World's End. Richard Jefferies
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little or no recollection of the deed signed by their forefathers: and if they had had a perfect knowledge, such a trifling difficulty as that was not one calculated to appal a Yankee’s ingenuity. When once the question had been asked it was repeated, and grew and grew, and passed from man to man, made its appearance in the newspapers, who even went so far as to say that the finest city in England, the very workshop of the Britishers, belonged to United States citizens.
Some editor keener than the rest, or who had read the book more carefully, pointed out that the capitalist had no heirs living, that he had never been married, and no one knew to whom all this vast wealth would descend.
Twenty millions sterling begging a heir! This was enough to set the American mind aflame. It was just like applying a lighted match to one of their petroleum wells.
The paragraph flew from paper to paper, was quoted, conned, and talked over. Men grew excited. Presently, here and there one who considered that he had some claim began to steal off to England to make inquiries. The Cunard were running now, though they had not yet invented the “ocean highway,” by keeping to a course nothing to the north or south of a certain line. Passage was very quick, and not dear. In a little time the fact that one or two had started oozed out, then others followed, and were joined by a lawyer or so, till at last fourteen or fifteen keen fellows reached Stirmingham.
Now mark the acuteness of the American mind! Instead of announcing their arrival, every one of these fellows kept quiet, and said not a word! When they met each other in the streets they only smiled. They were not going to alarm the game.
These gentlemen were not long in Stirmingham before they found out that the Stirmingham Daily Post was a deadly enemy of old Sternhold. To the office of the second able editor they tramped accordingly.
There they learnt a good deal; but in return the editor pumped something out of them, and, being well up in the matter, sniffed out their objects. He chuckled and rubbed his hands together. Here was a chance for an awful smash at the News.
One fine morning out came a leading article referring also to several columns of other matter on the same subject, headed “The Heirs of Stirmingham.”
Being Blue, you see, the Post affected to abominate United States’ Republicanism and all the American institutions. This article recounted the visit of the dozen or so of possible claimants, described them so minutely that no one could help recognising them, and wound up with a tremendous peroration calling upon all good citizens to do their best to prevent the renowned city of Stirmingham falling into the hands of the Yankees!
Such property as Sternhold’s, the article argued, was of national importance; and although the individual should not be interfered with, the nation should see that its rights were not tampered with. There was danger of such tampering, for who knew what an infirm, old man like Sternhold might not be led to sign by interested parties? At his age he could not be expected to possess the decision and mental firmness of earlier years. This was a cruel hit at Sternhold’s mental weakness, which had begun to grow apparent.
An endeavour should be made to find an English heir, and that there was such an heir they (the staff of the Post) firmly believed. Two gentlemen of the staff (meaning thereby the late writers for the News), who had devoted some time to the matter, had made a certain important discovery. This was nothing less than the fact that Sternhold had had an uncle! This in big capital letters.
An Uncle. Then followed a little bit of genealogy, in approved fashion, with dashes, lines, etc—the meaning of which was that Sternhold’s father, old Romy Baskette, had had a brother, who, when the original Will Baskette was shot, had departed into the unknown with his mother.
What had become of Romy’s brother? The probability was that by this time he was dead and buried. But there was also the probability that he had married and had children. Those children, if they existed, were undoubtedly the nearest heirs of Sternhold Baskette, Esq, now residing at Dodd’s Hotel, South Street. As an earnest of the anxiety of the Post to preserve the good city of Stirmingham from Yankee contamination, they now offered three rewards:—First, fifty pounds for proof of Romy’s brother’s death; secondly, one hundred pounds for proof of Romy’s brother’s marriage, if he had married; thirdly, one hundred and fifty pounds for the identification of his child or children. This was repeated as an advertisement in the outer sheet, and was kept in type for months.
It deserves notice as being the first advertisement which appeared in the Great Baskette Claim Case—the first of a crop of advertisements which in time became a regular source of income to newspaper proprietors.
When this leading article and advertisement, supported by several columns of descriptive matter and genealogies was laid on the breakfast tables of half Stirmingham, it caused a sensation. The city suddenly woke up to the fact that as soon as old Sternhold died half the place would have no owner.
The Yankee visitors now had no further reason for concealment. They went about openly making inquiries. They were fêted at hotel bars and in billiard rooms. They called upon Sternhold bodily—en masse—forced themselves into his apartment, though, he shut the door with his own hands in their faces, shook him by the hand, patted him on the shoulder, called him “Colonel,” and asked him what he would take to drink!
They walked round him, admired him from every point of view, stuck their fingers in his ribs, and really meant no harm, though their manners were not quite of the drawing-room order.
They cut up the old man’s favourite armchair, whittled it up, to carry away as souvenirs. They appropriated his books—his own particular penholder, with which he had written every letter and signed every deed for fifty years, disappeared, and was afterwards advertised as on show at Barnum’s in New York City, as the Pen which could sign a cheque for Twenty Millions!
When at last they did leave, one popped back, and asked if the “Colonel” believed this story about his Uncle? He was sure he had never had an uncle, wasn’t he? The old man sat silent, which the inquirer took for once as a negative, and wrote a letter to the News, denying the existence of Romy’s brother.
Poor old Sternhold was found by the landlord, old Dodd, sitting in his chair, which was all cut and slashed, two hours afterwards, staring straight at the wall.
Dodd feared he had an attack of paralysis, and ran for the nearest doctor; but it was nothing but literally speechless indignation. After a while he got up and walked about the room, and took a little dry sherry—his favourite wine. But the mortal wound Number 2 had been given. Henceforth the one great question in Sternhold’s mind was his heir.
Volume One—Chapter Six.
His heir! Sternhold seriously believed that he had no living relations. It is often said that poor people have plenty of children, while the rich, to whom they would be welcome, have few or none. This was certainly a case in point. The poor Baskettes, who had been shipped to America, had a whole tribe of descendants. Here was a man who, nominally at least, was the largest owner of property known, who was childless, and had already reached and exceeded the allotted age of man.
Sternhold was seventy-two. He looked back and ransacked his memory. He had never heard anything of this uncle, his father’s brother; his mother’s friends were all dead. There was not a soul for whom he cared a snap of his fingers. Firstly, he had no relations; secondly, he had no friends, for Sternhold, wide as was his circle of acquaintances, had never been known to visit any one. His life had been solitary and self-absorbed.
Now, for the first time, he felt his loneliness, and understood that he was a solitary being. Who should be his heir? Who should succeed to that mighty edifice he had slowly built up? The architect had been obliged to be content with gazing upon the outside of his work only; but the successor, if he only lived the usual time, would revel in realised magnificence unsurpassed. The old man was quite staggered, and went about as in a dream.
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