Mr. Linden called, as he had promised to do, and gave us the written heads of a will which he desired to have at once formally drawn up.  By this instrument he devised the Holmford estate, and all other property, real and personal, of which he might die possessed, to certain charitable institutions, in varying proportions, payable as soon after his death as the property could be turned into money.  “The statute of mortmain does not give me much uneasiness,” remarked the vindictive old man with a bitter smile.  “I shall last some time yet.  I would have left it all to you, Flint,” he added, “only that I knew you would defeat my purpose by giving it back to that disobedient, ungrateful, worthless boy.”

“Do leave it to me,” rejoined Mr. Flint, with grave emphasis, “and I promise you faithfully this—­that the wish respecting it, whatever it may be, which trembles on your lip as you are about to leave this world for another, and when it may be too late to formally revoke the testament you now propose, shall be strictly carried out.  That time cannot be a very distant one, John Linden, for a man whose hair is white as yours.”

It was preaching to the winds.  He was deaf, blind, mute, to every attempt at changing his resolve.  The will was drawn in accordance with his peremptorily-iterated instructions, and duly signed, sealed, and attested.  Not very long afterwards, Mr. Linden disposed of his business in Mincing Lane, and retired to Holmford, but with nothing like the money-fortune he had once calculated upon, the losses alluded to by Mr. Flint, and followed by others, having considerably diminished his wealth.

We ultimately obtained a respectable and remunerative situation for Thomas Linden in a mercantile house at Belfast, with which we were professionally acquainted, and after securing berths in the Erin steamer, he, with his wife and mother-in-law, came, with a kind of hopeful sadness in their looks and voices, to bid us farewell—­for a very long time, they and we also feared—­

For an eternity, it seemed, on reading the account of the loss of the Erin, a few days afterwards, with every soul on board!  Their names were published with those of the other passengers who had embarked, and we had of course concluded that they had perished, when a letter reached us from Belfast, stating that, through some delay on the part of Mrs. Arnold, they had happily lost their passage in the Erin, and embarked in the next steamer for Belfast, where they arrived in perfect safety.  We forwarded this intelligence to Holmford, but it elicited no reply.

We heard nothing of Mr. Linden for about two months, except by occasional notices in the “Hereford Times”, which he regularly forwarded to the office, relative to the improvements on the Holmford estate, either actually begun or contemplated by its new proprietor.  He very suddenly reappeared.  I was cooling my heels in the waiting-room of the chambers of the Barons of the Exchequer, Chancery Lane, awaiting my turn of admission, when one of our clerks came in, half-breathless with haste.  “You are wanted, sir, immediately; Mr. Flint is out, and Mr. Linden is at the office raving like a mad-man.”  I instantly transferred the business I was in attendance at chambers upon, to the clerk, and with the help of a cab soon reached home.