Chapter 3

A DISAPPOINTING APPOINTMENT

For the sake of Pet Carnaby and of themselves, the ladies of the house
were disquieted now, in the first summer weather of a wet cold year, the
year of our Lord 1801. And their trouble arose as follows:

There had long been a question between the sisters and Sir Walter
Carnaby, brother of the late colonel, about an exchange of outlying
land, which would have to be ratified by "Pet" hereafter. Terms
being settled and agreement signed, the lawyers fell to at the linked
sweetness of deducing title. The abstract of the Yordas title was nearly
as big as the parish Bible, so in and out had their dealings been, and
so intricate their pugnacity.

Among the many other of the Yordas freaks was a fatuous and generally
fatal one. For the slightest miscarriage they discharged their lawyer,
and leaped into the office of a new one. Has any man moved in the
affairs of men, with a grain of common-sense or half a pennyweight of
experience, without being taught that an old tenter-hook sits easier to
him than a new one? And not only that, but in shifting his quarters he
may leave some truly fundamental thing behind.

Old Mr. Jellicorse, of Middleton in Teesdale, had won golden opinions
every where. He was an uncommonly honest lawyer, highly incapable of
almost any trick, and lofty in his view of things, when his side of them
was the legal one. He had a large collection of those interesting boxes
which are to a lawyer and his family better than caskets of silver
and gold; and especially were his shelves furnished with what might be
called the library of the Scargate title-deeds. He had been proud to
take charge of these nearly thirty years ago, and had married on the
strength of them, though warned by the rival from whom they were wrested
that he must not hope to keep them long. However, through the peaceful
incumbency of ladies, they remained in his office all those years.

This was the gentleman who had drawn and legally sped to its purport the
will of the lamented Squire Philip, who refused very clearly to leave
it, and took horse to flourish it at his rebellious son. Mr. Jellicorse
had done the utmost, as behooved him, against that rancorous testament;
but meeting with silence more savage than words, and a bow to depart,
he had yielded; and the squire stamped about the room until his job was
finished.

A fact accomplished, whether good or bad, improves in character with
every revolution of this little world around the sun, that heavenly
example of subservience. And now Mr. Jellicorse was well convinced, as
nothing had occurred to disturb that will, and the life of the testator
had been sacrificed to it, and the devisees under it were his own good
clients, and