I think the ill-conditioned Captain bore him a grudge for being richer than he, and would have liked to do him an ill turn.  But it did not lie in his way; at least while he was living.

My uncle Watson was a Methodist, and what they call a “classleader”; and, on the whole, a very good man.  He was now near fifty—­grave, as beseemed his profession—­somewhat dry—­and a little severe, perhaps—­but a just man.

A letter from the Penlynden doctor reached him at Haddlestone, announcing the death of the wicked old Captain; and suggesting his attendance at the funeral, and the expediency of his being on the spot to look after things at Wauling.  The reasonableness of this striking my good uncle, he made his journey to the old house in Lancashire incontinently, and reached it in time for the funeral.

My uncle, whose traditions of the Captain were derived from his mother, who remembered him in his slim, handsome youth—­in shorts, cocked-hat and lace, was amazed at the bulk of the coffin which contained his mortal remains; but the lid being already screwed down, he did not see the face of the bloated old sinner.

CHAPTER IV

In the Parlour

What I relate, I had from the lips of my uncle, who was a truthful man, and not prone to fancies.

The day turning out awfully rainy and tempestuous, he persuaded the doctor and the attorney to remain for the night at Wauling.

There was no will—­the attorney was sure of that; for the Captain’s enmities were perpetually shifting, and he could never quite make up his mind, as to how best to give effect to a malignity whose direction was constantly being modified.  He had had instructions for drawing a will a dozen times over.  But the process had always been arrested by the intending testator.

Search being made, no will was found.  The papers, indeed, were all right, with one important exception:  the leases were nowhere to be seen.  There were special circumstances connected with several of the principal tenancies on the estate—­unnecessary here to detail—­which rendered the loss of these documents one of very serious moment, and even of very obvious danger.

My uncle, therefore, searched strenuously.  The attorney was at his elbow, and the doctor helped with a suggestion now and then.  The old serving-man seemed an honest deaf creature, and really knew nothing.

My uncle Watson was very much perturbed.  He fancied—­but this possibly was only fancy—­that he had detected for a moment a queer look in the attorney’s face; and from that instant it became fixed in his mind that he knew all about the leases.  Mr. Watson expounded that evening in the parlour to the doctor, the attorney, and the deaf servant.  Ananias and Sapphira figured in the foreground; and the awful nature of fraud and theft, of tampering in anywise with the plain rule of honesty in matters pertaining to estates,