Humphrey Bold. Herbert Strang
for a passable dexterity with the small sword."
Mr. Vetch was quite overcome when I set my proposal before him. He embraced it eagerly, drew out my articles at once, and swore that I would be his salvation. And as I must needs have somewhere to live, he insisted on my taking up my abode with him; he had a roomy house, he said, and I need not occupy Cyrus' chamber unless I pleased.
"But what about poor old Becky?" I said. "She is really harder hit by this unlucky affair than I, and 't would break her heart to go to the poor house."
"Let her come, too," said Mr. Vetch. "My housekeeper is leaving me; the fates are conspiring in our favor, you see. Let her come and mother us both, and I will give her twenty pounds a year."
I had as yet broken nothing of my designs to Mistress Pennyquick, foreseeing trouble in that quarter. It was pitiful to see her, who had been such a bustling housewife, sitting the greater part of the day with her hands in her lap, or dabbing the tears from her eyes, and to hear her melancholy plaints, which grew the more frequent as the time drew nearer for leaving the old house. After concluding my arrangement with Mr. Vetch I went back to the farmhouse, flung my cap into a chair, and, sitting across the corner of the table, said:
"Only two days more, Becky."
"And what will become of us I don't know," says the old woman. "'Tis the poor house for me, and water gruel, and I've had my rasher regular for forty year. And as for you, my poor lamb, never did I think I'd live to see you put on an apron, and say 'What d'ye lack, Madam?' to stuck-up folks as'll look on ye as so much dirt."
"What's this talk of aprons?" says I, laughing.
"How can ye laugh?" she says, the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Beggars can't be choosers, and ye'll have to ask Mr. Huggins to have pity on ye and take ye into his shop, and ye'll tie up sugar and coffee for Susan Cludde belike, and--oh, deary me!"
"Nonsense, Becky," says I. "I shan't have that pleasure. I'm going to join Mr. Vetch."
"What!" she shrieks.
"'Tis true. Mr. Vetch has given me my articles, and instead of tying up coffee and sugar I shall tie deeds and conveyances and become a most respectable lawyer."
"Oh! 'twill kill me!" she moans. "Of all the dreadful news I ever heard! And wi' Lawyer Vetch, too; the man as devours widows' houses and makes away with good men's wills! I wish I were in my grave, I do!"
"Wouldn't you rather be with me, Becky?" I said, smiling at her.
"'Tis cruel to talk so," she cried, sobbing. "How can I be with 'ee? What you get from Lawyer Vetch won't keep two--if you get anything at all. They say his nephew has ruined him--the wretch! Indeed, if you ask me, I say you'll get more from Mr. Huggins than from the lawyer. You'll have enough to do to keep yourself, without being saddled with a poor, forlorn old widow woman."
"But won't you come? I am going to live with Mr. Vetch."
"Live with the devil!" she screamed, lifting her hands with a gesture of utter despair. "It is downright wicked of you, Humphrey--and your poor father not a week in the grave. Sure the end of the world be coming, when the leopard and the kid shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox."
"And donkeys won't bray, I suppose," says I. "There, I don't mean you, Becky, though you are an old goose. Mr. Vetch wants a housekeeper, and you are to come with me and mother us both, he says, and he'll give you twenty pounds a year."
The good creature's look sent me into a fit of laughter. She stared solemnly at me for a while through her tears, saying never a word. Then the drooping corners of her mouth lifted; she folded her hands across her plump person and said:
"Your father only gave me eighteen, Humphrey: are you sure 'twas twenty the lawyer said?"
"Quite sure. The devil isn't as black as he's painted, eh Becky?"
"Ah! you never know a man till yon've lived with him. Pennyquick was--but there, he's gone, poor soul, as we all must, and tis ill work saying anything against one as can't answer ye back: not that Pennyquick was ever much of a hand at that, poor soul!"
I heard no more vilification of Mr. Vetch. Becky recovered her old activity with surprising ease, and went about the house collecting such personal belongings of her own and mine as the lawyer told us we might remove without question. He himself came to the house on our last day, and made an inventory of the articles we removed, and having seen these safely bestowed in a pannier on the back of Ben Ivimey's son, who came to carry them away, we shut the doors of the old place, Mr. Vetch pocketed the keys, and we set off for the town.
Mistress Pennyquick shed a plenitude of tears, and I had a monstrous lump in my throat that threatened to choke me if I tried to speak. With a discretion that raised him mightily in Becky's esteem, Mr. Vetch fell behind, leaving us two together; and so with full hearts we took the road, going into our new life hand in hand.
Chapter 7: A Crown Piece.
This turn in our affairs was a nine days' wonder in Shrewsbury. And whether it was that some chord of sympathy was touched in our townsfolk, or that Mr. Vetch worsted his only rival, Mr. Moggridge, in a case of breach of covenant that was tried at the next assizes, I know not; but certain it is that my friend's business took a leap upward from that very time. Clients flocked to him; he soon had to employ an additional clerk; and Mistress Pennyquick, who was twice as tyrannical as before on the strength of her extra two pounds a year, declared privately to me one day that she wished for nothing now but that she might live to see me a partner with Mr. Vetch, in a house of my own, with a sensible wife and five pretty children.
But I have come to believe that as an Ethiopian can not change his skin, nor a leopard his spots, so a man can not alter the bent of mind he was born with, nor follow any course with success but the one to which his nature calls. I entered Mr. Vetch's office with the best will in the world to please him, and to master the principles of legal practice and procedure; but I found it hard to reconcile myself to the atmosphere of a stuffy room filled with musty tomes, and to the unvarying round of desk work--copying from morning to night agreements, deeds and other documents bristling with a jargon unintelligible to me.
I soon tired of freehold and copyhold tenure, of manorial rights and customs, and the hundred and one legal fictions connected with actions at law and bills in chancery that constitute the routine of an attorney's profession. I yearned to breathe an ampler air; and when one day I saw Dick Cludde, returned home on leave, strutting past with Mytton and other boon companions, in all the bravery of cocked hat, laced coat and buckled shoes, I flung down my pen and donned my cap, and set off, with bitter rage and envy in my heart, to pour out my soul to my constant friend, Captain Galsworthy.
"Halt!" cried the captain, when I was in the midst of a tirade. "We'll have a bout."
And forthwith we donned the gloves, and for a full quarter of an hour we sparred, he with the cool mastery that never deserted him, I with a blind rage and fury which had its natural end. In the third round I aimed a blow at my adversary's neck with my right hand, but failing in my reach, he returned it full swing with his left, and dealt me such a staggerer on my cheekbone that down I went like a ninepin and measured my length on the floor.
"Capital!" says the captain, sitting down (the old fellow was puffing not a little). "Capital! That was a settler, eh, my boy? Now you can get up and talk sense."
I got up, rubbing my cheek, and grinning a rueful smile, as the captain told me. We remained long in talk; never had my old friend been wiser or more kindly. He listened to me with patience as I told him--quietly, for he had fairly knocked my rage out of me--how desperately sick I was of my occupation, and how I longed to stretch my limbs and do something.
"I knew it, my boy," he said. "I had seen it coming. I understand it. Haven't I been through it myself? I was bred for commerce: you might as well have harnessed a pig. One day--I was younger than