LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 802, 17 January 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE SACKFUL OF SOVEREIGNS. A WONDERFUL STORY OP CHRISTMAS LUCK. ( Continued.) The father, carrying his child, strolled up towards the house. His wife lingered to say an affectionate word or two, and to kiss tenderly and with solicitude her parent’s cheek. He patted her hand kindly, but with some anxiety, evident in his action, that she should not catch sight of the contents of his memorandum book. Alice Woodwyn was a tall and graceful woman of about five-and-twenty, having her father’s eyes and mould of features. Her profusion of warm brown ringlets were restrained in their evident tendency to fly out wildly by a cunningly devised band of delicate blue ribbon, ending in the neatest and most coquettish of bows. There was a rather sad expression on her gentle comely face as she joined her husband in the little parlor giving upon the lawn; and as she busied herself in making tea and arranging the details of the ample meal spread upon the snowy tablecloth, she said, ‘ I don’t think father seems quite so well as usual, George ; I have noticed for the last two or three days something rather strange about him ; I feel a little anxious.’ ‘ I don’t sec it,’ answered her husband from the easy chair into which he had thrown himself, whilst dancing the little girl upon his knee; ‘ you know he is at times somewhat petulant in his manner, especially when he gets on the subject of taxes and the Government. It was a great pity he retired from his business so soon j he has never been quite happy since. ’ ‘Ah, no, indeed; but his unhappiness began some time before that. It was poor dear Tom’s rash determination to go to sea that was his first great sorrow ; I mean his first great sorrow since he lost my dear mother. Silly lad! only to think of his turning his back upon such good prospects, such a business as my father’s was for him to step into, besides causing so much grief and anxiety!’ ‘Yes, he was a great fool, no doubt,’ answered the husband; ‘ but it’s an old story now, it’s no use talking of that ; why, Tom has been away more than ten years, I suppose.’ * fes. But father has never got over it; he never seemed to take the same interest in his business afterwards.’

‘Still,’ said George, ‘I say it was a great pity he gave it up; he is always hankering after it now; can’t cut himself adrift; as you know, he is constantly going into the city and pottering about ; I wonder what he finds to do there so often. By the bye, that reminds me. Judkins told me that he met him in Lombard street nearly every day during the whole fortnight we were away last month at Broadstairs ; and he had always got his little blue bag with him. I wonder what he does there. Judkins asked if I could guess at all. Everybody wonders at him.’ ‘ Well, then, it’s a pity everybody has not something better to do,’ said Mrs Woodwyn. ‘ I suppose my father can go into the City when he likes, without consulting everybody ?’ ‘ Yes, certainly. But now tell me, Alice, does it never occur to you as strange ? and do you never think what it is that can take him there so frequently ? One would think your woman’s curiosity would at least be excited.’

‘ Perhaps it would be, George, if I did not love my father as dearly as 1 do. He has always been so good and kind and loving to me all my life, that I have never to cause him even the least anxiety if I could help it, and much more not to do what I know he dislikes above all things ; and you know there is nothing he so much dislikes as prying into his doings or his affairs. Therefore I never appear to take any heed of his going or coming; I never even ask him where he has been, much less what he has done, because I know he so particularly dislikes it.’

‘Just like you, my dear loving wife, always striving to make people happy. I’m a stupid blundering fellow to have asked you ; I might have known all you have said without your saying it. Ah, there’s six o’clock striking ; let’s have sea. Come. Lily, you shall sit between daddy and grandfather; he’ll be here in a minute.’ But several minutes passed, and the old gentleman did not appear. Then said the mother, * Run down, and tell grandpapa that tea is ready, Lily ; he will be late.’ 1 It will be for the first time in his life, then,’ broke in George. * No, sit still, Lily,’ as the child was about to move ; ‘ grandfather is half-way here by this time, I’ll be bound; he is not the man to break an appointment, whether for business or pleasure ; if he he had not been as punctual as the day throughout his long life he would never have turned that little hosiery business in Cheapside into the fine concern it became; no, nor have made all the money he did in other ways.’ ‘What other ways do you mean, dear?’ asked his wife ; ‘ has he made much money in other ways ?’ ‘O, of course. Don’t you know, Alice, that it was he, and one or two more men of his stamp, who laid the foundation of much of our most remunerative intercourse with the silk trade of China ? And though his name has never been prominent in the affairs, it is said that he has been their backbone ; if he had lived fifty or sixty years earlier he would have been just such a sort of man as the old East Indian directors were. Lord bless my heart 1 people in the City who know more of these things than I do say he must be worth a mint of money. He is rather late, though,’ went on Woodwyn, after a minute’s pause ; ‘ perhaps you had better run and fetch grandfather, Lily ; he can’t have heard the clock.’ And the child scampered away through the low open window. A few minutes pass, and she is back again, breathless, frightened, and sobbing. ‘ What is the matter, my darling ? what is the matter ?’ cries the mother, taking her up in her arms. ‘Grandpa, grandpa,’ gasps out the little one—‘grandpawon’t ‘peak; grandpa tumbled down on table !’ In a moment husband and wife are flying down to the summer house. At a glance they see the child’s words are true; for there, prone across the table at which he had been writing, helpless, speechless, unconscious, lies the dear kind old man, his body partly resting against the chair, the pen still in the outstretched hand, as it lies across a sheet of paper, slightly smeared with the last touch of ink. To raise him

and loosen his stiff high white neckcloth is the work of an instant on George’s part, whilst Alice, bending over the distorted face, calls loudly for help. It comes, of course, in time, and Matthew Rickman is laid upon his deathbed, for he never recovers consciousness, and within four and twenty hours of his apoplectic seizure his spirit passes peacefully away. For one moment at the last the glazed eyes turned with the faintest look of recognition to the face of the loving and heartstricken daughter ; a slight twitching of the mouth, as if he would have spoken some words of farewell, a momentary expression of anxiety, and all was over. Chapter 11. THE DISAPPOINTMENT, Beyond and entirely apart from the deep sorrow into which the little home at Hi, ligate was plunged for many months after the death of its oldest inmate, there was inter • woven with the grief a sense of amazement it may be said, not limited to the region of Highgate, where so old a resident was of course almost as well known as the church spire, but extending into many an influential commercial circle in the City. As may have been gathered from the words of his son-in-law, George Woodwyn, Mr Matthew Rickman was supposed—nay, by those who were best informed, was known —to have amassed considerable wealth ; yet, except in regard to a comparatively small sum, no clue was discovered to indicate what he had done with it, or in what securities it had been invested. He left no will, and never seemed to have employed a lawyer, having himself arranged the disposal of his business in Cheapside and most other matters. At one time he had had a confidential clerk, or head man, who had been in his employ for a long while, and might have known something about his master’s affairs ; but he too was dead, had died very soon after the business passed into other hands. Such memoranda and accounts as were found with Mr Matthew Rickman’s effects were couched in terms so mysterious, and set down in trade and private marks so obscurely, that it was evident they were not intended to be understood by any one save their owner—that is, with one exception, but this a very notable one. Amongst the papers picked up in the summer-house, after the confusion ensuing upon the sad catastrophe which happened there had passed away, was a certain sheet of foolscap, which, from the purport of what was written in a trembling hand upon it and the smear of ink across it, appeared to be that on which the old gentleman had been in the act of writing when hand and brain were so suddenly paralysed. Whether he was induced to write what he did from not feeling well, or whether he had received some prevision of what was going to befall him, or whether merely after his own eccentric fashion he conceived that the time had come to him to make some arrangements by which those who were to follow him could inherit his property, will never be known; but certain it is that he seemed to have been struck by the difficulties that would arise through his dying intestate, and that he desired in some sort to repair his error, for thus ran the document in question; ‘ Highgate, Sept. 1849. ‘ Having for many years been of the firm opinion that the English people are too heavily and unjustly taxed, through the reckless maladministration of the finances of the country by a selfish and corrupt Government, and having in my time more than amply contributed ray share towards swelling the enormous revenue collected from unnecessarily large duties and taxes annually levied, I am determined that when I die no more of my property shall pass to the credit of the State in the shape of probate or legacy duties. Therefore I have made no will, but by this my deed of gift I make over to my youngest and best beloved child, Alice Woodwyn, the sum of £ISOO, and a like sum to my much misguided but always affectionately remembered son, Thomas Rickman, at present supposed to be she< p farming in Australia; and that, farther, when it be possible to convey to him the said sum of £ISOO, I request that he may be told at the same time that, notwithstanding the grief his wayward conduct caused me, I, in these my last days, heartily forgive him, and pray that the Almighty may do the same, and in the future guide his footsteps back to those paths of rectitude and obedience whence he has so sadly strayed. Also, I hereby give to my little granddaughter, Lilian Woodwyn, the sum of £IOOO, to be held by her parents in trust for her until she be of age, or until she shall marry with their full consent and approval. These three sums in gold will be found, each tied up in a separate bag, and labelled with the names of those lor whom they are intended, in the small iron safe at my bed head; the key of the safe (also labelled) is attached to the bunch I always carry in my pocket. That my children only may understand how the main bu—’

Here the writing ceased. The incomplete word ended with an irregular upward strokes of the pen, which was partly smeared, probably by the coat-cuff as the helpless hand slid suddenly across the paper. That Matthew Rickman should have died worth no more than £IOO% everybody said, was simply absurd; nay, these written directions, this deed of gift— call the paper what you please—clearly indicated that the writer was going on to say something about 1 the main bulk’ of his property. All who saw the unfinished writing were unanimous in interpreting ‘ bn—’ as the beginning of the word ‘ bulk,’ and this, from the context, it Avas quite natural to conclude would have been followed by ‘of my property.’ But at the critical moment the summons had come I As the momentous sentence hung upon the pen’s point, the fingers guiding it had relaxed, and the dictating, busy, plotting mind became as meaningless a blank as the remainder of the unwritten page ! Despite the most minute search and inquiry, extending over two or three years, as to what the old gentleman had done with the presumed mass of his wealth, nothing came of it; not a sign, not a hint could be obtained. It was brought to light that several large sums at different periods had been secretly presented by him to various charities ; indications that he had constantly been doing good by stealth in many directions cropped up, all going to confirm the wide-spread opinion that he had large resources to draw upon, but not in the least leading to an idea of where those resources Avere deposited. (2b he continued .)