For the present, at least, Jim was elated with a pardonable pride in
his watch, and, after the manner of youths thus recently set up, he
looked at it again and again during his walk next morning across the
headlands to Ballycastle, where he had to catch the Ballymoney car,
thence to proceed to Ballymena by train. Ho was looking at his watch
for the hundredth time, and half smiling to himself at his rash and
boastful words as to making it the means of discovering his family
history, when a sudden thought occurred to him. He looked long and
eagerly at the watch, while his pale face flushed up. "I have it," he
muttered; "and if I'm right, I shall take down the minister a bit."
It was a long, tedious journey by foot and car and rail that lay before
him, and his patience was almost exhausted when he reached his
destination. Once arrived, he immediately sat down to write in his
humble lodgings. The watch bore the name of the maker, "John Turnwell,
Leeds, 7002." Was it not possible that a record had been preserved,
stating when and to whom the watch had been sold. Ho did not know
whether such was the practice, but at all events he would inquire. A
brief note was soon written and left ready for the morning mail; then
the tired and excited lad went to bed, and dreamed of a beautiful lady
who said she was his mother, and that his father was a lord, and had
been murdered by the repulsive-looking man in the locket; and then a
carriage and pair came thundering up to his lodgings, and his employer
stood in the hall as he passed down, and congratulated him, and called
him "my lord." Then he thought he saw the man in the locket looking at
him with hard, cold mouth, and then the face grew smaller till it
shrunk into the locket, and it was open on the breast of the dead woman
as she lay on the sands; and he saw himself and Elsie standing by the
body. In a moment he passed into the little figure, and felt himself
turning to call Mike McAravey, as he had done so long ago. The horror
of that last vision awoke him. It was late, and he had only time to
get his letter posted and to hurry to his office.
But Jim could not rest, till in the course of a few days a letter
arrived with the Leeds post-mark. He trembled as he took it in his
hand, and then as he read a flush mantled up his face, and he burst
into a laugh as he saluted himself in the cheap mirror that adorned the
mantelpiece--
"Aw, mi lord! Glad to make your lordship's acquaintance!"
The note ran thus:--
"WATCH AND CLOCK FACTORY, LEEDS,
"August 19, 187--.
"SIR,--In reply to your favour of the 16th inst. we beg to say that we
always keep a register of all watches made or sold by us.
"No. 7002, an English lever made by ourselves, appears to have been
purchased by Lady Waterham, of Burnham Park, in this neighbourhood, on
the 21st of October, 185--.
"We should advise you to communicate at once with her ladyship, who is
now at home.
"We remain, Sir, your obedient Servants,
"J. TURNWELL & Co.
"Mr. J. McARAVEY,
"Market Street, Ballymena, Ireland."
It was enough to turn the head of an ambitious boy. Poor Jim, though
generally cautious and reticent, could not contain himself, and, in
strict confidence, revealed his coming splendour to one or two of his
companions. It was soon reported that Jim McAravey had come in for a
fortune of 50,000 pounds, and was the son of a lord. Even his
employers seemed to treat him with new consideration, and, though
annoyed that the affair had got so soon bruited about, he could not
feel angry when he saw himself pointed at in the street, and half
jokingly spoken of as "my lord" by his fellow-clerks.
[Illustration: Jim building castles-in-the-air.]
Jim's first step was to write a somewhat haughty letter to the Rev.
Cooper Smith, and an excessively gushing and almost affectionate one to
Elsie. Both letters were shown to George Hendrick, the consequence
being that one afternoon on returning home Jim found the
Scripture-reader awaiting him. "The young lord" (as they called him)
was about to offer a gracious but distant welcome, when Hendrick, who
had heard the town talk, anticipated him by exclaiming--
"Well, Jim, my boy, I'm afraid you have been making a rare fool of
yourself!"
"I would thank you to explain your language," said the young man with
great hauteur.
"There, don't be offended, lad," replied the reader, kindly; "I only
meant it was a pity you let this thing get talked of before you had
more certainty. I needn't tell you, Jim, how glad we shall all be to
hear of anything really to your advantage."
"I'm not aware that the thing has been talked about. I only mentioned
it to one or two personal friends, with a view to obtaining their
advice."
"Your friends have not been discreet, then," said Hendrick; "why, Jim,
the whole town is talking about you, and should this come to nothing,
you will have made yourself ridiculous. Had you no truer or older
friends with whom you might have consulted? I 'm sorry for this, Jim."
"If you mean Mr. Smith and yourself, I must say you did not seem to
take much interest in my welfare--and Elsie is not much better," he
added, bitterly. "Perhaps it will be different now."
"Come, Jim, you don't believe a word of all that. You know well who
your truest friends are, though we don't always encourage all your
notions. But will you not let me see this famous letter?"
Hendrick read the letter carefully, and then asked, "And what do you
mean to do, Jim?"
"Why of course go over to see her ladyship as soon as I can arrange
matters here. I shall speak to Messrs. Moore to-morrow, and see
whether they can let me free at once--I should think under the
circumstances they would."
"My dear Jim," cried the reader, "are you mad? You don't seriously
mean to give up, or run the risk of losing, your situation for what may
after all prove a wild goose chase?"
This was just what Jim had contemplated, and it was not without
difficulty that good George Hendrick brought him to a sounder judgment.
Unlike Jim's youthful friends, who, partly animated by love of mischief
and partly by youth's natural hopefulness, had encouraged him to
indulge the most glowing fancies, Hendrick showed him gently, but
plainly, how fragile was the foundation on which he had been building.
The watch might have been stolen, or lost, or given away. There might
turn out to be no direct or traceable connection between Lady Waterham
and the unknown woman whose property it had been. Jim was not shaken
in his own private conviction (strengthened as it had been by his
dream), but he was too hard-headed not to admit the reasonableness of
Mr. Hendrick's arguments; and the more he heard of the tales that had
been circulated, the more deeply he regretted his pride and misplaced
confidence. He finally made no objection to Hendrick's proposal that
the matter should be left in the hands of the Rev. Cooper Smith, who
was going to England in the course of ten days, and was willing to make
a slight detour to Leeds. So it was settled. The watch and locket
were entrusted to the rector, who promised to see the watchmaker and
Lady Waterham.
"You seem more annoyed than anything else," said Jim crossly to Elsie,
when the final arrangements were being made in the rectory study.
"I cannot say I am pleased," replied the girl. "I fear lest you should
be disappointed, Jim; and, on the other hand, I don't want to be
anything but what I am. I have not been brought up a lady, and to find
that I had been born one would be no pleasure. If you could be a lord,
Jim, without affecting me, it would be all right."
"Why, Elsie, you have no ambition."
"None to be put in a false position, which I could not rightly fill."