The Castle Inn. Stanley John Weyman

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CHAPTER IV

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PEEPING TOM OF WALLINGFORD

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      To be an attorney-at-law, avid of practice and getting none; to be called Peeping Tom of Wallingford, in the place where you would fain trot about busy and respected; to be the sole support of an old mother, and to be come almost to the toe of the stocking--these circumstances might seem to indicate an existence and prospects bare, not to say arid. Eventually they presented themselves in that light to the person most nearly concerned--by name Mr. Peter Fishwick; and moving him to grasp at the forlorn hope presented by a vacant stewardship at one of the colleges, brought him by coach to Oxford. There he spent three days and his penultimate guineas in canvassing, begging, bowing, and smirking; and on the fourth, which happened to be the very day of Sir George's arrival in the city, was duly and handsomely defeated without the honour of a vote.

      Mr. Fishwick had expected no other result; and so far all was well. But he had a mother, and that mother entertained a fond belief that local jealousy and nothing else kept down her son in the place of his birth. She had built high hopes on this expedition; she had thought that the Oxford gentlemen would be prompt to recognise his merit; and for her sake the sharp-featured lawyer went back to the Mitre a rueful man. He had taken a lodging there with intent to dazzle the town, and not because his means were equal to it; and already the bill weighed upon him. By nature as cheerful a gossip as ever wore a scratch wig and lived to be inquisitive, he sat mum through the evening, and barely listened while the landlord talked big of his guest upstairs, his curricle and fashion, the sums he lost at White's, and the plate in his dressing-case.

      Nevertheless the lawyer would not have been Peter Fishwick if he had not presently felt the stirrings of curiosity, or, thus incited, failed to be on the move between the stairs and the landing when Sir George came in and passed up. The attorney's ears were as sharp as a ferret's nose, and he was notably long in lighting his humble dip at a candle which by chance stood outside Sir George's door. Hence it happened that Soane--who after dismissing his servant had gone for a moment into the adjacent chamber--heard a slight noise in the room he had left; and, returning quickly to learn what it was, found no one, but observed the outer door shake as if some one tried it. His suspicions aroused, he was still staring at the door when it moved again, opened a very little way, and before his astonished eyes admitted a small man in a faded black suit, who, as soon as he had squeezed himself in, stood bowing with a kind of desperate audacity.

      'Hallo!' said Sir George, staring anew. 'What do you want, my man?'

      The intruder advanced a pace or two, and nervously crumpled his hat in his hands. 'If your honour pleases,' he said, a smile feebly propitiative appearing in his face, 'I shall be glad to be of service to you.'

      'Of service?' said Sir George, staring in perplexity. 'To me?'

      'In the way of my profession,' the little man answered, fixing Sir George with two eyes as bright as birds'; which eyes somewhat redeemed his small keen features. 'Your honour was about to make your will.' 'My will?' Sir George cried, amazed; 'I was about to--' and then in an outburst of rage, 'and if I was--what the devil business is it of yours?' he cried. 'And who are you, sir?'

      The little man spread out his hands in deprecation. 'I?' he said. 'I am an attorney, sir, and everybody's business is my business.'

      Sir George gasped. 'You are an attorney!' he cried. 'And--and everybody's business is your business! By God, this is too much!' And seizing the bell-rope he was about to overwhelm the man of law with a torrent of abuse, before he had him put out, when the absurdity of the appeal and perhaps a happy touch in Peter's last answer struck him; he held his hand, and hesitated. Then, 'What is your name, sir?' he said sternly.

      'Peter Fishwick,' the attorney answered humbly.

      'And how the devil did you know--that I wanted to make a will?'

      'I was going upstairs,' the lawyer explained. 'And the door was ajar.'

      'And you listened?'

      'I wanted to hear,' said Peter with simplicity.

      'But what did you hear, sir?' Soane retorted, scarcely able to repress a smile.

      'I heard your honour tell your servant to lay out pen and paper, and to bring the landlord and another upstairs when he called you in the morning. And I heard you bid him leave your sword. And putting two and two together, respected sir, 'Peter continued manfully,' and knowing that it is only of a will you need three witnesses, I said to myself, being an attorney--'

      'And everybody's business being your business,' Sir George muttered irritably.

      'To be sure, sir--it is a will, I said, he is for making. And with your honour's leave,' Peter concluded with spirit, I'll make it.'

      'Confound your impudence,' Sir George answered, and stared at him, marvelling at the little man's shrewdness.

      Peter smiled in a sickly fashion. 'If your honour would but allow me?' he said. He saw a great chance slipping from him, and his voice was plaintive.

      It moved Sir George to compassion. 'Where is your practice?' he asked ungraciously.

      The attorney felt a surprising inclination to candour. 'At Wallingford,' he said, 'it should be. But--' and there he stopped, shrugging his shoulders, and leaving the rest unsaid.

      'Can you make a will?' Sir George retorted.

      'No man better,' said Peter with confidence; and on the instant he СКАЧАТЬ