3. In The Den Of The Lawyer
The next two weeks were spent in maturing plans by the young men for their intended expedition. Maps were consulted, and books of travel-- Livingstone, Stanley, and other authorities--devoured in such leisure times as they had from their finishing studies.
At last the day arrived--their last day of school life; their last day under the fatherly control of Dr Heardman. The good doctor was proud of his three crack pupils, and prophesied great futures for them. The younger schoolmates went off to their different homes in deep dejection, wondering how they were ever to get on, the next term, without their heroes and champions.
Of course their places would quickly be filled up, for heroic souls and talented minds are common enough products of British soil. Infatuated adherents of Disraeli, Gladstone, and Salisbury are apt to fancy that chaos must come when they have gone from their posts. Yet the old state coach rumbles along pretty much as it did in the days of former drivers. The ocean nibbles away at sea-coasts, and encroaches every year in some parts, while it retires from others in the same proportions. Continents have been submerged, and ancient cities buried under the brine; but other continents, cities, and nations have risen and taken the work of civilisation upon them. The earth has not become a fraction smaller, the ocean has not increased by so much as a drop of water.
Heroes have risen and carved their names on the monument of history, but mankind has not suffered by their passing away. It benefited, perchance, through their living, as the grain-fields benefit by the passing rains; yet as the moisture returns to the clouds, and comes down again and again, so do great deeds repeat themselves amongst men as in nature. The drop of rain is nothing after it has done its work; the man is of no more consideration after the emergency has passed for which his strength was produced.
For a time the renown of those three champions would hover over Shebourne Academy. The acts of the new claimants would be criticised and compared with what had been done before by those doughty heroes. Then the hour would arrive when their successors appeared to overtop them in the eyes of the young censors; then they would fade into oblivion with the majority, and be remembered by a few as demi-gods. In every school there are minds formed to lead and natures made to admire. Wisely, the majority of mankind are those who exist for the present, and trouble themselves neither with the past nor the future. Their hero is the one who serves their interests for the time. Thus mankind goes on, trampling the road smoother which old footsteps have partly made, leaving the dreamers and the regretters to linger on the side pathways.
Filled with hope and laden with their prizes, the three boys bade farewell to their old life, and set forth to interview the present arbitrator of their lives, Mr Jabez Raymond--the man who held the sinews of war.
Ned had written to this gentleman, and in his reply Mr Raymond gave them a warm invitation to visit him and consult over matters at his place.
Mr Jabez Raymond was, as we have already stated, not a family man, but he had a good practice in the cathedral town of Abbotsmore, about one hundred and thirty miles from Shebourne.
His sister acted as housekeeper to him, and although it was not a very large house, yet Ned Romer wondered that he had not been invited before during his holidays. There were bedrooms enough to accommodate him and his comrades. He excused his guardian, however, as being a bachelor, and not caring for the company of youngsters.
Mr Raymond's house and offices faced the main street, with the cathedral in front of it, and a large garden leading down to the river at the back. It was an old-fashioned and somewhat dark house inside, filled with passages, recesses, cupboards, and unexpected nooks. The walls of the dining-room were oak-wainscotted. The offices also were lined with the same enduring and time-blackened material.
It had been a great family house at one time, as the crests and ornaments on the ceilings showed. The small-paned windows likewise told of its ancient history. The furniture also was old and solid, with little of the modern superfluities to lighten it up. It was a comfortable house, but not one where youth would be likely to bud out with exuberance.
Both Mr Raymond and his austere sister suited the appointments of the house. She was an elderly spinster, stiff, precise, and most severely orderly. He was a sharp-faced man, who appeared wedded to his legal documents, and possessing a mind never far out of his office.
It was late in the afternoon when our heroes arrived, and, after spending a few hours in the society of their host and hostess, they were not sorry when bedtime came.
"There is no good lingering here any longer than we can help, lads," said Ned on retiring. "Tomorrow I intend to tackle old Raymond, and see what he purposes doing for us."
That night the lawyer had a final look over the papers relating to the affairs of his late client, Mr Romer. He did this after the boys and his household had retired and behind locked doors.
A fox-like man of about fifty Mr Jabez was, with thin hair and side whiskers, originally dark red, but now grizzled and grey. Much poring over documents had reddened his eyelids and sharp long nose, and taken the red out of his long parchment-like jaws. His mouth was thin-lipped and wide, which gave him an unpleasant grin when he smiled, as he was doing now, his eyes also were yellow speckled, like Fred Weldon's, but, unlike Fred's open eyes, they were shifty and half hidden by the reddened, scantily lashed lids.
"Hum, these will do, I think. It is not at all likely that this boy will dispute my accounts or ask outside aid to understand these professional mysteries. I'll have it over tomorrow with him, while he is eager to get away, and make him a liberal offer, to be rid of him at once and for ever."
It will be seen from this muttered soliloquy inside the door of Mr Jabez Raymond's study that he was of the same mind as his unsophisticated ward--to get into and over business as rapidly as possible.
Next morning, therefore, after the customary breakfast of bacon and eggs, he forestalled Ned by asking the three boys into his sanctum.
"I intended to postpone going into particulars respecting your late father's affairs until you had gained your majority, Mr Edward; but as you have already mapped out your career, I think it will meet your views if I do so at once."
He grinned, what he considered to be an indulgent smile upon the young gentlemen, while instinctively they wished he had not done so; that widening of his thin mouth somehow spoilt the effect of his words.
"I do not suppose you have any desire to go very deeply into your family history. Yet you had best glance over these documents after I have told you briefly their contents, and see how at present your fortune stands."
"Your word will be quite sufficient, Mr Raymond," replied Ned, hastily. "My father trusted you, and that is quite enough for me."
The lawyer once more grinned, and spread out his hands in a deprecating fashion, as he answered--
"You must not do this, my young friend, with every one you meet, or you may live to regret it. Your poor, noble, and generous-hearted father trusted too many people for his own welfare and those coming after him, otherwise I should have had more satisfactory accounts to give you."
"Yet if others deceived him, I am sure you could not, Mr Raymond."
"Thank you, Edward. I may say that I have tried my utmost to prove a just and faithful steward, but alas! I found matters in a sad muddle, which have taken me all your years to disentangle; even now the unpleasant task is far from being done. Listen, and I'll try to give you a summary of how you stand." Clarence and Fred were moving off towards the window, thinking that they had no right to listen to these private disclosures, when Mr Jabez stopped them.
"Please sit down and listen also, young gentlemen. Four heads are better than two, even although one happens to be that of a lawyer, in a business of this kind. Besides, we may require you as witnesses."
The two bowed and returned to their chairs.
"When your father inherited the Romer estates, Edward, he was, as you are, an only child, and, like you, had been left early an orphan.
"My predecessors, Messrs. Skinner and Bland, had been the family solicitors of your grandfather, and although the property was a wide-spreading one, with many prosperous farms upon it, yet it had been considerably mortgaged for the two past generations.
"Ostensibly your father's income was eight thousand, but really, at the date of his succession, six thousand five hundred of this went yearly to pay the interest of the old mortgages.
"This was bad enough, yet it might have been improved with care, economy, and a wealthy marriage. Your dear, chivalrous father, however, did not come from a cheese-paring race, and he was too noble to sell himself for money."
"Dear father," murmured Ned. He was too young at that father's death to remember what he was like, but this testimony to his generous and disinterested nature touched a kindred chord in the boy's heart.
"Ah, yes!" continued the lawyer, softly. "You were too young to remember what your father was like, yet in outward appearance you resemble him, and doubtless you have the same fine and gentlemanly disregard for money. It runs in the blood."
As Ned did not reply, Mr Jabez went on--
"Some, as I have said, might have tried by marriage or strict economy to better their condition. But Mr Romer did neither. He married the lady of his choice, who had nothing; then, after marriage, he kept up the old style at Romer Court.
"After a few years his income had dwindled down to nine hundred, and then he tried, by speculating, to regain what he had lost. His speculations were not lucky ones. The friends he trusted failed him at the finish, so that when he died, twelve months after your mother, he was responsible for more than the small income left him, and had only mortgaged property to leave behind, a large number of personal debts, and nothing else to leave."
"Then where did the money come from to keep me all these years at school, Mr Raymond?" Asked Ned, quickly.
The lawyer flushed a brickly flush as he answered--"Well, I am coming to that subject, my dear young friend. When I undertook your father's affairs, I went to work energetically and justly, yet without sentiment--lawyers do not work often in that vein. I mastered the debts of honour and the extent of the mortgages, and managed to scrape sufficient to pay for your education."
"Then there is nothing left for me?" Asked Ned, blankly.
"Softly, softly, my dear boy. In ten or twelve years from now I hope, D.V., to have a good balance for you at the bank, and an income of five or six hundred pounds for you. I have almost settled all the personal debts, and am now working to reduce the mortgages."
"Yes. But how about the present? Can I not realise any money?"
"I have made some arrangements with my own bank, and can let you have a lump sum of say five hundred pounds on your note of hand, only if I do this it will mean drawing your income until you are of age."
"I am quite willing to sign any document you like if you can do this without inconveniencing yourself, Mr Romer," said Ned, eagerly.
Mr Jabez Raymond gazed upon his ward for a few moments silently, while he appeared to think. Then he spoke.
"It is not exactly professional; but as you wish to try your fortune in Africa, while from all reports, Africa is the coming land for fortune-making, I think it can be done. I wish you first to read over carefully these documents, in which all I have told you is written, and also examine carefully this parchment, which I have drawn up for you to sign--examine them and consult together about them. When you have done this, if you decide to have the money down now, instead of drawing it quarterly for the next four years, you can let me know on my return at lunch-time."
Mr Jabez rose as he said these words, and leaving the boys to study the pile of parchment, he went out to attend to his other business.
They had been accustomed to difficult problems at Dr Heardman's Academy, but those were simple to solve compared to the understanding of these legally obscured documents. After a long hour of bewilderment, Ned laid them down respectfully in a heap, and turned dolefully upon his trusty but equally befogged comrades.
"Well, boys, what do you make out of these mysteries?"
"Nothing, except a dry throat and an aching head," replied Clarence Raybold.
"Let's go for a walk, and get some gooseberries. I'm not going to attempt the impossible," cried Ned, decidedly.
This proposal was grateful to the others, so together they went out to the sun, and enjoyed themselves till lunch-time. After lunch the lawyer read over the document which required the signature of Ned. It sounded all right, although terribly garnished with obscure phrases. There were blank spaces to be afterwards filled up, such as the amounts received, with the terms of repayment, dates, and conditions, which Mr Jabez explained as he read in his most fatherly tones.
It sounded all right, therefore Ned put his name boldly at the bottom in the presence of Miss Priscilla Raymond and his two friends, who afterwards signed theirs as witnesses.
This document dried, and locked with other papers into Mr Raymond's safe, the lawyer drew a cheque in his own name and went to the bank to get it cashed.