick, what is your verdict?’

He had appealed to one Sir Frederick Eden, a Shakespearean critic of no mean distinction, and who, being the only titled person present, might naturally be considered as the foreman of the jury.

‘It is my opinion, Mr. Erin,’ replied that gentleman with great solemnity, ‘that this most interesting document is valid.’

A hushed murmur of corroboration and applause broke from the little throng. ‘That is my view also,’ said one; ‘And mine,’ ‘And mine,’ added other voices.

If Mr. Erin had just been elected King of Great Britain and Ireland (with the Empire of India thrown in by anticipation), and was receiving the first act of allegiance from the representatives of the nation, he could not have looked more gratified and serene.

‘That is certainly the conclusion,’ he observed with modesty, ‘which I myself have arrived at.’

Then he told how William Henry had become possessed of the document, a narration which redoubled their interest and excitement.

‘Sir,’ said Sir Frederick with emotion, ‘I felicitate you on the possession of such a son.’

There were reasons, as we know, which made this congratulation a mere matter of compliment, and, up to this time, by no means an acceptable one; but it was with no little pride and satisfaction that Mr. Erin now acknowledged it.

‘He is a good lad,’ he said, ‘a discreet and well-ordered lad: and, of course, it is very gratifying to me that he has found favour in the eyes of this gentleman—whoever he may be—to whom we are indebted for this—this manifestation.’

It was a strange word to use, but, under the circumstances, not an inappropriate one. To Mr. Samuel Erin the occurrence in question seemed indeed little less than a miracle, and William Henry the instrument through which it had been vouchsafed to his wondering eyes.

‘What we have to consider,’ he continued, dropping his voice in hushed solemnity, ‘is that, in all probability, other papers connected with the immortal bard may be produced from the same source.’

The company nodded their wigs in unison. It was as though in their mind’s eye a dish of peaches had been placed on the table before them; their very mouths watered.

‘There is one circumstance,’ said Sir Frederick, who still held the document in his hands, rather to his host’s discomfort, who well knew what temptation was, and had become anxious for the return of his property, ‘which I think has hitherto escaped our notice: in examining the document we have neglected the seals. I have just discovered by close scrutiny that they represent that ancient game the quintin. Here is the upright beam, here is the bar, here is the bag.’

The company crowded round, most of them with magnifying glasses, which gave them the appearance of beetles who, with projecting eyes and solemn looks, investigate for the first time some new and promising article of food.

‘At the top of the seal, if I am not mistaken,’ continued Sir Frederick in pompous tones, and with the air of a man without whose intelligence a great discovery would have passed unnoticed, ‘you will recognise the ring, to unhook which with his lance was the object of the tilter; if he failed to accomplish it, the bar, moving swiftly on its pivot, swung round the bag, which striking smartly on the tilter’s back, was almost certain of unhorsing him.’

‘We see it—it is here; there is no doubt of it,’ gasped the excited company.

‘Now, mark you, this is not only curious,’ resumed the knight, ‘but corroborative of the genuineness of the document in a very high degree. Observe the very close analogy which this instrument bears to the name of Shakespeare. Is it not almost certain, therefore, that this seal belonged to our immortal bard, and was always used by him in his legal transactions?’

‘Then rose the hushed amaze of hand and eye.’ For some moments no voice broke the awful silence; but presently, under deep emotion, Mr. Erin spoke.

‘A revelation,’ he said, ‘always needs an expounder, and in our friend Sir Frederick we have found one. Thanks to your keen intelligence, sir, the value of this deed has been placed beyond all question.’

‘I am very glad to have been of some slight service to the cause of literary discovery,’ returned Sir Frederick modestly. ‘Perhaps some other lights may strike me if you will allow me to take the document home with me.’

‘Indeed I will do nothing of the kind,’ put in Mr. Erin precipitately; ‘not, of course, my dear friend, that I have the least doubt of your good faith,’ he added in gentler tones, ‘but in justice to my son—unhappily absent, and to whom it belongs—I can hardly suffer the deed to leave my custody. Perhaps at another time’—for his friend was looking anything but pleased—‘your request shall be complied with, but at present it must be here for the satisfaction of doubters. Such a person, I have reason to believe, is among us even now.’

A murmur of indignation arose from all sides. They cast at one another such furious glances as the Thracian nymphs may have done before tearing Orpheus to pieces.

‘Yes, Mr. Dennis,’ continued the host sarcastically, addressing the unhappy Frank, who had hitherto remained unnoticed and quiescent, ‘I have reason to believe from the expression of your features, when I connect it with certain remarks that fell from you in Shottery Park the other day, that you are our only sceptic.’

If to an assembly of divines in Convocation ‘the Infidel,’ so often alluded to in the abstract in their discourses from the pulpit, had been suddenly presented to them in the concrete, they could not have looked at him with a greater horror than that with which the company regarded the young man thus thrust upon their attention.

‘Indeed, indeed, Mr. Erin,’ pleaded Dennis, ‘I have never uttered a syllable that could be construed, or even perverted, into doubt.’

‘One may look daggers and yet speak none,’ returned Mr. Erin with severity (and that he should thus venture to misquote his favourite bard showed even more than his tone the perturbation of his mind). ‘The document, however, will be left here—here,’ he repeated significantly, ‘for your private scrutiny and investigation; I only trust that you may find cause to withdraw your aspersions, groundless in themselves, as they are disparaging to my dear son William Henry, and offensive to this respectable and learned company, about, as I see with regret, to take their leave.’

If Mr. Erin had suddenly seized a hammer and smote him on the forehead, Mr Dennis could hardly have been more astonished than at this gratuitous onslaught. He resolved to wait till the company had dispersed, which, at that broad hint received from its host, it proceeded to do, and then demand an explanation.

Mr. Erin, however, anticipated him. ‘I was somewhat more vehement, Dennis,’ he said, ‘in the remarks that I addressed to you just now than the occasion demanded; but the fact is, some sort of diversion was imperatively demanded. My friends, I saw, were getting turbulent; the discovery of the quintin on the seal was too much for them, already excited as they were by the exhibition of this extraordinary document. Sir Frederick in particular, under circumstances of such extreme temptation, I knew to be capable of any outrage. I made you—I confess it—the scapegoat, by means of which the safety of the precious manuscript has been secured. In compensation, take it and look at it as long as you like. What I said about your incredulity, though somewhat justified by the past, you must admit, was in the main but a pious fraud. Like any man of intelligence, you cannot but revere the document. It is yours, say, for the next five minutes. Then it goes into my iron case, for “Who shall be true to us,” as he whose honoured name lies there before you, in his own handwriting, has observed, “if we be unsecret to ourselves?”’