'I have done. My last wishes are now confided to you, in implicit reliance on your honor, and on your tender regard for the memory of your friend. Of the miserable circumstances which compel me to write as I have written here, I say nothing. You will hear of them, if my life is spared, from my own lips—for you will be the first friend whom I shall consult in my difficulty and distress. Keep this letter strictly secret, and strictly in your own possession, until my requests are complied with. Let no human being but yourself know where it is, on any pretense whatever.
'Believe me, dear Admiral Bartram, affectionately yours,
'NOEL VANSTONE.'
'Have you signed, sir?' asked Mrs. Lecount. 'Let me look the letter over, if you please, before we seal it up.'
She read the letter carefully. In Noel Vanstone's close, cramped handwriting, it filled two pages of letter-paper, and ended at the top of the third page. Instead of using an envelope, Mrs. Lecount folded it, neatly and securely, in the old-fashioned way. She lit the taper in the ink-stand, and returned the letter to the writer.
'Seal it, Mr. Noel,' she said, 'with your own hand, and your own seal.' She extinguished the taper, and handed him the pen again. 'Address the letter, sir,' she proceeded, 'to
Finding his attention released by the completion of the letter, Noel Vanstone reverted at once to purely personal considerations. 'There is my packing-up to be thought of now,' he said. 'I can't go away without my warm things.'
'Excuse me, sir,' rejoined Mrs. Lecount, 'there is the Will to be signed first; and there must be two persons found to witness your signature.' She looked out of the front window, and saw the carriage waiting at the door. 'The coachman will do for one of the witnesses,' she said. 'He is in respectable service at Dumfries, and he can be found if he happens to be wanted. We must have one of your own servants, I suppose, for the other witness. They are all de testable women; but the cook is the least ill-looking of the three. Send for the cook, sir; while I go out and call the coachman. When we have got our witnesses here, you have only to speak to them in these words: 'I have a document here to sign, and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my signature.' Nothing more, Mr. Noel! Say those few words in your usual manner—and, when the signing is over, I will see myself to your packing- up, and your warm things.'
She went to the front door, and summoned the coachman to the parlor. On her return, she found the cook already in the room. The cook looked mysteriously offended, and stared without intermission at Mrs. Lecount. In a minute more the coachman—an elderly man—came in. He was preceded by a relishing odor of whisky; but his head was Scotch; and nothing but his odor betrayed him.
'I have a document here to sign,' said Noel Vanstone, repeating his lesson; 'and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my signature.'
The coachman looked at the will. The cook never removed her eyes from Mrs. Lecount.
'Ye'll no object, sir,' said the coachman, with the national caution showing itself in every wrinkle on his face —'ye'll no object, sir, to tell me, first, what the Doecument may be?'
Mrs. Lecount interposed before Noel Vanstone's indignation could express itself in words.
'You must tell the man, sir, that this is your Will,' she said. 'When he witnesses your signature, he can see as much for himself if he looks at the top of the page.'
'Ay, ay,' said the coachman, looking at the top of the page immediately. 'His last Will and Testament. Hech, sirs! there's a sair confronting of Death in a Doecument like yon! A' flesh is grass,' continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, and looking up devoutly at the ceiling. 'Tak' those words in connection with that other Screepture: Many are ca'ad, but few are chosen. Tak' that again, in connection with Rev'lations, Chapter the First, verses One to Fefteen. Lay the whole to heart; and what's your Walth, then? Dross, sirs! And your body? (Screepture again.) Clay for the potter! And your life? (Screepture once more.) The Breeth o' your Nostrils!'
The cook listened as if the cook was at church: but she never removed her eyes from Mrs. Lecount.
'You had better sign, sir. This is apparently some custom prevalent in Dumfries during the transaction of business,' said Mrs. Lecount, resignedly. 'The man means well, I dare say.'
She added those last words in a soothing tone, for she saw that Noel Vanstone's indignation was fast merging into alarm. The coachman's outburst of exhortation seemed to have inspired him with fear, as well as disgust.
He dipped the pen in the ink, and signed the Will without uttering a word. The coachman (descending instantly from Theology to Business) watched the signature with the most scrupulous attention; and signed his own name as witness, with an implied commentary on the proceeding, in the form of another puff of whisky, exhaled through the medium of a heavy sigh. The cook looked away from Mrs. Lecount with an effort—signed her name in a violent hurry—and looked back again with a start, as if she expected to see a loaded pistol (produced in the interval) in the housekeeper's hands. 'Thank you,' said Mrs. Lecount, in her friendliest manner. The cook shut up her lips aggressively and looked at her master. 'You may go!' said her master. The cook coughed contemptuously, and went.
'We shan't keep you long,' said Mrs. Lecount, dismissing the coachman. 'In half an hour, or less, we shall be ready for the journey back.'
The coachman's austere countenance relaxed for the first time. He smiled mysteriously, and approached Mrs. Lecount on tiptoe.
'Ye'll no forget one thing, my leddy,' he said, with the most ingratiating politeness. 'Ye'll no forget the witnessing as weel as the driving, when ye pay me for my day's wark!' He laughed with guttural gravity; and, leaving his atmosphere behind him, stalked out of the room.
'Lecount,' said Noel Vanstone, as soon as the coachman closed the door, 'did I hear you tell that man we should be ready in half an hour?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Are you blind?'
