This letter was read with almost suspended breath, by Mr. Aubrey, and then by Mrs. and Miss Aubrey. With still greater emotion were the printed enclosures opened and read. Each was held in a trembling hand, its reader's color going and coming. Miss Aubrey's heart beat faster and faster; she turned very pale--but with a strong effort recovered herself. Then taking the candle, she withdrew with a hasty and excited air, taking her copy of the Address with her to her own room; and there burst into tears, and wept for some time. She felt her heart dissolving in tenderness towards Delamere! It was some time before she could summon resolution enough to return. When she did, Mrs. Aubrey made a faint effort to rally her; but each, on observing the traces of the other's recent and strong emotion, was silent, and with difficulty preserved any semblance of a calm demeanor.

Equally strong emotions, but of a very different description, were excited in the bosoms of certain persons at Yatton Hall, by the appearance of Mr. Delamere's Address. 'Twas Mr. Barnabas Bloodsuck, (junior,)--a middle-sized, square-set young man, of about thirty, with a broad face, a very flat nose, light frizzly hair, and deep-set gray eyes--a bustling, confident, hard-mouthed fellow--who, happening to be stirring in the main street of Grilston early in the morning of the 8th December 18--, beheld a man in the act of sticking up Mr. Delamere's Address against a wall. Having prevailed on the man to part with one, Mr. Bloodsuck was within a quarter of an hour on horseback, galloping down to Yatton--almost imagining himself to be carrying with him a sort of hand-grenade, which might explode in his pocket as he went on. He was ushered into the breakfast-room, where sat Mr. Gammon and Mr. t.i.tmouse, just finishing their morning meal.

"My stars--good-morning! gents,--but here's a kettle of fish!" quoth Mr.

Bloodsuck, with an excited air, wiping the perspiration from his forehead; and then plucking out of his pocket the damp and crumpled Address of Mr. Delamere, he handed it to Mr. Gammon, who changed color on seeing it, and read it over in silence.

Mr. t.i.tmouse looked at him with a disturbed air; and having finished his mixture of tea and brandy, "Eh--e--eh, Gammon!--I say"--he stammered--"what's in the wind? 'Pon my soul, you look--eh?"

"Nothing but a piece of good fortune, for which you are indebted to your distinguished friend, Mr. Phelim O'Something," replied Gammon, bitterly, "whose precious Address has called forth for you an opponent whom you would not otherwise have had."

"Hang Mr. O'Doodle!" exclaimed t.i.tmouse; "I--'pon my precious soul--I always thought him a-a fool and a knave. I'll make him pay me the money he owes me!" and he strode up and down the room, with his hands thrust furiously into his pockets.

"You had perhaps better direct your powerful mind to this Address,"

quoth Mr. Gammon, with a blighting smile, "as it slightly concerns you;" and handing it to t.i.tmouse, the latter sat down to try and obey him.

"That c.o.c.k won't _really_ fight, though, eh?" inquired Mr. Bloodsuck, as he resumed his seat after helping himself to an enormous slice of cold beef at the side table.

"I think it _will_," replied Mr. Gammon, thoughtfully: and presently continued after a pause, with a visible effort to speak calmly, "it is useless to say anything about the haughty intolerant Toryism it displays; that is all fair; but _is_ it not hard, Mr. Bloodsuck, that when I had written an Address which would have effectually"----

"Mr. Phelim O'Doodle owes me three hundred pounds, Gammon, and I hope you'll get it for me at once; 'pon my soul, he's a most cursed scamp,"

quoth t.i.tmouse, furiously, looking up with an air of desperate chagrin, on hearing Gammon's last words. That gentleman, however, took no notice of him, and proceeded, addressing Mr. Bloodsuck, "I have weighed every word in that Address. _It means mischief._ It has evidently been well considered; it is calm and determined--and we shall have a desperate contest, or I am grievously mistaken."

"E--e--eh? E--h? What, Gammon?" inquired t.i.tmouse, who, though his eye appeared, in obedience to Gammon, to have been travelling over the all-important doc.u.ment which he held in his hand, had been listening with trembling anxiety to what was said by his companions.

"I say that we are to have a contested election: that you won't walk over the course, as you might have done. Here's a most formidable opponent started against you!"

"What? 'Pon my soul--for _my_ borough? For Yatton?"

"Yes, and one who will fight you tooth and nail."

"'Pon--my--precious soul! What a cursed scamp! What a most infernal black----Who is it?"

"No _blackguard_, sir," interrupted Gammon, very sternly; "but--a gentleman, perhaps, even, every way equal to yourself," he added with a cruel smile, "the Honorable Mr. Delamere, the son and heir of Lord De la Zouch."

"By jingo! you don't say so! Why, he's a hundred thousand a-year,"

interrupted t.i.tmouse, turning very pale.

"Oh, _that_ he has, at least," interposed Mr. Bloodsuck, who had nearly finished a rapid and most disgusting breakfast; "and two such bitter Tories you never saw or heard of before--for, like father, like son."

"Egad! is it?" inquired t.i.tmouse, completely crestfallen. "Well! and what if--eh, Gammon? Isn't it?"

"It is a very serious business, sir, indeed," quoth Gammon, gravely.

"By Jove--isn't it a cursed piece of--impudence! What? Come into _my borough_? He might as well come into my house! Isn't one as much mine, as the other? It's as bad as housebreaking--but we're beforehand with him, anyhow, with those prime chaps at Gr----" Mr. Bloodsuck's teeth chattered; he glanced towards the door; and Gammon gave t.i.tmouse a look which almost paralyzed, and at all events silenced him.

"They'll bleed freely?" said Bloodsuck, by-and-by, with a desperate effort to look concerned--whereas he was in a secret ecstasy at the profitable work in prospect for their house.

"Lord De la Zouch would not have entered into this thing if he had not some end in view which he considers attainable--and as for money"----

"Oh, as for that," said Bloodsuck, with a matter-of-fact air, "ten thousand pounds to him is a mere drop in the bucket."

"O Lord! O Lord! and must _I_ spend money too?" inquired t.i.tmouse, with a look of ludicrous alarm.

"We must talk this matter over alone, Mr. Bloodsuck," said Gammon, anxiously--"shall we go to Grilston, or will you fetch your father hither?"'

"'Pon my soul, Gammon," quoth t.i.tmouse, desperately, and snapping his finger and thumb, "those cursed Aubreys, you may depend on 't, are at the bottom of all this"----

"_That_ there's not the least doubt of," quoth Bloodsuck, as he b.u.t.toned up his coat with a matter-of-fact air; but the words of t.i.tmouse caused Mr. Gammon suddenly to dart first at one, and then at the other of the speakers, a keen penetrating glance; and presently his expressive countenance showed that _surprise_ had been succeeded by deep chagrin, which soon settled into gloomy thoughtfulness.

NOTES.

[Footnote 1: NOTE 1. Page 1.

See _post_, Chapter V., Preliminary Note.]

[Footnote 2: NOTE 2. Page 5.

An important and salutary improvement in the law of libel, especially in the case of newspapers, was effected in 1843, by statute 6 and 7 Vict.

c. 96. Till then the TRUTH was inadmissible as a _justification_ on a criminal prosecution for libel--the rule being that the greater the truth the greater was the libel--by which was meant its greater tendency to a breach of the peace. Now, however, the defendant may _defend_ himself against an indictment or information, by pleading that the charge was true, and that it was for the public benefit that it should have been published; but he must specially state in his plea the particular facts by reason of which it was for the public benefit. If such plea, or evidence in support of it, should be false or malicious, the act allows that circ.u.mstance to be taken into consideration in awarding punishment. A serious amount of fine, imprisonment, and hard labor, may be inflicted for publishing, or threatening (with intent to extort money) to publish, a false and malicious libel. In _civil_ proceedings a defendant may plead that he was not guilty of _actual_ malice or _gross_ negligence; and offered to publish, or published, a full apology, in which case he may pay money into court by way of amends; and in all actions of defamation he may show an apology, or offer of one, in mitigation of damages. This statute does not extend to Scotland.]

[Footnote 3: NOTE 3. Page 32.

Troilus and Cressida, i. 3.]

[Footnote 4: NOTE 4. Page 40.

The great increase of business alone, is the cause of the acc.u.mulation of arrears--especially in the Queen's Bench, which is almost overpowered by the enormous pressure of its criminal business. All the three superior courts have recently adopted post-terminal fittings, to enable them to despatch their arrears; an act of Parliament having been pa.s.sed (stat. 1 and 2 Vict. c. 32) for that purpose.]

[Footnote 5: NOTE 5. Page 42.

If the reader will refer to vol. i. p. 490, he may see how the _disabilities_ here alluded to arose, and affected the case. The doctrine of "adverse possession" is founded on the anxiety of our law to secure quietude of t.i.tle. It gives every reasonable facility for the a.s.sertion of just rights against wrongful possessors of property; but with equal reasonableness fixes a limit to immunity from the consequences of negligent acquiescence under usurpation, considering it, in a word, better policy to protect a person in possession, than to encourage a struggle for it among strangers. _Vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt_, is the maxim of the common law, on which also the statute law has often acted, and recently with great effect, by stat. 3 and 4 Will. 4, c. 27, (pa.s.sed on the 24th July 1833.) By its provisions, many of the most subtle and difficult questions concerning the nature of "possession" are got rid of; and the period of twenty years from the commencement of the rights of possession, fixed as that within which alone an action or suit in equity for the recovery of lands must be brought--unless a party was, when his right accrued, laboring under the _disability_ of infancy, coverture, insanity, or absence beyond seas: in any of which cases an extension of _ten_ years is allowed: but it is expressly provided, that however numerous such disabilities may have been--however long and uninterruptedly they may have lasted--_forty_ years shall be absolutely the limit within which the action or suit must be brought from the time of the _right first accruing_. If the statute "once begin to run," as the lawyers say, "nothing can stop it." The above const.i.tute some of the boldest and best of the great alterations recently effected in our English system of real property law. A far longer period than the present one was requisite to const.i.tute "adverse possession" at the time mentioned in the text.]

[Footnote 6: NOTE 6. Page 43.

See _post_, Chapter V., Preliminary Note.]

[Footnote 7: NOTE 7. Page 49.