"I brought a licence with me," Sir George answered. "I am now on my way to secure the services of a clergyman."
The tears stood in Mr. Fishwick"s eyes, and his voice shook. "I felicitate you, sir," he said, taking off his hat. "G.o.d bless you, sir.
Sir George, you are a very n.o.ble gentleman!" And then, remembering himself, he hastened to beg the gentleman"s pardon for the liberty he had taken.
Sir George nodded kindly. "There is a letter for you in the house, Mr.
Fishwick," he said, "which I was asked to convey to you. For the present, good-day."
Mr. Fishwick stood and watched him go with eyes wide with astonishment; nor was it until he had pa.s.sed from sight that the lawyer turned and went into his house. On a bench in the pa.s.sage he found a letter. It was formally directed after the fashion of those days "To Mr. Peter Fishwick, Attorney at Law, at Wallingford in Berkshire, by favour of Sir George Soane of Estcombe, Baronet."
"Lord save us, "tis an honour," the attorney muttered. "What is it?" and with shaking hands he cut the thread that confined the packet. The letter, penned by Dr. Addington, was to this effect:
"Sir,--I am directed by the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham, Lord Keeper of His Majesty"s Privy Seal, to convey to you his lordship"s approbation of the conduct displayed by you in a late transaction. His lordship, acknowledging no higher claim to employment than probity, nor any more important duty in the disposition of patronage than the reward of integrity, desires me to intimate that the office of Clerk of the Leases in the Forest of Dean, which is vacant and has been placed at his command, is open for your acceptance. He is informed that the emoluments of the office arising from fees amount in good years to five hundred pounds, and in bad years seldom fall below four hundred.
His lordship has made me the channel of this communication, that I may take the opportunity of expressing my regret that a misunderstanding at one time arose between us. Accept, sir, this friendly a.s.surance of a change of sentiment, and allow me to
"Have the honour to be, sir, "Your obedient servant, "J. Addington."
"Clerk of the Leases--in the Forest of Dean--have been known in bad years--to fall to four hundred!" Mr. Fishwick e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, his eyes like saucers. "Oh, Lord, I am dreaming! I must be dreaming! If I don"t get my cravat untied, I shall have a lit! Four hundred in bad years! It"s a--oh, it"s incredible! They"ll not believe it! I vow they"ll not believe it!"
But when he turned to seek them, he saw that they had stolen a march on him, that they knew it already and believed it! Between him and the tiny plot of gra.s.s, the urn, and the espalier, which, still caught the last beams of the setting sun, he surprised two happy faces spying on his joy--the one beaming through a hundred puckers with a mother"s tearful pride; the other, the most beautiful in the world, and now softened and elevated by every happy emotion.
Mr. Dunborough stood his trial at the next Salisbury a.s.sizes, and, being acquitted of the murder of Mr. Pomeroy, was found guilty of manslaughter. He pleaded his clergy, went through the formality of being branded in the hand with a cold iron, and was discharged on payment of his fees. He lived to be the fifth Viscount Dunborough, a man neither much worse nor much better than his neighbours; and dying at a moderate age--in his bed, of gout in the stomach--escaped the misfortune which awaited some of his friends; who, living beyond the common span, found themselves shunned by a world which could find no worse to say of them than that they lived in their age as all men of fashion had lived in their youth.
Mr. Thoma.s.son was less fortunate. Bully Pomeroy"s dying words and the evidence of the man Tamplin were not enough to bring the crime home to him. But representations were made to his college, and steps were taken to compel him to resign his Fellowship. Before these came to an issue, he was arrested for debt, and thrown into the Fleet. There he lingered for a time, sinking into a lower and lower state of degradation, and making ever more and more piteous appeals to the n.o.ble pupils who owed so much of their knowledge of the world to his guidance. Beyond this point his career is not to be traced, but it is improbable that it was either creditable to him or edifying to his friends.
To-day the old Bath road is silent, or echoes only the fierce note of the cyclist"s bell. The coaches and curricles, wigs and hoops, bolstered saddles and carriers" waggons are gone with the beaux and fine ladies and gentlemen"s gentlemen whose environment they were; and the Castle Inn is no longer an inn. Under the wide eaves that sheltered the love pa.s.sages of Sir George and Julia, in the panelled halls that echoed the steps of Dutch William and Duke Chandos, through the n.o.ble rooms that a Seymour built that Seymours might be born and die under their frescoed ceilings, the voices of boys and tutors now sound. The boys are divided from the men of that day by four generations, the tutors from the man we have depicted, by a moral gulf infinitely greater. Yet is the change in a sense outward only; for where the heart of youth beats, there, and not behind fans or masks, the "Stand!" of the highwayman, or the "Charge!"
of the hero, lurks the high romance.
Nor on the outside is all changed at the Castle Inn. Those who in this quiet lap of the Wiltshire Downs are busy moulding the life of the future are reverent of the past. The old house stands stately, high-roofed, almost unaltered, its great pillared portico before it; hard by are the Druids" Mound, and Preshute Church in the lap of trees.
Much water has run under the bridge that spans the Kennet since Sir George and Julia sat on the parapet and watched the Salisbury coach come in; the bridge that was of wood is of brick--but there it is, and the Kennet still flows under it, watering the lawns and flowering shrubs that Lady Hertford loved. Still can we trace in fancy the sweet-briar hedge and the border of pinks which she planted by the trim ca.n.a.l; and a bowshot from the great school can lose all knowledge of the present in the crowding memories which the Duelling Green and the Bowling Alley, trodden by the men and women of a past generation, awaken in the mind.