POOR UNCLE JACOB.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVII, Issue 2413, 19 January 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

POOR UNCLE JACOB.

BY MISS BEADDON. Author of 'Just As I Am,’ ‘Dead Men’s . Shoes,’ ‘ Lady. Audley’s Secret,’ &o.

Jacob Eodwell was'the eldest in. a family of seven, so it will be understood that by the time he bad reached n patriarchal age he was .handsomely supplied with nephews and nieces, and that the children of those nephews and nieces wore old enough; and numerous enough to make their existence, felt in the neighbourhood they adorned. Popular tra-; dition. would have it that Jacob was the richest as well as the oldest of the Eodwell family. If it were so he had become rich by stagnation ; by not spending money rather than by mating it- He was the only member of the family who had stuck by the soil. He had remained rooted when all the world about him Vas moving. On the death of his father the small pasture farm and humble homestead which the Eodwells had held for two centuries were put up for sale by auction, the proceeds to be divided in equal shares among the seven brothers and sisters. Jacob bought the property. He had saved some money by sheer thrift, by working as a day labourenJor neighbouring farmers when work was slack on ms father’s farm, by fetching and carrying, by breeding dogs and doctoring swine, by patting his shoulder to any wheel that wauled moving—his hand'to any work that had to be done. The rest of the purchase money he borrowed from the family lawyer in Eigton, the nearest market town, and so began life for himself at thirty-five, on three hundred acres of poorish land mortgaged to the hilt. Two of his sisters were married and living in town, that is to say, in Eigton—one long street with a shabby fringe of courts and alloys,, and a population of fifteen thousand, but ‘ town ’ par excellence to all the country side. Two were in service in London. The elder of his two brothers was clerk and salesman with the chief grocer at Eigton; the younger hid ruined himself by marrying a young woman with money, and setting up a shop in the High street, a shabby shop at the shabby end of the street, with a business so indeterminate in character as to include a little of everything, stale and inferior, from smaE haberdashery to bloaters. The windows put on their brightest aspect in February, when an assortment of uncivil valentines hung in front of the buns, vegetables, crockery, sweets and fancy goods, accumulating dnst and providing a home tor flies, which languished and faded there all the year round. Some of the family had done well and some had done very badly; bnt they all felt they had a vested interest in their head. Those whom fortune hod used ill considered that poverty gave them a sacred claim upon the rich brother. Those who had prospered toped that he would reward a thrift which ■was second only to his own. For two and forty years Jacob Eodwell hod owned Tilberry Farm: and in all those years he had lived only to labour and improve the i soil he loved. It was the only thing in this world that ha had ever loved; and his views of a world beyond wore narrow and dim.% He believed that hard work and hard living would bo compensated to him somehow in the

skies—but he hoped the Almighty would find for him to do there. His work on the farm for the last ten years may have counted for very little; but Iris ( eyes and his brain had been worth a great deal. Those small, keen, grey 03 T es had seen everything that was done or left undone; and the old master’s watchfulness must have been as good as two day-labourers’ automatic toil. He knew how to get tho most work out of every man —the ultimate power of every muscle in every arm that laboured for him. His grass had always been more cleanly cut, his hay bettor stacked, his stacks better thatched, his cows bettor fed and cared for, his dairy cleaner than any other farmer’s in the country. He was always secure of a prize for anything he cared to send to the "County Show. Live stock or dead, mangel or turnip, it was sure to bo the best of its kind. And now old Uncle Jacob was in failing health. He who had always jeered at sickness in his brothers and sisters—as a natural consequence of living indoors and in a crowded street, instead of tramping about in the open all day and in all weathers —he himself had been forced to acknowledge that rheumatism is not a dream, and that there is some reality in lumbago; and that there iB poor gout as well as rich gout—a cruel malady from which sparse diet and temperate habits will not always absolve a man. Ho had come within the last two years to be balked of complacently in the family as ‘ Poor Uncle Jacob.’ From the hour the sisters and brothers and nephews and nieces were able to prefix that compassionate epithet to their kinsman’s name they began to feel that the reversion of his land and his money was within measureablc distance.

They began, too, to pay tho old man a good many more visits than he liked. Ho had always done his best to keep his family at arm’s length. So far as the negative resistance implied in never offering them any refreshment, he had been consistent in his dealings with them for the last forty years. He did not deny himself to them ; indeed, as ho rarely left the farm except on business of buying or selling, any pretence of not beingat home would have been too obviously false. Blit, as he was generally out and about, tho visitor had to And him, and the interview, while lid had tho free Use of his limbs, would take place in d. meadow, barn, or cattle-yard, as the dasd might be< A smart young niece—professed cook in a faniily near London, and dressed in tho height of the fashion—had once fdund-her uncle on the top of a and, being playfully invited to ascend, had tripped gaily up the ladder, pleased with the rustic adventure —not so pleased, though, with the request that she should pay her footing, which greeted her arrival on the summit, and which demand mot with favour, instead of reproof, from her uncle. That visit cost Miss Phcebe Rodwell half-a-crown, to say nothing of a three-mile walk two and fro on a dusty high* road, and a tramp across a fifty-acre meadow.

‘ And the old wretch didn’t offer mo a cup of tea/ complained Phoebe. ‘ No, nor never would/ grumbled her father, the grocer’s dork. 4 He ain’t offered bite nor sup to anyj of us since he’s owned the farm. He must hare made a pretty big pile by this tlmo, I’ll lay/ ‘l’ve heard master say farming don’t pay/ said Phoebe.

: 4 Fancy farming don’t pay. Gentry’s farming won’t pay. But when a man squeezes the land as your uncle squeezes it, working early and late himself, and never giving his men any peace, farming’s bound to pay. And it pays him. And he don’t spend much of his brass on himself, and he don’t give anybody a half-penny. fc»o ne’s bound to be rich/ ‘ Horrid old miser/

‘ Well, someone’ll have the spending of his money when he’s dead and gone/ said the grocer, 4 but Lord knows who that will be.’

That was what the whole family felt—the money was there ; and Uncle Jacob couldn’t carry it out of the world with him. It had boon rumoured in Bigton that ho had been very lucky with his modest little investments. He had bought shares in a branch lino which nobody believed in when it was started ; and the line had done well, and was now paying ,ten per cent., while shares bought at par twenty years ago were worth two hundred and seventy pounds to sell to*day. - Yes, ho was a rich man, no doubt; but then, the family had so multiplied during his 42 years of avarice, that, were he minded to he sternly just, and, distribute his wealth among the ruck, there would he very little for anybody. Nobody could be made materially richer by his share of such a distribution. But, on the other hand, although Uncle Jacob had .never, by word or deed, evinced tbe slightest preference for any, member of the family, yet it was possible that in the depths of his mind he cherished a warm affection for one member of that family—one whose superior qualities marked him or her as worthy to be so preferred. There were several of his nephews and nieces who harboured a hope of this kind; while each of his brothers and sisters beguiled the tedium of waiting for hie death by rosy dreams of inheriting the bfilk of his fortune.

The grocer told himself that ho was next in ago to old Jacob —surely a strong point ih his favour. He had worked very hard, and kept out of debt, and brought his children up decently. Ho never heard tbe parable of the talents toad in church—where ho went diligently—without feeling,that he must be the chosen heir.

Andrew, the youngest of the three, hai touched nothing that he had not spoilt. Everything had gone to ruin in his hands. The wife’s fortune, the little shop, the wife herself, who hid Japsed into a gin-drinkmg drab, the children, who went to the bad as soon as they were old enough to matriculate ‘ in Satan’s, college. But Andrew pitied himself so much that he thought Jacob could not fail to pity him—and that ho would be left provided for. That was bis modest way of putting it. Ho did not want a lump of money, which he may have known would have soon melted away in his weak clutch. Ho only wanted to be provided for. He felt sure that his brother would leave a provision for him. Three or four pounds a week, perhaps, to be paid him through the family lawyer. Others had larger hopes. One of the nieces had done particularly well in life, and believed that good fortune would never forsake a person of her superior merits.., She had married, and survived an elderly - corn .chandler who had left her all his possessions. Her square, xed-briok house in the middle of the High street showed the whitest muslin curtains, the brightest brass rods and buffest doorstep in the town. Her house was to her as a temple, and the greater part of her life was spent in its service. She had grown spare and angular in the process, for she was almost as parsimonious as her uncle. This lady, for some reason too deep for the psychologists’ plummot-line, had made up her mind that she was Jacob’s favourite among the brood of nephews, nieces, and their offspring. People had told her that she had old Jacob’s nose, and that might count for something.* . Anyhow, she had elected herself first favourite for the EodwoU Stakes ; and now that infirmity kept the old man within doors, she visited him with a persistency which at the outset had a very bad effect upon his\tempor, but which ho had latterly submitted to as a natural consequence of old ago and weariness, and had begun to accept as a flattering attention. 4 1 hope you ain’t coming after the brass/ Sophia/ ho said on one occasion. Mrs Froman looked about the room vaguely, till her eyes descended to the fender: on which her uncle’s - slippered feet were resting. ,

‘lf you mean the fender, uncle, it’s been too much neglected for anybody to want it,’ she said. ‘ I don’t mean the fender, my lass. I mean my fortun’. Yon know that as well as I do.’ ‘ I hope I’m above coming after anything but my duty as a niece,’ Mrs Froman replied primly. ‘ I make no doubt you’ll dispose of your fortune prudently, and won’t leave it to those who would chuck it into the gutter.’ * .*

The old man grew worse, tortured with rheumatism in- every limb—as if all the inclement weather to which he had exposed himself in his long life of hardy toil hod stored up its evil influences to afllict him now ; and as his ailments increased his niece Sophia assumed more importance at the homestead, lengthened her visits, and invited herself to’ the meals which her uncle had never asked her to share. Time after time he had said to her, ‘ You’ll be getting home, to your tea how, I expect, Sophia,’ just as the kettle began to sing on the trivet in front of tbe fire, and Sophia had taken the hint and set out unrefreshed upon her three mile walk to Eigton. But now Sophia would come about noon and inform her uncle in a comfortable voice that she was going to take a bit of dinner with him and the bit of dinner would be followed by tea, until one day old Jacob was stung into saying ‘ Yon might a’most as. well be living here, Sophia.’ ‘Ah, dear ancle Jacob, I wish I could!’ sighed Sophia, 1 but I’ve got my bouse to think; of. ’ I’ve never had a girl yet that, I could trust.’ . -

It is not to be supposed that Jacob would have submitted to this self-invited guest had he not found his niece useful to him. She was useful, and ho knew it by the difficulty he had in getting on without that extra help during her absence. He had a servant, and a faithful one, a slave in obedience, a dog in affection, in the person of a farm labourer, his junior by half a dozen years, who had kept his house and his pigfltys and fended for him ever since, ho had bought.the farm. No woman’s clacking tongue had been hoar! in kitchen or house-place during all those years. Jacob’s bed had been made, rooms swept, and meals cooked, after a very rough and primitive fashion, by old Jarge—called ‘ old f for the last twenty years—and Jacob had found that rough and ready service sufficient. He wanted ho women’s finnicking ways, dusting and scrubbing and window-cleaning from morning till night, polishing the fire-irons and blaokleading the grates, and then looking sulky if they were told to light a fire. He wanted not ‘ chaney ornaments and flowerpots ’ stuck about his room. He liked peace and comfort and his own ways. Jarge suited him. Jarge and his master lived like friendsor brothers, worked out of doors all day, and smoked their long clay pipes by the kitchen hearth after sapper. Jarge smoked the bacon in the kitchen as well as his pipe, and the ceiling might have been ebony for blackness. But now that he was crippled by rheumatism, Jacob found his old servant’s ministrations a little rough, as compared with his niece Sophia’s lighter touch and easier way of lifting, him up in his chair, or helping to carry him to his bed. She had nursed hen old husband in a similar illness. . ‘What you want, uncle, is a good, clever nurse to look after you, and cook your, bit of dinner, and keep your rooms nice,’ said Mrs Froman, ‘ and I know of the very woman to make you comfortable. 1 '• Jacob wouldn’t entertain the idei. He wanted no.woman about him except his niece, who might come ns often as she liked. Jarge was able to take care of him. He had been a bit rough at the beginning of his illness, but

he was getting handier, which was true, for love was educating Jargo in the art of sicknursing. ‘ George can’t nurse you single-handed, uncle. You must have someone to wait upon you night and day—and I know just tho person —a treasure in a sick room—or beside a death-bed.’

* I ain’t agoing to die, Sophia,’ remonstrated her uncle. ‘ I hope you’re not counting upon it.’ ‘ Counting on my dear uncle being taken away from me! Oh, how could you think such a thing of me ?’

‘ Well, thou, don’t talk about death-beds. Rheumatics never killed anybody yet as I heard tell of.’

‘ Of course not, 1 agreed Mrs Froman, and in that moment it seemed as if a golden vista which she bad boon looking at in the near future faded and diminished and receded into remoteness and shadow.

‘ Poor Uncle Jacob I’ she thought presently. ‘ I don’t suppose he knows tho worst about himself. . No doubt there are complications.’ Jacob had been suffering more than usual on tho night before his niece’s next visit, and he was inclined to entertain tho idea of a nurse.

‘ I should like one of those pretty young ’uus from the County Hospital,’ ho said, ‘such as I saw in Rigto.n last summer driving in a carriage with a patient. 1 ; * Oh, I don’t know anything about that class of nurses,’ exclaimed Mrs Proman, ‘ giddy young things that would be as likely as not to give you your embrocation instead of the mixture as before. I could never trust the life of a beloved uncle to one of them. No, the person I should recommend—the only person I should like to see here—is a particular friend of mine who has nursed in some of the most respectable families in Rigton. If wo could be fortunate enough to find Anne Jowlo disengaged, which she isn’t often, you’d find her a treasure, as others have done before you.* ‘Others,’ were mostly dead; but that was a detail.

; ‘ Jowlo, 1 muttered tho old man. * That sounds like the name of an ugly woman—with heavy eyebrows and a largo mouth. I’d rather have a' nice, fresh-complexioncd lass from th’ hospital. It required more thau one visit from Mrs Froman to persuade her undo that Mrs Jowlo was just tho one person qualified to make a sick room a Garden of .Eden. Old Jarge, who had a terror of youthful skittishness, joined his voice with Sophia’s persuasive tones, and Mrs Jowlo, happening to have no case on hand, was brought down to the farm, with a trunk and a bandbox to follow on tho pork butcher’s cart pork butcher returning laden with murdered pig. Mrs Jowle looked tho pink of cleanliness in her lavender cotton gown and largo white apron. She was neither young nor beautiful, but she was not repulsive. She was about forty, thick sot and short, with a low forehead, shrewd grey eyes, a small sharp nose, and a heavy mouth and cbin. Tho old man made no objection to her appearance, though ho occasionally referred to tho frcsh-com-ploxionod lass who is the modern idea of a sick nurse. One person there was, however, who strongly objected to Nurse Jowlo. This was old Jarge, who expressed his displeasure from time to time in slow grumbling sounds more suggestive of a fox terrier’s growl than of human utterance. Mrs Jowlo’s smooth tongue and obliging manner might please tho master, but whether from jealously or sheer ‘ cuasednesa ’ old Jargo set himself against her from the hour of her arrival.

He did not say anything to make the invalid uncomfortable. His angry muttorings were reserved for tho kitchen, the stairs and passages, and the out-of-door premises. Ho allowed tho nurse to exercise her craft without hindrance, and obeyed her instructions in helping tho patient, finding that she know her business, and was more skilful than himself in the use of embrocations and fomentations, and all the appliances of sickness. Jarge contented himself with watching her like a lynx, anticipating the hour when all that elaborate attention would give place to carelessness and neglect, perhaps oven to indulgence in strong drink. Sho did not look like an intemperate person. Her cold clear eye had no suggestion of tho gin bottle. Her broad firm lips looked as if they had never, been relaxed by too much beer. Her skinny fingers had the steady grip of health and sobriety. Still Jarge did not trust her. . -

When she had boon at Tilberry Farm a week it became evident that Jacob Roawell liked her. He lot her wait upon him hand and foot. Ho listened contentedly to her accounts of Previous cases; although as most of them had ended fatally the subject was not enlivening. He took a morbid interest in details of sicknesses so much worse than his own; and lie always wound up by'saying that rheumatics never killed anybody., ‘ Poor Uncle Jacob has taken to you wonderfully, Anno,’ Mrs Fromau remarked, in a private talk with the nurse, during one of her frequent visits. It is not to be supposed that niece Sophia had deserted her uncle after finding him this estimable attendant. She had,only provided against'his being troubled by any other visitor. Mrs Jowlo was a sentinel as well as a nurse, and had, strict. orders to admit no intruders. ... ‘ If people want to know how uncle is you can tell’em at the door,’ sho said. ‘They needn’t come inside th© house to worry him.’

‘My patients always do, take to mo, poor dears,’ Mrs Jowlo replied meekly ; and then her friend and patroness remembered how more than one of the lady’s patients had, left her a nice little legacy, and reflected that she might wheedle something in that way out of Uncle Jacob. This was bad; but then it was better to have one happy than a dozen. It was only by the aid of such a friend as Anno Jowlo that niece Sophia could hope to protect her own interests. Had she taken possession of her uncle and kept the door of his house in person, the family might have been strong enough to circumvent her—but a nurse, a respectable woman of well-known integrity, had larger powers. . ' If rheumatism and old age were to kill Uncle Jacob, the process was a slow one. He lingered on through the winter, kept, as it were, in cotton wool by Nurse Jowle, who cooked his food, superseding poor old large, cleaned his rooms, and made him—barring rheumatic pains—more comfortable than ho had over been in his life before.. And all this time she was drawing fifteen shillings a week from her friend Mrs Ur Oman, who had volunteered to pay the nurse’s wages, in order that her uncle should bo properly cared for, knowing very well that ho would never consent to such an expense if it came upon his own hoard. - , ‘ You’re well-to-do, my dear, and you must please your own fancy,’ he said, when Sophia mado this noble offer ; and this was all the thanks she had for her sacrifice, while Mrs Jowlo not unfrequontly reminded her that fifteen shillings a week was six shillings loss than her normal wages—accepted out of kind feeling for a friend. ‘lt’s been a comfortable case for you, Anno,’ Mrs Froman remarked, when the daffodils began to show in the meadow in front of the homestead, and when Mrs Jowle had been nearly eight months at the farm ; ‘ I never thought the poor dear would linger like this.’ ‘ You didn’t know what good nursing and careful diet would do,’ answered her friend, complacently. . ‘ I was afraid thore’d bo complications. ‘ And so there will bo, by-and-bye, I darenever had such a long case before, Anno.’ , „ • No, Sophia ; my cases don’t often run as long as this ; but it would be a bad thing for you if the dear old gentleman was to go off without making a will in your favour.’ ‘ And you don’t think he has made his will ?’ ‘ I’m as good as sure he hasn’t, not from anything he said to me,, but from something I overheard one night between him and Jarge, when they thought I was asleep in my arm-chair. The old man had been talking about his money, and Jarge says, If you mean them as want it most to get it, you’d better make your will while you’ve got your wits about you;” and then your uncle answers, in his pig-headed old way, ‘‘l ain’t a-going to lose ,my wits, Jarge, and I ain’t a-going to hurry about my will.” “It doesn’t make any difference to me,’ old Jarge says; “ I don’t want anything.” ’ : ‘ The old viper/ said Mrs Froman, who had always hated her uncle’s factotum. I He wants Uncle Jacob to .leave everything to Uncle Andrew and his good-for-nothing sons and daughters.’ ‘You may be sure of one thing, Sophia,’ Mrs Jowle replied, solemnly, ‘ It your uncle makes any such wicked will it will never be found after his death., I ain't going to stand by and see injustice'done to you, after your unselfishness and devotedness.*

‘ Thank you, Anne,’ eiglied her friend. ‘lf I hadn’t thought you an upright woman I should never have given you a situation of trust like this.’

Mrs Froman went home to her speckless parlour behind her shadowlcss window panes with a comfortable'mind. She was sure that Mrs Jowle would keep her word. Tho worst that could happen would be for Uncle Jacob to die intestate ; and though this would bo verv provoking, and would hardly recoup her cash out of pocket, it would not be half so aggravating as to see Jacob’s wealth squandered by one of her Uncle Andrew’s overdressed, underfed cousins—who were now one thing, now another, domestic servants, barmaids, dressmakers’ assistants, in and out of place three or four times a year, flirts and gadabouts while single, slatterns and gossips when married.

Time went on, and the meadow grass at Tilberry was ready for the mowing machine, and the complications which Mrs Froman expected had begun to show themselves, and old Jacob Eodwell was desperately ill, on illness which Mrs Jowle declared to be by no means beyond her power to cope with, since the symptoms were Yery familiar to her. After circumstances showed that this was true. But old Jacob, who had hitherto fought sturdily against the expense of medical aid, now insisted on sending for a doctor. He despatched old Jarge : to Eigton one morning ret a somewhat secret manner. His regard for the nurse who had niade'his life so comfortable would not permit him openly to oppose hot, aud she had ' distinctly warned him against the two Eigtbn doctors, as men who knew nothing of their profession—having in each case inherited a' practice from a clever father—and would only humbug him. Despite this warning, nothing could be milder than Anne’s reproof to her dear patient when - the smart medical dog-cart drove up to the door, nothing sweeter than her manner to Mr Fainbly, the doctor, who was not quite so pleasant to her as he might have been. The fact was that Mrs Jowle’s reputation was not agreeable to the faculty at Eigton. She had'a way of taking possession of a patient and keeping the doctor out of the house till matters grew desperate, which no medical man oonld approve. Mr Fambly asked a good many questions gave a few instructions, promised to send some medicine, and to come again next day.

* The old man seems to have been suffering rather severely,’ ho said to Mrs Jowlo in the I passage on his way out, I ‘ You can’t wonder, sir. He’s oaten up ; with gout. Kverything ho takes turns to acidity.’ i ‘ You ought to have sent for mo sooner.’

‘ I bogged and prayed of him to let mo send, tir, but ho wouldn’t.’ * Ah, you always heg and pray your patients, don’t you? Some day you’ll leave it a little too late, Mrs Jowlo : and I shan’t come in time, and you won’t got a certificate —and then there’ll bo a row. This old taira looks like dying. 1 * Don’t say that, sir,’ said Mrs Jowle, with a ready tear or two. 4 I’m as fond of him as if he was my father, * ‘ Has ho settled his affairs ?’ * Yes, sir. Ho made a will lust week.’ * And loft you a thumping legacy, t suppose P’ ‘ I don’t know anything about that, sir.’ ’Don’t know a word that’s in the will, I’ll bo bound J Some of your former patients have remembered you in their ■wills, I think.’

‘ Some of my patients have been grateful to mo, sir, for soothing their last hours,’ replied Mrs Jowle, meekly. ‘ Oily old hypocrite,’ thought tho doctor, asS gave his frisky young horse his bead along tho lonely road. ,\v Unhappily for tho old man, th© doctor w'aa. young and inexperienced, and did not*seo' anything worse in Mrs Jowlo than a bed-sida harpy with a smooth tongue, and a crafty way of screwing a legacy out of a patient. Ho had hoard, casually, of three or four cases within tho last ten years which had ended in tho enrichment of Mrs Jowlo, and ho had laughed over the circumstance with on a of tho prettyhospital nurses. ‘You see, it’s better to bo middle-aged and plain than young and handsome, nurse,’ said tho doctor. ‘ You young ladies don’t drop in for legacies, like Mrs Jowlo.’

It was a surprise to Mr Fambly to find old Jargo at his door in the early morning when ho went downstairs to answer tho summons of tho night-boll. ‘ Pa yonr master worse ? 1 ‘ Dead, sir—dead and murdered. Lord ha* mercy on mo for not saving of him. Poisoned by that murdering woman.

* Poisoned 1 ’ ‘ Yes, as sure as I stand hero ! ’ said -the farm-servant, trembling, and ashy pale. M’vp boon a-watching of her for the last wook. Ho was well up to then—but Vs boon bad, and suffering dreadful in his mind over since yortorday was a week—when she got him to make hia will. I was witness .to it. She stood over him, and helped him to guide his hand. It seemed a just will, for ho lcftmost of his property to tho poorest of his relations. Ho named them all, and tho sums ho wanted to leave them, and all she did was to help him hold his pen and write the words in tho linos whore they had to bo. It was a just will, and it was in his own words, or I shouldn’t have signed it as a witness. 1 All this was said with much excitement, and in a dialect that was familiar to Mr Fambly. * Was ho in full possession of his faculties P 1 * Yes, sir. He know’d what he was doing. Ho was sharp as over he’d boon in hia life. His illness was all in his bones and muscles. There was nothing wrong inside him till after ho made that will. Ho bogam to bo sick and bad next day, and in awful pain, and nothing she could give him did him any good. And when I wanted to fetch a doctor, sue says no, doctors would only humbug him, and it would pass off.’ > ' * Did ho leave her anything in that will ? * - ‘Not much. She came in at tho end. She was residoo legatee.’ ‘ Residuary legatee? 1 ‘ Yes, that was wfiat she asked him to write., “ You won’t got much,” ho says, “for I’vo pretty well disposed of ’ everything to tho others,” “ Oh, there’ll bo a trifle loft,” she says; “enough to show you was satisfied’ with my care of you.” “I am that,” ho says, “you’ve made mo more comfortable than I over was in my life before.” ’ ‘ Did ho leave anything to Mrs Froman P 1 ‘Not a brass farden, sir; and she thought she was bis favourite niece.’ ‘ What became of tho will ? 1 ‘ She put it away, sir, in a lock-up bookcase, where sho kept his valuables,’ ‘ And what ground have you for believing she poisoned Mm. That’s an awful charge to bring against anyone, you know. What evidence have you ? 1 ‘ Why did he get so bad all of a sudden, and keep getting worse—with all her doing and missing of him. I never suspected her till last night, and then I see something in "her face that scared me. And sho was too civil—and she says, “ You goto bed, Jargo ;-there’s no call for you to sit up The bid gentleman’s regular worn out with pain. That stuff from the doctor’s will send him to sleep; and I shan’t want no help all night.” But I was too uneasy to sleep, and at two o’clock I heard him groaning awful—and I went downstairs, and there sho was dosing of him. “ Take this, poor dear, it’ll soothe your inside,” she says, and I juatcomo behind her and snatched the mug out of her hand. “He shan’t have no more of your stuff,” I says, “till the doctor’s seen it;” and I bolted into tho kitchen with the mug, she after me like a wild cat. And wMlo sho was trying to get tho mug the old man gave another groan, and she rushed back to him and screamed but that ho was dying—and so ho was,_ Ho was dead before I could got to the bedside. I’ll swear she murdered Mm. I’vo got her last dose .in my pocket,’ concluded Jarge, producing a two-ounce bottle of brown liquid, which the doctor took from his hand, eagerly uncorked, smelt, and them tasted gingerly with tho tip of his tongue. ‘ Colchicum, by Jove !’ ho said. : And then, after a pause, ho told thoi old servant to say nothing to anybody about his suspicion of foul play. Only to keep his oyo on Mrs Jowlo, and not to take anything to •at or drink of her preparing. ‘l’ll go back with you as soon as I’ve dressed, and can got my trap out,’ ho said. ‘You needn’t tell her that you brought mo the dose You only came to fetch mo to see if there was anything to be done for your master.’

The doctor and old Jarge arrived at the farm about breakfast time, and Mr Fambly was more polite to the nurse than ho hod boon the day before.' Ho heard all she had to say about the deceased; and appeared to assent to her views. While they were talking a fly drove up to the door, from which appeared Mrs Froman. and the family lawyer, son of the man who had helped old Jacob to buy the property two and forty years before. Mrs Froman had. brought him to see fair play about the will. She had been told of her ancle’s death by tho Rigton carrier, who had board tho news from a labourer on tho road as ho jogged by tho farm in tho summer morning. ‘l’ll trouble you for tho old gentleman’s keys, ma’am,’ said the lawyer, and certainlythere was trouble in Mrs Jowle’s countenance* as she complied with that request. Jacob hadtoldhim whore to look for the will —but tho lawyer examined all tho drawers and. pigeon-holes without finding any such paper. And then on being hard pressed Mrs Jowlo remembered how the dear old gentleman had asked her to remove tho document for greater safety to an oak-ohest upstairs ; and she wont to fetch it.

She brought it to tho lawyer. It was in a closed envelope. ‘ You know what is in the wi11,51 suppose f’ ho said. ‘ No, sir; I haven’t looked at it since tho old gentleman sealed it up.’ She shot a look of defiance at old Jarge, standing in the background—a glance that; said, ‘ My'word is as good as a farm-servant’s j and I mean to swear you down ! ’ Mrs Froman looked at her friend Anno, and Anne returned a gaze of bland innocence, and niece Sophia felt an inward sinking. Tho moment was awful. The dead man was lying in the room bn tho other side of the passage, the parlour to which, his bod hod been removed when his rheumatic; knees and ankles made the stairs a toil and a trouble for him. Good nurse Jowlo had suggested that arrangement for his comfort. The lawyer tore open the envelope,’ and looked at tho will. It was written on tho side of a sheet of foolscap ‘ It’s a very dirty will,’ he said, examining it through his spectacles. It was very dirty. There were smears upon the paper—ink smears, and other smears of a - ’ ’ shiny nature, which puzzled the lawyer. H.j took it to the window and looked at it closely in the broad summer light. . ‘His poor, dear hand shook so with tho. pen,’explained Mrs Jowle. ‘ His poor, dear hand didn’t shake white of egg over the paper, did it?’ questioned the ■ lawyer, and Mr Fambly, who was watching Anne Jowle’s countenance, saw that those words hit her harder than any other - word spoken in that room. ‘Don’t bother about the dirty paper, hub read tho will. That’s what you’re here to do,’ said Mrs Froman, beside herself with impatience at the lawyer’s slowness. ’ 1 Certainly, madam,’ he replied, and forthwith began to read. The testator bequeathed to each of his brother Andrew Rodwcll’s children the sum. of £25, to buy mourning. Bach nephew or ; niece’s name was written in full, in the shaky penmanship. The 1 covered the, greater part of the page, tho linos being wide* apart; and then, near the bottom, came an expression of gratitude to his faithful nurse, Anne Jowle, whom he appointed solo executrix and residuary legatee. Mrs Proman’s name was not in the will. ; ‘ It’s a forgery/ she cried; ‘ a forgery by that wicked woman—her that I paid and trusted as my friend, fool as I was.’ _ ~: ‘ Don’t excite yourself, ma’am,’ said thw lawyer. ‘ The signature is genuine enough. I’d swear to my poor client’s autograph," and the will is witnessed by that good man yonder. We can’t call it a forgery. Do you remember witnessing this document; George ? , Jarge remembered signing his name, but-' the will he had witnessed was closer written. The Hues were more muddled together hko. It was late at night, and there weren’t much light in the room—but he could swear to ths . writing not being spread out like that. J ;., ‘ Precisely,’ said the lawyer, blandly;’ ‘Some clever person had fastened strips or paper across the page, at equal spaces apar., . with white of egg, and halt the contents ot the will were written on those strips, which have since been removed, not too dexterously, by the same person. The traces of too, adhesive matter are plainly visible here and there, in spite of the-ink smudges with whic-i the person has tried to disguise them. 1 should recommend my poor friend’s family to , dispute this w-illl’ concluded the lawyer;, smacking his lips as ho beheld tho vision of a i cosy probate case. , .' v’- # # ‘ # ■ • " ’ -W ■

The will was disputed, and old Jarge’a evidence was accepted. as proof of the testator’s intentions, old Jarge being able to reoita the exact sums bequeathed to each nephew an I niece, and ‘ afterwards in each case, five and, twenty pounds tor mourning.’ He had net been in the room till the writing was finishec., . when ho was called in to sigh his name; bnu ho had boon 1 upon the listen ’ all the time. Before this trial, came on, liowovcr, them ' had been another and a mote important'trias

for Anao Jowlo, and ono which made the issue of the will ease a matter of indifference to that worthy person, who was tried lor wilful murder at the next assizes after old Jacob’s death, and found guilty of having poisoned him with repeated doses ol eoleliioum while the mass of evidence brought forward during the enquiry into this particular case wont to show that Mrs Jowle s hand was not the hand of a ’prentice in tile poisonin'? art, and that if her work had boon badly done it was rather that she had grown careless frpm too easy sliccoss than that the mystery of murder was new to her.