“What is it, Becky?” I asked, with but little curiosity for her answer.

“’Tis the doing of that wicked man and his wife!  I know it is,” the poor creature sobbed.  “And they wouldn’t come near the poor soul when he was in his agony.  And now they want to rob us—­to rob you, my poor boy, and me who served him faithful these twenty year.  God will punish him!”

“But what have they done, then?” I asked again.

“Done!  Lord knows what they haven’t done.  I knew summat would happen when I saw Mr. Vetch come to your poor father a while ago—­you mind, I told you so.  Lawyers are all no good, that’s my belief.  Don’t tell me Mr. Vetch didn’t know what he was a-carrying.  He’s in league with the wretches, I know he is, for all his mazed look.  Don’t tell me he didn’t know the paper was as white as the underside of a fleece.  Fleece is the very word for it:  he’s fleeced us, sure enough, and I’ll come on the parish, and you’ll be a beggar, and they unnatural wretches will wallow in their pride, and—­oh!  I can’t abear it, I can’t abear it!”

And the poor creature burst into a passion of weeping, so that it was some time before I could learn the cause of her distress.  It was amazing enough.  When Mr. Vetch unfolded the document which he believed to be my father’s will, the paper inside was as clean as when it came from the scrivener’s.  There was not a single mark upon it.

Chapter 6:  I Take Articles.

We were at breakfast next morning, Mistress Pennyquick and I, when Captain Galsworthy, after a herald tap on the door, walked into the room.

“What’s this cock-and-bull story that’s running over the town?” he cried without circumstance.

Before I could reply, Mistress Pennyquick began to pour out her tale of woe, roundly accusing Sir Richard Cludde and Lawyer Vetch of conspiring to defraud me of my rights.

“I haven’t slept a wink the whole night through, sir,” says the poor soul, “and I’ve wetted six—­no, ’tis seven handkerchers till they’re like clouts from the washtub, and I can hardly see out o’ my eyes, and—­”

“Stuff and nonsense and a fiddlestick end!” cries the captain angrily, “dry your eyes, woman.  Of all God’s creatures a sniveling woman is the worst.  Vetch has been wool gathering: 

“Quandoque dormitat Homerus—­eh, Humphrey?—­

“Which means, ma’am, that you sometimes catch a weasel asleep.  Depend on’t, he engrossed the wrong docket, and by this time has discovered the true will in one of his moldy boxes.  Gad, it’ll ruin him, though—­if his nephew has not done it already.  A family lawyer can’t afford to be caught napping.

“Put on your cap, Humphrey:  we’ll go and look into things and hint that we must change our attorney.”

So he and I set off together.  But, early as it was, Sir Richard Cludde had been before us.  When we entered Mr. Vetch’s office, there was the burly knight with his hand on the door, flinging a parting word at the lawyer, who sat behind his desk with his wig awry, the picture of harassment and woe.  Sir Richard gave a curt nod to the captain, but vouchsafed me not a glance.