"Dear me," says Mr. Vetch, getting up from his seat. "I knew nothing of it."
He goes to the broken panel, brings out the paper, and as he looked at it turned so ghastly pale that Mr. Pinhorn clutched a decanter of brandy and began to pour some of it into a gla.s.s. We were all struck silent with wonderment; even Mistress Vetch being tongue tied. Then Mr. Vetch turned to me and, holding out the paper with trembling hand, tears standing in his eyes, said:
"G.o.d be thanked for all His mercies!"
"Twas my father"s will, dusty, gnawed at the edges, but indubitably the will which had disappeared seven years before. Remembering the hiding place in which Cyrus had secreted the money at Penolver, it was no mystery to me that he should have fashioned a similar receptacle for the will he had purloined.
There is no need to tell of the congratulations showered upon me; My hand was wrung by my kind neighbors until it tingled with numbness. Mistress Vetch fell into hysterics--mercilessly ignored by Mr. Pinhorn. And as for Captain Galsworthy, he seemed incapable of doing anything but repeat his question, chuckling aloud "Can anyone tell me why "tis called the funny bone?"
The party soon broke up, to carry the news far and wide through Shrewsbury. And I, after an affecting five minutes with the lawyer, suddenly stuffed the paper in my pocket, flung on my hat, and ran out with furious haste to saddle my horse. Mistress Vetch came to the door as I mounted.
"Mind you speak the villain plain," she cried.
I laughed joyfully and galloped away up Pride Hill. The tale of my discovery had already got abroad; the people came to their doors and cheered me, and some little fellows of the school stood in the middle of the road and waved their caps and shouted "Huzzay for Captain Bold!"
But I did not ride straight on towards the Wem Road and Cludde Court, as Becky had supposed I intended. I turned into Dogpole, rode helter skelter down Wyle Cop in the very course where Joe"s barrel had rolled, and never drew rein until I came to the door of the Hall. "Twas opened to me by Roger, home from following the campaign in Flanders--a strapping fine fellow, near as tall as myself.
"Gad, but your horse is in a sweat!" he said by way of greeting.
(We laughed at it afterwards.).
"Where is Lucy?" I said.
He stared at me for a moment, then burst into a hearty roar.
"Up you go," says he, clapping me on the back. "Egad, and I"ll go and find the squire."
That is more than forty years ago. My hand is weary with writing: why should I tell you more? There is indeed little more to tell, for from that time, thank G.o.d, there have been no mischances in my life. Yet maybe those who have read my story patiently hereto (if any there be) may like to have it rounded off--totus, teres, et rotundus.
A few weeks after I regained possession of my little property Sir Richard Cludde died--of gout and other diseases, said Mr. Pinhorn; Mistress Vetch said of rage. His estate had been much impoverished, and his widow was now left almost penniless. She was my father"s sister, and, my own lot being happy, I could not endure to think of her in penury and distress. So I made her a small allowance through Mr. Vetch (and I can vouch for it this was a secret his wife never knew)--sufficient to keep her from want. She never saw me, made me no acknowledgment, and to the day of her death maintained, in the little house she took next St. Michael"s Church, the haughty bearing which had always won her such dislike.
Lucy and I were married on St. Valentine"s day in the year 1703.
Less than three months afterwards I was appointed to command the Pegasus, a third-rate of forty-eight guns, and ordered to the Mediterranean with Admiral Sir Cloudesly Shovel. From that time until I retired in the year 1713 I was almost continuously on service, having but brief intervals to spend with my wife. I was at the taking of Gibraltar by Sir George Rooke (which we have yet in possession, and may we ever keep it), and in the famous sea fight off Velez Malaga in 1704; next year I entered Barcelona with Sir Stafford Fairborn; in brief, I had a share (though humble) in many of our notable transactions at sea during those memorable years when we fought King Lewis.
But when peace was concluded in the year 1713, both Mr. and Mrs.
Allardyce being then dead, I thought it was high time I settled down at home, especially as there were two st.u.r.dy boys growing up to plague their mother. Accordingly I retired with the rank of captain and a considerable fortune. We purchased the estate of Cludde Court and made great additions to it, and our boys every day rode into Shrewsbury to school, and did it more credit than their father.
Captain Galsworthy was a frequent visitor, and though he was past eighty, insisted on giving our boys their first lessons with the singlestick. He died in the year "15, leaving fragrant memories to us who loved him.
Joe Punchard is with me still. He regarded Lucy"s injunctions as binding on him for life, and clave to me all through my naval career, though he lost a leg at the taking of Port Mahon in 1708.
He retired when I did, and came to Cludde Court as our lodge keeper, where he would entrance my boys with sea songs and his tales of p what he had gone through on sea and land with me and with Admiral Benbow, whom he ever cherished as a matchless captain.
His own naval career, he says, began with a wooden barrel and ended with a wooden leg, and sometimes, over his pipe, he shakes his head and declares that I had all the chances, he all the mischances. But he is gone seventy years of age, and is apt to be a little forgetful.