Chapter 51 - Page 2

of his life, when stronger by a quarter of a century than now.

"My pleasure, or rather my business, is with Mr. Jellicorse, the lawyer."

"Then, sir, you have come to the right man for it. My name is Jellicorse, and greatly at your service. Allow me the honor of inviting you within."

"My name is Yordas--Sir Duncan Yordas," said the stranger, when seated in the lawyer's private room. "My father, Philip Yordas, was a client of yours, and of other legal gentlemen before he came to you. Upon the day of his death, in the year 1777, you prepared his will, which you have since found to be of no effect, except as regards his personal estate, and about one-eighth part of the realty. Of the bulk of the land, including Scargate Hall, he could not dispose, for the simple reason that it had been strictly entailed by a deed executed by my grandfather and his wife in 1751. Under that entail I take in fee, for it could not have been barred without me; and I never concurred in any disentailing deed, and my father never knew that such was needful."

"Excuse me, Sir Duncan, but you seem to be wonderfully apt with the terms of our profession."

"I could scarcely be otherwise, after all that I have had to do with law, in India. Our first object is to apply our own laws, and our second to spread our religion. But no more of that. Do you admit the truth of a matter so stated that you can not fail to grasp it?"

Sir Duncan Yordas, as he put this question, fixed large, unwavering, and piercing eyes (against which no spectacles were any shelter) upon the mild, amiable, and, generally speaking, very honest orbs of sight which had lighted the path of the elder gentleman to good repute and competence. But who may turn a lawyer's hand from the Heaven-sped legal plough?

"Am I to understand, Sir Duncan Yordas, that your visit to me is of an amicable nature, and intended (without prejudice to other interests) to ascertain, so far as may be compatible with professional rules, how far my clients are acquainted with documents alleged or imagined to be in existence, and how far their conduct might be guided by desire to afford every reasonable facility?"

"You are to understand simply this, that as the proper owner of Scargate Hall, and the main part of the estates held with it, I require you to sign a memorandum that you hold all the title-deeds on my behalf, and to deliver at once to me that entailing instrument of 1751, under which I make my claim."

"You speak, sir, as if you had already brought your action, and entered verdict. Legal process may be dispensed with in barbarous countries, but not here. The title-deeds and other papers of Scargate Hall were placed in my custody neither by you nor on your behalf, sir. I hold them on behalf of those at present in possession; and until I receive due