Chapter VIII: Who's Who?

IT was not true, had John Tincroft even said it as well as thought it, that all his Oxford legal adviser wanted with him was to extract another consultation fee from his scantily filled purse. A new light had broken in upon the lawyer by some means or other, which he honestly thought might turn to his client's advantage. But to accomplish this end, a personal conference seemed needful. There might be a little touch of self-importance in this idea, supposing that a written communication would have answered the purpose. But then, no doubt, Mr. Roundhand knew his own business best, and how best to conduct it. But in order to the proper development of our history, it is again necessary to turn over a few leaves of the past.

Not many miles from the pleasant town of Trotbury, and on the high road, or one of the byroads—it does not matter which, for all high roads are rapidly becoming byroads, unless they are railroads—but on one of these roads to a celebrated and ancient seaport not so many miles away, and on the outskirts of a rather large village, stands, or stood in the times of our story, an old-fashioned house of considerable dimensions, and at that time very much out of repair. At a former period it had been the mansion-house of a prosperous family, which, however, had all but died out, leaving only a name to the partially dilapidated building. For some years, Tincroft House, as it was called, and to which was attached some landed property, in those days of prosperity far more extensive, had been uninhabited and in Chancery.

The last inhabitant and owner of the house was a crusty old bachelor, who died intestate. On inquisition being made by the proper authorities for the heir of the estate, it was found that there were two, and only two, distant collateral branches of the once great and widespread family. These were the Tincrofts of Yorkshire and the Tincrofts of Sussex.

The representative of the first of these was a manufacturer of woollens, a reputedly rich man, but with a numerous family, to whom the windfall of a diminished estate would be a welcome enough addition to his possessions; a nice little thing for a younger son, at all events.

The head of the other branch was a gentleman of small means in the Weald of Sussex, who lived a retired life, and, being of a contemplative and studious turn of mind, cultivated letters partly for the love, and partly for the gain of them. The gains were not very great, but they were sufficient to enable him to hold up his head a little higher in the world than otherwise he could have done. This gentleman was a widower, with an only son, at the time when Tincroft House was sent begging, as it were, for a new owner. This only son was but two or three years old, and was the John Tincroft of our history.

IL took a long time to prove that the Sussex Tincrofts were a shade nearer in relationship to the intestate than the Yorkshire Tincrofts. And before this was established, as it eventually was, the estate had been thrown into Chancery, and the Sussex claimant was dead, leaving his boy, as we have before explained, with a Chancery suit, and money in the funds to no large amount, in the guardianship of a distant relative, Mr. Rackstraw, who was a London merchant. Of the boy's subsequent up-bringing, enough has already been written.

It may be supposed that the way would now have been clear for the guardian of John Tincroft to enter into undisputed possession of the property on the orphan boy's behalf. But it was not so. It was necessary next to prove that he was the lineal and legitimate descendant of a certain Ebenezer Tincroft, the head of the Sussex branch, who died some century or more before the suit was commenced, and whose monument, sacred to his memory, as "Armiger," may probably remain on the interior walls of Saddlebrook Church to this day. To prove this right by succession, search had to be made in registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials from that time forward, in the archives of Saddlebrook Church and elsewhere.

For some time these researches, though abundantly tedious and costly, were prosecuted on the whole successfully, when, all at once, a gap was discovered which seemed to defy legal filling up. This gap in the line of descent occurred in the case of John Tincroft's own father, who could not be proved ever to have had a proper hereditary right to the name he bore.

Of course he had lived, nobody questioned that; and there were many living who had always known him as Josiah Tincroft, once of Saddlebrook, and then of Leanacre, or Linacre, the Weald, where he lived till he died. But as to his legal status as the son of his own father, there was none to declare it. Registers were searched in vain to find what was wanted to be found. His own and his father's marriages were duly recorded in that bright book of fate, the marriage register. And so were the two several burials in the darker record, which lay side by side with it in the old worm-eaten, iron-bound, double-locked chest, in the vestry of Saddlebrook Church.

Also the baptism of Makepeace Tincroft, the grandfather of our John, was duly recorded in the register devoted to this use. But that of Josiah, who was supposed to have been brought into this world some thirty years before he died, was nowhere to be found. The former investigations, together with this fatal hitch, as it seemed to be, had delayed the Chancery suit so long, that from boyhood our John Tincroft, the hapless claimant, had advanced to youth, and from youth to manhood, finding himself much nearer to the end of his fortune than to the fulfilment of his hopes.

Now, the solution of the enigma of the non-appearance of Josiah's name in the baptismal register was, no doubt, easy enough. His father, Makepeace, somewhat early in life, had walked over from church to chapel, or, to use the terms then in vogue in that part of the country, from steeple-house to meeting-house. In other words, he had become a Dissenter. This might not much have mattered, perhaps, because Dissenters, or, at least, some Dissenters, have, and then had, their registers in connection with their places of worship, as well as Churchmen; and the baptism of an infant or a child, though by the hands of an Independent pastor, if duly registered and sworn to, would probably have fulfilled all legal purposes. But—alas!—in becoming a Dissenter, Makepeace Tincroft had become a Baptist also; and Baptists do not baptize infants at all.

How, then, was it to be proved that Josiah Tincroft, as he had always been called, had ever had any legal existence? There was no proof of baptism, which indeed had never been administered. Ergo, there was no proof that he had ever been properly brought into the world.

Very lately, however—that is, only a week or two before the summons reached John Tincroft from Mr. Roundhand, this lawyer stumbled over a tin box full of old letters, memoranda, and other useless documents once belonging to his old friend Josiah (for John Tincroft's father and Roundhand had been personal friends, which had led to the business being placed in his hands).

In turning over these papers, with no expectation of obtaining any help from them, he came upon a slip of parchment very yellow with age, with a "This is to certify" printed in fair German text, as the commencement of a declaration in a lawyer-like written hand, that Josiah Tincroft, the lawful fruit of marriage between Makepeace Tincroft, gentleman, of Saddlebrook, and Susannah, his wife, was born on such and such a day in January, in such and such a year, in attestation or corroboration of which the beholder was invited to witness the hands, first of John Batts, the medical attendant, and then of Elizabeth Foold, the nurse, in their respective handwritings—the first bold and large and firm, the second crabbed and laboured, but both written with ink much faded by age. The date was some fifty years or more back.

After perusing this venerable document attentively, Mr. Roundhand shut himself up in his private room to study it yet more carefully, and then to forward a copy of it to his counsel learned in law. There is no need, however, to go further into the pros and cons which were subsequently discussed, except to say that these discussions pointed to the finding out, if possible, whether those attesting witnesses, or one of them, were still living, which was perhaps unlikely; but if not, whether their handwriting could be proved by any other witnesses. The next question was, who should hunt up these witnesses; and John Tincroft was fixed upon as the proper person to go upon this mission, accompanied, however, by Mr. Roundhand's clerk. Therefore it was that John had been hastily summoned to Oxford.

"I don't understand it all, Mr. Roundhand," said Tincroft.

John had not been many hours in Oxford. He had arrived by the Tally-ho late on the preceding evening, had slept at the Mitre, and now, at eleven in the morning, he was seated in the lawyer's private office, listening, with a bewildered air, to that gentleman's explanations. The certificate was in his hand, and he looked at it dubiously as he spoke.

"It all lies in a nutshell," replied the other; "you see, your grandfather chose to—to go out of the ordinary course; in short, he left the Church and joined the Baptists. You knew nothing of this, I daresay?"

"Nothing, sir, nothing," protested John, whose notions of the Baptist denomination of Christians, if he had any at all, were jumbled up with some old stories of Munster ¹ riots, and he was evidently anxious to wash his hands of all connection with any more modern professor of what he perhaps supposed to be the same revolutionary principles.

¹ Munster in Germany, not in Ireland.

"Just so, Tincroft; of course you know nothing of your grandfather, who died before you were born; and you could have heard nothing about him, to your knowledge, from your father, who died when you were a mere child. However, it pleased your grandfather to turn Baptist, and so, in consequence, your own father didn't undergo the ceremony or rite, whichever you please to call it—in his infancy, at any rate."

"Dear me! But my father was a good Christian, and Churchman too; so I have always understood," cried John, in some alarm.

"Oh yes, no doubt. Your grandfather, Makepeace, turned away from, and your father returned to, the mother Church, as it is called—the real old orthodox, and so forth. But for all that, somehow or other—mind, I don't understand these things, for I am a lawyer, and not a divine—but somehow or other, I fancy, as his name is nowhere in the baptismal register—I fancy that, somehow or other, the rite of Christian baptism was passed over."

"Dear me!" ejaculated John Tincroft, in pious horror.

"And the consequences have been serious enough, as regards your prospects, ¹ Tincroft. However, your grandfather, it appears, was not so unwise as to have altogether neglected possible contingencies, as that document you hold in your hand goes to prove. The question is, how to make use of it. Now, what you have to do, is to run up to London, and then down to Saddlebrook, and make all the inquiries you can for these two witnesses. You understand?"

¹ The reader will please to bear in mind that this story dates back to the time when there was no legal registration of births, as in the present day.

"I am not quite sure," responded the collegian, almost more bewildered than at first. "And, at ell events," he added, "I am afraid I shall make a poor bungling hand of it."

"No doubt; exactly so," said the lawyer, condescendingly; "and therefore you will not have to go alone. Foster will attend you. A sharp man, Foster. He has been to Saddlebrook on your affairs before, examining registers, and so forth; so he knows how the land lies. All you have to do is to follow his lead."

Greatly relieved by this piece of intelligence, John Tincroft made no further objection to the task imposed on him, and declared himself ready to depart at once. Striking while the iron was thus hot, the lawyer fixed on the next day for the journey; so Tincroft left the office to make arrangements with Barry, the college scout, to occupy the rooms at Jericho on his return until the end of the vacation. He did not take possession, however; but retained his chamber for another night at the Mitre, where also he dined.

On the following morning, in company with the lawyer's clerk, and furnished with sufficient funds for all necessary expenses by the lawyer himself, to be accounted for thereafter, he took coach for London, on the way to Saddlebrook.

A dull little provincial town was Saddlebrook. It had two or three thousand inhabitants, a corresponding number of houses, one long principal straggling street, a mile in length, a market green, a parish church, two Dissenting chapels, and any number of inns and public-houses that the reader may choose to imagine. It was not a manufacturing town, nor strictly a commercial town, though it contained a sufficient quota of shops to supply its inhabitants, and the whole country-side for some miles around, with all the ordinary comforts and luxuries of life to be obtained for money. And it was all the more encouraged in thus being the centre of civilisation (on a small scale) by the surrounding district being richly agricultural and prosperous, and having a large aggregate population scattered about in outlying villages and hamlets.

It was on a coldish autumnal-like (though not yet autumn) evening that Tincroft and his attendant-help from the lawyer's office alighted from the coach-top at the open portals of the George Inn.

"Can't do better than stop here, sir," said the guide, philosopher, and friend. "They keep a good pantry and cellar; and that's a recommendation in these out-of-the-world places," he added.

"Ah, yes, to be sure; you have been here before."

"Haven't I? And a jolly enough place it is, for all it looks so dull. Shall we go in, sir?"

They had not much choice about it, as it seemed to John Tincroft, for the inn porter had already pounced upon the travellers' luggage, and was bearing it off in triumph. Ten minutes later, and the two had taken possession of a private room, and were ordering bed-chambers, a dinner, a bottle of port, and a fire.

It was during the discussion of the third item in this catalogue that "mine host of the George" was invited to a confidential conference by the dapper lawyer's clerk, with whom he claimed a previous acquaintance, and who was not going to let the grass grow under their feet, he said.

The information obtained from the innkeeper was very limited. It consisted altogether in negatives. There was no such medical man in Saddlebrook as John Batts. Of this he was quite sure. He was equally sure that there was no practitioner of that name in the town. There might have been fifty years or more ago, he could not say from his own knowledge; nor was it likely that he could, he himself not having yet arrived at that age of maturity and wisdom. To tell the honest truth, there being no reason why he shouldn't, he wasn't a native of Saddlebrook, and hadn't lived in it over fifteen years; so it was not likely he should know much on the subject. Thus Mr. Bartrum protested.

"At any rate, you will take a glass of wine with us, Mr. Bartrum?" said Foster, who had constituted himself master of the ceremonies, and slipped into that position with professional ease.

Mr. Bartrum accepted the invitation, sealing himself at the table meanwhile. And as the port was really good, he made no wry faces over it.

The inquisition proceeded. Could Mr. Bartrum refer to any old inhabitant of the town likely to possess the requisite information?

Yes, to be sure: wasn't there old Freeman, the sexton, who was also town-crier, and had held those joint offices any time within the memory of man, so to speak, under correction? To say the least, as Mr. Bartrum had heard, he had held them over sixty years. He was an old fellow now, eighty-five or more, people said; but he was as strong as ever in the lungs.

"You should hear him cry out his 'Oh yes! Oh yes!'" said mine host, admiringly. "Why, he is to be heard from the market-place up to the top of the street as plain as plain can be. And sometimes he is parish clerk as well, when the proper one is away. And what do you think he did a few Sundays ago, when he was in the desk?"

Mr. Bartrum's hearers did not know, but would be happy to be informed.

"Ha, ha! He, he!" giggled the innkeeper. "I beg pardon, gentlemen, but I can't help laughing when I think of it. It was a hot day, you must know, and the poor old man got drowsy while the sermon was going on—went off to sleep, in fact; and so, no doubt, he would have slept on all the while the parson's voice was going on overhead. But presently there was a sort of stop when the sermon was ended, and this roused the old fellow, who jumped up, forgetting where he was, but fancying he had got something to do in his regular everyday calling, and bawled out at the top of his voice, 'Oh yes! Oh yes!' I reckon he won't be parish clerk again in a hurry."

"And you think this old sexton can help us out, Mr. Bartrum?" said Foster, when the needful tribute of attention had been paid to his anecdote.

"I shouldn't wonder, for he knows about everything and everybody in Saddlebrook; and if he can't tell, I don't know who can."

"And about Elizabeth Foold?"

Here again was a blank. There was no such person, to his knowledge, in Saddlebrook now, whatever might have been. But then, she being a very humble person (only a nurse, it seemed), Mr. Bartrum could not be expected to know much about it. Old Freeman would be the man, however, to know. Or perhaps the marriage-book or the burial-book in the church vestry might give some information.

And here, for that night, the subject was dismissed.

The old sexton was easily found on the following morning. He was superintending the digging of a grave in the churchyard, his infirmities of age having rendered it necessary to employ a subordinate. He was ready enough, also, to furnish information, so far as his own knowledge extended. But even he, though a very almanack in the past history of Saddlebrook, could not tell all that the young lawyer and his client would have liked to know.

He told them this, however. He remembered the doctor whose name appeared on the document. He remembered him very well; and ah! Wasn't he a clever doctor? But he hadn't been able to cure himself—whatever he did for others—of a great swelling that came out of his neck like, just above his collar-bone. People called it "a new schism," or something of that sort. He didn't understand fine names, the old sexton didn't; but he had always looked upon schism as being another name for yeast, and clearly that wasn't what was the matter with the doctor.

"Perhaps it was aneurysm," suggested John Tincroft.

"Like enough, sir; and anyhow, the swelling got bigger, till at last the poor doctor died of a sudden, as he always said he should. There's his tombstone, gentlemen, if you have any curiosity that way," continued the sexton, pointing to one some little distance across the churchyard.

"We may as well look, and make a note of it," said Foster; and they accordingly walked up to the stone, the clerk taking out his note-book and pencil.

"Name—so and so," muttered he, as he copied down the inscription: "date, um—thirty-five years ago; age, sixty-nine. Thank you, that will do, friend. Ever married, was he?"

"Married when young, and lost his wife soon after. There's her stone, next his, and that's how I came to know about it."

"Married again, perhaps?"

"No, sir. He wur faithful to his first love, he wur," said the old man, with unction.

"Children, any?"

"Not a chick, sir. And nobody to take his name. His business got sold for what it would fetch, and that and some money he had went, by will, to some far-away cousin. And there was the end of him."

Clearly, there was not much to be made of this information. But a thought suggested itself to Mr. Foster's legal mind. Since property was left behind, and a will for the disposal of it, some lawyer in the town would, in all probability, be acquainted with the late practitioner's signature. And there was the will itself which told of Doctors' Commons.

Making a note of these hints, the adroit clerk turned to the second head of his inquiries—Elizabeth Foold. But here he could obtain no further information than that no family of that name had ever lived in Saddlebrook, to the old sexton's knowledge. Certainly, none such had ever been buried in the graveyard in his time; and none such had ever been married in Saddlebrook Church, he was pretty sure. But the book would show that, and the book was in the parish clerk's keeping, along with the clergyman and the churchwardens.

Setting this aside for the present, therefore, for further research if necessary, the gentleman from Mr. Roundhand's office placed in the old man's hand a fee, which would perhaps have been larger if the success of his inquiries had been more decided.

It would be tedious and unprofitable to follow our two antiquarians, as we may for the present consider them, in their further researches that day. It will suffice to say that they returned to their late dinner at the George—Mr. Foster rather disgusted with the general stolidity of the inhabitants of Saddlebrook, the more so that his inquiries had hitherto produced no palpable result; and John Tincroft thinking he should be much happier with another companion, and wondering how they got on at High Beech Farm without him.

The next morning a new light entered the mind of the lawyer's clerk. This Elizabeth Foold, whose name figured as a nurse on the certificate, and of whom no trace or track could yet be discovered—might she not be heard of in the religious community or congregation with which her then employers had been connected? What more natural than that the heads of a Dissenting household should engage the services of a Dissenting nurse? Now, as we have explained, there were two Dissenting chapels in Saddlebrook: one of these, Foster had learned, was the meeting-house of a congregation of the Presbyterian body; the other belonged to the Baptists.

"We'll go and find out the minister of that chapel, to begin with," quoth Mr. Foster, as he and Tincroft sat together at breakfast.

"Should you mind going alone?" asked John, timidly, with an undefinable dread, perhaps, of coming into personal contact with a live sectarian.

"Oh, that wouldn't do. We must go together, of course. You are my principal, you know, sir; and you have to see that I do my duty by you."

No further opposition being offered, and the address of the minister being easily obtained, the two gentlemen from London, as they were supposed to be, presently proceeded to his house. They found him at home, and were shown into his study—a quiet back room of moderate dimensions, well furnished with book-shelves, and looking out upon a cheerful garden.

After a short delay, the minister appeared, and very much, probably, to the surprise of John Tincroft, who examined him, with his eyes, narrowly from head to foot, he was so much like a gentleman, that John concluded he must be one, in spite of his being a Dissenter. He was a young man, somewhat to the disappointment of Mr. Foster, who opened the business, however, and was attentively listened to.

"Of course," he said, "I can have no personal remembrance of the persons you name; but possibly the records of our church—"

("Church, too!" thought John within himself. "He calls his meeting-house a church, does he! Rather strong that, I think.")

"May contain some information on the subject. Our church-book dates back at its commencement more than a hundred years. And I have it by me. And also my friend, the senior deacon of our church, may be able to tell us something. He has been a member more than fifty years. I will send and ask him to step in. He lives not far-off."

A messenger was accordingly despatched; and while waiting for him, the minister took the lead in a conversation which somewhat enlightened our friend John as to the meaning to be attached to the word to which he had taken mental exception; and this enlightenment reminded him of one of the fundamental Articles of his own Church, which, for the moment, had escaped his memory.

The conversation was broken off by the arrival of the senior deacon, whose grave and gentlemanly appearance once more gave Tincroft a start of surprise.

"I shouldn't think the Munster fanatics were anything like these gentlemen," he candidly argued within himself.

Yes, Mr. Cooper (the deacon) remembered Mr. Makepeace Tincroft, though at that time he was a young member, having very recently joined the church; and he remembered Mrs. Tincroft, too—a most godly woman, whose death, soon after that of her husband, was universally lamented. She was a most devoted, charitable lady; a true Tabitha.

"I don't know why you should give that name to my grandmother, sir," said John rather nettled for a moment, the more so that he had been warmed up by the other part of the eulogium passed upon her. "I don't see why she should be called nicknames," said he.

"Otherwise Dorcas, who made coats for the poor, and was full of good works and alms deeds, and who was so mourned when she died that the Apostle Peter restored her to life," said the minister quietly and aside to his visitor, whereupon John, recollecting the second name, blushed deeply and penitently.

Proceeding in his reminiscences, the senior deacon had some slight remembrance of a young person, once also a member of the church, named Foold. But there his knowledge ended. The church-book, then, was the ultimate resort; and before long these records were found, under their proper dates and headings, such as Name, Residence, When admitted into the Church, Date, and Cause of Separation.

First was Makepeace Tincroft, of whom (omitting the first items and dates) it was written that he "died in the Lord."

Next was Susannah Tincroft, who "died much honoured in life and greatly lamented in death."

Next and that most sought for and desired, the name of Elizabeth Foold was found. "A young person of much promise, aged twenty-two; not in permanent residence in Saddlebrook, but in much request in the town and neighbourhood as a nurse, for which she has been trained." Then, in the last column, came this entry: "Withdrawn. Gone to reside in London."

There was no more to be obtained at Saddlebrook; and so after another day or two spent in futile inquiries, Mr. Foster and his client, for the time being, turned their backs upon the dull town, enlivened only by the attractions of the George; and in due time arrived at Oxford to report their want of success.