Maria Edgeworth - The Parent's Assistant; Or, Stories for Children

'You are mistaken, my good sir, and you are not mistaken,' said Mr. Case, with a shrewd smile. 'In one sense, the land will not be out of lease these ten years, and in another it is out of lease at this present time. To come to the point at once, the lease is, ab origine , null and void. I have detected a capital flaw in the body of it. I pledge my credit upon it, sir, it can't stand a single term in law or equity.'

The attorney observed that at these words Sir Arthur's eye was fixed with a look of earnest attention. 'Now I have him,' said the cunning tempter to himself.

'Neither in law nor equity,' repeated Sir Arthur, with apparent incredulity. 'Are you sure of that, Mr. Case?' 'Sure! As I told you before, sir, I'd pledge my whole credit upon the thing – I'd stake my existence.' ' That's something ,' said Sir Arthur, as if he was pondering upon the matter.

The attorney went on with all the eagerness of a keen man, who sees a chance at one stroke of winning a rich friend and of ruining a poor enemy. He explained, with legal volubility and technical amplification, the nature of the mistake in Mr. Price's lease. 'It was, sir,' said he, 'a lease for the life of Peter Price, Susanna his wife, and to the survivor or survivors of them, or for the full time and term of twenty years, to be computed from the first day of May then next ensuing. Now, sir, this, you see, is a lease in reversion, which the late Sir Benjamin Somers had not, by his settlement, a right to make. This is a curious mistake, you see, Sir Arthur; and in filling up those printed leases there's always a good chance of some flaw. I find it perpetually; but I never found a better than this in the whole course of my practice.'

Sir Arthur stood in silence.

'My dear sir,' said the attorney, taking him by the button, 'you have no scruple of stirring in this business?'

'A little,' said Sir Arthur.

'Why, then, that can be done away in a moment. Your name shall not appear in it at all. You have nothing to do but to make over the lease to me. I make all safe to you with my bond. Now, being in possession, I come forward in my own proper person. Shall I proceed? '

'No – you have said enough,' replied Sir Arthur.

'The case, indeed, lies in a nutshell,' said the attorney, who had by this time worked himself up to such a pitch of professional enthusiasm that, intent upon his vision of a lawsuit, he totally forgot to observe the impression his words made upon Sir Arthur.

'There's only one thing we have forgotten all this time,' said Sir Arthur. 'What can that be, sir?' 'That we shall ruin this poor man.'

Case was thunderstruck at these words, or rather, by the look which accompanied them. He recollected that he had laid himself open before he was sure of Sir Arthur's real character. He softened, and said he should have had certainly more consideration in the case of any but a litigious, pig-headed fellow, as he knew Price to be.

'If he be litigious,' said Sir Arthur, 'I shall certainly be glad to get him fairly out of the parish as soon as possible. When you go home, you will be so good, sir, as to send me his lease, that I may satisfy myself before we stir in this business.'

The attorney, brightening up, prepared to take leave; but he could not persuade himself to take his departure without making one push at Sir Arthur about the agency.

'I will not trouble you , Sir Arthur, with this lease of Price's,' said Case; 'I'll leave it with your agent. Whom shall I apply to?' ' To myself , sir, if you please,' replied Sir Arthur.

The courtiers of Louis the Fourteenth could not have looked more astounded than our attorney, when they received from their monarch a similar answer. It was this unexpected reply of Sir Arthur's which had deranged the temper of Mr. Case, and caused his wig to stand so crooked upon his forehead, and which had rendered him impenetrably silent to his inquisitive daughter Barbara.

After having walked up and down his room, conversing with himself, for some time, the attorney concluded that the agency must be given to somebody when Sir Arthur should have to attend his duty in Parliament; that the agency, even for the winter season, was not a thing to be neglected; and that, if he managed well, he might yet secure it for himself. He had often found that small timely presents worked wonderfully upon his own mind, and he judged of others by himself. The tenants had been in the reluctant but constant practice of making him continual petty offerings; and he resolved to try the same course with Sir Arthur, whose resolution to be his own agent, he thought, argued a close, saving, avaricious disposition. He had heard the housekeeper at the Abbey inquiring, as he passed through the servants, whether there was any lamb to be gotten. She said that Sir Arthur was remarkably fond of lamb, and that she wished she could get a quarter for him. Immediately he sallied into his kitchen, as soon as the idea struck him, and asked a shepherd, who was waiting there, whether he knew of a nice fat lamb to be had anywhere in the neighbourhood.

'I know of one,' cried Barbara. 'Susan Price has a pet lamb that's as fat as fat could be.' The attorney easily caught at these words, and speedily devised a scheme for obtaining Susan's lamb for nothing.

It would be something strange if an attorney of his talents and standing was not an over-match for Simple Susan. He prowled forth in search of his prey. He found Susan packing up her father's little wardrobe; and when she looked up as she knelt, he saw that she had been in tears.

'How is your mother to-day, Susan?' inquired the attorney. 'Worse, sir. My father goes to-morrow.' 'That's a pity.' 'It can't be helped,' said Susan, with a sigh. 'It can't be helped – how do you know that?' said Case. 'Sir, dear sir!' cried she, looking up at him, and a sudden ray of hope beamed in her ingenuous countenance. 'And if you could help it, Susan?' said he. Susan clasped her hands in silence, more expressive than words. 'You can help it, Susan.' She started up in an ecstasy. 'What would you give now to have your father at home for a whole week longer?' 'Anything! – but I have nothing.' 'Yes, but you have, a lamb,' said the hard-hearted attorney. 'My poor little lamb!' said Susan; 'but what can that do?' 'What good can any lamb do? Is not lamb good to eat? Why do you look so pale, girl? Are not sheep killed every day, and don't you eat mutton? Is your lamb better than anybody else's, think you?' 'I don't know,' said Susan, 'but I love it better.' 'More fool you,' said he. 'It feeds out of hand, it follows me about; I have always taken care of it; my mother gave it to me.' 'Well, say no more about it, then,' he cynically observed; 'if you love your lamb better than both your father and your mother, keep it, and good morning to you.'

'Stay, oh stay!' cried Susan, catching the skirt of his coat with an eager, trembling hand; – 'a whole week, did you say? My mother may get better in that time. No, I do not love my lamb half so well.' The struggle of her mind ceased, and with a placid countenance and calm voice, 'Take the lamb,' said she. 'Where is it?' said the attorney. 'Grazing in the meadow, by the river-side.' 'It must be brought up before nightfall for the butcher, remember.' 'I shall not forget it,' said Susan, steadily.

As soon, however, as her persecutor turned his back and quitted the house, Susan sat down and hid her face in her hands. She was soon aroused by the sound of her mother's feeble voice, who was calling Susan from the inner room where she lay. Susan went in, but did not undraw the curtain as she stood beside the bed.

'Are you there, love? Undraw the curtain, that I may see you, and tell me; – I thought I heard some strange voice just now talking to my child. Something's amiss, Susan,' said her mother, raising herself as well as she was able in the bed, to examine her daughter's countenance.